clubs:
beachland ballroom and tavern (east side)
http://www.beachlandballroom.com
grog shop (new location, east side)
http://www.grogshop.gs
bars:
high and dry - jazz, food, beers on tap, good atmosphere (tremont, west side)
edisons - pizza, great beer (tremont, west side)
lava lounge - great food, great atmosphere (tremont, west side)
there's about 16,000 bars of varying degrees of annoying recently decommissioned frat guys and sorority girls up and down detroit ave, madison ave, and clifton ave (lakewood, west side).
night town - live jazz, outdoor patio, restaurant (cleveland heights, east side)
recommendation: stay away from the flats, it's not all that interesting in my opinion and has fallen into a state of utter disrepair.
restaurants:
fat cats (tremont, west side)
johnny mango's (ohio city, west side)
any place in little italy (cleveland, east side)
thrift stores/antiques are on the west side, predominantly on lorain ave.
record stores - try revolution in coventry (east side, near grog shop) or the bent crayon (west side, detroit ave)
museums are conveniently located in the 'museum district' (we're so clever up here) which is right by case western on the near east side.
the contemporary art museum warrants a gander.
the warehouse district (4th st downtown) is good for dancing if you're into that sort of thing
all that failing try . . .
http://www.cleveland.com and try to wade through all the stories about the insistant flooding up here . . . oh god, i didn't mean for that pun to happen.