Grilled Cheese Redux with Matt Fish of Melt Bar & Grilled

The unexpected response to my grilled cheese review a few weeks back led me to this interview with Matt Fish, the 33-year-old veteran drummer of numerous Cleveland punk bands and former chef at Johnny Mango. His newest incarnation is as restaurateur, with the September 22nd opening of Melt Bar & Grilled in Lakewood.

Melt's concept is simple: put cheese on everything. The menu features a whopping 30 grilled cheese sandwiches, everything from the Kindergarten (your basic bread and cheese) to the Municipal Stadium Magic (featuring locally-made bratwurst, fresh napa vodka kraut, grilled peppers with American cheese) to the Grilled Peanut Butter & Banana (a sweet and cheesy take on Elvis' favorite snack, with fresh-made smooth peanut butter, sweet cream cheese and mixed berry preserves). Melt will also serve starters, cheesed-up salads, and desserts, including fried Twinkies and a decadent Chocolate Guinness Cake. They have a liquor license for the Lord's Day, and will host Cleveland's only all-day Sunday brunch.

Cool Cleveland sat down, Pabst Blue Ribbon in hand, with the heavily-tattooed (his right forearm features ink representations of Cleveland landmarks like the Terminal Tower!) Fish to talk about cheese, punk ideals, the evils of corporate America, and why Parma is the center of the universe.

Cool Cleveland: So why do you like cheese so much? I'm a cheesehead myself, and my best friend and I, we're so excited (about your restaurant). I'm like, "Oh my God! We're gonna live there!" I mean, we could eat cheese morning, noon and night and be very happy with it.

Matt Fish: My three favorite things are bread, cheese and beer. They've always been--well, not beer as much when I was a kid, obviously--but it's always been my fallback, it's always been something that's like, no matter where you are in the world. You can always find bread and cheese. You always can, and they're always pretty prevalent, and they're always different varieties. I've been playing in bands for years, and we did a lot of touring, and bread and cheese were always a main staple, breakfast, lunch and dinner. You're walking down the street, you stop at a bakery, you stop in any part of the country, you can find cheese and bread. And they're cheap, they're easy, they fill you up, and they're really good, you know?

I love fresh bread, and I love different cheeses, and it's just always been something I've done. I'm always working--I'm pretty much a workaholic--I never rest, I never relax, I never take time off, and I never stop to even eat. So for years, I was just, like, eating bread and cheese sandwiches. That was, like, a staple of my diet. And everybody would make fun of me, like, "Why don't you do something with it?" So, I don't know, I just got this idea, I had it a couple years ago, for this, and I saw a couple places kinda like this around the country. There was a place in Chicago, it was like a bar. It wasn't specifically a grilled cheese restaurant; it probably had about fifteen different grilled cheese sandwiches. And then I saw another place, I think it was a place in Seattle for a while that was doing something kinda like this. And there was a place in New York City, it was actually a grilled cheese restaurant. When I saw it, I had this idea for years, and I found online that there was a place, and I had to check it out. I was just like, Wow, I guess it can happen.

I've always wanted to open up a bar and a restaurant, that's been a major goal of mine since I was a kid. I remember telling my parents. I told my dad that I wanted to open a bar when I was, like, seven. He's like, "Why do you want to do that? That's so stupid. Why do you wanna feed a bunch of drunks?" I'm like, "I don't know. It just sounds like it would be really cool." This is way before any culinary school or any time I ever knew I wanted to cook. But I just had this bug in my ass, I was like, I know I wanna open a bar, I know I wanna do something. Finally, my life led me to being able to be done with everything else in my life, and I was like, Okay, now I'm ready to commit a hundred per cent to do this. So that's why this year, I decided to do it.

When did you start cooking, like, just for yourself and for your family?

Um, so I graduated high school, had no idea what I wanted to do, you know, so I went to Tri-C, and I took basic classes for about a year and a half. Thought I wanted to be a teacher, so I just started taking general classes to do anything. But I was working in restaurants while I was doing this. So, I was like, I enjoy cooking, I enjoy restaurants, and I knew Tri-C had a culinary arts program, why don't I go check this out? I went down there, I took the introduction class, and I loved it, I was like, This is awesome!

