Akron Life May 2023

CUYAHOGA FALLS

by Kelly Petryszyn, photos provided by Cody LaRosa of LaRosa Media

Innovative Find The hidden Watson speakeasy is inspired by the Age of Invention.

Paper Plane

speakeasy that he opened March 10 — exactly 147 years after WKDW KLVWRULF FDOO “Thomas Watson was instru mental not only in inventing the phone but would go on to invent a lot of accessories from the phone and then went on to be a naval shipbuilder,” says Testa. “He’s fairly obscure so that obscurity led to the idea that speakeasies are obscure, hidden.” To even begin to locate the Watson, people need to sign up

for the VIP list, receive clues, follow them to what resembles a post office lobby and locate a hidden door. Inside the dark, moody spot, blue velvet sofas, gray velvet privacy curtains, Edison bulb fixtures, brass decor and candles whisk you back to around the 1860s to 1890s pre Prohibition Gilded Age, during the Age of Invention era. “Over half a million patents were issued during that Gilded Age,” Testa says, “some of them being inventions that would forever change our lives.” Many inventors were from Ohio,

like Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and Testa’s maternal grandfather, a Babcock & Wilcox engineer who invented a furnace heat exchanger. Find sketches of his grandfather’s pat ent, along with those from other inventors, inside the leather bound menu of craft cocktails and mocktails made by mixolo gists who are like inventors serv ing you drinks from their labs. The Alchemist’s Secret Garden ($19) comes out as a beaker of green chartreuse, ginger liqueur, lime, honey and mint garnished with flamed rosemary, in a lit up bamboo box with moss and

Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you. Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell spoke those words to his assistant, Thomas Watson, on March 10, 1876, during the ¿UVW HYHU SKRQH FDOO Joel Testa, CEO of Testa Dining Group, used it as the concept behind his new Watson

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akronlife.com | MAY 2023