Home Care In Tallmadge, OH

TALLMADGE, Ohio — Sumiah Hamdan is working to create tougher legislation on button battery safety here In Ohio after her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter lost her life when she swallowed a button battery in March.

Hamdan said the button battery came from her daughter's squeeze toy, somehow falling out of its battery compartment.

Hamdan applauded new button battery federal safety legislation, called "Reese's Law," which will soon be fully enforced this fall. The new federal regulations are calling for more secure button battery product packaging, more prominent warning labels, as well as more securely designed battery-holding compartments.

However, Hamdan told News 5 she's collecting signatures on a petition and believes button batteries in all children's toys should be banned. Hamdan is calling on toy manufacturers to take more responsibility for the products they sell.

“What are the sales really so important that you need to sell toys with those?" Hamdan said. “If you can’t figure out another way to power those toys, are they really that important if they have such a risk of a screw coming out so easily — coming out on its own? The companies should be thinking, 'How are we going to be protecting these kids? not, 'Oh yeah, we need this to sell this product, and we can’t change it.'"

Hamdan has also established a GoFundMe account to help her family with the high cost of medical expenses.

Trista Hamsmith, creator of the Reese’s Purpose Foundation and Reese's Lawreached out to Hamdan to give her support and information. Hamsmith started Reese's Purpose and fought for tougher button battery federal regulations after her 18-month-old daughter Reese lost her life when she ingested a button battery at their Lubbock, Texas home in October 2020.

Hamsmith said Reese's Law was passed in August 2022, with tougher button battery safety packaging regulations already in place. Hamsmith said the designs for more secure compartments that hold button batteries in all products, and better warning labels, must be approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission by September of this year.

“The requirement of secure packaging when purchased in stores has gone into effect; retailers are allowed to sell their current stock," Hamsmith said. “With newly-designed button battery compartments, they’ve gone through testing, they’re going through research, it’s all about finding the absolute right fix.”

Hamsmith told News 5 that once the Consumer Product Safety Commission approves the new safety designs, Reese's Law provides manufacturers 18 months to bring the improved products to market.

Hamsmith believes it's unrealistic to ban all button battery use, even though she is optimistic safer power sources to replace button batteries will be created in the future.

Hamsmith is urging parents to check all children's toys and household products that utilize button batteries multiple times each month, and store loose button batteries in a secure container and out of the reach of children.

“I do a bi-weekly check; I know every product that has them; I check and make sure that it’s secure," Hamsmith said. “With loose batteries in a junk drawer, making sure that those are out of sight in a tight locked container, up high where the children can’t reach them.”

“If you do suspect a button battery ingestion, if the child is over the age of one, you can give them honey; it will help coat the battery, and get them immediately to the ER; do not waste time,” Hamsmith said.

Watch live and local news any time:

Download the News 5 Cleveland appnow for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.

You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku,Apple TV,Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.

TALLMADGE, Ohio – For most companies, mention ‘meltdown’ and it draws a negative connotation. But for a Tallmadge company, it’s a great thing.

The brothers behind Square One Engineering, Brock and Brian Steere, usually focus on automotive and other industrial manufacturing. The automotive-machinery business centers around air-induction products, which pays the bills.

But over the past several years, their team has been developing a high-end product that melts a square chunk of ice into a perfect sphere for cocktails in less than a minute.

“Meltdown - when you first hear it, you could think of meltdown in a couple of different ways,” said Brock Steere, co-president. “In sports, it’s a negative connotation. But it’s really kind of catchy.”

It’s also literal.

“As a family, we saw this trend with ice balls,” Brock said. The company’s innovation teams are always developing applications, he said. A little research led to the realization that there were few competitors, so they sought to create and market a high-end ice-ball maker in their shop.

They went through 100-plus iterations. Finally, they honed in on three versions. It went to market in fall 2020, and social media took off.

Early on, Meltdown caught the attention of actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who founded the Teremana tequila brand. He posted a video of the icemaker on his Instagram account, which has 275 million followers, saying he needed one ASAP for his tequila.

“The big thing, of course, was when The Rock put up he wanted one, and 25 million people saw that post,” Brock Steere said. “That really got our business. Last year with the holiday time, we couldn’t keep up with orders. That’s kind of how we pivoted into this. We wanted to keep our machining business going during the times when our automotive tooling wasn’t as busy.”

Having a wrestler-turned-action-movie actor mention your product isn’t a bad thing. They have created a niche item that creates an experience for home gatherings. And the Steeres’ company makes all the molds, so it’s an Ohio-made product.

