SOLON, Ohio -- Cleveland Restaurant Management Group is quickly making a name for itself as it acquires and opens delis, diners and other restaurants around Northeast Ohio.
The CRMG portfolio started with Adam’s Place in Euclid, Manhattan Deli in Willoughby, Victoria’s Deli & Restaurant in Parma, D’Italia in Westlake and Eat at Joe’s in South Euclid.
In the past year, additions have included Angela Mia’s Pizza Express in East Cleveland, Capriccio’s in Solon, Jack’s Deli in University Heights, Lopez 44 in Chagrin Falls, Oddfellows in Chagrin Falls and Original Pancake Houses in Woodmere, Strongsville, Avon and soon-to-be Fairview Park.
It’s an incongruous mix of dining categories, and the entrepreneur investors may be an unexpected collection as well.
At the helm is Marc Glassman, the largest investor in CRMG, but best known as the founder and CEO of 61 Marc’s stores throughout the Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Youngstown and Columbus areas. Glassman, had his first restaurant – Big Burger – when he was at Harvard University in the 1970s. Fast forward and today he’s building a collection of both brands and independents. Sometimes his team enhances an existing business, other times it creates an entirely new concept.
Glassman, who never talks to reporters, shared information through company president Paul Tomko.
Tomko, a businessman and former business college professor, is getting a second chance with CRMG after making bad decisions in the 2010s. But more on that later.

In 2024, the core team was joined by restaurateurs Brad Friedlander and Michael Dubois. Both men have decades of restaurant experience. Together they are working with CRMG to is build new brands
Friedlander is known for creating Lopez y Gonzalez, Moxie and Red among other restaurants. With no intention of retiring, Friedlander says his life experiences contribute to his hospitality business insight.
“I’m out all the time,” he says. “I’m very passionate about food and I research restaurants all over the world. All I think about is food. I’m lucky enough to be involved with some wonderful chefs over the years.”
He’s helped shape a who’s who of local (and national) chefs of today, including Rick Bayliss, Doug Katz, Jonathan Bennett, Tim Bando, Eric Williams and more.
Friedlander and Glassman joined forces when they were competing to buy a Lakewood restaurant. Ultimately, neither bought that property, but they decided to work together in the future, eventually creating OddFellows.
Dubois started his career in the restaurant business with Tony Sacco’s Coal Oven Pizza. One of which was in Mentor. After selling his 18 locations, he laughs that he vowed to never return to the restaurant business.
By 2017, he changed his mind. He was approached by the owners of The Imperial Wok in Solon who wanted to retire. In two years, he doubled the business and still owns it today. He also opened and ran the now closed Birdigo, a fast-casual chicken concept in Solon.
Dubois also brokers restaurants, as in matching sellers and buyers.
“I’m finding restaurants for the restaurant group,” says Dubois. “I bring to Marc and Paul and we decided if we’re going to buy them or pass.”
Currently Friedlander and Dubois are part of a CRMG team creating “The Legacy,” a culmination of the best of Friedlander’s career paired with some new, exciting and innovative offerings by Chef Julian Kuczma. This project is slated for a Thanksgiving opening.

Other investors in CRMG restaurants include Glassman’s best friends, businessmen Bob Reiner and Gregg Wasilko, as well as former Cavaliers coach Mike Fratello, Dubois, Friedlander and more.
Each restaurant may have a different combination of investors.
“Most people solicit us to come into the [investor] group,” says Tomko. “For an investor to come into our group, they have to bring a significant value, an expertise for our collaboration. They must have strengths with contracts, law, accounting, business.”
Investors are often active. When Capriccio’s in Solon was in planning stages, Tomko says up to 20 investors were on calls several times a week.
“Everyone gets an opportunity to talk on every single call,” he notes. “It seems to be working. It’s so important to have so many voices, so many eyes.”

