UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio -- It’s all in the sauce for Chef Victor Searcy and, to prove it, he named his business Sauce The City.
Renowned for its Hot Cleveland chicken sandwich, seasoning and yes, sauces, Sauce The City will be holding its University Heights opening Monday at 14480 Cedar Road (former home of Fish Stix restaurant), near the Cedar-Green intersection. That opening will piggyback on the success Searcy has already experienced by selling his creations on game days at First Energy Stadium, home of the Cleveland Browns, and at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse during Cleveland Cavaliers games. Searcy is also in talks for Sauce The City to open at Progressive Field during Cleveland Guardians games, and at the Cleveland Zoo.
“We have a sauce for everybody in the family,” said Searcy. “Everybody from grandma all the way to the babies.”
In all, there are seven sauces from which to choose while eating food from Sauce The City. While the word “sauce” is included in the business’s name, Searcy said that it may well be that the seasoning added to all of its menu items that is the star of the show.
“It’s called the Cleveland Hot chicken sandwich,” Searcy said, making clear that his is a distinctive, extraordinary chicken sandwich. While people may be familiar with Nashville hot chicken, Searcy has created something different.
“We did some research on the cultures that started Cleveland,” Searcy said. “We were like a mini-New York. We had the factories here. We had the Italians, we had the Polish, Hungarians, Africans, Black folks were here. We had Asians. Everyone was here, just working. We tried to take pieces from everybody’s culture and put it into a season, and it came out to this smoky, super flavorful, hot seasoning. So we use that on every sandwich and menu item that we have.
Chef Victor Searcy of Sauce The City
“It’s got a smokiness to it, but not a burning hot flavor,” he said. “So you can add it to just about anything without putting people off or saying it’s too hot.” Nashville hot, Searcy said, can be too hot for some and, he added, “it uses hot oil. We just use seasoning.”
A sauce that is frequently used on the Cleveland Hot Chicken Sandwich is the d’ete (French for summery). “That’s a family sauce. Everybody loves it,” Searcy said. “It’s sweet and it’s healthy because it’s made from fruits and vegetables. Kids and family members love it.
“We put the d’ete in while we cook or fry or grill the chicken -- or however you want it. We toss it in the sauce and we make wings, tenders, chicken sandwiches and salads.”
Sauce the City also offers all-beef franks, but, because of its close proximity to Swensons Drive-In, will not sell burgers.
A special side dish is elote, or grilled Mexican street corn. “This is a good one,” Searcy said. “We use our own signature mayo, then we use the cotija cheese to coat it, and then we sprinkle Cleveland Hot (seasoning) over it. Then we drizzle it with crema, which is a mild cream sauce, to cool it down. Then we add a little accent of parsley.”
Other sides include double crunch fries and the Cleveland salad (spring fresh greens, fresh peaches, pickle red onions, cotija cheese, all drizzled with d’ete sauce).
“This is a gourmet experience,” Searcy said of eating from Sauce The City. “We hand cut everything. We use local vendors for every item. We don’t use the big chains.”
Educated at Benedictine High School, Kent State University and Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory), Searcy began Sauce The City in 2018 and worked out of a food hall with other restaurants on West 25th Street. With the closing of the Ohio City Galley, the University Heights location (other than stadiums and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse) will be the only Sauce The City location.
Searcy said he chose the location because, even when located on West 25th Street, about 80 percent of his customers were from the Heights area. He also likes the traffic at the Cedar-Green intersection, the fact that both John Carroll University and Notre Dame College are nearby, and the area’s diverse population.
“And the city (of University Heights) was very helpful to me with all the things I had to do to get started here,” he said.
While on West 25th, Searcy said Sauce The City often had long lines of customers and the occasional celebrity guest. While working at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse during last weekend’s NBA All-Star Game and festivities, Searcy was surprised when a couple of customers asked to see him. Those customers were Meta Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and its Chief Business Officer Marne Levine.
“They just came up and said they wanted to talk to me and sat down with their families,” he said. “They asked, ‘What’s your story? We hear your chicken sandwiches are the best in the city.’ They said (after sampling the food), ‘Wow! You need to come to LA. This is crazy.’ That was a shock to me. I didn’t even know who they were until we Googled them. I was like, ‘Whoa.’ I wasn’t giving them the full attention they deserved. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ That was the highlight of the All-Star (weekend).”
The University Heights Sauce The City will serve only carryout. The store will be open for business from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays. To order, call 216-795-5033 or visit saucethecitycleveland.com. The business can also be found on Instagram and Facebook.
Speaking of why customers should give Sauce the City a try, Searcy said, “Literally, the flavor here is going to change people’s lives. Our food has a nostalgic-type effect on people. It makes them go back to the good times or the old times, when mom cooked her special meal. When you bite into our food, that’s what you’re going to feel. You’re going to taste the actual craft that we put into our food.”
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