Nearly a year after fire tore through the second floor above their Fleet Avenue diner, the Skantzos family is getting ready to welcome customers back through the doors of Red Chimney, this time eight miles south in Parma. The family-style restaurant, a Slavic Village fixture since 1982, is expected to reopen most likely on Wednesday inside the former Pappou's Café building at 8320 Snow Road.
The relocation caps a difficult year that began on August 5, 2025, when an 11:15 a.m. fire broke out in a second-floor apartment bedroom above the restaurant at 6501 Fleet Avenue, according to Firehouse Magazine. The blaze caused an estimated $300,000 in physical damage and displaced four residents, and though flames stayed confined to the upstairs unit, water used to fight the fire heavily damaged the dining room and kitchen below. As Cleveland Scene reports, the fire forced Red Chimney to close its 43-year-old Slavic Village restaurant, and the family will welcome its first guests back roughly 12 months after that closure.
Insurance Fell Short, Demolition Followed
Rebuilding on Fleet Avenue proved financially impossible. Cleveland Scene reports that insurance coverage was limited in what it could cover on the century-old Slavic Village building, and by March, repair costs had climbed toward $1 million. Facing that gap, the Skantzos family hired former Cleveland city councilman Tony Brancatelli to help guide the building through city demolition approvals, according to NEOtrans, which noted the city building department had issued code violations for fire damage that sent the property to Cleveland Housing Court ahead of the teardown.
The Fleet Avenue building carried more than just four decades of comfort-food history. A scene from James Gunn's Superman, released in July 2025, was filmed inside the old Red Chimney, with actor Nathan Fillion playing Green Lantern in a booth during summer 2024 production, per the same Firehouse Magazine account. Manny Skantzos and his cousin even appeared as kitchen extras in the film, according to Cleveland Scene's reporting.
A New Building With Its Own Layers of History
The Parma space carries its own history. The building at 8320 Snow Road became Pappou's Café in 2001 and operated under that name for 25 years before its owners closed the eatery in early 2026 to hand the space to the Skantzos family, according to Cleveland Scene's earlier reporting. Before that, the site was Laurel's Family Restaurant in the early 1980s, and it was originally built as a Red Barn drive-in restaurant.
Red Chimney's roots trace back to Lou and Pete Skantzos, who started with a pair of hot dog carts downtown before operating It's a Deli in Lakewood, and who took over Red Chimney itself in 1999. Manny Skantzos told Cleveland Scene that keeping prices reasonable, improving what the kitchen can and serving what longtime customers expect remain the goal at the new location.
More Seats, Familiar Menu, Sharper Ingredients
The new restaurant is a completely remodeled family-style space that seats 165 people, a jump from the 110 seats the Slavic Village location held. The menu will stay familiar, according to Cleveland Scene, with breakfast served all day alongside baby beef liver and onions, stuffed cabbage, chicken paprikash, city chicken, fried chicken, meatloaf, pierogi platters, chicken noodle soup and New England clam chowder. Salads, sandwiches, wraps, burgers, steaks and chops round out the offerings, while veal parmesan is moving from the daily menu to the specials roster.
Some dishes are also getting an upgrade. Red Chimney plans to improve its chicken cutlet sub, chicken parmesan sandwich and chicken parm platter by switching to chicken that has not been previously frozen, per Cleveland Scene. Manny Skantzos said many of the restaurant's former Slavic Village customers now live near the Parma location, a shift that lines up with the region's demographics: Parma holds Ohio's largest Ukrainian and Eastern European diaspora population, with state legislative records showing 4,407 Ukrainian-American residents making up roughly 5% of the city's population, according to the Ohio House of Representatives. The city, Ohio's largest suburb and the second-largest city in Cuyahoga County with an estimated 78,581 residents as of 2025 per the U.S. Census Bureau, also hosts a designated Ukrainian Village commercial district along State Road.
A Loss Still Felt Back on Fleet Avenue
Back in Slavic Village, the loss of Red Chimney left a hole in the neighborhood's commercial core. Cleveland Ward 12 Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer surveyed the fire scene immediately after the blaze and publicly committed city and neighborhood development organizations to helping the Skantzos family rebuild, describing the diner as a historic Cleveland staple deeply rooted in the community, according to Cleveland Magazine. Local community leader Earl Pike also set up a GoFundMe to help displaced Red Chimney employees cover living expenses during the restaurant's abrupt closure, underscoring the diner's role as a longtime employer in the neighborhood.
Hoodline had named Red Chimney a top spot in the South Broadway and Slavic Village area back in 2020, highlighting menu staples like stuffed cabbage, pierogies and beer-battered cod. The restaurant's departure comes as Slavic Village continues to navigate broader redevelopment questions; Cleveland City Council voted 14-1 in July to freeze city data center approvals after rejecting a proposed $1.6 billion data center project in the neighborhood, leaving commercial real estate in the area in flux even as Red Chimney charts its next chapter a few miles south.
