New restaurant coming to Bellevue

BELLEVUE — The owners of Benchwarmers hope they'll hit a home run with their second restaurant. Brandyn Banks-Sherer and Jason Miller expect to open their second Benchwarmers location — a sports-themed restaurant, in Bellevue's former McClain's building on Main Street — on Jan. 8. They met working at Marco's Pizza and decided to open their first restaurant in Tiffin in 2017 after Miller, a Clyde-native, returned to the area. "We started talking and found we had similar ideas and thought it would be smart to offer delivery of something other than pizza," Miller said. The restaurant offers its entire menu for delivery, including salads, wraps, burgers, wings, homemade sauces and more. Banks-Sherer described the menu as high-quality bar food, but also said it's "a restaurant that serves alcohol and not a bar that serves food." It did well when the COVID-19 pandemic forced restaurants to close since it had been making deliveries for years, so they decided to move forward with their original goal of opening a second restaurant. They started looking at towns in March. "We decided on the Bellevue location because we felt there was a real need for more restaurants in this town," Banks-Sherer said. "It's the hometown feel, too," Miller added. "Tiffin is a little bigger, and we wanted to see how our idea would fit in a smaller town." Banks-Sherer and Miller were also impressed by how welcoming the city, Mayor Kevin Strucker and economic development director Dave Sabo were to new businesses. "They were proactive and motivated in working with us to bring something new to the area," Banks-Sherer said. "It's cool to experience and helped us feel more comfortable about investing in a new town and hopefully helping develop its downtown." The owners estimate they invested about $50,000 in remodeling the building, which will allow for a larger dining space than their location in Tiffin. One of the unique touches is the benches made from the recycled wood of old stadium bleachers. The first two-weeks the restaurant is open will be dine-in only as they train their staff. Eventually, it will offer pick-up and delivery for the Bellevue area. They look forward to being a part of the community and have already received positive feedback from Bellevue residents. "We see eight to 10 tables a week in Tiffin from Bellevue because they want to check us out," Banks-Sherer said.