The Best of Columbus 2024

Tim Fulton 00:00Welcome 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, the results are in, and the people of Columbus have spoken. In this week's episode, I sat down with Walker Evans, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Columbus Underground, to dive into the highlights of the Best of Columbus 2024 readers poll. From the city's favorite new restaurants and bars to the most beloved cultural institutions and neighborhoods, we explored what makes Columbus shine, with nearly 1,700 votes cast by engaged locals. This year's poll celebrates the best spots to eat, drink, and experience in the city. Walker and I discussed the stories behind the rankings, the trends shaping the scene, and even a few surprises from the lists. Whether you're looking for your next favorite pizza place, curious about the hottest new bar, or just love all things Columbus, this episode offers something for everyone. 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. Walker, how are you? I'm great. How are you? Tim, I'm doing well. We are going through some of the highlights of the Columbus Underground Best of 2024 readers poll. Let's get right into it. So first of all, sorry, walk through it. We, in the past, have done some editorializing. There's no editorializing in this list. This is straight up, you put out a reader survey, and you said, "What's the best pizza in Columbus? What's the best bar in Columbus?" That sort of thing. Roughly how many votes?

Walker Evans 02:06It was like 1,700-ish this year. Yeah, it was a pretty good size.

Tim Fulton 02:10That's a good sample. And people just — did you have a drop-down, or radio buttons, or just people type stuff in, completely open-ended? Okay, so pizza could have been Chuck E. Cheese. Were there any Chuck E. Cheeses? I don't recall.

Walker Evans 02:24I can neither confirm nor deny. No, I don't think anyone said Chuck E. Cheese, but you do see some silly answers in there. There's always some people who think they're being funny. And it's great too, because I'm really the only one that looks at the back end of this. And so when people are like, "I don't know, best new restaurant, whichever one Mayor Ginther doesn't go to," it's like, no one else is going to vote for that, so it's not going to appear in the top 10. And who are you writing to? I guess now I'm sharing it with everybody, but it's funny that you're being funny, but I'm the only one that sees it.

Tim Fulton 02:56Well, it's the same on the back end of the Columbusdistricts.com site. Yeah, select a district name, and it's "District MC, District Face."

Walker Evans 03:04Yeah. But these are pure popularity contests, and I try and stress that. And when you look at the list on the website, at the bottom, it says, "Note: our Best of 2024 lists are published as the results of our annual reader survey poll." Like, these aren't my favorites.

Tim Fulton 03:24You're just doing your journalistic duty here.

Walker Evans 03:27Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I think some people look at, like, the list of best pizza — and we'll get into that one in a minute — and they think that it's based on some sort of qualitative measurement, like these are critics' choice. And it's really like, whatever is the most popular is going to be the number one answer.

Tim Fulton 03:45Right, among a group of people that opted to take the time to fill out a survey.

Walker Evans 03:50Sure. And I think our readers are pretty plugged in, generally speaking. Your favorite thing might not be in first place in every list, but they're pretty good lists. You look at the top 10 burgers, and it's like, "Oh, yeah, there's some favorites on there, and places you might want to try."

Tim Fulton 04:03Yeah. How many different poll categories are there?

Walker Evans 04:06Right around 50. We add one in or remove one every year, if people are really answering it, or if there's some sort of new trend.

Tim Fulton 04:14Got it. So what's up first in our selection today? We have best new restaurant. We're gonna do best new restaurants, top 10.

Walker Evans 04:22So these are places that opened in calendar year 2024. Give me the top 10 through six. Do you have any predictions?

Tim Fulton 04:33Not for 10 through six. That's really just going to be excluding the other ones.

Walker Evans 04:39So number 10 on the list was Warrior's Beef and Pork in Clintonville. They expanded to Clintonville, opened up a new location. So a delicious cheesesteak. Yes, a delicious everything. Honestly, everything I had there. Well, they're also gigantic, and I feel like I gotta either be really hungry, or I'm buying lunch for two days, to go to Warrior's. But yes, they're great. Number nine is the Nocterra Brewing Company location down at the Audubon Center, which got a bunch of votes, and I'm like, "I gotta check to make sure they have a food menu," because we want to count this as a restaurant. And they do. It looks pretty good. I haven't been there myself, but I'm excited to go, because I'm not a beer drinker, but I'll go there and try out the food.

Tim Fulton 05:17But like, light eats, or sandwiches, pizzas?

