Topiary Park, located in downtown Columbus, made its debut during the whole AmeriFlora extravaganza in 1992. Even so, maybe it’s me, but I don’t recall hearing anything whatsoever about this phenomenal art installation until the early 2000s – at the earliest. The 1980s and 90s were very commercially oriented times, and unless you were a major business, or OSU (not that those two are mutually exclusive by any means) or maybe in more frivolous moments a big name musician who knew the right people, you were not getting any press whatsoever in this town during that whole era. Then again, maybe I have no room to talk, considering I’ve been working on this site for over a decade now, and am only now getting around to tackling Topiary Park myself.
But I mean, for a solid ten year stretch there I must have been in about the 99th percentile, city-wide, as far as who was reading the most actual print news publications here in C-bus, about C-bus, and despite all that…I had never heard of Topiary Park, much less been there. And going to the main branch of the library a ton, too! Which made it all the more bizarre to learn at some point, at least a decade down the road, that this park was located directly behind it, this entire time. My basic reaction could then be summarized as, “heh? What the hell!? I never knew about this!”
I feel like in the 21st century, there’s been more of a movement to slow down and say, okay, maybe we don’t need to pump up our commercial interests 100% of the time in these cities. It’s alright to appreciate the finer things, you might even wish to donate a few paragraphs in your (online) publications to something that doesn’t really make any money, every once in a while. After all, I think this is how I eventually first learned about Topiary Park.
So okay, for those who aren’t in the know, this is apparently the only park in the world which is 100% based upon a single painting. The artwork in question is Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte. During a recent visit there, I took some photos, and while I’m not sure any of these capture any angles that would make the connection apparent to you, they still look kind of cool anyway.
Among the first mysteries you will discover here, if approaching from the Library Park side, is that this place is apparently technically Topiary Garden, or even The Topiary Garden. Yet almost anything you will ever see refers to it instead as Topiary Park. This slight alteration over time is not unheard of – for example witness the name chiseled in stone at semi-nearby Brewmasters Gate, though listed almost everywhere else as “Brewmaster’s” – but I’m always curious at what point people effectively said, eh, screw that, I’m calling it something slightly different.
It’s possible this sign was never accurate, however, considering there is at least one notable blunder, a major omission near the bottom. Though crediting the entire project to James T. Mason, his wife Elaine was heavily involved too. They worked for the Parks and Recreation department, and when city leaders were scrambling their brains for ways to tie this then-neglected area in with the whole AmeriFlora bit (a 500th anniversary celebration of the imperialist our city was named after), Elaine was the one who came up with the idea.
“She was the first topiarist,” Carlene Palmquist, director of the nonprofit Friends of the Topiary Park, said in a 2017 interview with WOSU, “we like to say the brains behind the garden.”
So Elaine designed the thing, while her husband, the sculptor, set about carving out her designs from the shrubbery. This duo got to work in 1989, and it took some three years to reach completion. Prior to this, Ohio School for the Deaf was located on this site, before moving to its current location at 500 Morse Road. Then, in 1981, a fire destroyed most of the school, after which nearly all that remained was also demolished (basically just one building, that which is now known Cristo Rey High School, survived all this carnage). As part of Jim and Elaine Mason’s master plan, getting to work on this vision for transforming it, they didn’t just install the sculpted plants, either, but also a pond, some hills, and an iron fence around the park. A little later, in 1998, the gatehouse building was added, which includes a gift shop and information desk.
I didn’t follow the instructions on the sign, as far as comparing the scenery vs. the painting, mostly because it was cold and I was kind of in a hurry. But below are some of the better shots I captured on this afternoon. In addition to all the people and a few dogs, there is also exactly one cat and one monkey included among these figures. However, you can’t really spot them in any of the pictures I took – although this just gives you an excellent excuse to explore these grounds on your own.
This has already been a fun, if sprawling and chaotic, section to tackle. Expect frequent changes as I continue to add to and revise the page. It’s probably going to take a while to get a handle on this region – so just maybe, if you can, try and avoid these orange construction cones and blinking arrows straight out of the Spring-Sandusky interchange mess. Until I figure out a better way to organize it, there are three different ways to navigate this page. Down below is another of these crude maps which you have come to know and love. You can click on any of the district/street names to jump to that section. Below that, there’s an alphabetized list by area, if you prefer. Or of course you could always just keep reading, too:
Uptown District (everything north of Broad that isn’t covered elsewhere)
-Arena District-
The Basement
(391 Neil Avenue). Concert venue, smaller in scale than Express Live! next door. I remember ex-almost-Beatle Pete Best played here once. Mostly, though, in my experience, the upstairs bar is utilized as a pregame spot for concerts held at 405 Neil Avenue.
The Boat House Restaurant
(679 W. Spring Street) Charming comfort food spot with great view of downtown, in the shadow of Highway 315, on a little strip of land where the Scioto and Olentangy rivers diverge.
Chipotle
(401 N. Front St.) I believe this one opened in early 2001. Hard to imagine a time when this (and every) city wasn’t entirely overrun with these puppies.
Express Live!
(405 Neil Avenue). Despite whatever name you give this venue (I still fight the urge to call it Promowest Pavilion) it remains a nifty spot, roughly 20 years in, whereby bands can either play indoors or outdoors depending upon the weather. The best show I’ve seen here has probably been Buddy Guy and the worst without question was Little Feat.
Huntington Park
(it has an address, of course, though as is often the case, I feel it’s more instructive to tell people this sits at the corner of Neil and Nationwide). This is the current, still relatively new home of the Columbus Clippers baseball team.
(191 W Nationwide Blvd) As if you couldn’t guess, a somewhat upscale yet frontier themed, wild wild west type steakhouse establishment. Awesome food, though, it must be said. But they do have these all over the place and you might already be familiar with the chain. Erin and I are especially partial to what they call Almost Pickles here, as far as an appetizer goes.
(honorable mention/the departed)
106 Vine St.
BBR Restaurant gave this space a go most recently, though they gave up the ghost at some point earlier this decade. A sports bar with a motto of “Rock It Out,” and advertising Eat, Drink, Sports as its tentpole attractions, they also displayed 106 West Vine on the building front, as their address. Although there is no East Vine.
Before this, Strada was a popular restaurant here, for many a year. As of January ‘01 they had live jazz every Friday night, open til midnight Fri & Sat. Spanish paella recipe: chorizo, mussels, chicken, calamari, shrimp, scallops and pork tenderloin tossed with peas, a traditional saffron rice. Calamari roll recipe: tenderized calamari dipped in francaisse, wrapped around crabmeat, roasted poblanos, boursin cheese, drizzled with jalapeno beurre blanc.
Mekka
Technically this would have sat just outside of the self-imposed boundaries of my little downtown map here. It was an insanely popular club here in town for a couple years in the late 90s. They would also host the odd national touring musician on occasion. According to the historical records I’m researching, its address was 382 Dublin Avenue, which doesn’t even exist anymore. If you’re talking about 382 Dublin Road, I think that’s more or less the same vicinity, but if I’m not mistaken they totally revamped the streets around here when the Arena District went in. So it’s not 100% accurate, either. But of course I could be wrong about that.
Well, anyway, whatever the particulars at that time, it was located in the old Buggy Works building. Opened by a guy named Tom Higgins. We came here just once but I remember it was difficult to find, back then. Which only served to enhance its mystique. It looks like Eve 6 and Lit played here on 4/6/99, Men At Work on 9/11/99. By February 2000 they were closed, however, possibly even earlier.