“We’re very proud of that. It’s made in the U.S.A. and … made in Ohio. Ohioans are very loyal consumers, just like how they are with their sports teams,” Brock Steere said.

Here’s how it works:

Freeze water in a silicone cup, whose mold holds a large square ice cube. Drop the frozen cube on the Meltdown’s base. Align the grooves in the top piece with ones on the bottom, and let gravity take its course. The top will slowly drop, shaping the cube into a ball. The process takes less than a minute and results in a sphere that is lighter than a billiard ball but the same size.

Here’s the key for those who remember basic chemistry: A sphere holds colder temperatures longer than a square because there is less surface area. The less of an area that is exposed to warm liquid, the slower the melting process.

Want to make another one? Run the item under warm tap water momentarily, and you are set for a second drink. Between the conductive metal and its weight, the magic show is perfect for home-bar theater for those who like cold cocktails, mixed drinks and signature beverages.

“You do it in front of your guests at your house, they see it once, then you can pre-make the ice balls and you don’t have to keep doing it,” Brock said. “That’s kind of the next phase we’re working on - accessories to easily store ice balls in your freezer. There’s always a next phase we’re working on.”

What allowed the company to look ahead was the state of the industry its serves.

“While we got involved in the machinery business, we noticed that oftentimes it’s huge orders, then you go a few months without an order,” Brock said. “So it’s kind of feast or famine. We spent about two years to come up with a product we could make ourselves in our machinery division.”

The process begins in the large machine shop. Nine- to 12-foot rolls of copper are sliced into workable pieces for the top, middle and base of what will become the Meltdown. A 12-foot copper cylinder can weigh about 480 pounds. Another worker then will put the smaller piece in a machine that will etch in the notches exactly where they are designed to go. On average, it takes three and a half hours to make each unit.

“We’re really the only one machining on copper,” Brock said. “It’s very expensive material; it’s very expensive to cut through.”

All the cutting and grooving will result in two sizes – mogul and chubby - and three variations of the product: Mogul is the high-end copper version and sells for $1,495. The Copper Topper has an aluminum-colored base and goes for $1,295. And an all-aluminum Chubby version sells for $895. Each product weighs almost 15 pounds, and orders come with three silicone ice-cube cups.

The company’s website has a section on cleaning. Aluminum does not tarnish but copper does. Some people like the vintage-like tarnish while others want to maintain them to be pristine, the Steeres said.

If they had these back in the 1960s, Don Draper and Roger Sterling surely would have had them in their advertising-agency offices. Companies can customize Meltdowns with engraved logos for anniversaries and occasions. They also have been used for golf-tournament prizes, Brock Steere said.

“We found people really like large ice chunks – squares or balls,” he said.

You’d think the restaurant industry would be the focus, but it’s actually individuals. Half a million dollars’ worth of the product has gone to high-end consumers for home bars. A small percentage of bars and restaurants have bought them, but “it’s not a mass-production item,” Brock said.

“If you’re at your house and you want to create an experience for your guests … you make an ice ball right in front of them and make them a drink,” Brock said. And as individuals get together more with Covid restrictions easing, more people see the item, he said.

Brian Steere said 15 percent of the company’s customers for Meltdown purchases are repeat orders.

“We’ve seen surges around holiday time, Father’s Day,” he said.

The ice-ball maker has been out about a year, but the company’s roots and innovation go back much further.

The brothers’ grandfather Frank was an innovator and designer who worked for B.F. Goodrich and was involved with plastics and resins. Frank Steere started Steere Enterprises Inc. in 1949, and his first product was, of all things, a plastic oval-shaped change purse he helped promote. Square One Engineering still uses the item, branded with Meltdown, as a nod to the company’s past and present.

Now, the brothers run the company, which has 250 employees on a five-building campus in the Summit County city. The family business has pivoted “180 degrees” from its industry focus to add a personal consumer item, Brian Steere said.

“When you look at our history through the decades we’ve diversified. And we’re cognizant that if we want to get to 100 years, we have to keep being innovative. Not everything is going to hit, but this is an exciting start.”

I am on cleveland.com’s life and culture team and cover food, beer, wine and sports-related topics. If you want to see my stories, here’s a directory on cleveland.com. Bill Wills of WTAM-1100 and I talk food and drink usually at 8:20 a.m. Thursday morning. And tune in at 7 a.m. Wednesdays for “Beer with Bona and Much, Much More” with Munch Bishop on 1350-AM The Gambler. Twitter: @mbona30.