Walker Evans 05:21Yeah, I mean, it's kind of bar food I would classify it, but it sounds like it's pretty good. Number eight is Bake Me Happy by Annie, which is a bakery in Clintonville. I'm 99% sure — I'd have to go back and look — they opened in the old Pattycake spot before they moved. Okay, the original spot. So Bake Me Happy has been at our Sweet Treats dessert festival every year for a couple of years. So great to see them opening up a brick-and-mortar space, moving beyond kind of the farmers' market sort of thing.

Tim Fulton 05:57Next.

Walker Evans 05:58Number seven, Sweetgreen in the Short North. Have you been yet? I have. We've gone a couple of times. Which, I know it's a chain, but people are excited, it's the only one in Central Ohio. Yes, the first one in Central Ohio.

Tim Fulton 06:09Yeah, it's good. It's very nice to have a place where it's like, I want a salad, and a salad that I can easily customize or change things out. The kids menu is a little lacking. Like, "We're gonna eat yams and grilled chicken tonight, honey." But it's very good.

Walker Evans 06:29I still need to go in just to try it out. But yeah, nice carry-out options.

Tim Fulton 06:34Easy web interface.

Walker Evans 06:38Relatively healthy, depending on how much dressing you put on things. Absolutely. Number six is Smash Buddies.

Tim Fulton 06:46Not familiar at all. I'm familiar with Smashburger and smash burgers.

Walker Evans 06:53It's a smash burger place. They started with a food truck, they've had that for a couple of years. They just opened a brick-and-mortar. It was — I can't remember what it was a long time ago, but it was where the Basil, Thai Basil, in the Brewery District was. That location. So in that alleyway there. So they just got open. I went down there with Jesse Yost. I can link to that video in the notes, we did a little burger excursion, and it was good. It was a solid burger. Prices are reasonable. They have pretty cheap drinks and beer, tater tots on their menu. It feels a little isolated because Front Street is shut down, there's all that construction blocking some of their front-door access, but worth seeking it out for a solid burger.

Tim Fulton 07:41Okay. And I have an editorial question here. When you were getting these submissions, did you have to cut people out that you were like, "They actually opened in '22"?

Walker Evans 07:50Oh, yeah. People will submit things, and I don't know if any of them crack the top 10, they would be missing out, but people will vote for things that clearly did not open this year.

Tim Fulton 08:00But you can't think of any that, like, "Hey, this actually would have been three, but —" Oh, yeah, I don't think that many people. Okay, yeah. So my predictions for the top five are just that. I'm not gonna name names. I bet you can get a few of them. I will be not in the right order. I bet if I look out the window of this office, I can see a couple of them. When did Speck open?

Walker Evans 08:25That was '23. Not on the list. It was actually the number one of 2023, best new restaurant of 2023.

Tim Fulton 08:33Okay, yeah, see, I didn't do my background. The — what's the name of the French place? Chez Wesh — Wesé is on the list.

Walker Evans 08:40Number one. Well, ding ding ding, we can end this —

Tim Fulton 08:43video right now. Yeah, so Wesé, and then what's across the street is Hank's. Hank's. That is number two. Number two. Great, I'm doing them in order. Anything like Bonifacio? Didn't open this year, that's been open for years. Sorry. So what's rounding out three, four, and five?

Walker Evans 09:09So number five, I guess we'll keep going backwards, Highbank Distillery in Westerville. I think that's our third location. And of —

Tim Fulton 09:17these you've now named, I think, three different ones — it's an expansion.

Walker Evans 09:21Yeah, okay. So, I mean, that's valid. Chains are valid. Really, it's just calendar year and popularity.

Tim Fulton 09:27Like, McDonald's and Arby's are now going to be filling out the — I'm kidding.

Walker Evans 09:33Yes, I would say that if a McDonald's opened in the Short North, it would probably get some votes, you know what I mean? But the 18th McDonald's to open in Reynoldsburg is probably not gonna get any. Our thoughtful readers would not put that on, of course. But yeah, so Highbank. Del Mar at Easton opened this year. Very good. I've not been, but the decor looks amazing, I need to go out there. And speaking of Cameron Mitchell — I also haven't been to Butcher & Rose. It's great too, right over here at the Preston Centre. That's a good list. These lists are awesome because it kind of reminds you of what you might have skipped or missed out on or haven't made a chance to go see yet.

Tim Fulton 10:14Is it at all odd to you that the top two are literally — you could spit your gum from this office towards that?

Walker Evans 10:21Yeah, but I mean, we're at the epicenter of what's happening downtown, like they say. So yeah, and we've been here for 10 years waiting for it to come. So it's finally arrived. There you go.