One Nation
(Nationwide Building) Its time here would have preceeded anyone actually referring to this area as the Arena District. Located on the 38th floor of the towering Nationwide headquarters, it was a restaurant open for twenty years, from 1977-97, and had a number of different regionally themed rooms. Both it and the external glass elevator used to reach the restaurant afforded awesome views of the city.
Water Works
(225 N. Front Street) Former semi-notorious restaurant whose heyday peaked in the 1980s. This address no longer exists, as the entire block and then some has been eaten up by a Nationwide parking garage. Opened on the site of a former warehouse basement, everything here was water themed – but not necessarily in a nautical sense. For example, seating fashioned out of bathtubs, manhole cover shaped menus, dishes with highly questionable names such as Salt-Water Station Scampi. The fare was apparently semi-decent to respectable, and it lasted from 1971-87. But, I don’t know, with a gimmick like this, it’s somewhat surprising they stuck around that long.
Though downtown as a whole has been plagued by this to some extent, the Brewery District is unique in that I feel like for 20 plus years now, there’s been this trend of bars blowing into here with a ton of hype, and being packed to the gills in what has always been a happening district – in other words, a theoretically sustainable business – but then the masses stop showing up overnight, a few months down the road, and the place is toast before you know it.
This has its own standalone page now. So if interested please click either the name above or else right here.
-E. Broad Street-
12 E. Broad Street
Nothing is here at the moment, though it was most recently Jack & Benny’s Downtown Diner. A fascinating cycle of upturns and downswings brought this all-day-breakfast operation downtown again. After their initial run basically right next door (6 E. Broad) ended in 1972, they relocated to the north campus location on High, which still exists to this day. Recent, more prosperous times led to adding this 2nd restaurant, however, and even a 3rd, out at the OSU airport. The downtown location had a tough go of it in the COVID era, though, and were regrettably forced to close their doors.
The original stop at 6 E. Broad, which lasted 18 years, for the majority of that lifespan was connected to another restaurant Jack Sher & Benny Klein owned, Benny Klein’s Charcoal Steak House. Located just around the corner, on High, and accessible via tunnel.
Rhodes State Office Tower
(30 E. Broad Street) A totally free observation deck might be one of the city’s best kept secrets. All that’s needed is a photo ID, and there are even guided tours available.
Columbus Dispatch
Columbus Dispatch
(62 E. Broad) – Home of the city’s major daily newspaper. I don’t feel like Cleveland bests Columbus in very many categories, but this is one exception – The Plain Dealer has always been a better paper. A lot of people, including some of my friends and I, were vaguely horrified when the Dispatch bought up treasured weekly independents, The Other Paper and Alive! True to form, they soon axed The Other Paper, citing overkill. In fairness, however, I will say they didn’t really seem to tinker with Alive! much, far less than expected.
The Dispatch website is highly annoying, however. Even after registering for 5 free articles per month, and logging in, I can’t seem to get the pop-up to go away, which greys out and blocks the remainder of the screen…asking you to either register, log-in, or pay for access. So you might get 5 “free reads” per month, but only in a mathematical model where 5 also equals 0. Overall, while the Disgrace nickname might be a tad excessive, I feel this is only an average or slightly below average newspaper for a city like ours.
112 E. Broad Street
The original site for Maramor restaurant, which was apparently just a house back then. Definitely hard to picture now. A Lazarus employee, Mary Love, opened it in 1920. This closed after a short while, as she moved out west, but then returned to reopen a different spot diagonally across the street (137 E. Broad), which was highly regarded and lasted deep into the 1960s.
257 E. Broad Street
Formerly the location of the first ever Wendy’s restaurant, from November 15, 1969 to March 2, 2007. If you see old pictures of this building, with rounded glass walls topped by blue and white vertical stripes, yeah, it really didn’t change that much over the years, aside from gradually becoming a Wendy’s museum of sorts, too. Declining sales led them to bulldozing the structure completely.
The only Wendy’s trace now is a historical marker in this grassy strip along the sidewalk. Just behind where the restaurant would have sat, though, is The Catholic Foundation, which also houses the totally free Museum of Catholic Art and History, an underrated gem you probably haven’t heard much about. STRS Ohio, an investment service, also calls this address home.
Prior to Wendy’s, it was part of Bill Kay’s Oldsmobile operation. Between the two, I’ve seen it listed as the site for Tommy Henrich’s restaurant, although other sources show the address as 247 E. Broad. So I’m not sure if it was one big connected space or if there’s an error of some sort there.
Motorists Mutual Insurance
(471 E. Broad) – Tall, funky looking dark brown building has a distinct 1970’s appearance to it, though I’m not actually sure how old it is. My ex-girlfriend Heather’s grandma worked here for eons and wound up retiring from the place. She used to buy Amway soap from me and I personally delivered some to her here once.
The Bluestone
(583 E. Broad) – Originally a First Baptist church which was built in 1898, and has undergone many changes since then. A short lived incarnation as Bar Of Modern Art (2006-2010) was considered by most an interesting but doomed concept, and this proved somewhat correct – although for this to last even four years is somewhat amazing. As the Bluestone it’s now an events venue which books live musical acts, too, both local and touring ones, as well as garden variety catering and banquet type happenings. My stepdaughter Maddie recently had her senior prom in this building, for example. They also host occasional national acts and events like Melted Festival. Here’s one song from Kikagaku Moyo playing the 2019 edition:
I’m not really sure where downtown is officially considered to end out this way, but the point where it crosses over I-71 seems as good as any. From here, you start getting into the Olde Towne East district.
-W. Broad Street-
LeVeque Tower
LeVeque Tower
(50 W. Broad Street). Completed in 1927, this was once the tallest building in town. My ex-girlfriend Jill’s grandfather Carl did some electrical work on this massive structure back in its early days. In 1986, a sinkhole opened up on Broad Street pretty much right in front of it – if I remember correctly, it only ate one car. Some dude was driving along and the road caved in beneath him. Can you imagine? It’s hard to say whether this would make you want to buy a lottery ticket that day, or enter the witness protection program.
Technically speaking, anything west of the Scioto, from this bridge pictured above clear out to where 70 crosses Broad, is considered part of Franklinton. However in my experience, people are much more likely to refer to these following landmarks as “downtown,” and I am the same way. I’m not sure where the unspoken line exists, but this seems to be a fairly accurate decoder key:
You’ve been there = downtown
Anything west of that = Franklinton
Franklinton is actually older than Columbus. I’ve read somewhere that there were businessmen doing brisk commerce in the early 1800s, offering boat rides across the river. Is this for real? I thought those older folk were supposed to be hardier types. I feel like I’m seriously out of shape now, but could still easily swim across the Scioto. Then again, this might prove difficult if attempting to hold onto your bonnet or top hat.
National Veterans Memorial and Museum
(300 W. Broad Street) An impressive and modern looking facility. Oddly enough, one of the city’s top concert venues used to be located on this site, the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Elvis played two shows here, on the same night in 1956, and as far as I can tell this is also where R.E.M. made their Ohio debut. That Arnold Schwarzenegger statue, in front of the Convention Center now, was originally here – it was moved when Vets Auditorium met the wrecking ball. This has something to do with a televised Mr. World strongman competition from 1970, which Arnold won right here, catapulting him into fame.
(333 W. Broad Street). Center of Science and Industry. It’s an okay spot, though much less exciting than one might imagine. A trip to the zoo or the Ohio Historical Society easily offers you much more bang for your buck. Only recommended if you’ve never been and are burned out on all the other similar options in town.