Get a jumpstart on the weekend and sign up for Cleveland.com’s weekly “In the CLE” email newsletter, your essential guide to the top things to do in Greater Cleveland. It will arrive in your inbox on Friday mornings - an exclusive to-do list, focusing on the best of the weekend fun. Restaurants, music, movies, performing arts, family fun and more. Just click here to subscribe. All cleveland.com newsletters are free.

Powered by Advance 360 Insights

1 of 5

Which of the following do you plan to do for the Super Bowl (select all that apply)

To understand how we may use the results of this poll, please read our Privacy Policy and User Agreement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

For the first time, all three branches of Tallmadge's government are run by women, and Lakewood has now become the largest female-led city in the state.

TALLMADGE, Ohio — For more than 200 years, the faces of leadership — represented in photos lining the walls of City Hall in Tallmadge — have looked remarkably similar. But with the new year comes some big changes.

That's because starting in 2024, for the first time in its 217-year history, all three branches of Tallmadge's government are now run by women.

"I think it is important that there is female leadership, because it's half the population that's voice needs to be heard," Law Director Megan Raber said. "That perspective needs to be there."

Raber, now in her fourth term, is joined by Finance Director Mollie Gilbride, who happens to also lead an all-female staff.

Both women say their own female predecessors were instrumental in their success. Gilbride was brought in as an assistant by the city’s first female Finance Director Jill Stritch, and is now serving her third term in the top role.

"To watch her lead and to have her include me in that leadership early on when I came here was very important," Gilbride reflected. "That's always helpful to just give you that person to say, 'You know what? Somebody else did it. I can do it, too.'"

"It certainly doesn't hurt to know that someone that is a female is taking that leadership role and out there leading way," Raber added.

Paving the way herself is the city's new mayor, Carol Siciliano-Kilway. Elected in November, she was sworn in as the city's 18th chief executive this month, the first woman in the role. It’s an honor she says she doesn’t take for granted.

"Walking into City Hall that first day, it was really quite surreal," she said.

Surreal, but not out of reach. Born and raised in Tallmadge, Siciliano-Kilway was controller in her family's business, Circle Mold & Machine Inc. She then served on City Council for 12 years as a ward councilwoman, at-large councilwoman, and eventually, council president.

"The running for City Council, the running for mayor, all of that, it never even occurred to me that I couldn't do this job because I'm a female," she said. "I can do this job because I'm the most qualified candidate for it."

But the ladies in leadership in Tallmadge are not the only ones affecting change in Northeast Ohio. Over in Lakewood, women are also leading the way.

"Our chamber of commerce is led by women," Mayor Meghan George, who was elected to her second term in November, explained. "The majority of our school board are women, so that's just wonderful to see throughout our community."

And that extends to Lakewood's city government, because for the very first time, the mayor, City Council president, and Lakewood Municipal Court Judge are all women. That makes Lakewood the largest female-led city in the state, according to Council President Sarah Kepple.

"Judge Tess Neff was the first female judge, and Mayor George is only our second female mayor," Kepple said of the milestone. "And it turns out I'm only the third female president of Council."

"The court was established in 1928, and there has never been a female judge," Judge Neff noted. "It kind of hit me a little bit. I felt really proud and honored that I was elected to the position and I feel honored to be serving with these two women leaders."

Together, these women are showing future generations what's possible.

"It's really heartwarming when I see children in the schools," Neff said. "I, too, will go and they just kind of give you a double look like, 'What? You are the judge?' And it makes me smile."

"I see the twinkle in their eyes," George added, "and hopefully I can inspire more young women to go into this career."

The way George says her late father, former Lakewood Mayor Thomas George, inspired her.

"I'm really proud to be in the office that he once sat in. Unfortunately, he passed away a couple weeks before I was elected to City Council, but he'd be really proud," George said. "[I keep a photo of] him looking over my desk, watching me, making sure I'm doing the good work that we do here every day."

It all comes back to the old saying: "If you can see it, you can be it." Kepple says she took that to heart.

"Part of the reason that I was first called to serve on City Council was to make sure that women [were] represented," she remarked, "and I think all three of us, at one point, were the only woman serving on City Council."

These women are all proving through the power of representation that ladies certainly belong in leadership.

"We're setting this example throughout the state," Kepple said. "We can show other municipalities that it can be done and that it's normal and should just be the expectation that women could be leading."

AKRON, Ohio – It took Tallmadge’s offense a couple of innings to get going on Saturday in the OHSAA Division II state championship game, but once they did, the floodgates opened and the Blue Devils were hoisting their first state championship trophy since 1997.

