The Gilmore restaurant recently opened inside the Ariel Broadway Hotel, 301 Broadway in downtown Lorain, in the space formerly occupied by Dodie’s Dockside, which closed in late October.
Dodie’s owners announced they had sold the property and The Gilmore would immediately open.
“Fortunately, we’re not simply closing,” Dodie’s said on social media Oct. 26. “We have sold, and the next group will take over immediately.
“The city will still have a fine-dining restaurant that will go above and beyond anything we ever did.”
The Gilmore will focus on fine dining and cocktails, promising Ohio-based food with international flair, according to co-owner Roosevelt Samuel.
Samuel, along with his cousin Royce Lasion, and Dave Gilmore, who married into the family, held a soft opening for the new restaurant Nov. 1.
Each owner has strong familial ties to Lorain, Samuel said.
The three co-owners have worked on the concept of The Gilmore for the past three years, according to Lasion.
To see it all come to fruition was extremely exciting, he said.
“Last night, I couldn’t sleep,” Lasion said. “I laid down about midnight and woke up at 4:30 in the morning.
“I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited about today … just anticipation, and you know, it’s going to be a wild and crazy day.”
Samuel, a longtime engineer, said he and his partners have been specific about what they want from the new restaurant.
They strive for perfection in all three key areas that they believe a restaurant needs to succeed, he said.
“The driver for our precision and timing was absolutely (that) we wanted to get it right,” Samuel said. “You have to have three things done well in order to get a restaurant right: customer service; quality food and beverages and cocktails; and the ambiance of the restaurant.”
Dodie’s Dockside aced the ambiance test, he said.
From there, the three co-owners set out on finding a culinary team they felt was up to the standards of a fine dining restaurant.
“(We needed) a world-class team, front of the house and back of the house,” Samuel said. “We spent about seven months sharing our vision and talking through our nuances.”
Finally, the three decided on Akron native Ashten Garrett as the restaurant’s culinary director, Gilmore said.
He added that Garrett, 26, blew the staff away during his interview, making the choice to hire him an easy one.
“It really just all tied together,” Gilmore said. “For us, relationships are huge.
“Just having the conversations, getting to know him, his passion. What he has accomplished spoke for itself.”
Garrett’s culinary resume stretches far beyond his years, Gilmore said.
He started cooking at three years old, has trained in Italy, Spain and France, and has competed on Team USA for the International Culinary Competition in 2023.
Garrett said he constructed the menu with an Ohioan focus.
However, the food at The Gilmore will have international spins from all over the world, he said.
“Working at the hotel, we opened it up for international cuisine as well,” Garrett said. “When conceptualizing the menu, that’s just something that we believed that we could really offer Ohio.
“The idea to bring international cuisine, different flavors, and aesthetic appeal to the menu.”
Garrett said The Gilmore’s environment of upscale fine dining does not start and end with food.
Rather, the restaurant’s mission carries over into service and a full customer experience, he said.
All of the food, Garrett said, comes back to what northern Ohio has to offer.
“The entire flow bases the seasonality from Ohio, but it includes international ingredients,” he said. “Keep it very simple, looking at what Ohio has to offer.
“You have beautiful farms, you have the lake. You take the epitome of what the food is, and you let it speak for itself.”
The Gilmore will hold grand opening hours from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., Nov. 3 and 4.
The co-owners officially will cut the ribbon at 6 p.m., Nov. 4, according to Samuel.
This report was updated at 11:56 a.m. on Nov. 2 to correct the date of the ribbon cutting ceremony.
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