(honorable mention/the departed)
11 W. Broad St.
Former site of a Doersam’s restaurant, one of at least 4 around town (all within a close proximity, too – a North High, a South High, and an East Gay Street location). They were a burger joint that also served alcohol. This one closed at some point in the early 60s, and by 1970, the building itself was demolished. Cinco’s sits roughly in the same place now, though given a South High address.
-Downtown Proper-
(click on images in map to read more)
122 E. Main St.
Sidebar Columbus, The Cave Bar And Lounge, and the Pretty In Ink “permanent make-up clinic” are all located here now.
From 1991-95 it was a trendy restaurant called David’s On Main/David’s Down Under. Which went under in short order, indeed, due to plumbing and other maintenance issues. Although during this time, owner David Pelzman made national headlines and even Good Morning America for suing a would-be customer who failed to honor a reservation. An amusing tale and all, but there may be some karma related lessons there when your restaurant closes a year later.
From there it became the gay-friendly restaurant Out On Main (different owners) and then later Brownstone On Main (new owners as well.)
Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA)
Their headquarters is technically 55 E. State Street, next door to Ohio Theatre. Originally this organization was founded to save and restore that historic building, in 1969. But since that time, this non-profit group has taken over management of a number of similar operations around town (Southern Theatre, Palace Theatre, et cetera) and stages productions, hosts events at all of them. Even Franklin Park Conservatory falls under their purview.
Columbus Metropolitan Library
One of, if not the, most beautiful library interiors I’ve ever laid eyes upon. So that’s the face value take. Beyond all that, I’ve spent countless hours inside here over the decades, the nadir of which was probably the days of checking out 25 CDs at a time, in the late 90s, which I think was their limit. Then dubbing onto cassette (burning was not yet an option) the ones I ended up liking. Even back then I felt kind of bad for the clerks stuck dealing with dorks like me. Not that this ever stopped said dorks from perpetuating their antics.
In more recent times, aside from the remodeling flourishes which have made it an even more impressive sight, they’ve proven an invaluable reference resource for this website. For example I remain eternally grateful to one employee in particular, as she showed me how to look up old addresses in their database (often a surprisingly difficult task to accomplish, even with Google at your disposal) – before that, I had resorted to trying to buy old phone books from places like Craiglist.
Dirty Frank’s Hot Dog Palace
(248 S. 4th Street) Highly rated operation has a thorough selection and serves beer as well.
C-bus institution Queen Bee once called this place home, for roughly sixty years. Christina Pritsolas was known for yelling constantly here at the restaurant. She died in 2001 and had a service at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral. She was wearing, according to Chrstine Hayes’s piece in the Short North Gazette (March ‘01), “leopard print blouse and black suit,” was surrounded by red roses. A granddaughter sang a song as tribute to her. They did serve baklava here but it wasn’t a strictly Greek restaurant. They suffered a fire in ’96, closing temporarily as a result, and mayor Greg Lashutka was disturbed enough by this he personally raised money to reopen it.
Franklin County Child Support
(80 E. Fulton Street) Good times aplenty here, let me tell you. The best was probably my first visit, when I came here straight from work and happened to have a couple of box cutters on my person. Based upon the border patrol’s reaction at the metal detector checkpoint, you’d have thought they just figured out I was the outerbelt sniper or something. But they are in no way biased toward treating baby mama with the utmost deference and daddy as an inconsequential scumbag, let me add as a disclaimer. Just wanted to establish that.
The Jury Room
(22 E. Mount Street) Among the older buildings in town, this one has survived more or less intact for about 200 years, pretty much for the same purpose. It was the J.F Gaiser Saloon in the late 1800s, though its longest incarnation was as a bar named The Jury Room. In recent times it underwent a couple more identity changes, including Blind Lady Tavern, before eventually reclaiming the Jury Room mantle.
Smart decision, fellas. When your bar has been around since 1831, you probably shouldn’t tinker with the formula a ton.
Mikey’s Late Night Slice
(268 S. 4th Street) Trendy and popular pizza establishment with funky offerings to die for, apparently, though I’ve not yet personally tried them. I recently attempted visiting their north campus location, but couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere nearby, though driving around the block twice. And therefore hit Hounddog’s instead. It was a brutal winter night and I didn’t feel like walking farther. But yeah, expect the same customer stampede here, and probably any of their other locations.
Milestone 229
(229 S. Civic Center Drive) Modern American type restaurant located in Bicentennial Park, overlooking the Scioto.
Ohio Statehouse
Though the address says 1 Capitol Square, this is basically situated at the corner of E. Broad and S. High. Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln was here when first learning he’d been elected president, in 1861. Fast forward to the summer of 2014, and you will find a TGIF summer concert series, held from noon to 1 every Friday, on the statehouse’s west plaza. A variety of prominent local music ranging from rock (Franklin Express) to opera (Opera Columbus) is featured here, along with a pick of the week food truck – Dos Hermanos, Red Plate Blue Plate, Angry Wiener and more.
As of at least 2001, once a year they would give a “Haunted Statehouse” tour. Thomas Bateman, Ohio Senate clerk for roughly five decades, is rumored to haunt the place – apparently he was extremely regimented and used to walk the same way to-from his office every day. Joseph Foraker (former governor and senator) reported seeing Lincoln’s ghost in here one night, dancing with some woman on the senate floor.
Ohio Theatre
Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St.
(39. E. State Street) Quaint old fashioned performance art space, with a Spanish Baroque design.
Peanut Shoppe
(21 E. State St) Despite the name, this is considered more of a candy store – albeit with an iconic neon Mr. Peanut sign hanging on the corner outside.
Not to be missed attraction sits just behind the downtown library. Click the link above to visit that page and learn much more about it.
(honorable mention/the departed)
Hartman Theatre
(79 E. State Street) Hartman Theatre used to sit here, at the SW corner of State and 3rd. It was closed in 1969, then demolished a couple years later. A parking lot soon replaced it, though this too eventually gave way to this snazzy newer building which houses multiple different businesses. Plaza Restaurant & Lounge (75 E. State) is probably the closest to where the Hartman would have been.
The theatre opened in 1911 with a showing of the musical The Pink Lady. Seating a little over 1700, it was originally designed for plays and other live performances, although they began screening films here as well, years later. James Thurber’s plays debuted here before they even hit Broadway, as did Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten. The likes of Laurence Olivier, Eartha Kitt, Shelley Winters and Martin Sheen graced the stage here at various points. A well-regarded restaurant, The Club, operated inside, although considering that grilled cheese was their specialty, it couldn’t have been too highbrow.
L’ Armagnac
(121 S. 6th Street) A beloved if somewhat short lived restaurant in the 1980s and 90s. A French establishment that was eventually knocked down to make room for Grant Medical Center.
Red Zone
(87 W. Main Street) Whoa. You want to talk about a block that looks completely different from what it did 20 years ago, it would be hard to pick a better example than this one. Nobody uses this address nowadays. But there used to be a sketchy looking standalone building, more or less in the middle of it, which housed a controversial yet extremely popular club called Red Zone. With an even worse looking parking lot beside it.
Chris Corso and Mike Gallicchio owned this place and a handful of other operations around town. It was eventually shut down over a flurry of shootings and a bunch of other ignorant behavior. Yet another place I felt the need to check out exactly once, just to say I did, but never again beyond that.
