The Voice and Roots of Our America Today

America, one conversation at a time.
Log in Sign up

← all towns · Stop 6 of 37 · upcoming

Cleveland, Ohio

The root: The Great Lakes industrial city that refused to fade — steel-town grit reborn as a food, art, and rock & roll town on Lake Erie.
Eat: Slyman's Restaurant — the corned-beef sandwich institution; Great Lakes Brewing Company — the brewpub pioneer in Ohio City.
Skip — don't: The overpriced chain steakhouses ringing the Rock Hall — Cleveland's best food is in the neighborhoods and the 1912 West Side Market.
Specialty: Rock & roll, pierogies, and corned beef — a working-class food town with a world-class art museum that's free.
Shops & crafts: West Side Market vendors — sausage, pierogies, produce; Ohio City boutiques and Cleveland-made souvenirs.
See: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — music's front porch on the lake; West Side Market — a Cleveland rite; the Cleveland Museum of Art — world-class and free.
Main Street: East 4th Street — string lights over a brick-paved alley of restaurants beneath old theater marquees.
After dark: Live music in Ohio City; a show at Playhouse Square, the largest performing-arts center in the country outside New York.

When — events

Cleveland International Film Festival — March/April (approx.)
Feast of the Assumption — August, Little Italy.

Event dates are the typical annual timing; confirm with the town before traveling.