ASHTABULA, Ohio – Paddling through ripples on the Ashtabula River, it occurred to me: Not too long ago, this would not have been possible.
The river was too dirty, the port too tough. And certainly, no one was renting tandem kayaks for $40 an hour to visiting tourists.
Fast forward to 2022, and this waterfront destination, where the Ashtabula River meets Lake Erie, has become one of Northeast Ohio’s most unexpected tourism success stories, with trendy restaurants, upscale retail, and a boutique hotel on the way.
It didn’t happen by accident.
More than a decade ago, a group of local business and community leaders got together to brainstorm ways to reinvent Ashtabula’s waterfront, which once was one of the busiest industrial ports in the Great Lakes. Industry had mostly pulled out of the small town, leaving a polluted river and blocks of vacant storefronts.
“It was nothing but bars and buildings that weren’t being used,” said Brandon Hart, who started Harbor Yak boat rentals on the river in 2017. “No one really spent time here. It took a couple of good restaurants to open, then some shops and more restaurants. Now there’s not really any place that’s not being used.”
Among the occupants: brewery, coffee house, ice cream shop and speakeasy. There are shops selling art and kitchenware, gourmet popcorn and chocolate. There’s even a restaurant that only serves fried chicken sandwiches (and they’re fantastic).
And the river? Last year, after decades of clean-up efforts, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed the Ashtabula River from its list of most polluted Great Lakes tributaries (the EPA’s so-called “areas of concern”).
“It has been an extraordinary success,” said Toni Carlisle, of the community effort to turn around the harbor district and make it into a tourist draw.
She and her husband, Ren Carlisle, were among the early adopters, opening Carlisle’s Home in the Harbor gift shop on Bridge Street in 2002, hoping to spark more development. And it worked.
“Over the years, we’ve shifted from serving locals to serving out of towners,” she said.
It was all rather surprising – to me, anyway.
I’d been through Ashtabula numerous times before – en route to wineries in the area, touring the county’s numerous covered bridges and overnighting at the nearby Lodge at Geneva-on-the-Lake. But I’d never stopped to really look around, not until earlier this month, when I spent a full day eating‚ drinking and paddling my way through what has evolved into one of the region’s most unique destinations.
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The unlikely center of it all: a nearly century old lift bridge, which pivots open every 30 minutes to allow boat traffic through, a popular photo op for visitors.
Ashtabula City Manager Jim Timonere admitted that locals and visitors have vastly different perspectives of the bridge, built in 1925 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
“We know to avoid Bridge Street every half hour,” he said, in an effort to steer clear of the inevitable traffic tie-ups. “It’s something we take for granted.”
Easy day trip from Cleveland
About 60 miles east of Cleveland, Ashtabula is an easy day trip for Northeast Ohioans. Spend the night, however, and you’ll have enough time to check out a couple of history-focused small museums in the neighborhood, sign up for a fishing charter, stroll barefoot through the sand at Walnut Beach and rent water bikes at Harbor Yak. There are even ghost tours on select Friday evenings.
I was traveling on a Sunday and Monday, when several of the restaurants I wanted to try were closed or had reduced hours. Rest assured, I didn’t leave hungry, eating well at Rennick Meat Market, which opened in 2014 in the town’s historic butcher shop, and Briquettes Smokehouse, with piled-high plates of barbecue served on a large patio overlooking the water. Lunch was terrific at both Fire! Chicken Sandwiches and Blended Smoothies and Ice Cream.
And beverages? I started the day at Harbor Perk, ended it at the 1035 Club speakeasy and enjoyed Cloven Hoof Brewing in between, with a flight of house-made brews, including a terrific IPA, coffee stout and something called Banana Baptism, which was much better than it sounds.
Before and after all that eating and drinking, I browsed the shelves at Bridge Street Art Works, filled with ceramics, jewelry and other creatives wares, mostly by local artists; wandered through the many temptations of Marianne’s Chocolates, founded in Conneaut in 1963 and a Bridge Street staple since 2009; and chatted with the newest proprietor on the block, Gallo, who opened Harbor Gardens earlier this year, specializing in locally grown and Ohio-made food products, food demonstrations, classes and more.
