Salt in Lakewood Will Permanently Close in Late August

Few could have predicted the success that Jill Vedaa and Jessica Parkison would have with Salt , which opened in 2016 on Detroit Ave. in Lakewood. Vedaa's meticulously crafted and ever-changing small-plates menus have garnered praise, accolades and even a few James Beard semifinalist nominations. The restaurant tastefully challenged long-held assumptions that small plates have no place in Cleveland.

But shockingly, all that ends on August 31. In an announcement that astounded local diners, the owners have announced they will be winding down operations in a month.

"It sucks," says chef-owner Jill Vedaa, "but I’d rather go out gracefully, on a high note, and with our heads held high."

After 20 years of cooking professionally for other owners (at top-flight places like Lola, Flying Fig, Rockefeller's and Black Pig), Vedaa finally struck out on her own with Salt. She and Parkison forged a different and challenging path by going exclusively with small plates. What's more, the menus would almost completely change multiple times per year. More than three dozen menus later, it was time for a change.

Despite consistent success at Salt, Vedaa alludes to a tectonic shift in the dining landscape, one that puts small, independent restaurants like hers at a disadvantage.

"This business is changing a lot; it’s something we’ve noticed the past couple years," she explains. "It’s pretty incredible, even during Covid people were more about supporting local and getting out there. The landscape – how people are eating and drinking – has completely changed."

And Vedaa and Parkison, to their credit, helped to change that landscape as well. They pushed back -- at least for the past eight years in their small patch of Northeast Ohio -- on the notion that small plates and Cleveland diners are like oil and water.

"I feel like we’ve left a mark and we’ve hopefully changed the landscape a little bit," she adds. "But as much as I’d like to think that you can change the way people eat, it comes down to the mass majority, who want a simple menu with meat and potatoes."

Vedaa says that nothing changes at Poppy, the restaurant she and Parkison opened on Larchmere last year. And for now, she is content to look back on the great work she and her partners have produced at Salt rather than dwell on what could have been.

"Salt is my baby; I’m very, very, very proud of what we’ve done," Vedaa says. "Could we have gone longer, yeah, but where we are and where everything is in the world, I think it’s the right time."

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