Branding Iron Cookhouse Closing At Midnight

"This is a bad day in Mentor," Steve Casper said.

He sat at the bar in the next Cathie and Bruce Leicher on Friday afternoon.

Later they will go to the Mentor High football game. It's a common pilgrimage for Mentor residents, but this will be the last time anyone makes the jaunt from the Branding Iron to Jerome T. Osborne Stadium; because the Branding Iron Cook House closes at midnight.

"This was our place to come to before all the Mentor football games. This was the hangout," Bruce Leicher said. "It was the Cheers of Mentor."

Casper moved away from Mentor for awhile and, when he returned a few years ago, he found a lot of friends and acquaintances from the old days at the Cook House.

"I actually rekindled some friendships because I met them here," he said.

'We still wouldn't give it up'

The Branding Iron Cook House opened on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2001.

"Eleven years, eight months," said Ken Lewis, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Laura.

The Cook House survived the economic downturn after Sept. 11, 2001, and the recent recession, but it became difficult to keep up with the bills this last year, Lewis said.

"The last year, it seems like we had more slow nights than busy nights," he said.

Lewis admitted that he doesn't know what the future will bring. He worked for the Lake County Juvenile Court before opening the Branding Iron. Laura was the recreation director for the city of Willoughby.

"We will all need to find new jobs -- even our kids because both of them work here," Lewis said.

Lewis added that he would miss the people the most -- both his employees and the customers.

"We still wouldn't give it up," Lewis said of his time at the Branding Iron. "We've met so many people, made so many good friends.

For more than a decade, the Branding Iron held fundraisers for organizations and people in the community -- not just nonprofits like and Lake Humane Society but also neighborhood baseball teams and people who could not pay for their cancer treatment.

In fact, the Branding Iron stayed open until today because they traditionally feed the Mentor Cardinals football team before their first game and they wanted to respect that commitment, Lewis said.

'It's hard'

A steady stream of people came through the doors on Friday. Most of them offered hugs or words of condolences to Lewis. He, in turn, thanked them all.

"It's hard," Lewis admitted, closing the restaurant that has been his family's life for the last 11 years and eight months.

But Lewis has a sense of humor and, even on a bad day in Mentor, he can't keep it down.

"Today's been a busy day," he said with a smile. "We should close every day."