“I’m doing some Garganelli all’Amatriciana…with some tomato sauces, tomato-onion, and pancetta. And Pecorino Romano cheese on top. It’s pretty nice and light.”

On this busy afternoon, even Lockkeepers’ General Manager, Brian Woerhman is in the kitchen, handing off plates of spiky green salad to wait staff as they come and go from the dining hall.

Business is brisk, and Woehrman is thinking about expanding his staff of about 75.

We do plan on taking on some new staff members through the next year. We project a 10-percent increase in sales, so things look pretty good.

Lockkeepers turns 20 this year. Woehrman says that benchmark’s worth celebrating, given the tumbles his restaurant took in recent years.

“The in-house catering and private dining, from 2008 to 2009, really took a big dip and had to be rebuilt. I think it was cut in half, and then grew back to its former level,” Woehrman says.

Woehrman says several cost-saving measures kept Lockeepers afloat. New and replacement hires were infrequent, and existing staff were given more responsibilities.

Energy usage was cut back, and the restaurant itself was rebranded as a largely fine – yet more casual and affordable—dining experience. Jeans and t-shirts are as much the dress code here as are gowns and neckties.

Woehrman says the worst thing a struggling restaurant can do, is to raise prices when sales are low. Jarrod Clabaugh, of the Ohio Restaurant Association, agrees.

Restaurants always look at every opportunity they can to deflect costs, before passing that cost on to the consumer.

Clabaugh says for those Ohio restaurants that scrimped and scaled back to survive the recession, brighter days for both sales and hiring are ahead.

The sales figures are expected to increase 3.6 percent in Ohio for 2013. That means that we’re looking at 17-point-4 billion dollars, which means more dining out, which means more people to feed those folks.

One restaurant that’s already grown—despite the recession and its aftershock—is MELT Bar and Grilled, where the grilled cheese sandwich reigns supreme. Since 2006, it’s opened four locations in the Greater Cleveland area – employing 350 people. This year, it’ll open a restaurant in Columbus, adding at least 60 more.

Owner Matt Fish says novelty and affordability have drawn steady, hungry crowds.

Every single person that I’ve come across has some sort of story about a grilled cheese sandwich. Everybody can relate to it. And that’s the reason I think that we were able to survive through the rough economic times, is that we provide comfort.

That’s Jerald Benovitz’s take. He’s from Parma, but often travels up to Melt’s Lakewood location. He says he and the others at his table have been coping with tight economic times lately, but are devoted patrons.

“We’ve scaled back a little bit but what we try to do is go out. You know, not quite for fast food, but not the five-star location…but something more in-between where we can afford it and do it more, than not.”

Larger chain restaurants have weathered the recession better than individual operations.

Case in point: the Bob Evans chain of more than 500 eateries nationwide.

Joe Eulberg is Executive Vice-President of Human Resources. He says in the last few years, the Columbus-based company greatly expanded its take-out options. It also developed online ordering services for smart phones, and kept improving and promoting its grocery line.

And for the year ahead, he says the company plans to renovate – or “refresh” their existing Bob Evans locations.

Every time we do a restaurant refresh, the sales go up and sales going up means more people being hired. So usually that’s about 5-10 people more per restaurant we add, for every one we do. And we plan that we add for every one we do, and we plan to have all of the restaurants in Ohio refreshed within the next 12 months.

2013 won’t be ALL gravy for the food service industry. High prices of fuel and drought-ravaged commodities like corn and grain will play their part, and the economy is still wavering enough to curb some people’s appetite for eating out.

But overall gains have been steady, and many restaurant operators think they’ve got the expertise now to meet challenges.

Start at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River where Moses Cleaveland stepped ashore from Lake Erie in 1796. That natural resource had already been long used for transportation inland by Native Americans. But George Washington had an idea on how the country could expand West– build a canal that could link to the Erie Canal.

With that, farm produce deep inside Ohio could be shipped to markets back East. Tim Donovan, Director of the Ohio Canal Corridor, said the young state of Ohio didn’t have enough money to build a canal so they found the money elsewhere

“There was a risk to be taken there, but New York City saw the advantage of that risk, and New York state and they went and they made the deal and the governor of New York at that time was the canal commissioner before he was governor. So he understood it from day one that this was going to be good for what we do here in New York.”

And it worked immediately; fueling growth of towns such as Akron and Massillon.

Once they opened that canal up from Akron, farm goods start shipping through…the port of Cleveland became a real port on the Great Lakes. We were feeding the eastern markets, and they were in turn feeding us with products from the early days of industrial revolution. So it worked really well in terms of creating mutually beneficial economies in both areas.

Eventually mines in Stark and Tuscarawas counties began sending canal boats loaded with coal up north.

