Restaurants in Avon Lake

T.G.I. Friday's transforms the six worst days of the week into the only day of the week that is acceptable to most Americans. Friday's is equipped to fill your life with Jack Daniel's sauce and endless salad and breadsticks. The multipronged menu contains prongs for burgers, sandwiches, salads and soups, seafood, pastas, chicken, and more so that any craving-flame can be put out.

Plating up palatable Italian cuisine for nearly 20 years, Daddona’s offers lunch and dinner menus loaded with saucy carbs, savory meats, and sautéed love. Kick-start unstopped-up stomachs to savory surfeit with a platter of olive-oil-and-garlic-sautéed Hungarian hot peppers ($5.95) or a portion of unbreaded eggplant parmigiana ($9.95). After sampling a white garlic sauce and romano-cheese-cloaked aglio e olio pizza ($6–$8), reinforce your fork’s self-esteem with a serving of pasta with meatballs or sausage ($10.90), a plate of fettuccine alfredo ($13.95), or a few thoughtful words spoken in kindness. At lunchtime, experiment with ratatouille ($7.95), Daddona’s mix of vegetables sautéed with marinara sauce and topped with mozzarella. For dinner, extend the warmest of saliva-gland welcomes to a breadcrumbed veal romano ($15.95), chicken marsala ($14.95) decorated with fresh mushrooms, or linguine-foundationed frutti di mare ($20.95) of shrimp, scallops, mussels, and clams. Wine, beer, and liquor service is available for those who suffer from water allergies.

White Oaks Restaurant began business in 1928, but its doors wouldn’t open until staff had spied visitors through a peephole, creating an aura of mystery that’s never quite left this fine-dining establishment. Proudly touting its history as a hotspot for imported booze and high-stakes gambling during the Prohibition era, the restaurant—voted Cleveland's best romantic restaurant by viewers of Fox 8 in 2011—now celebrates the legalization of spirits with a towering wine rack and solid-gold bust of Johnnie Walker. Six wood-burning fireplaces cast their crimson glow off plates piled with high-end American cuisine, from succulent seafood to creative game dishes such as venison. Elegant wood paneling spans the lodge-like dining room, where a glass wall on the east end overlooks an arboreal wonderland and burbling creek.

Al "Bubba" Baker is no stranger to awards. The former NFL lineman went to three pro bowls during his career and was named 1978's Defensive Rookie of the Year. Upon his retirement from the field, Bubba yearned for a return to his southern roots, and so he and his wife Sabrina decided to open a barbecue restaurant using secret family recipes stemming all the way back to the 1950s. Those time-honored techniques include marinating dry-rubbed pork, brisket, and ribs overnight, and then slow-smoking them for hours over smoldering piles of Ohio-grown applewood. It's a painstaking process, but it pays—today, Bubba's trophy case is filled with myriad awards for his succulent cuisine, including four Silver Spoon recognitions from Cleveland Magazine for Best Ribs and Best Barbecue Restaurant.

While many barbecue joints taut ribs that are boneless, Bubba's takes things a step further by de-boning baby back ribs through an patented process that leaves them easily mastered with a knife and fork or spare fencing sword. Bourbon adds an extra flair to boneless beef short ribs, which are sautéed in Bubba's signature barbecue sauce, splashed with bourbon, and set aflame before serving, and southern fried chicken owes its own crispy exterior to a secret batter invented by Bubba's momma, Ernestine. The kitchen also ladles its famous pulled meats onto baskets of fries and on sandwiches to create easy handheld eats, which may be enjoyed in the sports-themed dining room or out on the covered patio, where an inset fireplace keeps things warm and cozy in true down-homestyle.

A colorful mural of a lakeside beach stretches across Casita del Lago's dining room—a nod to the restaurant's name, which translates to "little house by the lake." Soft hanging lanterns and a crackling fireplace bathe the room in light, illuminating the colorful glazed pottery that lines the walls. In the kitchen, chefs chop fresh ingredients for the homemade salsa that glazes over traditional dishes, as saucepans simmer with their signature mole sauce. Behind a sprawling bar, bartenders dole out pitchers of fruity margaritas and bottles of imported Mexican beer. Outside, tabletops speckle their outdoor patio and bar, where guests can bask beneath the sunlight.

Even though they lose each year's Revolutionary War re-creation, the British maintain at least one outpost in the Eastern Standard time zone. Visit Cleveland’s Little England with today’s Groupon, which gets you $15 worth of healthy lunch fare for $7 at Picc-A-Deli Café in Westlake. This Groupon is good for dine-in or takeaway (that's carryout in English).