Alie Ruheim

Alie Ruheim

It’s appropriate that Alie Ruheim is hungry. After all, he owns a restaurant, Walrus Subs in Austintown.
But Ruheim is experiencing a kind of hunger that is different from the kind that gets you in the stomach. After a March 10, 2020, fire destroyed his building, and he learned after the fact that his insurance had lapsed, Ruheim is ready to get back to business.
Walrus Subs is open, again, at 1305 S. Raccoon Road.
“People are gonna come back and get the same experience,” said Ruheim, formerly of Masury. “It’s home of the valley’s best cheese steaks and gyros. Our fresh-baked bread, we’re not changing that.”
Ruheim suffered a double whammy: the fire and the COVID-19 pandemic. The fire occurred when “We were at the strongest part in my business. As a matter of fact, we were really growing. We’d become a staple, here, in the Austintown community.”
It also occurred just before the government shutdown that closed or reduced the service ability of many businesses.
“COVID has set me back beyond measures,” he said. “I probably would have been open five, six months ago had COVID not ended up playing a role. To get people out here to do anything was almost impossible.”
While Ruheim was without insurance, his landlord was not; so, at least, he got his building back. After that, he scraped together the money to set up a new kitchen and buy furniture and the other things you need to run a business.
“It’s completely renovated, literally from the pipes in the ground to the pipes in the ceiling, Everything in here is brand new, state of art, all under code.”
promoThe new building gives Walrus Subs dining room space, something he didn’t have before.
“Honestly, when I come in here, it’s not like the same place to me anymore. We’re excited about this. It’s beautiful in here.”
Ruheim said the delays gave him time to “really organize ourselves as a company, think of new business ideas, strategize. What weren’t we doing really good before that we could be doing really good now?”
“Maybe, God was trying to teach me patience,” he said.
While his short-term goals are to reestablish the quality of the food and the efficiency of the operation, Ruheim is thinking long term.
“I know where I come from,” he said. “I love my hometown. I’ve always wanted to open one there. That’s my ultimate goal.”