If you have lived in Chagrin Falls for more than a year, you probably carry a mental shortcut for where to eat on a given night. Sports bar energy meant Burntwood Tavern. A quick burger on Main Street meant Flip Side. A rainy Saturday with restless kids meant driving somewhere out of town, because the building at 8200 East Washington Street had sat dark for years. None of those shortcuts work anymore.
Between early 2026 and this summer, three buildings that anchored three different categories of night out in this town all changed hands, and not one of them came back as a like-for-like replacement. The tavern became a steakhouse. The dark theater became a 68,000-square-foot complex with a restaurant, a speakeasy, and a cinema screen of its own. The burger counter became a chef's first solo restaurant. If your routing habits are still running on last year's map, you are going to keep pulling into the wrong parking lot.
Three Buildings, One Compressed Window
Here is the reshuffle in order, with the address and the month each one landed.
| Former Occupant | Now Occupies the Space | Address | Reopened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burntwood Tavern (15 years) | STEAK, from Tremont's Hangry Brands | 504 E. Washington St. | Early 2026 |
| Chagrin Cinemas (14 screens, dark since 2023) | The Hive and Honey Hill | 8200 E. Washington St. | April 2026 |
| Flip Side Burgers (closed 2024) | Eugene Tavern | 44 N. Main St. | June 2026 |
Three different kinds of night out, replaced within about six months of each other, and none of them by the same category of business that used to occupy the address. That is the part worth sitting with before we get to the menus.
The Movie Theater Became a Living Room
The building at 8200 East Washington had 14 screens when it opened in 1989 and had been closed since 2023. Kimberly and Jimmy Gibson, who had already spent more than a decade running the catering and prepared-foods business Hungry Bee in Chagrin Falls, bought the property and spent roughly three years converting it into something that does not map cleanly onto a single category. The complex opened in April 2026 with a ribbon cutting, live music, and a family screening of The Little Mermaid, and it now houses a full-service restaurant called Timberfire, a speakeasy-style bar called The Woodshed, a one-screen cinema called Screens, a 400-guest event space called Honey Hill, and a Hungry Bee market for prepared meals.
The useful thing to know if you are planning around it: the complex is closed Sundays and Mondays unless it is booked for a private event. A Sunday-night plan built on old habits will land you at a locked door.
"Both spaces are expected to open in the first quarter of 2026, which is later than initially anticipated," the Gibsons told Chagrin Valley Today as the project neared completion.
Steakhouse Energy Where the Tavern Used to Be
Burntwood Tavern ran in the building at 504 East Washington for 15 years before closing in the spring of 2025. The space sat empty for roughly a year while Hangry Brands, the company behind Tremont's STEAK, worked on a full interior and exterior redesign before opening its second location there in early 2026.
The menu mirrors the Tremont original. A Certified Angus Beef top sirloin starts at $38, with upgrades available to filet, ribeye, or tomahawk, plus a fish option for anyone not in the mood for red meat. Meals open with bottomless boxes of popcorn, and the cocktail list includes a Manhattan variation served in a flask tucked inside a hollowed-out book. STEAK also built in a seasonal outdoor sushi concept for spring 2026, so the same address now runs a steakhouse indoors and a sushi patio outside during warmer months. Because the location sits in a suburban downtown rather than an urban neighborhood, the team has leaned harder into the family side of the menu than the Tremont original does, with a free gold-wrapped kid's steak, bottomless waffle fries, and a Ferris Wheel ice cream sundae for the kids' menu.
"STEAK is not your parent's steakhouse," said Jason Beudert, president of Hangry Brands. "That includes not only the food, but the décor and vibe."
The Burger Counter Got a Chef of Its Own
Michael Schoen built his reputation on the Tinman smash burger at the Ohio City Galley back in 2018, then spent years as a collaborator rather than an owner, opening Eugene Kitchen locations inside BottleHouse Brewery spots in Lakewood and Cleveland Heights with partner Brian Benchek, and consulting on the food program at the Beachland Ballroom since early 2026. Eugene Tavern, which opened at 44 North Main Street on June 24, 2026, is his first solo restaurant.
The space had been Flip Side Burgers until that concept closed in 2024. Schoen and his brother Tim spent about three months converting the interior into a small neighborhood tavern that seats roughly 65 guests, including a 12-seat bar. Before the full opening, Schoen offered a limited menu during the town's annual Blossom Time Festival in late May, a detail that says something about how he wanted to introduce himself to Chagrin Falls: through an existing local tradition rather than a splashy grand opening on his own calendar. The full menu includes the Tinman burger in single and double form, a half-pound steak burger for anyone who wants something heavier, and a rotating list of starters, sandwiches, entrees, and homemade desserts.
"This will be a place where you and your wife or girlfriend can come on a date for a nice three-course meal with homemade desserts, or you can come in alone, sit at the bar and enjoy a burger and a beer," Schoen said.
The brothers have since launched an umbrella group called Big Day Hospitality, with a barbecue concept in North Collinwood planned for 2027. That project is outside Chagrin Falls, but it signals this was not a one-off bet on a single storefront.
What Didn't Move
Not everything on the strip changed hands. Lola's Bistro, at 86 North Main Street, has kept its footing through all of this as a French American bistro with a marble bar, a tin ceiling, and a patio that fills up on warm evenings, with entrees generally running between $31 and $50. If you want an elegant, reservation-worthy dinner without betting on a brand-new kitchen, that address has not changed.
This kind of overhaul is not new territory for this downtown, either. Back in November 2021, after the building at 25 Pleasant Drive had sat vacant for three years following Grove Hill's closure (the space had been Raintree for 42 years before that), Chris and Lynda Frate reopened it as the second location of their Concord gastropub, Pub Frato, gutting the interior down to the studs. Five years on, that project is still worth knowing about for a different reason: it is the proof that this village will reward someone willing to take on a stalled legacy building and start over, a lesson that Hangry Brands, the Gibsons, and Schoen all seem to have taken to heart in 2026.
A Quick Decision Guide for This Fall
- Splurge dinner with steakhouse polish: STEAK, 504 E. Washington St., top sirloin starts at $38.
- Family outing with a movie or live music built in: The Hive and Honey Hill, 8200 E. Washington St., but skip Sundays and Mondays unless you know it is booked for an event.
- Casual date night, solo bar seat, or a burger built by a chef who has been perfecting one for years: Eugene Tavern, 44 N. Main St.
- Elegant bistro dinner with a patio: Lola's Bistro, 86 N. Main St.
- Sports-bar energy and a deep beer list: Pub Frato, 25 Pleasant Dr.
The pattern underneath all of this is not that Chagrin Falls got a few new restaurants, which happens in any town in any given year. It is that three buildings turned over inside a single six-month stretch, and each one came back as a different kind of business than what it replaced. Burntwood's 15 years and the cinema's 34 years alone add up to almost half a century of local memory between just two of the three addresses, and that is before counting however long Flip Side held its corner of Main Street. A steakhouse where the neighborhood tavern used to be. A three-concept entertainment complex where a theater sat dark. A chef-owned tavern where a burger counter used to run its fryers. That is a faster and more complete reshuffle than most towns see in a decade, and it means the habits longtime residents built up over years of knowing exactly where to go are, for the first time in a while, worth double-checking before you leave the house.
If you are watching Chagrin Falls for reasons beyond dinner plans, whether that is a move within the Chagrin Valley or a longer look at what a changing downtown says about a neighborhood's momentum, Heather Srodek has been tracking this market and the ones around it for years. Let's Connect if you want a local read on what a stretch like this one actually means for the neighborhood.