The Blue Devils broke out the bats for five runs in the fourth inning and four more in the fifth inning and rode that to a 9-0 win over Canfield at Firestone Stadium.

“I think we use the first like our first time through the batting order to really help like time up and we talk to each other a lot,” senior outfielder Mia Zappola said. “So then the second time around, we were really just like dominant.”

Jocelyn Caffelle led off the fourth inning with a single and it looked like that was all Tallmadge would get, as Canfield pitcher Malena Toth retired the next two batters on a bunt and groundout with Gabby Harp, who was running for Caffelle, advancing to third with two outs.

But Ashlyn Severns drew a walk and Emma Garbinsky got an infield single up the middle to score Harp and then Mia Zappola drove in Severns with a single to make it 2-0.

And then Sydney Becks who delivered the biggest blow hitting out of the nine hole.

She hit a ball down the left field line and just kept running with her coaches waving her on. She ended up with a three-run inside-the -park home run that made it 5-0.

“I was rounding first, and I see coach telling me go to and then once I turned and I saw that all of (the outfielders) were just running to the corner I was like, I gotta keep going,” Becks said. “But I look at (head coach Brittany Lightel coaching at third) and (She is) telling me go.”

Lightel was waving her arms around madly, trying to get Becks to turn at third and make the sprint home.

“As soon as she stepped on second and they're still running after the ball, I knew I was sending her home with her speed,” Lightel said. “I wasn't going to stop her.”

Tallmadge pitcher Riley Jackson responded by going out in the bottom of the fourth and getting all three outs by throwing just eight pitches. She finished the game allowing just two hits.

“It's a lot easier when we have runs and we're up,” Jackson said. “It just makes me feel like it takes the pressure off.”

Tallmadge came back into the dugout ready to hit once again.

Garbinsky drove in a run with a double, Zappola knocked one in with a single and Becks did the same and Zappola scored on a throwing error to make it 9-0.

Lightel, who played at Tallmadge and made it to the state semifinals as a player, had joked after their semifinal win on Thursday that she was jealous of her players. On Saturday, she was holding back tears of joy.

“I just I'm so happy for them,” Lightel said. “I feel like I have nothing to do with it. I want them to soak it all in and I just kept reminding them like it's just another softball game. You're here to win a state championship but I'm so happy for them.

“I didn't get one as a player. So I'll take one as a coach.”

This makes the eighth title is school history for the Blue Devils, putting them in a tie for second most in state history. The head coach knows what this title means for her players.

“Tallmadge softball has just always been a legacy,” Leightel said. “And that's part of the reason why I feel like I get emotional and I'm like so excited for them to be a part of that. We still have people from that 1981 team up in the stands and they will be a part of that like going forward like forever. Like they will never ever forget this.”

Nineteen years ago, Delanie's Bar and Grille burst into Tallmadge as the first full-service restaurant to serve alcohol after an 80-year prohibition, but since then, things at the popular eatery stayed largely the same.

Owner Nick Dadich continuously served up an award-winning cheeseburger wrap and the popular seasoned and coated french fries, along with a bevy of other fried bar staples from a massive menu.

But he knew that the local clientele weren't really coming for the food.

"Our cheese sticks were awesome, but they were still cheese sticks," Dadich said. "It was like Cheers, where everyone knows everyone, but I don't want the core competency of the business to be anything other than product: the food, the atmosphere and the service. Not just the fact that everyone knows everyone."

With the recent overhaul of the entire menu and plans for a major expansion, however, Dadich and new executive chef Rob Geul are working to turn the recently renamed Delanie's Gastro Bar into a destination restaurant that is accessible enough to satisfy regulars but novel enough to draw a whole new kind of diner.

The fare

"Being from Tallmadge, I know we're not adventurous eaters. We want our sauerkraut balls. So I put them on the menu, but they're not what you get at the grocery. That's what we're doing here: giving people what they like but giving it a twist and elevating it," said Geul, who previously served as executive chef at Cleveland restaurateur Zack Bruell's Tremont fine-dining restaurants Parallax and Fahrenheit.

So, Geul's house-made kraut balls? They're a custom blend of sausage, kraut, Swiss cheese and the blind squirrel sauce — a tangy condiment made from scratch. His Philly cheesesteak? A beef brisket hoagie with wild mushrooms, grilled red onions and horsey sauce. His fried mozzarella? Local fresh mozzarella, lightly breaded, flash fried and topped with fresh basil and shaved asiago. His fish and chips? Pretzel crusted cod, with house cut fries, creamy coleslaw and a jalapen?o honey tartar sauce.

