Gina’s Place owner chosen as top businessperson
By Kevin Kelley
Fairview Park
Published May 17, 2006

Gina Seders, the Fairview Park Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year. (Photo courtesy of the Fairview Park Chamber of Commerce)

What started out as just a job for Gina Seders 41 years ago grew into a career as a businesswoman.

Seders, 61, has owned Gina’s Place at 21930 Lorain Road since March of 1991. But she first started working there as a waitress October 2, 1965.

Gert Barker, the owner of the restaurant, then called GB Barbeque, hired her for a one-week probationary period.

“She said, ‘I’m gonna give you a week. If I don’t like you or you don’t like me, it’s over,’” Seders recalled.

A week later, Barker sat Seders down for a meeting.

“Everybody loves you,” she told Seders. “As long as you keep smiling, you’ll do fine.”

On April 27, during a ceremony at The Rockcliff, Seders was named Fairview Park Business Person of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce.

“I was totally shocked,” Seders said of receiving the award. “I never, never, ever would have thought I would be this lucky,” she said.

When former owner Jim Akoury, who operated the same restaurant as Elma’s, planned to retire in the early 1990s, he planned to hand over the business to his children. But they didn’t want it.

“I said, ‘Well I want it,’” Seders recalled.

Fortunately, Seders and her husband, Ron, who works in the construction business, saved some money for a down payment. Seders became owner in March 1991 and renamed the establishment Gina’s Place.

Her nephew and business partner, Greg Ehrentraut, and three part-time employees help Seders run the restaurant, which serves breakfast and lunch. Gina’s Place is open Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

“We’re known for our breakfasts,” Seders told West Life.

When customers order, Seders said, the cooking on their meals begins.

“Nothing is pre-cooked,” she said.

Seders loves working in Fairview Park but has customers from all across the Westshore, some from as far as Middleburgh Heights.

Many current regulars date from when Seders began waitressing there in 1965.

“My customers are just fantastic,” she said.

But did she know she would be a restaurant owner when she served her first meal 41 years ago?

“I was hoping,” she said, “because I fell in love with the restaurant and fell in love with the people.”