Currently this block (NW corner of Front and Main) is eaten up by taller, newer, much less horrific apartment buildings. Actually, I’ve seen one other place list their former address as 303 S. Front St. But any official directories I can find, as well as my personal memories, make it seem as though 87 W. Main (basically just across the street) must be more accurate. Either way, it closed in September 2000 – City Council filed an objection in December ‘99, declining to renew their liquor license.
Royal Cafe
(141 S. 4th Street) A huge restaurant with a famous mural and entrances from three different streets. This restaurant closed in 1965 and the building itself was either transformed or knocked down completely – I’m seeing conflicting reports on this.
Snaps & Taps Lounge
(44 S. Washington Ave) Is currently just a parking lot, for the building was demolished in ’04. But Columbus’s first poetry slams were held here, and it was an especially popular and seminal meeting space for the black creative community. As of Oct ‘01, every Wednesday was open mic poetry beginning at 8pm. Every 3rd Wed was a “slam” with cash prizes. Thursdays were live reggae featuring The Spectre, doors opened at 9pm. Fridays were “eclectic nights” featuring Amalgamated Funk, doors opened at 9. Every Sat night from 10pm-4am it’s “Culture Night,” with music from DJs Pacprof & Billy.
Tom Johnson’s
(110-120 S. 4th Street) Another treasured former restaurant that bit the dust, way back in 1957. But they had plenty else around town to keep them occupied. This was a family owned operation that eventually moved and morphed over time to the Johnson’s Fish Market operation that many of us remember. There’s not even a building here now, but it would have sat just south of the one currently housing Omni Title and Columbus Gift Academy.
This now has its own dedicated page as well. I’ll probably post a map here at some point, because much like the Brewery District, this technically isn’t “downtown,” but is adjacent enough to merit mentioning here.
Though High Street north of Broad is probably the most iconic piece of road in town – it helps that this is such a lengthy, central avenue – the section between Broad and the Arena District is one of its least exciting stretches. Click on the link above for a dedicated page about North High, beginning downtown.
-South High Street-
Cinco: (1 S. High Street) Mexican restaurant with an assembly line, name-your-fillings type setup, a la Chipotle.
Huntington Center: (17 S. High Street). Some parts of this multipurpose building date back to 1905. Among the tenants now are a Potbelly Sandwich restaurant, a Huntington Bank, of course, and an office for the Ohio Board of Nursing.
77. S. High Street
A ton going on at this address. Capitol Theatre, Ohio Department of Veterans Services, Riffe Gallery, Engineers & Surveyors Board, Division Of Unclaimed Funds, the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, Office Of Tourism, Elections Commission, and other assorted offshoots of the above consume various suites/wings of this complex. The building in part even extends over and above Wall Street, to a parking garage.
In a previous life, one location of the popular Mills restaurant mini-chain occupied at least part of these grounds. It was here an impressive sixty years, from 1916-1976, and was the site of a popular historic mural.
Lazarus Building
(141 S. High St.) From 1851 (you read that right) clear up until 2004, this was the home of the original Lazarus department store. Founded by Simon Lazarus, this was a highly influential chain in retail history. While never entering this building, not that I can recall, I drove/rode/walked/biked past it countless times – it was kind of hard to miss that trademark retro-retro murky blue exterior (meaning it already looked retro even when theoretically still in style), here and at all of their locations. When City Center went up in 1989, they built a walkway across High Street over to this store. Lazarus eventually merged with Macy’s, in the early 2000’s, before soon retiring the original name, and closing down this flagship location. And though it’s fascinating to look back at old photos of a place like this, to think about and get nostalgic over one major hub like this eating up an entire city block, it’s hard to imagine visiting more than a handful of times even were it still around. It’s sad, but that’s why these retail monoliths bit the dust.
Right now, it’s just known as the Lazarus Building, with a wide variety of operations renting out office space here. Not nearly as cool, but probably more useful in our modern downtown. Pat and Gracie’s, one of three locations around town, is located in one High-Street-facing slot of this building (121 S. High St.) They bill themselves as a “kitchen and tavern,” specializing in, among other offerings, fries made fresh with every order.
Spaghetti Warehouse:
Treasured destination over the years, mostly because my daughter Emma is somewhat of a spaghetti maniac. Our most notable visit here was probably her 4th birthday party, which featured a memorably random cast of family members. Up above are some photos of her attacking chocolate birthday cake at that party. Maddie appears to be enjoying herself considerably just watching her sister in action.
They were originally located nearby, at 397 W. Broad Street, but have since relocated to a newer, trendier spot at 150 S. High. As the name would imply, the original building was a great old building with a warehouse vibe, the highlight being this train car with highly in-demand seating. Near the end of their run at spot #1, I had heard from some people that the quality of their food had seriously gone downhill. So let’s hope they’ve righted that ship in the process of this transplant.
160 S. High Street
Currently, a park named Columbus Commons (technically John F. Wolfe Columbus Commons, although of course no one would ever blurt all this out in everyday speech) occupies this terrain. It was planted over the concrete carcass of what was formerly known as City Center, an indoor mall. Almost nothing in the city’s past century or so symbolizes how swiftly things can change, as the plight of this mall does. Opened in 1989, it was the city’s finest shopping destination for about a solid decade. Tuttle Mall’s opening on the northwest fringe in ’97 gave them a run for their money, but even so, this city is certainly large enough to support two modern malls of this type (the 1980’s after all had four of them, in the form of Eastland/Westland/Northland/Southland, against an even smaller population) and it’s debatable whether Tuttle actually improves upon the experience any.
I could basically spend all day coming up with maps and listing tenants for indoor shopping malls of yore. This would not bother me in the slightest. So such an entry is coming for City Center someday, oh yes, it shall. For the time being, let’s just run with some meager facts I have at my disposal. They had a Sbarro pizza franchise, of course, on I think the lowest floor, which was pretty much a required visit every time. There was a Max & Erma’s here, one of but approximately 1,000 restaurants around town where my buddy Bruce once worked. Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries as of Oct 2001. Wentworth Gallery, featuring limited editions and originals by international artists, was also here as of Oct 2001. And I remember they used to bring semi-famous bands in here to play, though it’s difficult to remember who, exactly. It seems like Hanson and maybe The Spin Doctors were a couple of the culprits, however.
Anyway, there are some sweet videos on Youtube if you care to take that particular stroll down memory lane. It was always a popular date option, or for that matter a solid destination for just screwing off with a bunch of people. Like for example this notorious weekend where Alan’s ex-girlfriend eventually kicked us out of her apartment, before any of us guys had moved to Columbus ourselves (the City Center excursion came before the booting, in case that isn’t clear).
Yeah, well, by 2009, City Center is toast. It’s bulldozed into oblivion, and this park sprouts up a couple of summers later. That first year, we attend a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark against the backside of whatever building that is to the north, and they’ve continued featuring some interesting events here up to and including the Columbus Symphony performing Pink Floyd classics in the summer of 2019. It’s a cool space, don’t get me wrong, all the more so in that it exists downtown. Call me an eco-monster, though, or at the very least untrendy and uncool, but I kind of wish we could have both, because I’m not exactly convinced that the indoor shopping malls of my youth were really all that horrible. And actually, considering the project underway just a smidgen to the east of here, it seems that a lot of people agree with me.
201 S. High Street
Currently Downtown Tavern (AKA Hydeout Kitchen & Bar.) Before that, The Flamingo Room was here. And for over 100 YEARS, from 1887-1995, it was a restaurant named Foerster’s. Although open from breakfast through dinner, though, it’s possible the place was better known for its candy offerings and soda fountain, at least up to a certain point. And an even earlier incarnation, opened in 1875, briefly existed at 301 South High, which is basically just some empty space now beside the Common Pleas Court.
