Cool Cleveland People

Shelley Underwood of Johnny Mango World Café

With that in mind, consider that this year a colorful little Ohio City dining spot called Johnny Mango will celebrate its tenth anniversary. Named for a fictional world traveler, the place was like nothing Cleveland had ever seen before—usually a scary sign in a "burger, wings and beer" town like ours. The menu? Healthy whole foods, exotic juices, worldly flavors and many other vegetarian/vegan options. The scenery? Like something out of a fabulous travel journal. The vibe? Pure, unadulterated and wholesome.

When co-owners Shelley Underwood and Gary Richmond opened their sassy dining digs in a historic Ohio City building, neither one could have anticipated the degree to which their success would climb. Not only have they opened a second location in the historic Willoughby town center, they’ve joined a short list of locally owned and operated restaurants (Great Lakes Brewing Company and Winking Lizard come to mind) as inimitable dining choices for the locals and visitors alike. They've also joined Great Lakes in being a completely smoke-free venue.

Underwood took time out from her behind-the-bar tending and a frenetic to-do list to speak to Cool Cleveland. We touched on a bevy of topics—from being a small business owner and the challenges of Cleveland as a food town, to moving Mr. Mango’s tastes into your local grocery someday and taking the restaurant smoke-free long before Summit County even considered such a thing.

You’re going to celebrate a decade of Johnny Mango this year. How was the plan for the restaurant hatched?

My current partner and I were hired to help open another guy’s restaurant, called the Cellar Stock. It was one of those lunchtime business places in an office building with 25 floors. We did catering, bagels, coffee and newspapers in the morning. There were two [locations], and this guy wanted us to open a third one with a full-service restaurant attached to it. Once we started working together and realized we got along a lot better with each other than we did with our boss… (laughs) well, we decided to open our own place instead.

So, I’ve been dying to ask: who is “Johnny Mango” the cat anyway?

I wish I had a better and more exciting story. My partner had the name a long time before we actually opened. It’s just like naming a baby, I guess. I suppose I could come up with a better story. My partner is this crazy guy who likes to grab a backpack, jump on an airplane, go to warm climates and eat as many street vendor recipes as he can. Maybe our street food guy is Johnny Mango. (laughs)

As a small business owner, I know that a lot of it can be thankless hard work. Did you have any “buyer’s remorse” after starting Johnny Mango?

There was never one doubt in my mind. You would think so, right? (laughs) We did have our moments during the process where my partner and I started saying ‘I don’t know, we can’t really open a restaurant’ from a financial perspective. But right at that point, his grandmother died and left him some funds. Not much, but it was enough for us to open the doors without a liquor license, or air conditioning or an ice machine or any of the standard amenities for a restaurant.

You know, my husband came and videotaped that first day that we opened. There I am sweeping, wiping the windows down, serving food. It wasn’t until a few years later that I finally got around to watching that—after all, there was plenty of other work to be done. I remember I just started sobbing… thinking of all the emotions I had about opening the business. It was a little strange… but the food and beverage industry is a tough business, which you already know.

Any anecdotes you can share with foodies or potential restaurateurs?

Actually, the growth snuck up on me a little. I’ll tell you that there was a plan to have a Mango Mobile—a bicycle with a sign on the handlebars that I would ride to the West Side Market every day to pick up our supplies for the day. I figured I’d get in a little workout and pick up my apples and lettuce and stuff. But after about a month, we were buying 10 cases of apples a week and 8 cases of tomatoes and 4 cases of lettuce, I realized things were going to be far bigger than that. (laughs)

It also took us a long time to learn how to plumb and sand floors and all of that great remodeling and renovation stuff!! All the elbow grease was tough. (laughs)

Setting all “This Old House” projects aside, what would you say your biggest challenge has been as a small business owner in Cleveland?

When you do these kinds of things when you’re young, you just don’t think about the things you have to overcome at such a young age. You do them and don’t think much about it. When I look back, I just wanted to open a really small place and serve food that we really liked to eat to people we really liked to hang out with. Thinking back on it now, there are so many challenges that it’s really hard to pick one. The whole thing’s challenging, really.

At the end of the day, just being a small business is a challenge—especially when there are so many big [food service] companies that seem to “have it down.” Quality and integrity is extremely important, but just the same, it’s hard to compete with that… but to me, it’s even harder to not want do things the hard way.

You made a decision to go completely smoke-free at Johnny Mango last year, joining Great Lakes Brewing Company as one of a few other local establishments to do so. This has been a hot topic for Lakewood and Summit County recently, but it’s just as much a hot-potato-topic as it relates to the food and beverage industry. Tell us a little about that.

Going smoke free was the best thing we ever could have done. I just love it, and I am so proud that we made that decision. I know it has made a huge difference in my health, but certainly for all of our customers as well... I had no idea that when [Johnny Mango] went smoke free one year ago that it would affect my health so positively. I hate that hungover feeling from lack of oxygen… I probably smoked a couple packs of cigarettes in a night without even knowing it.

We did get a lot of ‘I hate you, we’ll never be back again!’ emails that came our way… but I’ll tell you, for every one of those, we had two ‘Way to go, we’ll be back more often!’ emails. And our sales have gone up as a result.

Is the "going smoke-free" thing a fad?

I don’t think it’s a fad, it’s a trend. It was for airlines, malls, office buildings; I’m glad we’re on the cutting edge of that here. I mean, West Virginia is non-smoking. We can do better than that! (laughs) My partner’s from West Virginia, that’s why I’m digging at him. We had already decided that we would go smoke free when we started attending Willoughby city meetings. And we made that decision before we even really thought about it. But we did go back and interview all of our frequent diner "Passport Card" members—we had about 3-4 thousand people at the time—and the overwhelming number of them said to go smoke-free. It was a good decision and I hope that everyone else does it, too.

Think about it. In what other profession do you have to spend hours breathing other people’s smoke, or when you’re trying to enjoy a nice meal? Bars and restaurants... I think it's wonderful that Summit County went smoke-free. And I don't think it's too much to ask for something that so obviously contributes to horrible preventable diseases. All of Ohio should do the same.

So, Willoughby then. An interesting choice for a second location.

It is. And we’ve got a facility that is three times bigger than the one in Ohio City with a nice party room in the back, which is great, but that means you need three times the number of people… we knew we were moving into a burger, wing and beer town when we opened there. It’s been challenging, but we love the location and feel like we’re helping to change the face of the neighborhood a little bit. There is something about Willoughby’s old-town-square atmosphere, but it also reminds me of Ohio City. It already has a tattoo shop and the [Willoughby] Brewing Company and a martini bar and a lot of little art galleries.

Maybe someday, the city will do an art walk like Tremont does. It’s a beautiful place and it’s been a lot of fun so far. We’re definitely a neighborhood joint.

Where do you see Johnny Mango in five years?

In the same two locations, each place doing a little better each year. I’m sure that my partner would like to see three other restaurants—

Like the folks at the Winking Lizard—

Yes! It’s one of his favorite places and I really admire what they’ve accomplished. They are an incredibly organized, outstanding company. It would be nice to have the level of success that they’ve had. Actually, it would be nice to be that organized (laughs). We’ll get there someday. We’re almost there.

Any other restaurateurs you admire, from Cleveland or otherwise?

I admire Michael Symon just for being everywhere. That’s amazing. He’s such a wonderful guy… you know, if I got out more I suppose I would have a longer list. Two restaurants and two kids, you know. (laughs) Talk about challenges! Sometimes just being able to get out is a challenge.

What about goals? Changes? Anything major planned for the coming anniversary?

Obviously a lot of what we do is going to stay the same. Trying to stay ahead of our time in the healthy food trend is not a part of that, but maintaining our commitment to good food that is not processed or hastily assembled is certainly a priority. Offering great options with flavors from all over is as well. I’ve been a vegetarian about 13 years. I never liked meat, even when I was a kid. Lots of vegetarians, some vegans, some gluten free, dairy free. We can work around just about any diet. Even Atkins.

My partner really wants to change the menu drastically, keeping with the same concept but changing a lot of the items. Our Passport members always react the same way: ‘That’s great! Just don’t get rid of THIS.’ We have talked about that on more than one occasion about getting something into the stores. Our ingredients are fresh and without preservatives, so there would be some trick to getting our salsa out there. I’m sure that we’ll continue to talk about it.

What would you be doing right now if it weren’t for Johnny Mango?

I thought I wanted to be in advertising. But the fact of the matter is I just can’t do the 9-to-5 thing. I really needed something with a little more craziness. (Laughs)

Interview and Photo by Cool Cleveland contributor Peter Chakerian peterATcoolcleveland.com

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