October News Roundup

Tim Fulton 00:08Welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week: can a city that doesn't know its history properly tell its own story? I sat down with Columbus Underground staffers Walker Evans and Susan Post to discuss what's been going on in the capital city. We talked about the upcoming election, new and upcoming restaurants, the relevance of history in reporting, and the city's changing retail landscape. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Walker Evans, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Columbus Underground, and Susan Post, the associate editor of Columbus Underground. Guys, how are you?

Walker Evans 01:06Doing well. Very good.

Tim Fulton 01:08We are coming off of the barrage of political interviews, the 12 city council candidates and the two mayoral candidates. I want to thank, first of all, the listeners for sitting through some of them, and also invite anybody who hasn't listened to at least specifically the candidate that may represent your district and the two mayoral candidates. I think that there is value in that. I also want to thank you, Walker, for the work that you put in to help me get that arranged, to have the studio, to write the stories that accompany those interviews.

Walker Evans 01:49No problem. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I'm happy that we're able to have video versions, audio versions, written versions. It sounds like they've been pretty well received, you know, listened to thus far. And probably the day before election, we'll see another spike when everyone does that last-minute research, right?

Tim Fulton 02:07And I will say, at least from the marketing emails I put out — you do your own marketing emails, obviously, but the marketing emails I put out — people actually responded and said, like, "Hey, this is good. Thank you for doing this." So, some validation, if not in listener numbers for individual interviews, some validation of value.

Walker Evans 02:28Anecdotally, too. Marin and I were at Gallery Hop last weekend, for the first time in a long time. We ran into someone that I think everyone knows, Brian Curtis, friend of the show, friend of Columbus. And he said specifically that he has been enjoying listening to all of these interviews with his Columbus city council people. So, thank you.

Tim Fulton 02:48I will say that Brian has been forced to listen to my voice since I was like 13 years old.

Walker Evans 02:52Yeah. And he still loves it.

Tim Fulton 02:56Good. Susan, what's going on with you? What's happening in the city of Columbus?

Susan Post 03:02I mean, there's all sorts of things happening. October seems to be the month that everyone wants to open their restaurant, which is really exciting. October, late September, so there's been a lot of new spots to check out, which is always great. There's been a lot of brewery activity going on. You Pouria — not quite a brewery, but they do have their own like you-pour system. So, cleverly named, right? And I love that their cocktail menu is called "We Pouria." So if you order a bartender-made cocktail, "we Pouria." If you're in the mood to pour your own beer, that's an option. Yeun Wing also opened in the former Sideswipe space out on the kind of West Side area.

Walker Evans 03:48Speaking of old friends, the guy that opened that, Jason Wing, we've known each other since kindergarten. There you go. Old-timey connection.

Tim Fulton 03:56Back to You Pouria. That is actually owned by the Gateway or campus partner, or —

Susan Post 04:08So Ben Morgan, who owns Old North Arcade, opened that. But it is in the Gateway. It's taken over that big space that used to be a World of Beer slash District Pourhouse. So I think it's great to see something filling in that big space.

Walker Evans 04:22And a little bit of flavor, I think, from Old North Arcade as well, because there's like Cristian games scattered throughout. Games you can play, like an NBA Jam cabinet. So it's not full-blown arcade like Old North Arcade is, but there's bits and pieces.

Susan Post 04:38I think it's gonna be a fun spot. Looks like a good spot to chill. Lots of beer. Good to see a brewery go back in that space. And then North High Brewing opened another location in Westerville. Restaurant, bar, whole big thing. They've got a huge patio that actually backs up to one of the Westerville high schools' ball fields — I don't know which one, sorry. So you can have a drink and like watch the game from essentially —

Tim Fulton 05:07Okay.

Susan Post 05:08Yeah. And I think he said they're gonna get rid of the fence in between, so you can literally see the bike trail through there.

Tim Fulton 05:18And they got rid of their North High space?

Susan Post 05:21Yeah, so no longer in Short North, and they're kind of calling the Westerville one their new sort of flagship location. That's how they're gonna be moving forward — a little bit more suburban restaurant, big patio. So not forced to change their name.

Walker Evans 05:41Not forced to change it. And they still have a location on North High, the one in Dublin. Is it Dublin's —

Susan Post 05:45I'm not sure if it's technically North High in Dublin, or if it's just High.

Tim Fulton 05:48But yeah, someone should write a letter.

