By WCPO staff
SHARONVILLE — At the Wing Champ soft opening, owner Liz Rogers said she believes her new Sharonville eatery will be the start of a triumphant second act.
Rogers, who walked away from a Banks restaurant project owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city of Cincinnati, is trying again with a concept she calls “Cincinnati’s one-and-only juke joint.”
“We’re going to be bringing a lot of jazz, a lot of blues and some really good Southern-style cooking,” Rogers said. “I’m just, like, really excited, just about the new chapter of my life, being a restaurateur and an executive chef right now.”
Rogers said she hopes it will be a place folks can unwind while enjoying live music and down-home eats along a popular Sharonville thoroughfare.
Mahogany’s at the Banks, opened in 2012 with the help of a $300,000 loan and $684,000 grant from the city. When it closed in 2014, then-City Manager Harry Black made a deal in 2015 to forgive almost all of the city money she received, only asking Rogers to repay $100,000. By mid-2018, she had repaid $3,200.
Despite the setbacks, Rogers says she’s looking ahead at new successes.