But at the center of it all is the Grind — a selection of burgers ground in-house from a variety of different meats, seafood and veggies, an idea that Geul had wanted to bring to his previous restaurant, the now-closed Jammy Buggars in Lakewood. Geul has also been a teacher for Joshua's Restaurant at Stow-Munroe Falls High School, and has worked at One Red Door in Hudson and the now-closed Inn at Turner's Mill in Hudson.

"This menu is very adapted from Jammy Buggars because I knew it would work here. [There,] we were all about Ohio grass-fed beef, but here I wanted to do different grinds. I wanted to build burgers out of different products, not just beef," he said.

Keeping with the accessible-yet-adventurous style, Delanie's now maintains a classic beef burger, but also has one that includes pepper jack cheese, mango jelly and cashew butter, known as the PB&J. Then, there's the more unusual blends: chorizo, bratwurst, mushrooms and lentils, chicken, turkey and even shrimp (topped with cucumber, lettuce, wanton crisps and sriracha aioli).

"We're already developing signatures," Geul said. "People are never going to let me take chicken and waffles or the Philly hoagie off the menu."

Geul hopes to add a Sunday brunch menu at the beginning of football season, and intends to make parts of the menu seasonal, so that he can experiment with and highlight the freshest ingredients.

The only holdover from the previous menu is the pistachio cake, which is made from Dadich's late mother's recipe.

To complement the food, Dadich, who started in the restaurant business as a bartender, is in the process of designing a new cocktail menu that uses only house-made syrups from locally grown produce. He anticipates that his biggest seller will be the salted watermelon mojito, using his own watermelon syrup.

"I love blending good flavors together and with these cocktails, I'm bringing flavors together that are fresh, but not pretentious," Dadich said. "There's no perfumes, or smoke bombs or elderberry or dragon fruit. We're doing simple drinks, reinvented with fresh juices and organic sugar cane and agave."

Dadich is also planning to install a new tap system that will allow them to serve 24-32 selections from local microbrews and craft breweries, like R. Shea, MadCap and Lock 15, which also created their house brew.

The space

While the new menu launched on April 12 to positive reviews, it is only one part of Delanie's entire transformation.

During the pandemic, Dadich began reinventing the space by redoing the main dining area and investing in new plateware, but the big transformation is still ahead.

In May, he will appear before Tallmadge's Planning and Zoning Commission to seek their approval for his big vision to turn Delanie's current Devil's Den private event area into an industrial, open space covered in large windows and also to create a front patio dining area that will extend all the way to the sidewalk.

Dadich estimates the entire remodel will cost between $75,000 and $100,000.

"The biggest reason for all of this, is that if we can't go outside, my business was going to die," Dadich said.

While the pandemic gave Dadich time to regroup, it also presented a massive financial burden that knocked his 2020 sales down by 45% compared to the previous year. Dadich booked 27 parties, showers and rehearsal dinners in the event space in November and December of 2019, and in 2020 he hosted one, meaning that as a renter, he was paying for space he wasn't using.

"We were able to weather this year, but there's no way we could do another," he said. "We got one of the small business PPP loans, but it goes quick. I am the quintessential candidate because I would have been out of business. I almost didn't make it while I was waiting for the loan."

Dadich currently rents the building but will be paying for all of the changes. He already has permission from the building's owner.

"I had a vision of what this patio would look like, and I love it. It adds 70 seats, and more volume, so to do that, we had to make a menu that was shrunk down and easier to get food out quicker," Dadich said.

Current plans are to build the patio facing West Avenue, so that diners can see and be seen. Dadich hopes to install a 16-foot fire pit, which would be encircled by Adirondack chairs, along with zig-zagging festoon lighting and a whole new landscape design.

Dadich's brother and investor, Rick Williams, also has plans to have a smoker on the patio so that he can overnight slow-smoke meats, vegetables and seafood. Williams spent much of his life in San Antonio, and is calling it "Tex-Oh BBQ."

"On a nice day, our food, our drinks outside on a patio? They're just going to pop," Dadich said.

Delanie's Gastro Bar

Address: 67 West Avenue, Tallmadge

Website: www.delaniesgrille.com

Hours: 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, CLOSED Sundays

Restrictions: No parties of more than 8, no reservations

Reporter Krista S. Kano can be reached at 330-541-9416, [email protected] or on Twitter @KristaKano ABJ.