Dempsey’s
(346 S. High St) A brick walled but cheerful pub known for draft beer and live folk performers. Irish fare with a little patio out back, too.
honorable mention/the departed
7 S. High Street
Nonexistent coordinates roughly in between Cinco and the Huntington Center. From 1918-1964, though, a restaurant named QCB sat here. Actually, according to Lost Restaurants Of Columbus, Ohio(an indispensible guide for yours truly while working on this site, and highly recommended), QCB was knocked down to build the Huntington Center. Owner William Petrakis apparently kept one marble section of counter as a souvenir – is this still in existence, and if so, where might it be? Talk about a momento I’d truly love to get my hands on! For the eventual LLTC museum of my daydreams, if nothing else. That book also says a place called Pizza Rustica was more or less located where QCB had been, within the Huntington Bank Building (as it was once known), though they are long since closed.
-Uptown District-
Capitol Square Printing Inc
(59 E. Gay Street) I’m sure this is a compelling operation in its own right.
However, from 1919-40 it was the second location of the world famous Marzetti’s empire. Though more well known as a salad dressing company these days, they were originally a family owned restaurant, with the first opening on the OSU campus in 1896. Their story is a thoroughly fascinating one, and continues onward to this day – they recently even sent me a personal invite to an event they were hosting, which I was unfortunately unable to attend.
Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD)
(60 Cleveland Avenue) Established in 1879, this private art school typically counts about 1000 enrolled students at any given time. It was originally known as the not nearly as cool sounding Columbus Art School and is one of the longest running such institutions in the country. That big ART sculpture went up in either 2000 or 2001. In spring of 2001 they had free, open to the public artist lectures, every Monday from noon to :130 in the Canzani Center’s auditorium. Brian Novatny and Craig Carlisle are some artists who went here. This college also owns the CCAD Design Studios at nearby 390 E. Broad St.
(19 E. Gay Street) An Asian themed operation I haven’t had a chance to check out yet. Was formerly one of many G.D. Ritzy’s locations around town, a local operation that nearly died out following a bit of an expansion overreach.
ZerOz
(17 E. Gay Street) Some kind of…futuristic wallet store? I’m not sure visiting their website has even really clarified for me what is happening here. Anyway, it used to be a Big Bite restaurant, which closed in 1984. Stay tuned for gripping updates about what happened in between.
honorable mention/the departed
40 E. Long Street
Currently an ATM machine! As it has been since 2012. Prior to this, however, Club Ice called the place home (2007-11) and Long Street Entertainment (2001-06). Before that, a gay bar (I think it was, anyway, based upon their ads) named The Garage was here for 22 years before closing in 2000.
This is the lineup advertised for their final weekend:
3/10 – DJ Steven Oliveri
3/11 – DJ Julian Marsh
3/12 – Oliveri again (some kind of retrospective counting down their 22 years)
3/13 – Oliveri again, plus “15 dancing boys.” Okay, so yeah, definitely a gay bar I would say. It says it’s open late this night, which must be the finale
It’s difficult making sense of these historical records, sometimes, though. Meaning this is as much an art as it a science, you might say. A lot of times they contradict what is listed in newspaper articles and the like, for example, such as when I’m reading that Fabric is the bar that will immediately replace The Garage. Yet I can find no record of this. Did it never happen? Or are the historical business addresses incorrect? Or was Fabric opened here under a shell corporation name or something? Just many of the countless mysteries remaining to be solved, here and all over the place throughout this great town.
55 E. Nationwide Blvd
If you’re wondering where the local restaurant group known as “Fifty-Five,” it all started right here. The original restaurant opened here in 1984 as Fifty-Five on the Boulevard. This concept went belly-up in 2000, and all company owned locations were closed, although they spun off this original spot to some different owners who kept it afloat for awhile.
187 E. Gay Street
Not in use now, but was once home to a Union Restaurant, in the 1920s. It would have been basically on the backside of where The Athenaeum Theatre currently resides. Then Union Restaurant closed when the same owners shifted to a South 3rd Street location instead (52-54, which is also essentially nonexistent these days) and renamed it Paoletti’s.
Okay, I finally managed to unearth this video, recorded back in ye not-so-distant olden days where a hi-8 camera was actually about your best option. I happened to be driving home from a funeral with only a couple of hours to kill but felt some compelling need to swing through and film Comfest on this day. It kind of felt like providence and I couldn’t resist passing through.
Let me apologize in advance for the shaky camera work and manic zooms without warning, making this probably a document better listened to than viewed. Also, I would say the reason the footage is kind of distant and bad is because I was trying to find some sort of middle ground between getting good shots of the performers, without intruding upon the crowd. You were still very much considered some sort of weirdo at this point for walking around with a camera, and I didn’t want to creep anybody out. That’s just the climate of the time – and it’s interesting to note in retrospect that we are one week away from the iPhone’s debut, as of this Comfest date, an event which will change a great deal about these types of experiences.
A number of years ago, I dumped this down from tape to computer hard drive, yet haven’t been able to locate that footage for quite some time. Therefore recently repeated the process, during which time it’s obvious the tapes have degraded in some places. So there’s still hope of unearthing better copies in these patches which now have static lines.
Anyway, below are the performance clips I managed to capture, along with whatever limited commentary I can provide at the moment. I haven’t had a chance to match up who’s playing where on an events calendar, so your guess is as good as mine on most of this stuff. As always I hope to dig through my writings and then research a little bit and cobble together more information down the road.
This first group here is playing at that little stage near the corner of Goodale and Dennison. They’ve got a decent bar band boogie sound going, and it’s cool to hear that even the bass guitar came through fairly well on this camera. Plus the lead player is offering up some tasty licks:
If any of these performers ever stumble onto this site, they are surely going to despise my descriptions. But in my defense, I’m making due with limited information here. Anyway, this next act here, which performed on the central stage, kind of sounds in places like a Midwestern band going for an Oasis vibe – and this isn’t a bad thing! On the contrary, I think this is a pretty catchy song:
And this would be one of those fuzzy stretches of tape I alluded to, albeit fortunately one of the least essential patches. This car covered with trinkets is great, of course, but was here every year and might still be for all I know. In the background you can hear some reasonably compelling, female led (I think) rock band plying its wares:
Okay, at the tail end of this following clip, we have our first definitive evidence of a named musician: Megan Palmer is apparently the one lending an assist with vocals there on the far right. One thing that kind of drives me nuts at these festivals is that bands usually don’t name check themselves enough, or display any sort of banners or other promotional apparel. You can see the deleterious impact this wreaks, right here on these digital pages, although I expect to piece together who these musicians are eventually.
