Meet Mike.
Stay for dinner.

Mike Cranmer runs the kitchen—and the whole show—at Mike’s Penn Avenue Grille, the restaurant sitting on the corner of State Street and Penn Avenue in Salem, Ohio, in a building old enough to remember when fine dining meant nobody spit on the floor.

The place has been standing since 1854. Cranmer, a certified executive chef, has been running it since 2004, which in small-town years makes him basically a Founding Father with a spatula.

Twenty-plus years in, the Grille has built its name on the finest seafood and steak—a claim the regulars will happily defend with their fists if you push it. Back in 2016, Cranmer knocked out some walls and nearly doubled the seating to 80, because nothing says progress like more room for the whole graduating class of ’78 to relive glory days over prime rib. As Cranmer himself put it, people come here to meet—mostly to eat, but also to gossip, settle bar bets, and pretend they’re not ordering dessert.

These days you’ll find loyal regulars fighting over the crab-stuffed whitefish, the lobster bisque, a Cincinnati chili that has no business being this good in Columbiana County, and Jackie’s stuffed peppers—a dish with enough of a following that skipping it might get you talked about at the next reunion.