So I decided to do that, and I went through the two-year program there. I got a bachelor's degree in culinary arts and restaurant management. And I just kept working. I've been working in restaurants since I was eighteen. I just started running kitchens, and it seemed like I just knew how to do it. Nobody sat me down and taught me how to do it, it was just understanding how to do it, being very responsible, and then just figuring out how to cook. And the way I've always cooked is, I've never really opened up a book and followed a recipe--

Yeah, me too.

I was like, what do I like? What kind of flavors do I think I want to put together? I'm really into bold flavors. I mean, I enjoy a lot of different restaurants, and I love going out to eat, and I love tasting food and all that stuff, but I don't like subtle flavors. I don't like if someone says something on the menu like, it has this, and then, you really gotta find it, you really gotta reach for it, or it says there's corn in it, and you're looking, and it's got two or three little kernels of corn.

If it specifically goes out of its way to tell you what's in there, it better be in there. If it says there's garlic in there, I wanna taste garlic, or if it's hot, I want it to be hot, or if it's sweet, I want it to be sweet. I really like bold, robust, heavy duty flavor. I think American cooking is that, American cooking is very bold. Other cuisines, they dance around flavors, and they mix it with this and that. The way that I cook, I try to stay very bold, very like--if it says there's roasted garlic in there--

There's a shitload of garlic in there--

There's a lot of garlic in there. But cooking, I've just always liked it; it's always been very natural for me. I don't know why or how, maybe it's my calling, I don't know.

I never thought about being a chef, but I love to have people over and cook for my friends and my family, so I know what you're saying.

It's cool. Like, I don't cook at home any more. Oh shit, I haven't cooked at home in...like...probably four or five times a year.

Really?

Oh yeah, it's just such a drastic difference. Like, I cook every day of my life, and I've been doin' it for so long, it's like, I don't wanna go home and make a mess of my house, make a mess of my kitchen, have dirty dishes sittin' there. I deal with that every day. Yeah, I mean, we eat out all the time, or we don't eat at all, or I eat at the restaurant, you know? It's weird, because people ask me, they're like, "That's so weird; you don't cook at home." Well, what do you do for a living? Do you do that for eight, ten hours a day, and then you go home and do the exact same thing?

I worked in coffee shops, and I did not drink coffee outside the coffee shop--I smelled it all day long. I worked in bakeries for six years--I could not stand the smell of doughnuts. But as soon as I quit, I'm like, oh my God, I love doughnuts! I know what you're saying.

Now, cooking is different, because you have to survive--

You have to eat!

You have to eat, but it's nice because there's other people who cook, and other restaurants that are open, and there's take-out and there's fast food. So, you know, if I'm not eating at work, or if I'm not bringing food home from work, we're goin' out to eat. You know, my wife picks up food for herself and stuff.

Does your wife cook?

No, not at all. She doesn't cook at all, no she's not a cook--she can't cook, to be honest with you. Oh God, she's horrible! That's what the weird thing is, it's like, if I don't cook, then there's nothing. That's it.

Do you guys have any food in your house at all?

No, no. We have a frozen pizza in the freezer, and some beer, and maybe some soda pop or something in the refrigerator, and that's it.

You guys don't entertain at home?

No, no no no. No we're very, very anti-friends and stuff, it's weird. We're both like freaky workaholics, man.

One of the questions that came up when I mentioned this to my friends was, why didn't you open this up in Tremont, this would be the perfect place for Tremont. Why did you pick Lakewood?

Because, number one, I live in Lakewood, it's my hometown. I think Tremont and Ohio City are kind of played out, to be honest with you. I've worked in Ohio City for the last five years. I love it. Originally, a friend of mine and I thought about doing this about two years ago, and we actually were looking at places in Ohio City. My whole goal for this whole thing, when I decided to do it on my own, and really to a hundred percent do it, my goal was I wanted to be part of a community, I wanted to be part of the community that I live in.