It’s kind of interesting that the background chatter happens to be louder on this cut. I was just thinking that, while compelling, this is singer-songwriter material better suited for chilling around the house. Therefore it’s probably not a coincidence the crowdspeak threatens to drown out the band. But I do really like the part – I think you might call it a bridge – in between the verse and the “who’s gonna love you?” section. Whoever this is, they’re playing at what is known as the gazebo stage:
This funky, Latin tinged jazz ensemble is probably my favorite act glimpsed on this glorious day. Even the footage is best at this point, capturing them at the corner of Park and Goodale, with the Greek Orthodox church an impressively picturesque backdrop. Near the end you spot the second person I’ve noticed so far with a cell phone, though still nobody else snapping pictures and certainly not sporting such a dorky appendage as a video camera:
Up next we have pretty much what the video description promises, a random, quiet stroll through the vendor section, then a quick dip out to High Street. Nothing of consequence happens here and you would certainly be forgiven for skipping it. Although I don’t even remember doing this and am now thinking some stills taken from here, particularly of the cap over 670, would make for nice pictures:
I feel as though I recognize this song, or at least the vocalist, but the footage is too murky to say for sure:
This forthcoming material is pretty much the exact opposite of that singer-songwriter clip from earlier – both in style and reception. Spoken word pieces I would almost never listen to just hanging out around the house, but find them really moving and powerful in person. This one is held at the back stage, and watching this makes me glad for a second reason beyond the performance itself. I’m reminded of seeing Jello Biafra rant on this very stage at a different Comfest, and it sure as hell seems like I caught that on video, too. So it’s possible that further treasures await, if I ever stumble upon the tape. For now, you should definitely dig this:
And here are another couple pieces of hers. Anyone know who this is? In the background you can hear some other band, too, presumably playing on the gazebo stage. There have to be other videos of this day out there, even in this predawn era of 2007, and it would be really fascinating to piece these all together somehow in Zapruder/JFK assassination fashion. For now I guess you’re subsisting on my cruddy footage.
As far as taking notes, about the only observation I’ve found thus far concerned the Cheater Slicks. About them, I had this to say, in my notebook:
Cheater Slicks are punkabilly for the most part – a trio – but the last song starts off as this slow rhythmic rumble then slowly speeds up while getting progressively more chaotic. Then some old guy meanders up and starts playing spoons into the microphone.
And then finally, to close out this piece in possibly gratuitous style, here’s this end footage selection of the drive away from the park. I’ve muted the unnecessary audio so historians can enjoy whatever limited scenery is available in this clip. It sure seems like by some miracle I was able to park right beside the, um, park, bringing the heavenly aura of this experience full circle.
I eventually break down and call up some of Doug’s old roommates, last seen in mid-November. Maria answers and gives me directions to this brand new bar out on Bethel, Banana Joe’s, a second outpost for this popular downtown club. With nothing better going on, Damon shrugs and jumps in the car with me for a ride out to this place.
Some buildings just seem to possess a doomed trajectory, despite the apparent strength of their location, and so it is with this one. Until recently it was an eatery called B Street, where my friend Clif worked alongside his employment at the Bethel Road Kroger. Through Clif I met other B Street employees such as Colin Gawel of Watershed fame, and the expected plethora of nice looking girls with baggage you encounter at every restaurant.
It’s only February of 1998 and already B Street is toast, replaced by this vague nightclub concept. This standalone building is located in the front of the Carriage Place strip mall, near Sawmill Road’s intersection. They’re advertising this as “Singles Night,” but I’m a little bit confused, for what is every night at every bar in every city if not Singles Night? As far as the crowd gathered here is concerned, though, it’s all seemingly mid-twenties – which we are fast approaching, Damon and I, if on the low end of this spectrum – up to early forties, and therefore bereft of the teenyboppers Paul so abhors. It’s hard to put your fingers on these gradations, although I think he’s correct in some respects, the way there’s a completely different vibe and less bullshit once you snip certain age brackets out of the equation.
Maria and Denise we locate right away, possibly because they are shouting “POCKETS!” at a volume louder than the music piped in overhead (long story, but this is my nickname with this crew, somehow). And even though exceedingly dim in these passages, we locate them right away, in a corner booth by some windows overlooking Bethel. A barmaid drifts by in an instant, pitching their highly popular $2 Long Islands, the nightly special.My associate and I both order one, though soon discovering why they’re so cheap when the small drinks are delivered in flimsy plastic cups.
I ask Maria what she’s up to, which sets loose an episodic rampage at a speed and trajectory which would have made John Glenn nauseous. By contrast we have Denise, who is possibly one of the friendlier chicks I’ve met since moving here, although unfortunately not much to look at, kind of short and dumpy and plain. Still, you might make a case for anything, in a loud, dark environment where personality or at least a person’s vibe is the prevailing consideration.
Nobody ever talks much about 1998 in the context of its major tech triumphs, but I’m here to tell you this was the breakthrough year. The 90s as a whole seem like the shortest decade I can remember, because from ’97 onward everyone was glancing forward, to the extent that the next millennium basically began right there. Lost in the shuffle somehow are the actual quotidian accomplishments, the details of when this stuff is implemented in the Midwest if not everywhere else. In the early weeks of ’98 we install an internet connection at our house for the first time…and then, right on the heels of that development, you have this gadget in Maria’s hands, the cellular phone device.
She’s the first person I’ve personally met who has one of these, and it happens at this unlikeliest of locations. Though as far back as ’92 you might have spotted commercials for such, phones tied to one’s automobile were far and away the most prevalent up until now. My parents and some of their friends even had a car phone for a spell, when those were trendy, in the decade’s early years. This is something altogether different, though, you can sniff it out in an instant, and you just know that we will soon be seeing these everywhere. I even make the mistake of resorting to the extant definitions, which immediately places me in some sort of out to lunch camp.
“I didn’t know you had a car phone!” I enthuse to Maria. She shoots me a borderline dirty look, answering the call which has drawn my attention in the first place.
After conversing a short while into it, though, she hands the phone to me, explaining that her sister Lisa’s on the other end – the second early adopter I’m aware of. This totally makes sense. These two are unlike most girls I’ve ever known, in a lot of respects. You could make one offhand reference about how you’d like to check out Flagstaff, Arizona someday, or something, and the next thing you know they’ve got plane tickets booked, hotel rooms reserved, an entire entourage assembled for some blowout a scant three weeks down the road.
As far as the present tense is concerned, however, Maria says Lisa wants to speak with me. Though I will admit to that one night of indiscretions with Lisa, last summer, she subsequently met and became infatuated instead with Alan, an obsession which continues as far as I’m aware, one which found her leaving notes on our front door for him up until a couple of months ago. So it’s hard to fathom what she wants from me right now…well, no, as Maria passes this baton, it’s pretty obvious what Lisa desires, calling from a nearby bar herself. In my corner however is the fact that it’s deafening loud in here, to the extent I legitimately can’t make out much of what Lisa’s saying.
What follows is me shouting, “HUH??!?” with my free hand cupped over its nearest ear, or else muttering enough, “yeah…uh huh…really!” type interjections in what feel like appropriate intervals until the point I can safely conclude, “okay, well, I’ll talk to you later!” before handing the phone back to Maria. I truly have no idea what Lisa just said, what I may or may not have just agreed to. But does it matter? Probably not.
Maria and Denise announce they are heading over to whatever bar that was Lisa just called from. We decide sticking around here sounds like a better option, however, so Damon and I order a second Long Island flavored water and patrol these grounds in the name of journalism.
This dance club consists of one large room, slightly bigger than your average house. There’s the requisite bar in the middle, a dance floor on the western, Sawmill facing flank, near where we were sitting, and a live DJ over by the restrooms. Tropical flourishes such as palm trees and whatnot adorn the ceiling and walls, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary about any of this, and certainly no extravagance. We observe the classy looking broads in their sharp evening attire, but then also these yuppie dorks in their sockless Dockers, sipping martinis. We order a third round of Long Islands, then split.
II.
