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THINKING BIG
Manager looks to add dimensions around The Globe
Hubbard
Brendan Byers remembers The Globe Restaurant from when he was a child.
Then it was a smoke-filled place with a mix of local patrons, travelers and truck drivers taking the first exit off Interstate 80 in Ohio from Pennsylvania.
Byers, now 47, said that as a child, he could part the lingering vapors with his hands.
Now, he has returned to the 24-hour restaurant as its newest manager, hoping to reinvent The Globe as a “hodgepodge” of food and events that appeals to modern consumers.
This is far from his first entry into the restaurant business.
Growing up in Youngstown, Byers had parallel passions: theater production and food.
Throughout his first couple of decades, he would spend time in theater while relying on the food industry to make money.
But at some point, the weight shifted, and he found himself overseeing the opening of various chain restaurants.
During his eight years in Pittsburgh, he oversaw the opening of the Double Wide Grill on Pittsburgh’s South Side.
“Those guys really gave me free reign,” he said.
The Double Wide Grill won a list of awards, but family matters called him back home to the Mahoning Valley.
Earlier this year, he responded to an advertisement for the management position at The Globe Restaurant.
“Consumers are being much more savvy,” he said. “They are looking for dimensions of flavor in food.”
Being a truck stop “is part of who we are,” he said. “We do not want to shrug that off.”
The restaurant’s staff has always been known for its hospitality, 10-year patron Don Burn attests.
“The waitresses are all nice,” Burn, from Sharon, Pa., said while sitting with friends Jim and Margie Waldern from Youngstown’s West Side.
Byers is looking to enhance The Globe’s products with new menu times, live bands, a pizza station and cupcakes.
Globe waitress Julie Harris has been making the cupcakes, ornately decorated with frosting swirls and cherries, for the past year out of a Brookfield cottage bakery under the name M&K Cupcakes.
When Byers discovered her talent, he asked if she’d be willing to sell them at The Globe.
Harris agreed, and now her cupcakes are featured in a glass showcase at the restaurant’s entrance.
As for Byers’ acting career, he said he has been involved in a couple of productions since returning. Theater and restaurants are similar, he said.
“It’s a show,” he said of the restaurant business. In theater, “you want them to walk away thinking,” he said. “In this business, you want them walking away and thinking, ‘I want to return.’”