Susan Post 05:52But yeah, they've been expanding in partnership with CoHatch, both the Dublin and Westerville locations. So, great. Beer to drink. Fox in the Snow also opened in Dublin. And I mean, if you've ever been to Fox in the Snow on a weekend morning, you can probably always use more locations of those. So excited to see them keep growing. Actually, this is one that opens soon — well, maybe by the time this is out, it'll be open: Adelaide. It's a new gin jazz bar in Old North. For anyone who remembers Alana's Food & Wine, it's going into that space. So I got to check that out recently, and I think it's gonna be a nice spot. It's a little bit of an interesting location. Hopefully they can kind of pull some of the professors and the Clintonville crowd to that spot.

Tim Fulton 06:40I did see pictures of the decor, but is the layout the same? Like, it basically feels like you're in a house.

Susan Post 06:48Yeah. And it had been a while since I've been in that space, but yeah, they have some distinctive rooms. There's a library, and then the dining room and the bar, and then kind of another smaller room with a few tables. So it still has a little bit of that house feel, especially on the bar side. You see like the brick wall going down the side of the bar.

Tim Fulton 07:08And I don't know this — who's opening that?

Susan Post 07:11So it's Roderick Polly and Laura Justice. It's their first time opening a restaurant.

Walker Evans 07:16So clearly new folks. Menu assistance from —

Susan Post 07:20From Tyler Minnis, who just opened Good Friends, Oreo's Market, Italian Village Angry Bear. So yeah, burgeoning scene. Exciting. A lot of other things that should be happening soon, too. Always new stuff to check out.

Tim Fulton 07:36Okay. And then what else have you been spending most of your reporting time on?

Susan Post 07:42What else? I don't know. It's a blur. It's always a blur, really. But now we have some fun stuff coming up for spooky season right now. So we just put up an article about where to go pick a pumpkin with your family. Seven spots around Central Ohio. So definitely check that out. I'm excited. There's some I never heard of, which I'm like, this is great. You know, you put the pumpkins against each other.

Walker Evans 08:10And some of our best-read articles this year have been the ongoing "Come Get Your Dead" series that Jesse Bethea has been writing about the Old North graveyard excavation, prepping for the new development that's going next to the North Market. New article again, probably out by the time this episode comes out, but yeah, I think it's seventh or eighth in the series at this point. So it's not just like spooky graveyard October sort of thing. It's a really interesting project that's been going on for years at this point.

Tim Fulton 08:40And for folks who listen to the podcast, we interviewed him, I think, just right when the second article came out. It was basically just a follow-up. And I will say, and this is all to his credit, this sort of investigation and this work has really spurred me into thinking about the narrative around — it's a very side story of it, right — but what is the narrative of Columbus, and what is the story we tell and write about Columbus? And I will say, no other outlet — not to be named, I just got a marketing email from them today — which kind of explores other aspects of this story too. So yeah, the success, the clicks of it, not that that's always what you write about, but people want to know more.

Walker Evans 09:32Yeah. Well, at the beginning, I think we kind of set out — Jesse was like, "Hey, this is the thing I'm really interested in, what to write about." And we're like, "No one's gonna read this, but do it because it's important and it's cool, and you're into it." So it's been nice that people have been reading it.

Susan Post 09:44Very interesting. He's just done a phenomenal job of coming at it from a lot of different angles and talking to a lot of the folks involved. He just did an interview with Rick Harrison Wolf, who's the executive director at North Market. So it was kind of interesting to work that perspective in, and also talking a little bit about how North Market and the parking lot get all the attention because that's city-owned land. But the graveyard is a lot bigger than that. And there's been a lot of private development in the surrounding areas, and what that means. And the next article that's coming out will kind of get into that a little bit. It's with Bucky Cutright, who runs Columbus Ghost Tours. So just kind of coming at it from not necessarily a spooky ghost perspective, but sort of thinking about how we honor the dead and honor the past. He has an interesting angle to bring to that.

Tim Fulton 10:37Given the interview with Rick, do we feel like there's been more sort of participation in the narrative? Because when the first couple articles came out, there was not a whole lot of cooperation around, like, "Hey, what's happening? What's under those tents? How many remains are there?" Jesse had to kind of — forgive me — dig that up himself.

Walker Evans 11:00I think some of that was probably due to the fact that it's like four or five different groups that are working on this project, and each one has different pieces. So you have the North Market, you have the City of Columbus, you have the excavation team that was hired, you have the developer, which is like a multi-part thing, you know, like Rockbridge. So all these different groups, and they don't want to speak on behalf of the other group if they're not involved with some of those pieces. It's not like Rick is out there working on digging, right? So he didn't want to say too much right out of the gate when they had just gotten started. Is it fair? Yeah.

Susan Post 11:35Yeah. And I think Jesse has just been relentless in continuing to follow up with folks and always looking for new avenues and people to talk to. And I know he's working on a few other things with the series that all kind of help put a better timeline together of everything that's happened. So he's doing a great job, and it's really fascinating to read.