Tim Fulton 10:30So those are the top 10 restaurants of 2024. Check them all out. Coming up next, we have the top 25 bars. We will spend a little bit less time on this one to go through them. And is it 25 because there's simply so many?

Walker Evans 10:48We don't — I mean, there are some polls that I see out there, locally and non-locally, where it's like, best dive, best cocktail bar, best brewery, really breaking it down. And it's like, this is gonna take forever for people to fill out these forms. So you don't have that? No, just best bar overall. So you'll see a really nice mix of all those kinds of things. And so that's why we kind of do 25, just because there's so many varieties of types of bars, Tiki bars, you know.

Tim Fulton 11:17And do you feel like it's pretty diverse throughout? Like, there's a dive — there might be four dive bars, and they're sort of like, one's at 23, one's at eight, one's at two?

Walker Evans 11:30Yeah, it's a pretty good mix, I think. So, 25, Dick's Den. A staple. I think they're celebrating their 60th anniversary. I just saw that online. So shout out, Dick's Den. 24 is Denmark on High.

Tim Fulton 11:46Cocktail bar. Cocktail bar, right across from the convention center, second floor, yep.

Walker Evans 11:51So we went from Dick's Den, which was a little bit more low-end, a little like music venue, kind of divey, and then Denmark, a little more high-end. 23 is Combustion Brewery in Clintonville. So a brewery on the list, so we're checking all the boxes. 22 is Stories on High, the rooftop bar, at the Hilton. So now we've got a rooftop bar in there, which could be its own separate category at this point.

Tim Fulton 12:19Yes, indeed. I mean, some people have qualified, like, top patios, top rooftops.

Walker Evans 12:2621 is Bob's Bar in Clintonville. So there's the beer bar on the list now. 20 is Union Cafe. Now you have an LGBT bar on the list. Number 19 is the Oracle, a favorite of mine.

Tim Fulton 12:53Is it a speakeasy? No, it's like a tiki dive. It's a cocktail-centric bar. They do some music nights and stuff, some DJ nights. Old Towne East. The name of the cocktail bar I'm thinking of, below Mikey's in the convention center area — the Sacred Palm. Oh, yeah, different place, okay, similar. Apologies to the Oracle, though. Palm reading, Oracle — well, you see why my brain did it.

Walker Evans 13:10Totally. Number 18, another rooftop bar, is Lincoln Social, up north. Number 17 is the Bottle Shop.

Tim Fulton 13:18Which is at King and Neil, yeah.

Walker Evans 13:22Which right now, during Christmas — spoiler, this is like holiday season — is a Christmas pop-up called Ebenezer's. So visit there.

Tim Fulton 13:32Rest in peace, Viking Beverage, the previous name.

Walker Evans 13:35Number 16, Short North Tavern. One of the divest dives of all time, but perfect. 15, the Beer Stoop, RIP.

Tim Fulton 13:46Yeah. Do you let them qualify?

Walker Evans 13:50People voted for them. They were open the majority of the year. Fair. I think if people voted next year, we probably strike it from the record, as they closed this year. If people were voting for a bar that closed 20 years ago, we obviously wouldn't include it in the list. But yeah, the Beer Stoop, big splash going out, big this year. So fair enough. 14, St. James Tavern. Great, pretty close to you. Always a classic spot. 13, Parable.

Tim Fulton 14:32I've not been at night. Parable — the coffee shop in the Lazarus building? Oh, yeah, they added a bar. They do wine, they do cocktails. They have a jazz night, I think, on Sundays. Seems really popular. I'm not super into jazz, but I'll drive by, coming home from Kroger. I'm sorry, what number on the list is that? That is number 13. And I'm not going to say that it's not a fantastic bar, but I think it's also a bar that people sort of would be like, "Oh, that's also a bar, cool, good to know." But it is also — this is for basically business proprietors, is why I'm saying this — that's an example, probably, of them soliciting their patrons to fill out the reader survey.

Walker Evans 14:58Maybe. Yeah, well, and they added — you know, they were a coffee shop first, and then they added the bar component, and I think it's growing in popularity pretty steadily. Great. So number 12 is Local Bar in the Short North. 11 is Chapman's, who we mentioned is one of the top new restaurants, but people are also going there for the bar. And now we're into the top 10. Do you want to make any guesses, or do you want to wait till top five?

Tim Fulton 15:24I ask — and this is for those that know me near and dear — is there anything else on the top 10 that has closed this year?

Walker Evans 15:36I don't think so. Now, why?