Combine that with iron ore shipped on the Great Lakes from Minnesota, and you get the beginnings of the steel industry.

One man working as a broker in the warehouses off the canal was John D. Rockefeller. Historian Ed Pershey of the Western Reserve Historical Society says just as the railroads arrived, Rockefeller realized that oil had been discovered across the border in Pennsylvania.

“That’s when he starts his oil business. He sees the opportunity, goes to western Pennsylvania, buys the rights to that oil, essentially invents tank cars, puts the crude oil, pumping it out of the well in tank cars, brings it to Cleveland for refining on the banks of the Cuyahoga River,” Pershey says.

At first oil was used for lubricants and for kerosene, but Tim Donovan points out it helped make the city a center for paints and varnishes..

Sherwin Williams, their first plant was actually property owned by Rockefeller, used by Standard Oil.

Put oil, steel and paint together and Cleveland had all the makings to build the next mode of transportation – automobiles. White Motors began here, Winston, Peerless, and Chandler. At one time Cleveland was making more cars than Detroit.

Akron’s making rubber tires for the cars being built in Cleveland. That’s a great combination. And we were refining the oil on the banks of the Cuyahoga River.
Remember that John D Rockefeller of course sold out his interest in Standard Oil in 1905. And he was the richest man in the United States, maybe the world. They weren’t even making gasoline yet! The thing about the oil industry is it really takes off when cars begin to suck up gasoline! It’s astounding.

By World War One airplanes were being built here. And later the NASA Lewis Research Center along with aerospace companies in Akron and Cleveland made flight suits and rocket parts

“If it wasn’t for NASA – at the time “NASA Lewis” – in the late 50’s early 60’s we wouldn’t have put a man on the moon. The development of upper stage propellants and rocket designs. Cleveland was deeply deeply involved in that,” Pershey says.

Today, Cleveland is embracing its industrial history. Along the Cuyahoga River and the Ohio Canal there are visitor centers and interpretive way centers that tell the story.

There are even displays of actual steel slabs and bottle cars and machinery in the shadow of factories and mills that are still working.

You can download this audio tour by visiting SeeOhioFirst.org and clicking on “The New Ohio Guide.”

The New Ohio Guide is produced by the Ohio Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“The next least-expensive diesel that I saw was almost $6,000 for a car that I think is maybe the same year as the one I’m looking at here, had less miles, but it rattled, shook and shimmied, and I could tell it hadn’t been maintained,” Lennington said.

Lennington has spent two months looking for a second car and until today she says hasn’t had much luck. There’s a shortage of cars on the market priced at less than $5,000. Lennington guesses the Cash for Clunkers program is to blame. Nearly 700,000 cars were destroyed to try to jump start the production of new ones.

“I feel sorry for anyone looking for anything $2,500 or under because now you’re looking at a real heap of poo because most of those got turned in,” Lennington said.

Many of the used cars at dealerships in Central Ohio come from the Groveport Auto Auction. Every Wednesday hundreds of dealership owners and salesmen come in search of cars for their inventory. Keith Whann is the CEO of the auction. He says two years ago the auction showed more than 3,000 cars a week, but lately that number is down to 2,000. Whann confirms the Cash for Clunkers program is one reason supply’s down, but it also has a lot to do with the production and sale of new cars.

“When you think about the fact that there are a number of millions of less transactions taking place on the new car side and traditionally roughly 60 percent of those generate a trade-in, there’s a vast number of used cars that aren’t being traded-in to dealers. And when you combine almost seven-hundred thousand cars leaving the road, there’s a real shortage of used cars,” Whann said.

College Car Company manager Mike Hinterschied watched as Lennington negotiated the sale of the Volkswagen. He says the demand for affordable cars hasn’t changed, but the supply has forced prices up. The average sale price for cars at his dealership has increased from five to $6,000 to nine to $10,000- and the higher price may not mean a better car.

“I can perceive a difference in the quality between what I can sell for under $6,000, and what I used to sell for six. I think it’s less for your dollar right now.”

Hinterschied says he expects it will be some time before the automotive industry is thriving again. This, for consumers, means fewer options and higher prices. Lennington knows. She did buy the Jetta and says it was a good deal in a tough market.

“It’s manual windows, no sunroof, it’s a stick-shift, you know, but it has air conditioning, it has heat, and it has a stereo I’m happy,” she said.

Grapes of Mirth has most of its Ohio wines on display at the front of its shop in the North Market. The store has about 600 different kinds of wine at any given time. Up to six percent of them come from Ohio wineries. Dave Bihn, who owns Grapes of Mirth, said he gets a lot of out-of-towners looking for Ohio wines. But Bihn said some of the regulars have yet to discover the home grown labels.