Tim Fulton 11:56And I have been curious too, because we just did that history of Eastland Mall episode, and I have sort of this tickler, if you will, of podcast ideas. And some of them are around, like, "Hey, how do we tell this piece of our history?" I think it was '91 — forgive me if I get this wrong — there, we had one of the largest hot air balloon accidents ever. Sorry, one of the largest hot air balloon accidents in the country, at least for the time.

Walker Evans 12:32Since the Hindenburg?

Tim Fulton 12:38Cut that out. No, but it was four people who passed, and it was three very seasoned balloonists. And they ran into the 10TV tower. I had no idea. It was like '91, and not like super-distant history. Exactly. And I didn't know that story until someone was like, "Do you ever hear about that thing that happened?"

Walker Evans 13:04Doug Motz? Yeah, exactly.

Tim Fulton 13:07Yeah. Stuff like that. Stuff like Columbus's connection to Billy Milligan. Not that the Dispatch doesn't drag that old carcass out anytime something happens with the Billy Milligan story, but I get that. All that being said, do you see an opportunity to invest more time and resources into telling those stories?

Walker Evans 13:33Yeah. I mean, Doug Motz is a kind of local historian and he writes a series when he has time. And yeah, they're always really well read. I think people are really interested in that sort of thing.

Susan Post 13:45Well, I think in Bucky's article that's coming out, he kind of talks about that transient nature of Columbus, how there's so many people that are always coming in that they don't always know a lot of the history of the city. And I think that's talking about how that's why this story has really struck a chord with people, because people have no idea. People have no idea that used to be a graveyard. And every couple years you get a whole new batch of people that had no idea. So I do very much agree with him on that point, that there's always so many new people coming to Columbus that there's a hunger for those stories.

Walker Evans 14:18Yeah. The Eastland Mall thing makes a nice segue as well, because shortly after Eastland Mall was closed and then announced for demolition, and then Westland Mall secured the funding, like the state funding for the demolition of Westland Mall back in February, I wrote sort of an opinion piece of like, you know, we're talking about these two malls going away. The new oldest mall now is Tuttle.

Tim Fulton 14:41Right. And I remember you texting me photos of like, "This should be busy," right?

Walker Evans 14:46Yeah. And some of it is management. Some of it is sort of the death of some of the big chain retailers. A lot of them, not just during the pandemic, but back into the 2010s, kind of started to fold and collapse. Retail apocalypse. Online shopping, just changes in consumer trends. Teenagers don't go to malls like they used to, because they can hang out with their friends on their phone. So there's a lot of factors into that. My whole reason for wanting to write the story was, we should probably be talking about this so we're not on the hook to tear the thing down in another 10 years. That really shouldn't fall on the taxpayers to do, and maybe we should start planning for that. I republished that story last week, because Dan Eaton over at Business First, friend of Columbus Underground as well — Dan wrote an update that the mall had been in receivership for two years. (Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Exactly.) Like a lot of people didn't know, because Tuttle's open. And the court-appointed management company for the past few years was the same company that was running Eastland for the past 15. So they just didn't know how to do it. They know how to keep the lights on. That's about it. So there's new ownership. They're all sort of these financial firms. They're not mall operators. They're like private equity firms. Which doesn't usually work out well for these kinds of operations. So really, Dan did that update. We weren't just gonna do an update off of his work, but I said, "Hey, go read Business First's story. And here's the thing that we wrote back in February," that gave it a whole new bump in traffic. People were kind of revisiting this article from back in February. But I bring all this up just to say that when I did that story and kind of found out that Tuttle was about 30% vacant, I was talking to Mike Beaumont, another friend of Columbus Underground — should we name drop? Yeah, we're dropping all the names. Mike Beaumont was like, "I think the Short North is probably about 30% vacant too. You should do something about that." And I'm like, "I don't know." So one of the reasons — I went to Gallery Hop last week, and I haven't walked the entire length of the Short North back and forth, and we hadn't been to Gallery Hop in a while either. And it was really cold. This was like the first cold day of fall. We had runny noses when we were done walking the whole three miles, but took notes and took inventory. And I think the number I landed on was around 15% vacant.

Tim Fulton 17:15Okay. How are you quantifying? Are we saying like, just number of locations?

Walker Evans 17:19Yes. The same way I did with Tuttle. It's not based on square footage, because there's no way for me to really know that. Especially today, because a vacant storefront has like gates rolled down. So it's not like you can even go in there and take measurements. Like, I could probably look up each individual —

Tim Fulton 17:36I'm not challenging your methodology. I just want to know.