Having already visited the newer Bethel Road outpost before the much more popular original, I’m moving in reverse of the typical pattern. About a month and a half later, at John H’s behest, I’m joining him and John L for this journey to the downtown location. It’s Friday night and the crowd promises to be insane, I’m happy to be finally crossing this one off my list to visit. The two Johns have been down here before, though, more than once, and they can’t stop raving about the place.
“I don’t know why but H and I have the best luck hooking up here,” John L offers, “this and the Yucatan, back when it was busy…”
I’m stoked already, and as we arrive down on Front Street, in the heart of the Brewery District, the lack of available parking anywhere near this club seems to bode well, too. Rolling the dice a little bit – although there wouldn’t appear to be many reasonable alternatives – a parking slot at nearby Victory’s is where this car will come to rest, despite the presence of TOWAWAY ZONE signs posted everywhere. There are enough bodies walking back and forth between the handful of bars down here to muddy any attempts of tracking them, meaning this should be just fine. The only thing I’m really questioning is what I can possibly bring to the table within this crew, if I can hold my own as an adequate wingman.
“I was just telling John L,” the H Train says with a chuckle, as if reading my mind, “you know, that J-Dog’s a pretty cool guy to hang out with, and he agreed.”
John L nods in concurrence. But while nice to hear, this still brings with it the pressure of living up to the hype. Well, at this point I’m not too concerned with my ability to hang out and function as a laid back guy who’s maybe good for a few witty wisecracks per night. Can I keep up with these maniacs in the drink department, though? And if they are picking up babes, will I be able to pull off the same?
After walking up a majestic flight of long, stone steps, spanning the width of this bar, we open one of the doors cut into this glass wall facing Front Street. And it’s immediately apparent that something special is happening here, a situation I haven’t quite glimpsed before. Wall to wall people, sure, but everyone’s been to some crowded clubs, ones boasting a larger head count than this. This is different, though, in that every available square inch of the club is one giant dance floor. There’s the bar, and there’s the dance floor, nothing else. As such it is literally impossible to avoid bumping into some girls.
Somehow, at one end of the lengthy bar, which runs parallel to the north wall, we find a trio of available stools to set up camp and get our bearings. This happens to sit right near an opening where people are expected to step up and order drinks, making for an ideal set up – or a very bad one, depending upon your outlook on these matters, and who you happen to be with.
No sooner have we sat down does John H order us a round of these Drano colored Kamikazis. I manage to slip in an order for a Budweiser, but then John L springs for another round of beers, as well as Lynchburg Lemonades for the three of us. We’ve only been here fifteen minutes.
Before we get completely sidetracked by annihilation, it’s time to focus upon the lady landscape. We rise from our chairs and begin to see about an entry point into this dance floor, which bleeds right into these very chairs. Chicks are all over the place, all points of the compass, bumping into us, carrying on conversations so close we might as well be included.
“Man, this place is packed!” I shout, “I’ve never so many hot women before!”
John H dips out to take a leak, and returns with some Pat guy he knows, the younger brother of so-and-so who apparently used to work at our restaurant. I’m not exactly paying attention to these details, and wouldn’t say this was the greatest development in the world if I were. But this introduction is no sooner handed out before all worries are absolved, as we hear some female voices calling out our names from some inner chamber of this dancing swarm. We squint at this slightly dim sea and eventually spot Keisha and Pam, merrily laughing as they wave and make their way toward us, as we move to meet them halfway.
In an amusing coincidence, John H says he left a message on Keisha’s machine earlier. But they swear they never heard it, had ventured here anyway on their own accord. Were sitting around getting ripped at the apartment before deciding to catch a cab down here.
So these two are completely torched, which can’t but assist our cause. Without much in the way of other words said, in varying combinations we are taking turns gyrating against these girls. Voluptuous, highly flirtatious Keisha and her massive tits, conservative but no less attractive Pam, with her tropically suggestive tan, her long, straight black hair and lean contour. Keisha does look especially incredible right now in a shiny silver blouse and tight black pants, yet this is just one man’s preference, for Pam is no slouch.
We are surrounded by women, which is fortunate considering that Keisha and Pam inevitably run into even more guys they know and spin off into corners unknown. All four of us guys, however, wind up bumping and grinding with random girls, will lose track of one another for lengthy stretches, only to cross paths long enough to compare notes.
This Pat guy seems okay, if a bit too boastful for my tastes. He’s tall and dresses well, which is probably just about all you need to succeed in this environment. To that point, we wind up within shouting distance of each other during one stretch where he happens to be dancing with some short, hot blonde. Yet while men of more modest height might need to work a little harder to get noticed here, it would seem I’m doing okay, too. There’s this brown haired chick grinding with another guy in my vicinity, but she and I keep exchanging glances, and she eventually glides over, jams her ass into my crotch and begins shaking it against me.
Pat decides this is the perfect time to start telling me some story. I truly have no idea what he’s talking about, with one arm wrapped around this girl as he shouts to me, though I bark out variations of, “yeah…uh huh…oh really?…you don’t say!” into any pauses. Then I happen to glance up and spot pudgy old John L on this platform, laugh my head off to see him there, with not one but two gorgeous females, an arm around each of them. Grinning, yes, like the proverbial kid on Xmas morn.
As for John H, he mysteriously manages to develop a Paul-like fixation on one girl in particular, who has short, light brown hair, parted down the middle. She resembles Jen S a great deal, both facially and with her tight, compact frame, so the source of his obsession is obvious. But he cannot stop talking about her, whenever I bump into him, until he finally works up the nerve to approach her cold.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” are his first, and just about only, words to her.
“Yes I do,” she says, kindly enough, though this conversation extends no further.
Our task force reassembles as John H materializes with yet another round of brew. John L is looking a little winded from the platform excursion. Now Pat’s trying to tell me some other story about this night up at Yokahama’s, a bar on Kenny Road, where, he claims, local DJ Ronni Hunter was trying to come home with him. She has a sexy, husky voice I’ve heard many times on the Blitz, our finest hard rock station, though I’ve never seen the woman.
“She was totally wasted, man…,” he says.
“Was she hot?” I ask.
“Eh, not really,” he says, “I mean, she was okay looking, but not that great.”
I spy this sharp little number nearby and move toward her, as much an evasive maneuver to get away from Pat as anything else. She’s okay with the dancing, but when I attempt to slide an arm around her, the girl pulls away, disappears into the crowd. So much for that.
Oh, but Keisha and Pam eventually return, and in such grand fashion. I find myself dancing between them, as both mash their sublime bodies against mine, holding one and then the other, back again, not wanting to tip my hand necessarily as to which I would prefer. Thinking all the while that then again, it would be great to have both, as this Keisha and Pam sandwich is pretty freaking hot.
They drift away once more, and are gone completely when the house lights come up. How can it possibly be this late already? Seeing those two and especially Keisha had been great and all, but once again, the night has melted away with little to show for it. And the taste she’s given me might create some lasting harm – just about the last thing in the world I need is to dive back down that rabbit hole, start thinking about her again.
But hey, at least this Pat character has vacated the premises. Unfortunately, this disperse battalion of females is stampeding toward the exits as well. John and John are convinced we can squeak in last call at Woody’s if we haul ass up there, however. I think they’re crazy but am in no position to object.
III.
I’m not sure exactly when the entire Banana Joe’s enterprise went belly-up. Going through my journals recently, I discover that there was a third location that I’d entirely forgotten about. This was the spring of 2000 and they had by this point set up shop out on Dublin-Granville Road, though I think the Bethel Road one was gone by then. At any rate, as we’re driving by it, I tell Damon, “I think this is the wrong part of town for that. If it didn’t work on Bethel Road, it’s not gonna work here.” And he agrees. It’s a warm, Thursday night in May, but the drive-by reveals a nearly empty parking lot, which probably foretold their fate.
