GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE

GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE: OLD CHARM, MODERN ACCESS

By Steve Wright and Heidi Johnson-Wright

After dark on a warm summer evening, the lights twinkle and music drifts from the amusement park and laughter swells from vacationers wandering in and out of arcades and smells of fresh popcorn and pizza are as seductive as a siren’s song.

Visiting Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio means stepping back in time to a younger, more innocent, optimistic America. It’s a wonderful, relaxing, inexpensive place for a summer weekend.

Although this quaint resort town on the shores of Lake Erie harkens back to a by-gone era, plenty of shops, restaurants and arcades provide wheelchair access.

Walking the mile-long strip is entertainment in itself. There are decent curbcuts and crosswalks, but no stoplights, so crossing with others is advisable.

Lots of motels -- the types of places families with kids would stop at after a long day on the road cooped up in the station wagon with faux-wood paneling on the sides.

Motels whose signs say, “color TV by RCA” and “heated pool” and “direct-dial phones.” the rooms are likely to be decorated in shocking shades of orange and aqua and green.


There are no snooty restaurants that serve tiny portions and require reservations. It’s hot dogs and cotton candy and fresh donuts from the local bakeries and stores with eye-popping selections of candy you thought had stopped being made circa 1978.

Try a hot dog with mild, sweet chili sauce at Eddie’s Grill. Little has changed at Eddie's since the open-air institution opened its doors more than a half century ago.

Follow it up with a jelly-filled from Madsen Donuts, serving tasty, warm-from-the-oven treasures since 1938. A chocolate-iced donut from Madsen's could tempt an avowed dieter into submission.

While enjoying Geneva-on-the-Lake's brief summer season, you forget about calories and fat and cholesterol.

Instead you want to see for yourself if the dogs at the drive-in really are a foot long and if they serve the biggest ice cream cones and the creamiest root beer.

The arcades – who needs X-Box and Play Station when there’s skee ball and spider stomp and games that require the finesse to roll balls and score so that the mechanical duck inside the machine will give a friendly quack and reward the player’s skill with a steady spitting of a stream of tickets.


The access of the games is hit or miss, but in the larger arcades there’s enough variety so wheelchair users can find something to play. Some are more crowded with machines and people than others. Most are accessible at the main entrances.

The tickets – like cigarettes in prison, they’re as valuable as gold, especially to the adults who’ve temporarily regressed back to childhood and certain life as we know it will end if they don’t have enough points to buy that wildly colored jester’s hat or the practical joke garlic gum or some of the Cleveland Indians’ gear.


The park near our motel – peaceful, quiet, clean. The sunset over Lake Erie may be the cheapest spectacle around. It’s a place that makes visitors want to sit and talk and forget about jobs and mortgage payments.


The accessible ramped boardwalk – starts at the top of a hill. Vacationers can stay near the top for a good view of the freighters on the horizon or take the gently graded ramps that allow access near to the edge of the surf. Get closer to the lake and the waves lull and hypnotize.

If you go

• Geneva-on-the-Lake, located halfway between Cleveland and Erie, Pa., is focused toward a season that runs roughly from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Its Visitors’ Bureau/Chamber of Commerce is at: 5536 Lake Rd., Geneva-on-the-Lake, OH 44041, or phone: (800) 862-9948, or on-line: http://www.visitgenevaonthelake.com

• Eddie's Grill, 5377 Lake Road E., (440) 466-8720.

• Madsen Donuts, 5425 Lake Road E., (440) 466-5884.