The neighborhood’s biggest, and likely most influential, new business is coming next spring, the new Riverbend Hotel, which had its ground-breaking in 2019, was delayed by financing issues during the pandemic, but is under construction now on Goodwill Drive, a half-block from Bridge Street. It will bring a 43-room hotel to the neighborhood, with a top-floor wine bar and views of the water.
Spending the night
My bed for the night was a short walk from the harbor, at the Michael Cahill Bed and Breakfast, built in 1887, with a large front porch and four bedrooms available for overnight stays. The house, on the National Register of Historic Places, has been an inn since 1986, purchased in 2018 by Bob and Jo Anne Surbella, both Ashtabula natives.
Bob is a former executive chef for Stouffer’s Top of the Town and other Cleveland restaurants; Jo Anne was a nurse and hospital administrator. “Bob was happily retired until I surprised him with this,” joked Jo Anne; he’s now responsible for preparing the inn’s terrific gourmet breakfasts, including the spinach quiche on the morning of my stay.
The two have witnessed their hometown’s methodical evolution from an industrial focus to tourism. (Industry, of course, has not gone away entirely; the harbor is still an active port, evidenced by Petmin USA’s plans for a new pig-iron plant on the east side of the river.)
“It’s been a very slow process,” said Jo Anne Surbella, of the city’s transition. And it’s not over yet. “I think in the next 10 years there’s going to be a real shift in this community.”
Indeed, recent neighborhood development feature a residential component, including new townhomes on Bridge Street that opened in 2019, with more on the way. And there is talk of expanding the neighborhood east, across the lift bridge.
Not all of the city has been lifted up by the success of the harbor area, however.
The city’s population, at about 18,000 continues to decline. And 30% of Ashtabula’s residents live below the poverty line, according to recent Census Bureau figures, well above state and national averages.
Ashtabula’s downtown – located about 3 miles south of the lift bridge -- is marked by numerous vacant storefronts along Main Avenue.
Timonere, the city manager, said the downtown area presents a more significant economic development challenge than the harbor district – with larger buildings spread across a much bigger area. But several redevelopment efforts are in the works downtown, he said, including projects to rehabilitate the historic Castle Block complex and the original Carlisle’s department store.
Downtown, however, lacks the one thing that makes the harbor area so special -- proximity to the water.
In 2017, Brandon and Alexa Hart came up with the idea that visitors might like to get even closer to the water – on it, in fact. They started Harbor Yak rentals with a handful of kayaks and paddleboards and have expanded their fleet every year since.
The business recently moved into the old Coast Guard station on the east side of the river, and now offers as many as 60 boats for rent, including trendy Hydrobikes and, new this year, a couple of pontoon boats.
“It was something that was needed here that nobody was doing,” said Brandon Hart, a barber by trade, who still cuts hair in the off-season. “It is exceeding my expectations.”
The company has also experimented with sunset tours, yoga classes and paddle-and-pints events.
My husband and I kept it simple, renting a two-person kayak on a quiet Monday morning.
Our first destination: the scenic Ashtabula Harbor Light, built in 1905, automated in 1973 and accessible only by boat.
We got close enough to inspect the seams on the steel structure, then headed east across the harbor to check out the moored MV Tecumseh, a Canadian-flagged freighter that’s been in port for months, awaiting repairs. Then we paddled west again, toward an area known as kayak cove, a thin strip of water between the shore and breakwall that’s perfect for small-boat exploration.
The currents here have created an almost-island, a sandy spit of land attached to the breakwall, where we docked our kayak and took a short beach walk – a true hidden gem.
We were headed back to the dock to return the kayak when I proposed one final detour – south, up the river and under the bridge.
We turned the kayak around just as the siren was sounding, alerting road traffic that the bridge was about ascend. And I pulled out my phone and started taking photos.
If you go: Historic Ashtabula Harbor
For a list of restaurants, shops and activities: historicashtabulaharbor.com
Where to stay: Rooms run $170 per night, including breakfast, at the Michael Cahill Bed and Breakfast, 1106 Walnut Blvd.; see www.cahillbb.com
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