Tim Fulton 15:38Were you gonna go — Quentin's place didn't make it? Oh, no. Little Rock didn't make it? Okay, well, not like he was soliciting people, he's like, "I'm in Italy right now." Shout out to Quinn.

Walker Evans 15:49Yeah. And maybe because that was a little bit earlier in the year too, than the Beer Stoop, right?

Tim Fulton 15:53Oh, yeah. That was — and we're talking about Little Rock Bar, if we didn't explicitly say. A little Little Rock. So guesses would be — I don't know, off the top of my head, I mean, I gotta assume there's more campus bars in there. I gotta assume that there's a lot more Short North bars in there. It's still a good mix. German Village. Lawbird is certainly on the top 10, number two. Number two. See, I'm good at this now. Lawbird — what's the antiques on High?

Walker Evans 16:26That did? Oh, yeah, yeah, that's nine. Sorry, nine, that didn't make the list, right in front of me. Yeah, give it to me. What's number 10? Number 10 is Jackie O's on Fourth. Great.

Tim Fulton 16:35Yeah, and a great setup, at least for warm weather. Great spot.

Walker Evans 16:40I think sometimes those kinds of places get a little penalized in people's minds, because they're voting on stuff at the end of the year when it's cold, and you start to not think about patios as much. And that place is like 50% patio, maybe 70% patio. Say Pins —

Tim Fulton 16:55on the top 10. Pins, number —

Walker Evans 16:56eight. So, yeah. So again, nine is Antiques. So Jackie O's, Antiques, Pins. Number seven is Highbank Distillery. I'm assuming the original location. I think people kind of vote generically for lists like this. Number six is the Citizens Trust, right across the street over here. Great little spot. Big spot. Big spot. Also another Christmas pop-up.

Tim Fulton 17:20Is Ace of Cups in the top five?

Walker Evans 17:24No, but it's on the music list, the music venue list. And a lot of times I think people, if they vote for it for one, they'll vote for something else in another category. Makes sense. So Citizens Trust, number six. Five is Slammers. Great. Downtown lesbian bar, great pizza too. Number four is the Brass Eye, which is the rooftop over at the Junto. Okay, so that's number four. Number three is Land-Grant Brewing. Gigantic campus over there. Which, I like the extension on. Have you been in the extension building that they added?

Tim Fulton 18:02Not the extension building, just the extra outdoor, like —

Walker Evans 18:07building that's close to all that stuff, where the pickleball is in the summer and the ice rink is in the winter. That's a little cocktail bar sort of thing. So for me, that's right up my alley. So that's number three. You mentioned Lawbird was number two, so the only one left is number one, close to Lawbird. I can't think of it. People watching the video now — why? I don't know, I'm just guessing. Cobra. Cobra, yeah, number one. They've got a lot of accolades, both locally and nationally, like being a hot new bar recognized in a lot of places. So that's a great spot. It's a cool spot. It's got a great menu. They do pop-ups, they do collabs with other chefs and mixologists and things. So it's wild to see it so quickly rise to number one too, because it's still relatively new. I think it was best new bar last year, and now it's best overall bar this year.

Tim Fulton 19:00There you go. Okay. Well, congratulations to everybody in the best bar category.

Walker Evans 19:05Go check them all out. Something for everyone.

Tim Fulton 19:09Next up in the readers poll, top 10 cultural institutions in the city. These are the lifeblood of culture of Columbus, and the things that people, I would argue commonly, think about if they live in the periphery of Columbus, or visited Columbus one time — "Oh, my family took me to XYZ." I don't have any predictions. I think I can just name all 10, but they will just be totally out of order.

Walker Evans 19:33Maybe. Yeah, there's a few little surprises in here, but yeah, we just do this one that way. Museums and theaters.

Tim Fulton 19:40It's like that. Can we just do it that way? Do what? I'm just gonna put up 10 fingers, and I'll name them, and you tell me what they are on the list. Okay. COSI. Not on the list. Who is this? Like, if I get three, I'm out.

Walker Evans 19:57That was probably 11, to be honest. Franklin Park on there?

Tim Fulton 20:04Yes, number five. Franklin Park is number five. Okay, Columbus Museum of Art, number one, number one. My former employer, the Wexner Center for the Arts. Number three. Got it. Okay, let's see, we did Franklin Park. Are there any, like, malls on there? They're not considering that. No. What about, like, culture at the malls? And it's institutions, right? For the most part, there's, like, a house in Ohio, are those not on there? It would be CAPA.