Stories by Paris Wolfe
For Tomko, the top job at Cleveland Restaurant Management Group is both a second act and a second chance. Tomko, a former college professor and FBI informant, was convicted of mortgage fraud in 2013. The felony put him in federal prison in West Virginia for seven years. He wrote a 300-page book about his experience, “Freedom for Granted.”
After prison, when Tomko was still in a halfway house, he worked at companies Glassman owns. Among his jobs were washing dishes and cooking at Fisher’s American Tavern in Solon. The tavern is now Capriccio’s.
One day three years ago, when Tomko was cooking at the tavern, he overheard a coffee sales rep talking about the closing of a Parma deli. Curious, he approached the rep and learned that the owner of Victoria’s Deli & Restaurant in Parma was retiring and closing the neighborhood spot.
At 7 a.m. the next morning, Tomko shared the deli story with Glassman. By 9 a.m., Glassman was at Victoria’s giving his business card to the owner. She returned it saying she wasn’t interested in buying his produce because she was closing.
Glassman told her he would buy the deli. By 3 p.m. on the same day, Glassman and Tomko arranged the purchase.
“The look on her face was so heartwarming,” says Tomko. “She just stared at Marc like he was some kind of angel. I don’t know if it was his philanthropy or altruism making the decision.”
Over the years, Glassman and his collection of investors have been accumulating delis, diners and restaurants that were at risk of closing. At first, quietly and now more publicly.
More recently, Tomko was gaining increasingly more responsibility in the business because of his education, experience and talent.
“When Marc can save something, he wants to,” says Tomko, referring, perhaps, to himself as much as the restaurants. “It seems that the more important a location is to a neighborhood, the more interested he becomes. He wants to carry on that tradition. He doesn’t want things to close, like Victoria’s would have.”
With delis and diners facing extinction, plenty of opportunities are surfacing for CRMG. Opportunities to own and reinvent dining spots.
“Marc has our team trying to create the next deli,” he says. “We’re trying to figure out what direction to make our delis different and to modernize the delis without losing the legacy, heritage and magic.”
“We’re trying to figure out what is best to bring in the new generation,” he says.
That doesn’t mean he’ll acquire just any struggling restaurant.
“We buy restaurants that fit our strengths, technology and offer economies of scale,” Tomko says. “The vision is to take restaurants who have fallen on hard time or owners who want to retire and giving them a second life by running them through our process.”
That process means sending in a corporate team including CRMG Executive Chef Julian Kuczma -- Friedlander’s former stepson -- and other kitchen staff manage the culinary transition.
“The opening team is my guys,” says Kuczma, who grew up working and eating in fine dining restaurants before becoming a chef. His “guys” include another chef and three line cooks.
“You have your veterans to open and slowly transition to the people who are going to work there,” he says. “We go into the restaurant, install a system, then we gradually start replacing our team.”
Things weren’t always so smooth. CRMG acquired Pickle Mama’s in Medina in August of 2022 and closed it four months later. The restaurant was then sold to outside the CRMG group.
“We had one that didn’t work out,” Tomko says. “Marc bought because owner had cancer. They were going to buy it back when he got better. It didn’t work out.”
The story was much different at Fisher’s American Tavern which became Capriccio’s earlier this year.
Owner Scott Fisher was born and raised in the restaurant business.
“My father used to run The Theatrical [in downtown Cleveland],” he says. Eventually he bought Fisher’s American Tavern in Solon. The second generation, Scott, eventually took it over, updated it and made it a good local burger place.
“For various reasons I had to part with that,” he says. “I love the restaurant business. So, Paul and I had numerous conversations about the future of CRMG.”
Eventually, Fisher sold the restaurant to CRMG and became part of the company’s management team.
The company is in growth mode. Five new restaurants – some new concepts -- are scheduled to open this year.
“I pinch myself every day for this opportunity,” Tomko says. “When I first met with Marc every piece of clothing I had was from Goodwill.”
Today, Tomko is part of a professional team growing a restaurant collection.
“Marc’s primary strategy is to buy magic, make sure we don’t screw up that magic,” he says. “We want to preserve what it is about the restaurants that people love and keep everything moving along.”
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Oddfellows opens this week in former Aurelia in Chagrin Falls (photos)
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Send dining, drinking and culture story ideas to Paris Wolfe at pwolfe@cleveland.com. Review her previous stories here. Follow Paris Wolfe on Instagram @pariswolfe.