I'm trying to keep this as non-corporate as possible, you know, I'm trying to use all local purveyors, all local people. Everybody that has helped me do something here, they're all local companies, a lot of Lakewood people. I'm trying to keep this thing very underground, very low-key--not low-key to business, but low-key to the whole corporate status of the world. I'm trying to stay local. I think a lot of people don't do that anymore.

Me being happy with myself at the end of the day is more important than making money. I don't care about making money. Everything I've ever done in my life, for me, it's not about making money. I did this because I wanted to create a place that I wanted to hang out in. I saw a void, and I saw a niche that could be filled, especially in Lakewood, you know? Like, my wife and I, we used to go out in Lakewood--not out to drink and party, but just to eat and get a drink. There's just no place to go anymore, there's no place to go hang out that's not a college bar, or that's not super-fancy.

So what I'm trying to do here, is I'm trying to create somewhere in the middle, you know, someplace in between those two things for people to go and just hang out, and get a good drink and get a really good grilled cheese. That's what I'm trying to do. You know, we gave up corporate restaurants, that was one of the things we decided to do like two years ago, we decided we're never going to another corporate restaurant again. And it was great! It was a stand that we took, and it was just a small one, but it helps, you know, every little bit helps. That's why I'm trying to do this. I've never worked in a corporate restaurant before, and I don't want to.

I could do something different, that's out of the norm, and I think if I stick with it and do it right, I think people will eventually come. Now this is completely different from Johnny Mango, you know, the atmosphere and food-wise, I'm going for a completely different thing, but it's still based in the same ideals, it's still the same theme of independent, stick to your guns, do-it-yourself. We try to use as much fresh product as possible, we make everything in-house, and, you know, food quality is number one. And then also customer service, making people feel comfortable, going out of your way to make people feel like they're the most important people. Which is true, I mean, you can't please everybody, and I know that, and doing a nichey-kinda place like we're doing, people are gonna come in here and they're just not gonna get it. They're just gonna come in and be like, "I don't get it. I understand grilled cheese, I understand what you're doing, but I just don't get it." You know, for those people, I'm sorry, but...

You're not trying to cater to them anyway.

I'm not, I'm not trying to cater to everybody. And I think there's gonna be enough choices and there's gonna be enough revolving food items and beer items, and there's gonna be enough neat things here to keep people coming back. I want to get a pretty heavy regular clientele, I want to create a family here. My employees--I love having the kitchen staff, the wait staff, everybody feel like they're part of a big family, so they work harder, and they also take pride in what they're doing, and they take pride in the fact that they work in a cool place that is actually trying to do something different than everybody else. So they feel like, Whoa, this is great, I'm a part of something, I'm a part of this, and I wanna help--number one, help me out, not because this is my thing, but also help out the fact that this is helping the community, this is helping out Cleveland, because Cleveland needs more places like this, I think.

I'm here for the long haul. In twenty years, I wanna sit down here, I want you to reinterview me in twenty years and say, "Well, what have you accomplished in twenty years?" I'm not looking to get in, make a quick buck and get out. This is a lifetime thing for me, so that's what I wanna do. I wanna create something in Lakewood, you know? I wanna stay neighborhood-based, use the community that I'm in. Cleveland is such a distinct blue collar community, and it's such a distinct working class city. I just don't understand why enough people don't embrace the fact that it's trying to keep that, it's trying to keep a firm grasp in that, but the bureaucracy isn't letting it.

People are letting all this crap come in. There's just not enough people to stand up to the corporations and say, "No, you can't put a Wal-Mart here, I'm sorry. You can't put a Walgreens here. We want an independent business to be here. " I mean, Cleveland's just welcoming all this crap, it's just like, get the fuck out. I understand it brings business and it brings revenue into the city, and I guess that's the way the world works--I just don't like it. You know, the way the world works, you're not cool unless you have this. "Where's the Abercrombie & Fitch?"