“Regular customers will look for brands they know from elsewhere, and kind of chuckle at the fact that we have a prominent sign for Ohio wines. And not realizing where Ohio wines have come in the last 10 or 15 years,” Bihn said.

14 years ago there were 37 wineries in Ohio. Today there are almost 100. Donniella Winchell is the executive director of the Ohio Wine Producers Association. Winchell attributes the 90s stock market boom for part of the growth. She said more people with an interest in wine had disposable incomes and started their own wineries. And she said Ohio’s the perfect place to grow grapes.

“Ohio has the very good fortune to have been crossed in pieces and parts several hundred thousand years ago by glaciers, which provided us with a number of different soil types, and a number of many, many microclimates with rolling hills and topography that allow us to grow grapes, small parcels of grapes in small regions,” Winchell said.

Ohio vineyards grow a surprisingly wide variety of grapes. Concord and Catawba grapes are considered native to Ohio. But Winchell said Ohio wineries are winning awards for their Rieslings and Sauvignon Blancs.

“I called the wine maker and I said what are you doing entering California fruit into the Ohio wine competition? He said Donni, I’m growing those grapes here. We are able to grow things in these microclimates that were thought virtually impossible even as few as ten years ago,” Winchell said.

Workers at Slate Run Vineyard weigh some of the Niagara grapes that will be used to make sweet or slightly-sweet wines. Keith Pritchard owns the vineyard, and said he grows 58 grape varieties to make 14 kinds of wine. Pritchard sells most of his wine in the vineyard’s tasting room. He sells some of it to local wine stores and even a pit stop in Lancaster.

“I do get some tourism but obviously not as heavy as some of the other wineries, so. But I am just 19 miles from downtown Columbus, so I do have a fairly large metropolitan area here where people do visit me and buy some of the wines. So, it’s not all bad,” Prichard said.

To earn additional income, Pritchard rents his vineyard’s new 2,400 square foot Weinhaus for various events like weddings, reunions and dinners. It’s this type of marketing that Winchell said the Ohio wine industry has placed its focus. She said the smaller wineries concentrate on what she calls experiential or destination marketing.

“They are creating experiences. They are encouraging people to come out and help them pick in the fall. They are looking for wine-maker for a day type experiences so through the winter people get to come to the cellars. They are doing food and wine pairing events. So the wineries themselves become a destination,” Winchell said.

One reason smaller wineries focus on tourism and selling to their local region is because of the cost of distribution. Most small Ohio wineries do not sell to other states. And it’s not likely its labels will be seen on the shelves in large chain stores. Here’s why. A winery can sell a bottle of its wine for $12. But if the winery goes through a distributor to get the wine in stores, it will only make $6 for that same bottle of wine. And if it sells that bottle of wine directly to the retailer, it’ll make $8. But then the winery pays the cost of delivery. Again, Donniella Winchell.

“You need to be 50-, 60-, 70-, 100,000 gallons to get a good return on your investment. The small family wineries, however, when they focus on this experiential kind of destination marketing, and someone walks into their door, will sell that bottle of wine for $12. So conceivably they need to sell 20, 30 or even 50 percent less volume and get the same dollar gross,” Winchell said.

Winchell said when it comes to the most profitable agricultural business, vineyards are second only to tobacco farms. But don’t let that fool you. Pritchard, who’s vineyard will celebrate its tenth anniversary in February, said turning a profit didn’t come as fast as he thought.

“I knew it’d be slow to breaking even on sales and the cash flow and everything. But it was a little slower than I thought even. But that’s kind of the way things go, so. But I’m somewhat starting to generate a little positive cash flow now, so. Hopefully it’ll be a little smoother sailing from here on out,” Prichard.

There are 96 wineries in Ohio, with about 15 more in various stages of development. While the wine industry tripled in less than 15 years, Winchell said she does not expect that same trend to continue.

“I will continue to see significant growth, perhaps not in 15 years a doubling, but certainly a 25 or 30 percent increase because wine making is the dream of a lot of folks,” Winchell said.

Winchell said some will dream their children will take over their wine business one day. Others will dream big – for a nationally known wine. But for most, they’ll just dream about making a really good bottle.

Anderson says, an estimated 10-billion dollars in losses to the U-S and Canada and a serious blow to the entire Midwest economy are the best possible outcomes of Delphi’s bankruptcy. Delphi operates a parts assembly plant on the Columbus west side.

About 200 Ohio workers would be affected by a plan Delphi Corporation reportedly is considering to overhaul its electronics and safety unit.

According to a document obtained by the Detroit News, Delphi’s tentative plan calls for getting rid of seven plants and seven technical centers. A Delphi spokeswoman says the document obtained by the newspaper is just a draft and may not reflect current planning.