I wasn’t sure what to think when Lauren Wolford, group sales coordinator for Visit Cleveland, suggested we go to Heinen’s Grocery for my first stop during a recent trip through northeastern and southeastern Ohio.
A grocery is not what you would think of when planning a group itinerary. But Heinen’s changed my mind.
First of all, it is smack-dab in the middle of downtown Cleveland in an ornate former bank building with murals around the second-floor mezzanine that tell the story of the settling of the Midwest.
Heinen’s shelves are stocked with a large selection of national and local brand items, and it has full-service meat and seafood counters; artisan cheese; more than 400 craft beers, including eight cold beers on tap; and more than 1,000 varieties of wine, 40 of which you can sample from state-of-the-art wine dispensers.
“They will do wine tasting and other events for groups,” said Wolford.
In the large rotunda food court, groups have a wide range of dining choices, from a pladina wrap at the global grill, squid salad and garlic shrimp poke at the sushi bar, and gourmet meals of meatloaf and grilled marinated pork tenderloin to more than 30 specialty salads or a quick deli sandwich on a fresh-baked ciabatta or French roll.
Footsteps of the Famous
I would discover an array of distinctive Ohio destinations on my trip, including my next stop, just a few blocks down Ninth Street on the shores of Lake Erie.
“You take a fast-paced journey through the history of rock and roll,” said Sharonna Burns, director of sales for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. “It is so dynamic and very interactive, very multimedia.”
Burns said that while groups can arrange for guided tours, she thinks self-guided visits work best because of the large number of exhibits and the different tastes and likes of individual group members.
“People are often passionate about individual artists, and you can relive your favorite concert or album or CD,” she said.
There are more than 50 different exhibits and more than 20,000 artifacts, including costumes, instruments, stage props and original handwritten lyrics displayed on seven levels. There are four theaters, and booths and kiosks for listening to songs.
The signatures of the 312 members of the hall of fame are etched on a glass wall around a circular theater that shows clips of their performances on three screens.
A short walk along the lakeshore brings you to the Great Lakes Science Center, whose fun, interactive exhibits cover topics from science and space to its namesake Great Lakes.
The NASA Glenn Visitors Center is “a history of space travel — getting to space and how we live in space,” said Amanda Taunt, the director of guest experience.
The center is named for Ohio native John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, and includes artifacts from his 1963 Friendship 7 mission, along with an Apollo capsule that returned the Skylab 3 crew to Earth in 1973 and exhibits about living on the International Space Station.
Legends of Canton
The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was started in nearby Akron, and co-founder F.A. Seiberling built Stan Hywet Hall, a large mansion and gardens on the outskirts of town where he and his wife, Gertrude, were gracious hosts to many social gatherings.
I noticed the phrase “Not for us alone ”above the entrance to the sprawling Tudor Revival manor house, with its 65 rooms, 23 bathrooms, 23 fireplaces, three-story great hall, indoor swimming pool and 2,700-square-foot music room with 18-foot ceilings.
“They wanted to share the place,” said Pamela Courrier, group sales director for Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens. The Seiberlings and six of their seven children moved into the house, now a National Historic Landmark, shortly before Christmas in 1915.
Tours depict the house in its 1920s heyday.
“We try to make everything as historically accurate as possible,” said Courrier. Ninety-eight percent of the furnishings are original.
Restoration is a key word at the MAPS Air Museum in North Canton, where a group of dedicated volunteers have restored more than three-dozen vintage airplanes, among them a 1909 glider built by a local farmer and pulled by his plow horse, a B26 World War II bomber and modern jet fighters.
Its Gallery of Heroes is a large exhibit of uniforms, weapons, medals and more from several wars, mostly from local residents.
“This is real history, not a textbook,” said Reed Kimball, the director of education.
Another institution that had its beginnings in Ohio is the National Football League, founded in Canton in 1920. The Pro Football Hall of Fame in the NFL’s birthplace tells its exciting history in wide-ranging exhibits, artifacts, memorabilia, theaters and interactive activities spread through a five-building complex.
A high-definition theater authentically captures the thrill and excitement of the most recent Super Bowl, while the nearly 300 members of the hall of fame are honored with life-size bronze busts.