Walker Evans 20:33I mean, they could be, but they're not. Is CAPA on there? No, that's an organization. We have a separate list of arts organizations in there. They're high up on that list. I think GCAC was number one, CAPA might have been number two this year.

Tim Fulton 20:48Okay, but the symphony isn't on there? That's an arts organization. They're not on the list. Ballet? No, you wouldn't have excluded them?

Walker Evans 21:01No, but they just didn't crack the top 10. Okay, we have a lot more cultural — okay, let's start from 10, then. Where are we at right now? So number 10, the Garden Theater, great, in the Short North, home to Short North Stage. Number nine is the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. Fantastic on that one. It's a great space. Number eight is the King Arts Complex, good, over in my neighborhood. Number seven, the small but mighty Streetlight Guild. Excellent. Scott Woods. Shout out, Scott Woods. Number six, Stonewall Columbus, great. Number five, you mentioned Franklin Park Conservatory. Number four, the McConnell Arts Center. Number three, you mentioned Wexner Center, and then the only one left is number two.

Tim Fulton 21:48Number two is gonna be —

Walker Evans 21:52I think it's one that's, like, hidden in plain sight. People forget about it, but — the library? No, but that's a great guess.

Tim Fulton 21:59Is it OSU? Say it, a mile? No, close —

Walker Evans 22:05The Scioto Mile pretty much dead-ends into it. That's — no, just give it to me. The Cultural Arts Center, the Columbus Cultural Arts Center.

Tim Fulton 22:15That's great. The old armory, yeah. I've taken classes there, certainly a couple of events.

Walker Evans 22:18Space run by the Rec and Parks Department. Great. And again, that's the top 10 arts and culture institutions in the city. Do you see much movement year to year? Yeah, things bop around. Like you mentioned, the library and COSI, it's kind of wild that they're not on the list this year. A lot of times it's whoever sort of petitions their weekly email, "Please go vote for us," sort of stuff. You see a lot of things moving around, and I think it just speaks highly to the fact that there's, like, 30 highly qualified things that could be on this list. Yeah. Okay, let's go check them all out.

Tim Fulton 22:58All right. Up next, hotly debated — not really — top 10 neighborhoods. Does this list change much every year?

Walker Evans 23:07A bit. You see a lot shifting around. It's one of those things where you sort of vote for the neighborhood you live in.

Tim Fulton 23:15Yeah. And also, if people live there. When did we start — when did you start the reader survey? 2013. So probably then Franklinton was maybe on there, but I would have heard that it wasn't top two.

Walker Evans 23:33Yeah, and not top two, but it's moved up the list as it's gained residents and visitors and people that like going there. Can I do my same thing again? I would love your guesses. Okay, quick qualifier. We do have a separate list for top 10 suburbs. So these are Columbus neighborhoods, suburbs are separate.

Tim Fulton 23:54So Upper Arlington is not in here. Arlington is not on here. No. Grove City's not on there. They're all on a separate list. Got it. So you can check out that list, go to the website to look. I'm gonna try to do this in reverse order. So that's my attempt, but I'm not gonna get them right, I'm just gonna get it generally. So I'm gonna say, towards the bottom of 10, I'm gonna do Southern Orchards. Not on the list. I'm gonna — because I know my top five, I think.

Walker Evans 24:26I bet you could name the top five. Let me —

Tim Fulton 24:28just do the top five. Okay, so we'll do Short North is gonna be number one. Short North is number five. Wow. Okay. Short North. Franklinton, number one. Number four. Number four. Wow. Okay. Old Towne East, number three. Number three. Wow. Five, four, three, I'm getting this right. So then what's the top two? Top two are gonna be Clintonville. Is that number two or one? That's number one. Number one. Okay, so number two, then, is — oh, German Village. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, there we go.

Walker Evans 24:58Then what — nine? You almost got them, like, in reverse. So 10 through six, I guess. Number 10 is Victorian Village, which some people say it's part of the Short North. It's adjacent to the Short North. I mean, it's —

Tim Fulton 25:13Lit, yeah, the Short North is Italian Village and Victorian Village.

Walker Evans 25:17Yeah, but enough people vote for these all independently, so we can put them all. That's fair. So Victorian Village, number 10, Merion Village, number nine. Number eight is Old North, great. Number seven, Italian Village, great. Number six, where we are right now, the downtown area. Yes, downtown. There you go. So top 10, we blasted through that. But I will say, looking through the archives, Clintonville makes number one a lot. German Village has cracked number one a couple of times. But Clintonville — people forget that, like, 30,000 people live in Clintonville. Clintonville is massive compared to everything else.

