CLEVELAND — New reports show that Cleveland has the most business per capita, but for many of those business owners, getting their doors open is harder than usual.
After a two-year wait, Natalie Bata finally opened their Cocky's Bagels Flats location, but the journey was a rough one.
“I think it was a lot of, you know, just things out of your control,” said Bata.
Their bagel story began five years ago, first with an old fair trailer, then a food truck and later their first location in North Olmsted. It was after about six months, they got the opportunity to expand to the Flats.
“We signed the lease, did it all and then COVID hit,” said Natalie.
Just like everything else, their bagel project was put on hold. Once things started to open up, they got the ball moving again but now – a different battle, this time it was staffing and supplies.
“We dealt with a huge labor shortage.” Bata continued, “We couldn't get coffee cups. We couldn't get cream cheese. We couldn't get flour for our bagels.”
Which affected both their North Olmsted location - and the one they were trying to build. Add to that, an inflated economy.
“I would say it was about 200,000 over what we had,” said Bata.
Natalie isn’t alone, Cleveland saw more than 37,000 new business applications. That's 18.18 applications per 1,000 residents compared to the national average of 16.18.
“I remember like just sitting in my sitting in there crying one day,” Bata continued. “I almost felt like defeated in a sense, because there was nothing else I could do.”
But after two years of chaos and too many delayed dates to count, they finally opened their location.
“It was just like, we did it felt like just like the biggest like, like sense of relief and like, like, weight off my shoulder,” said Bata.
So finally in Flats, Bata is serving up everything you can think of with lots more to come.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