I can understand why owners don’t exactly tell the world every detail about their defunct enterprises. It’s unforunate, and they probably don’t want to relive bad memories. But at the same time, it would be fascinating as an outsider to learn every twist and turn of what went down with a concept such as this. All you know is that they’re suddenly gone one day, despite periods of great success, and this feels a little sad. Then you might attempt learning more about them online, and discover there’s not much record that places like this even existed, and that’s even sadder.
For an enterprise that has been in operation since the 1800s, Columbus’s North Market always manages, somehow, to fly under the radar. Somehow this place always seems packed…and yet it’s still almost like a secret handshake society, in that a surprisingly large percentage of my friends living in Columbus have never even heard of North Market, much less set foot inside it. And yet, even so, if I had to pick a single place in town where I could randomly visit and count on seeing at least one familiar face, this would probably be it.
I guess part of this phenomenon is attributable to living in one of our nation’s largest cities, in that it’s difficult to establish at any given moment what’s “going on.” If you were to read some broad overview in a history book 50 years from now about our dear C-bus, what it meant to live here in the early 21st century, it’s likely that a great deal of it would seem way off the mark to you, even as the author cited numerous reputable sources. Actually this very blog will one day appear worthless to you, if it doesn’t already.
Built atop North Graveyard, this market was the second of its kind in Columbus and opened in 1876. Judging from the sign atop this page, those three smiling charmers have apparently been willing and available since about 1850, making this operation a spring chicken by comparison. But before we dip into the market’s extensive back history, let’s examine some relatively recent photographic evidence, and see where it’s at right now. This past Saturday brought with in some insane crowds, thanks to the Arnold Fitness Classic, making it the perfect occasion for examining downtown’s crown jewel. Accompanied by fellow undercover investigators Erin, Stephanie, and my brother, Daniel, we drift inside to put our fingers on the market’s hyperactive pulse.
Like many conventional supermarkets, produce is the first category you see if arriving via the main (east) entrance. Little Eater Produce & Provisions is apparently the operation currently filling this niche, although two prominent, full color signs read Vegetable Butcher and I initially assumed this was the name of the business. This unclear bit of branding, while by appearances maybe minor, I think neatly summarizes some problems this vendor faces – while I’m sure they are “locally committed” and that their wares are “meticulously selected,” as their bylines state, the displays here are a shade shy of breathtaking. You want your produce visuals to pop, and in my opinion previous tenants The Greener Grocer accomplished this to a greater degree.
But of course, the nature of the beast here at North Market means that businesses come and go. We don’t much mourn the fate of former vendors, and in fact might not want it any other way – the thrill of discovering something new is part of what draws us here. I don’t intend to dedicate much space rhapsodizing about occupants of yore (well, at least not until the bottom of this page), interesting though these trivia tidbits might be. For example, right now I’m picturing market history buffs choking on their lobster gumbo to learn that Bob The Fish Guy used to keep his cash in the basement freezer every night. Fascinating, fascinating stuff, to be sure. Then again, this could explain why Bob The Fish Guy is no longer around.
Fortunately another operation seized that mantle and ran with it, the slightly modified stall by the name of The Fish Guys who’ve slung seafood in the same space ever since. If I’m not mistaken they even inherited the same case signs that Bob Reany and company once used. One of his employees, the soup wizard Bobby, doesn’t appear to be plying his wares here any longer, but otherwise everything is business as usual. The Fish Guys occupy the largest acreage inside this market, and with good reason, as their reputation as the finest seafood mongers in town remains unchallenged.
Whole fish section at The Fish Guys
I must admit we didn’t purchase anything from these intrepid ocean captains this time around. However, hopefully by piecing together the photographs below, as well as our first hand reviews, a potential shopper might glean what’s happening inside these vaunted corridors. Greeting us directly inside the southeast entrance is this satellite location for the famous local Katzinger’s deli. My wife and I in fact need to see nothing else this particular afternoon, and immediately hop in this line, while the other two members of our party continue exploring. If in need of a little convincing yourself, you might want to check out the giant pickle barrels immediately to the right of their counter – these are free, so take as many as you wish. Speaking from experience I would say if you try nothing else here, do not skip the garlic variety, as it has to be the best pickle I’ve ever eaten in my life.
As for the sandwiches, I like that these are numbered. At both here and the primary spot on South 3rd Street, these are apparently brought in and out of the rotation, or dropped completely over time. Erin orders #78, Seth’s Bella MushReuben, which is pictured below. I have #70, Kahrl’s Killer Club, one of their top 5 most popular offerings. And while my club is this heaping monstrosity of tastiness – even in the quote unquote “Normal” size that I order – the MushReuben is a slightly more compact flavor bomb, jammed with portabellas, Swiss, cole slaw and Russian dressing on rye.
Katzinger’s current menu at North Market locationSeth’s Bella MushReuben at Katzinger’s Deli
A hunk of gouda at Black Radish Cremery rounds out our meal. One recommendation for Black Radish would be to place some passive demos for a few of their flavors. This worked like a charm for CaJohn’s hot sauce operation next door, where we wound up purchasing one of their bottles:
As for Daniel and Stephanie, they both go for a full Polish lunch from Hubert’s Kitchen. A tireless worker and genuinely nice guy, Hubert is one of the all-time great stories found within these corridors. An employee of many years’ standing for North Market Poultry, he eventually branched out and opened his own thriving enterprise. Daniel and Stephanie agree that the sauerkraut stew is the standout dish this time around, while also recommending the pierogi and kielbasa.
After grabbing a table up on the second floor and devouring our grub, we return to the ground level and begin phase two. This you might roughly term the dessert and random packaged good acquisition stage. If a person is so inclined, The Barrel And Bottle offers cold single beers in their cooler, many of them local, available for sipping whilst strolling these glorious grounds. This writer recommends Columbus Brewing Co.’s Bodhi Double IPA for just such endeavors. He also tried Ohio Common Ale’s Six.One For Good and considers it average yet unexceptional.
cold beer single case
The Barrel And Bottle
Destination Donuts is an intriguing concept in that they only offer a couple flavors at a time, whatever happens to be emerging from the fryers at that moment. Erin opts for a plain old glazed variety that are piping hot and fresh, though as you can see the buckeyes are also looking pretty durn tasty and I consider her crazy for not picking any up. For good measure, we also grab the last pistachio dacquoise over at Pistachia Vera.
As you can gather, even amid these extremes crowds owing to the nearby fitness extravaganza, this is a mostly positive visit. However, there are a couple of challenges the market might wish to address. One would concern attempting to purchase packaged items from restaurants with long lines for freshly prepared foods. We were thinking about picking up some Asian trinkets from Nida’s Sushi, but thought better of it and put the items down rather than endure this considerable wait. Granted, this visit is a rather extreme example, but it’s a problem worth considering. I’m not sure what the answer is, as space might not permit a second register for packaged goods alone. One all purpose register could work, to ring up these items for all vendors, though again this might prove a bookkeeping nightmare and difficult to police from a shoplifting standpoint.
Parking is also somewhat of an ongoing issue. Perhaps we could dynamite Nationwide Arena and put the space to better use as a garage. Although as we speak, they are in the midst of building a large parking garage where their tiny lot once was. So things are on the upswing already. Below is a photo dump for some other images, to give a feel for the market in its somewhat current state:
