Blue Door Cafe reopens with revamped kitchen, bathrooms

Blue Door Cafe & Bakery reopened last weekend for brunch in Cuyahoga Falls after being closed for nearly three weeks for extensive renovations.

"There's so much going on right now. It's a zoo in here," owner Michael Bruno said last week as crews worked feverishly to finish up a newly reconfigured, enhanced kitchen as well as new bathrooms for customers.

The restaurant closed Oct. 12 for kitchen renovations that include a new ventilation system, new ceramic tile flooring to replace the old vinyl tile kitchen floor, a new electrical grid, new roof over the kitchen and back offices, new lighting and a new drop ceiling.

New hood systems were among the most important improvements, Bruno said, to help boost kitchen efficiency and alleviate what used to become an "ungodly hot" kitchen with just one functional, ancient hood system. Now, the cooking line has been moved to the kitchen's entire south wall, with two new hoods above it and others installed above the restaurant's bakery oven and dish machine.

The reconfiguration has doubled the kitchen's work space, so staff can now work from both sides of a row of refrigeration and tables that now go down the middle of the kitchen. New equipment, including a flat-top grill with under-counter refrigeration, also has been added.

"Hopefully we'll be able to put out our food a ton faster" with the revamped kitchen, Bruno said at the restaurant.

Improvements that diners will see include new, relocated bathrooms, which used to be visible from the dining room and have now been moved down a hall. The renovated bathrooms, one of which is functional and both of which will be finished in the coming weeks, feature solid wood doors, tumbled marble tile floors and will have subway tile on the walls.

Delays that came up during demolition meant Blue Door's plan to reopen to the public Oct. 20 was pushed back twice. But Bruno went ahead with a special, reservation-only German dinner Oct. 29, which included tours followed by the six-course dinner.

In racing to finish by the Oct. 29 dinner, neither the walls nor ceiling were finished in the one functional bathroom, and the other restroom is yet to be done, Bruno said. That dinner as well as an upcoming reserved German dinner for Saturday sold out.

He used Saturday as a finishing-up day with the crew before reopening the restaurant to the public Sunday. The restaurant is temporarily closed for more work Thursday and will reopen Friday.

Guests who come in for breakfast and lunch also will see an enlarged kitchen window behind the breakfast bar, where food is passed through to the dining room. The window has tripled in height from 8 to about 24 inches.

"Now you'll be able to see quite a bit of what's going on in the kitchen," Bruno said. "I want that."

The Blue Door opened in 2009 in an unassuming building that used to house the family-owned Golden Goose diner. Bruno, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, grew up in Germany. His restaurant offers European pastries and breads as well as dishes made from scratch daily with local, fresh ingredients.

The restaurant at 1970 State Road is open daily, with the dining room open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The drive-thru opens for pastries, breads, coffees at 6 a.m., and the full menu beginning at 8 a.m.

The Blue Door's latest renovations are part of a bigger plan to also expand the dining room and add a rooftop patio. That work is planned for next spring.

"It didn't make any sense to do that until we made our kitchen actually able to support that," said Bruno.

A new server area cubby, which a worker was mudding Oct. 28, has an exterior door that will eventually open to an outside boardwalk around the building for servers to access stairs that will go up to a covered rooftop patio.

Other plans include tearing out two dining room walls to enlarge the space and increase seating from 75 to about 150 seats, including the rooftop. The front entrance also will be completely revamped.

"That's planned for next spring. We'll see if I have enough money left for that, because right now I'm broke," said Bruno, who in May, 2020, finished work remodeling the dining room with the help of a large loan.

Blue Door, recently approved for a full liquor license, also plans to extend its current breakfast bar into a full bar.

Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Blue Door reopens in Cuyahoga Falls after kitchen, bathroom renovations