Walker Evans 17:39No, but that's an important distinction to make. Because a 100-square-foot space and a 100,000-square-foot space, both vacant, are two very different things. But some of them are very prominent. Like Melt went away, and that's a really big space, and it's been sitting for a while. The old ROY G BIV gallery space, that whole bottom storefront of that building — there's been like rumors, and I think there's some construction fencing, I've seen folks in and out of there. So it's not — something's happening. But things like the old Family Dollar, they're not going to put anything back in that. That's going to be torn down and redeveloped. So once you start getting into the nuances, some of it — and I think even between the time that we went there on Saturday, the Piece of Cake left, so that was vacant, so I counted that as vacant. And then Susan just did an update.

Susan Post 18:26Yes, Piazza Palumbo is moving in. So the couple that owns Plano's Pasta. So some of it —

Walker Evans 18:31Is just standard retail churn right now. And we're three years past the pandemic. I mean, 15% vacancy doesn't seem as insane, I don't think, but it is interesting. And I'm gonna publish a piece on my findings.

Tim Fulton 18:49And I would be interested in, what is the number? Because there's always going to be vacancy there. For sure. What's the number where it becomes unhealthy?

Walker Evans 18:58Right. And some of that is about the retail diversity of the area too, because everyone will bemoan the loss of an art gallery and the arrival of another bar slash restaurant. But also, like, what makes money, what doesn't? It was interesting to see during Gallery Hop, we were there fairly early, six o'clock. A lot of the retail, like the boutique clothing stores, weren't even open. They weren't staying open late, which — it was also like, oh, it used to be —

Tim Fulton 19:28The argument for Gallery Hop is everybody stays open later.

Walker Evans 19:31Yes. But also, if you want to go buy an expensive dress from Rowe, are you going to do that during Gallery Hop when it's crowded? Or are you going to go in on a Wednesday, where you can kind of take your time and not feel rushed or anything?

Tim Fulton 19:44Visit with Marin, you know?

Walker Evans 19:47Yeah. So I mean, I don't want to name every — we're gonna drop every single day. We stopped in Prologue and talked to Dan. We stopped in Pursuit and talked to Nate — they're gonna set up for their music show. It was nice, other than being cold. And everyone was in no issue here. You walked by places like Town Hall and it was just people spilling into the streets. It was that busy. It's interesting. It's the evolving nature. I think everyone sort of is like, "Oh, I remember the Short North on this one day in 1998, and that was my favorite memory of the Short North, and anything ever since is not as good as my personal heyday." But you can find someone in 1998 who was like, "The real Short North was 1985. That was —" you know what I mean? So it's like —

Susan Post 20:31Yeah, my friends and I talked about that in regards to campus. Like, everyone's favorite version of campus is always when they were there. And anything that's changed since is like, "Oh, my God."

Walker Evans 20:40But also it's like, yeah, it's 2002. But also, if you're 45 and Bernie's was still open, would you go? The answer is probably not. Are you coming from — you might be the exception to the rule.

Tim Fulton 20:53I don't think I would go to Bernie's. Yeah, but —

Walker Evans 20:56I have friends who are like, "Oh, I live in Dublin now, and I miss that old campus bar." And it's like, if it were still there, it'd be full of 21-year-olds. Who do you want to go hang out with?

Susan Post 21:06I'm definitely doing that in a few weeks, though. I have my roommates from OSU — a couple of them are coming into town, and we are making a mecca to the Bier Stube. So that was our bar in college, and it's one of the ones left. Exactly why we're doing it.

Walker Evans 21:23Yeah. I just like that some people want to — they shake their fist at like, "Oh, there's a Target on campus now." And it's like, do you shop at Target? "Well, yeah." Okay, then. What's — I don't know. It's weird. People like to complain, indeed. And I like to complain about other people complaining.

Tim Fulton 21:40So last note, I just wanted to give basically a solicitation to listeners. We're booking out the fall interviews, have some really great ones coming up, good mixture of things. But if folks have any ideas or things they'd like to hear about, or even like a piece of Columbus history they'd like to hear more about, they can always email info@theconfluencecast.com to give us their ideas. Or if you're a public relations professional and you just want to pitch your person, that's fine too.

Walker Evans 22:15Yeah. And we'll rotate out guests as well. You know, it's not always going to be all the time. Have some of the others, have Jesse back in, or other freelancers, get some other special guests just kind of weigh in on what they're up to. And we'll continue to improve the studio. More fake plants. Maybe some more real plants.

Susan Post 22:35Need a fern.

Tim Fulton 22:37All right. Thank you, guys.

Susan Post 22:38Thank you.

Tim Fulton 22:50Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite restaurateur. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.