I'm from Mentor; I know all about that.

I love Cleveland, man. I just want it to be cool, you know? That's why I did this, I guess. I just didn't do it in Cleveland (laughs)!

But Lakewood is part of the Cleveland atmosphere.

No, I know. I wanted to be involved in a small community, and obviously, I wanted to be involved in my hometown. I wanted my money to go back into the city that I live in. These people are all my neighbors, so I have to look at them every day. I can't be an asshole! I can't use inferior products, I can't just get by on stuff. That's more important to me than anything, is making people happy, and being happy with myself at the end of the day, and saying that I did use good ingredients and good products. I created something that was cool, I stayed true to my beliefs and didn't sell out to the man (laughs).

You're such a hippy!

God, I'm not a hippy at all! I'm not--these are punk ideals. I was in punk bands, rock-n-roll bands. I was in this band called Whatever for many years. Just punk bands and stuff, a lot of independent record labels, a lot of shitty band tours for fifteen years, sleeping on a lot of floors and stuff. But it was fun. And I was done with that, I was finally at a point where I was like, okay, done. I was playing in two bands when I got this place, and they were bands with all my friends, and they were fun. But I'd been playing, I'd been touring since '94, and it was just like, alright, I'm 33, like, this is awesome, I could do this for the rest of my life, but I never got into it to get that big break. I never got into it to make a million dollars. I did it because I loved it, and I really wanted to do it.

And it was a dream of mine, and I achieved the dream, the dream is over, I've taken it as far as I could take it. I feel no regrets about anything that I did. I'm done, and I'm willing to put that to bed and start something else. That's why I did this. The band thing was great for many, many years. I got to play with a lot of amazing bands, I got to do some great tours, I met a lot of awesome people. Not even famous people, just like people in different cities that you see every couple months, and they treat you like family.

So, mainly your jobs have been restaurants and bands.

That's it. I stocked shelves at Marc's when I was a kid, I had a paper route when I was like eight. I got my first restaurant job in like '91, '90, when I was a senior in high school. I grew up in Parma. Parma is strange--my dad still owns a house there. I still go back there all the time. It's just so strange. I lived there for so long; I didn't leave Parma till I was 25. I left Parma and moved to Lakewood, and I've just been here ever since. But just going back there now is so weird for me, it's a weird community. But everybody seems to go there at one point. At one point, Parma was like the biggest suburb in this part of the country, population-wise and square footage-wise. It's like the center of the universe! I've always told people, "Parma is the center of the universe." Everything comes back to Parma somehow. Everybody can tie into Parma--it's like that Kevin Bacon game or something. You can do the same thing with Parma. So-and-so knows so-and-so from here, who went here, who graduated from Parma High School. Every road leads back to Parma. I don't really know why. But I love being in Lakewood. I'll stay here forever.

Do you have any partners, or are you the sole owner?

I am the sole owner, yeah. I figured that was better in the long run, because if it fails, then it's me that fails, you know? It was my idea, it was my time and my effort and my thing, and if, for some reason it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But then, if it succeeds, then at the same time, it's all mine, you know? I hate to say that, that it was my idea, this and that, but just an idea that I came up with, and I just kept thinking about it and thinking about it over the years. I was just like, It's gotta work, it's too cool, it's too unique to not friggin' work. I don't believe in fate and all that other stuff, but it's like, everything just works, it's really strange. That stuff normally doesn't happen for me; normally, there's either roadblocks, or other things that you have to go around, but this happened, everything happened in the right amount of time, everything, exactly how I wanted it, worked out. Very strange.

Melt Bar and Grilled is located at 14718 Detroit Avenue. You can get a peek at their mouth-watering menu at http://www.myspace.com/meltohio.

Where do you get your grilled cheese fix, Cleveland? Write in and tell us. Letters@CoolCleveland.com.

From Cool Cleveland Contributor Dana Aritonovich mrsgrohl1@yahoo.com (:divend:)