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By Laura Freeman
A Facebook message led me to this month’s restaurant. My friend and fellow cyclist Ray Kirchner wrote on my wall, “Next time you’re looking for a great new place to eat, try the Lakeshore Eatery at 306 and Lakeshore.”
So, I invited the Mentor councilman along with me to try it out. When we walked in, everyone greeted him by name. Turns out Ray discovered the Eatery not long after it opened last August and has been eating there about three times a week ever since.
 The Lakeshore Eatery is in a plaza with Dollar General, Family Foods and Longo’s Pizza in a space I remember there being a Mexican restaurant. While it seems to be a little off the beaten path for lunch – there was only a handful of other diners the day we were there – Ray and chef/owner John McGlaughlin say it’s a popular place for dinner and on weekends.
A former cook at Quail Hollow in Concord Township, McGlaughlin says he’s not in the restaurant business to make money.
“I just want to give everybody a good meal at a good price,” he said. “It’s just about cooking for me.”
McGlaughlin says he’s been cooking “forever,” professionally for 24 years. He started out cooking French toast and pancakes as a kid and moved on to bread.
“Bread was easy – it’s only four ingredients – salt, flour, yeast and water,” he said. He doesn’t make his own bread at the Eatery, but bakes it from frozen dough and it’s almost just as good as homemade.
From bread he graduated to pizza, working in pizza places during high school then managing and owning a couple after a year at Case Western Reserve University. Now his favorite thing to cook is eggs. The menu, with nine different omelets and 10 other entrées that include eggs, gives away his passion for them. That and the fact that he serves breakfast all day, every day. He says he likes the challenge.
“They’re never the same. You never know what you’re going to get when you crack ’em open,” says McGlaughlin, who cooks as many as 750 eggs every Sunday. “When I get too old to cook eggs, I’ll head back to school, but as a teacher, not a student.”
Until then, everyone who visits his Eatery has a chance to try not only his eggs, but his other favorite dishes which include homemade pot roast ($10) which he says is fantastic and the Lake Erie perch dinner ($12) that he says he eats more of than anything else.
“Cooks usually eat sandwiches – they are easy to eat,” he explained..
McGlaughlin says he makes as much as possible from scratch. Homemade salad dressings and soups are just some of the homemade items. Always on the menu are chicken and dumpling, beanless chili and soup of the day, which happened to be clam chowder the day we visited. Ray liked the chowder saying it had plenty of clams.
Over the creamy, cheesy house-made spinach dip ($6), Ray and I discussed Mentor’s status as having the second lowest unemployment rate in the state for a city of 50,000 or more (Cleveland Heights had the lowest).
A call to Ron Traub, Mentor economic development director and fellow runner, got us the exact numbers and brought to mind our participation in the Hermes 5K and 10-miler the next morning. After all I ate at the Eatery, I needed to run 10 miles!
Traub told us the unemployment rate went down from 7.4 percent in February to 7.1 percent – quite a bit lower than Lake County’s rate which, while experiencing a significant drop, is still at 8.3 percent, down from 8.9 percent.
As we moved on to our entrées – Ray had the Lake Erie perch ($12) which he said was flaky and breaded just right and I had a pasta special with lightly sautéed spinach, chicken, tomatoes and fresh (not canned) mushrooms and garlic – the talk switched to Ray’s cycling trip to Franklin, Pa., on Saturday to ride 45 miles of the bike trail along the Allegheny River.
McGlaughlin developed a new, lighter menu for summer. Along with the specials menu that has seven entrées for $7, stand-out items include a vegan salad ($7.50) of grilled veggies over romaine, and city chicken ($9), which I’ve never seen on any menu anywhere.
He is still planning a Mother’s Day brunch for May 10. He says in general the brunch will include scrambled eggs (surprise, surprise…), pancakes, waffles, an omelet station (Will wonders never cease?), a carving board with beef and ham, fish and chicken entrées, fruit, muffins, breakfast meat and assorted desserts.
You can dine in or carry out breakfast, lunch or dinner from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. All this and free Wi-Fi access too. Be sure to call for info on the Mother’s Day brunch at 440-946-3333.
Laura Freeman is editor of the Lake County Business Journal
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