Tim Fulton 25:54Indeed. Yeah. Well, and I think we can't segment our readership any more than just, like, the greater metropolitan area. But interestingly, the majority of the content that you write is not about things happening in Clintonville. Not that there aren't large cultural institutions there.

Walker Evans 26:16Yeah. I mean, there's always new stores and stuff opening. Like, we wrote about Tigertree when they expanded across the street this year, and then we just wrote about the new Clintonville bookstore that went into the old Tigertree spot. So there's retail activity up there, but you're right, a lot of Clintonville is just residential streets.

Tim Fulton 26:31Yeah. All right. Well, those are the top 10 Columbus neighborhoods for 2024. Nice. And then next up, we have listed the top 20 pizzas in Columbus. I think today we're just going to review the top 10. Lots to talk about, talk through. This is, as you said, the most controversial topic, just because people are passionate about it.

Walker Evans 26:56Everyone has a favorite pizza. And again, this is just a reader survey, so it's a popularity contest. This is not based on some sort of critic deeming one pizza better than the other. But yeah, it's always a fun list, and you might discover some new ones you've never tried before. So top 10.

Tim Fulton 27:19Give me 10.

Walker Evans 27:24So full top 20 on the website, click the link below. Top 10. Number 10, campus classic, Adriatico's. Great. Have you had it in a while?

Tim Fulton 27:24Not in a while. It was a pizza you eat in college.

Walker Evans 27:28Well, I went with a friend who was in town — shout out to Jim Lonchi — maybe a year or two ago, and he really wanted to go. And so we actually dined in at the location after they moved. Oh, I've been to the new one. And it was great. The vibes, cool. The pizza, it's stellar. I was like, "You should go here more often, it's good." So Adriatico's is number 10. Number nine, JT's Pizza. They have a new location that's in the process of opening. It might be open by the time this video is out, kind of by Graanview Yard in that Southern Station building. Where's their current location? I forget what the original is, but it's one that I hear a lot of pizza nerds really raving about. Cheese pizza, relatively new, generally speaking, but growing and expanding. Number eight is Pizza House. I've never been. A lot of my friends swear by it. It's been around since, like, the '60s, I believe. One of those classic spots. Number seven — this was actually number one last year, but — what's that, Wizard of Za? No, Paulie Gee's.

Tim Fulton 28:34Oh, yeah. Really good.

Walker Evans 28:39Yeah. I mean, I don't think anything's changed, vegan cheese. And again, these are very different styles of pizza. They have a Detroit pizza on their menu that people really rave about, but if you're in the mood for that. I get the wood-fired. Number six is Tommy's, which we've written about recently. The one location closed, there's still the other one, both on Lane Avenue. Number five, good old Mikey's Late Night Slice. Excellent.

Tim Fulton 29:07Yes, surprised it's not a little higher, given the love.

Walker Evans 29:13Well, and also they have so many locations. They just opened the campus one this year. They took over the old Weenie Wonder spots in the Pins Mechanical, both at Easton and Dublin. So yeah, Mikey's has been on fire lately, with growth. Number four is Basedmore. Not familiar. I've not been to that one yet. That's a little bit more of a newer one, I believe. Number three, another campus classic, Hound Dog's. Excellent. I haven't had it in a while, but it holds up well, even if you're not, like, drunk at three in the morning. It's still pretty good pizza. Number two — this one is one that's, like, really been climbing the list lately — is Sexton's Pizza. I believe the original is, like, Gahanna area, and then they opened the one in Harrison West, Victorian Village, Harrison West area. We had it. It's really good, kind of wood-fired. Delicious. And then number one — it's been at the top of the list a couple of times over the years, except when Paulie Gee's upset it last year — Harvest.

Tim Fulton 30:26Yeah, which I love it every time I have it. There's not one super close to us, so I don't think about it all the time. But also, they've reopened their Clintonville space, right?

Walker Evans 30:29That was a fire this year, right? So that reopened. They also have Bexley. They have the one in the Brewery District. But yeah, they're getting the support they deserve. Harvest Pizza, can't beat it. I love the original location where it opened, in German Village. We were there quite a bit. So RIP to that one. But yeah, that's the top 10.

Tim Fulton 30:45All right. Well, again, those are the top 10 pizza places in Columbus for 2024. Nice. Walker, thanks for your time today.

Walker Evans 30:51Yeah, no, it's a lot of fun.

Tim Fulton 31:02Thank 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 pollster. 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.