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Tim Fulton 00:00
Tim, welcome 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, we’re doing our unofficial year in review, not the best of list, not the most popular stories, necessarily, just the ones people clicked on, shared, complained about and wouldn’t stop talking about. We cover everything from parking issues and office buildings converting into apartments to restaurant closings, Reopenings, arts leadership changes and why some headlines travel much farther than others along the way, we talk about how people actually consume local news, the difference between what’s popular and what’s meaningful, and what all This says about where Columbus is right now, financially, culturally and just vibes. It’s not polished, it’s not scripted, and it’s definitely not a formal recap. It’s just two people who spend a lot of time paying attention to this city, trying to make sense of the year it just had. We also look ahead a bit, including Columbus underground hitting 25 years, and what Walker is thinking about next for the community events and staying relevant without losing the plot. You get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence. Cast.com, enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Walker. Evans, the co founder and editor of Columbus underground. Walker, how are you, sir, I’m good. How are you, Tim, I’m good. We are talking about the year that is coming to an end. We’re going to be talking through some of the biggest stories of the year. We’re going to be talking about some of the interesting trends that we saw, and whatever else you decide you want to talk about. Sounds good. What do you
Walker Evans 02:06
got up first? Well, do we want to just talk through the most popular stories? Yeah, let’s do that off the bat
Tim Fulton 02:12
first, because they seem to like they are not maybe the most significant news stories. They are just interesting to people.
Walker Evans 02:19
Yeah, we should. We should always preface that, yeah, what’s popular isn’t always important, and what’s important isn’t always popular, indeed. So these are just raw eyeballs. Okay, yeah,
Tim Fulton 02:31
so these are active you raw eyeballs, active users. In the last year we’re gonna go 10 to one, yeah,
Walker Evans 02:39
and we are recording this on December 5, so maybe something blows up in the next that’s fair. That’s fair. 25 days, 26 days. So this is everything up from January one until now. Okay, yeah, but number one story of the year was an update that we did on the tunnel boring, yes, going on underneath the city, which was also the most popular story last year, a different update on the project. Okay, same, same
Tim Fulton 03:04
project, because the photos are cool and
Walker Evans 03:07
photos are cool, videos are cool. It’s not too often that the city is digging like a miles long tunnel underneath. But weirdly, I’m kind of proud that we’re sticking to our name of Columbus underground by the number one story, physically being an underground tunnel. Good one. Thank you. Who administers that? I think it’s the Department of Public Utilities, but it is the city. It is the city, but it’s a big like federal grant. I’m sure there’s federal money, state money, all that sort of stuff, because it was a mandate from the federal EPA that said your sewer system was built 70 years ago, right? It’s not big enough for the city, especially in growing areas, and you’re polluting the water. Yeah, yeah. So if it rains too hard, the storm water back fills into the sewers, and then that flows into the rivers. That’s just like so the pipes don’t explode or whatever. So sometimes in some neighborhoods, like, it rains heavy and it smells like poop, and it’s like, yeah, well, that’s why, you know, we’re literally just dumping raw sewage into the rivers. And EPA is like, you can’t do that anymore. That way. That was okay in the 1950s right back before we knew better. So yeah, so it’s fixing some of those problems. And this is like a multi phase, multi decade project, okay, but the update this year, we’re talking about this way too much. The update this year was that the machine, the boring equipment, that has been tunneling, it went down on Olentangy River Road. We did a video of that, Okay, last year, kind of by, like, the spectrums offices and stuff city diner, yep. And then it dug all the way north, and they dug, you know, another shaft down, and the machine, you know, kind of bust through the rock and dirt and everything. So that was, like, the media event was like, Come watch it, you know, come through. All right. Hooray. Climb. Yeah.
Tim Fulton 05:00
And if anyone’s ever seen the movie tremors, it was like that,
Walker Evans 05:04
exactly, tremors. Kevin Bacon was there, but the machine arrived at the site, and that site is at like, Tuttle Park. Okay, so they dug. It took over a year, you know, like, 18 months, to dig from Olentangy River Road to Tuttle Park, huh? Okay, so that’s another, like, leg of this very long
Tim Fulton 05:22
thing, okay, yeah, what else is on the list?
Walker Evans 05:24
Number two, I think this is an example of a slow news day. Okay. This is on January 4, which is like,
Tim Fulton 05:30
so, so let’s be fair to the articles. Yes, that simply going up super early, may very well make it
Walker Evans 05:38
Oh, of course, yeah. People will read it throughout the year. You know, if the article has, like, good, you know, search, SEO, it’ll, it’ll get a lot of eyeballs. But Easton announced that they were, I know we’ve talked about this in the past. I think Easton announced that they were going to start charging for certain parking lots. Oh, yes. And people, like, lost their minds because they thought it was all parking they thought, and it was like, No, it’s gonna be like, $1 an hour if you want to park closest to right the chipotle or whatever. And because there are these, like, inner, inner lots that are just like, over utilized. And I think, honestly, like, the big thing was they were probably trying to de incentivize like, employees from like, I’m gonna park there and just be there all day long. Yeah, and they would rather have customers, so it’s more of a pro customer thing than anything, yeah. And also, the giant garages are still free. Like, there’s a lot of free the first
Tim Fulton 06:28
floor of some of them is not, oh, really in the Okay, yeah. Like, over, just
Walker Evans 06:33
shows how often I go to Easton. But, yeah, just east of the,
Tim Fulton 06:38
like, East, what I think of as Easton one. That garage is the first floor you pay. But if you go up one floor, you
Walker Evans 06:46
don’t, it’s fine. I think I usually park in the West one.
Tim Fulton 06:50
Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just wet east of Easton two. Oh, yeah, so it’s up there by like, Nordstrom and stuff.
Walker Evans 06:57
Oh, okay, yeah, closer to pens and yes, okay, yeah. I haven’t parked in that one in a while. But either way it was, it was a bit of a non story. And I think the headline just like, made people upset. And so, like, you know,
Tim Fulton 07:09
whatever I imagine, if we look at the Facebook numbers, like, it’s probably the most commented as well.
Walker Evans 07:13
Yeah, it was one of those. So that was number two. Number three was kind of an interesting one. An overall like trend going on is the conversion of office space into residential space. You’re seeing it more often in like, downtowns all over the country, where they’re like, oh, we have these big towers. They’re really expensive to demolish or replace or build something new like it makes sense to spend the money to convert them, yeah, still an expensive process. But you see it less often in the suburbs, where the format of the office is a lot more horizontal, right? Yes. So you don’t always have, you know, you need Windows and apartments, right? If you have an interior office with no windows, you can’t have an interior apartment with no windows, right? It’s usually more common that you’ll see them torn down, but there is an office complex adjacent like, right north of the Walmart that’s across the highway from Tuttle. So I guess it’s catty corner from Tuttle to an extent, okay, but as a collection, I think of like, three office buildings, and they’re like, we’re gonna keep one office, we’re gonna convert one into apartment. I think another one’s being torn down, some more apartments being built, but like, the whole site is turning more mixed use, okay? And it got a lot of attention, I think, because you don’t see it so much in the suburbs.
Tim Fulton 08:28
So it wasn’t really a trend story. It was literally just about that one. It was about that one,
Walker Evans 08:32
yeah, but we’ve written about those trends throughout the year. One of the most significant ones just down the street from, I’m pointing like this, because it’s, it’s it’s literally right down the street. Yeah? The Continental tower, yeah, just opened their residential units. But also nationwide, announced the 280 Plaza building is going to be converted to residential. Okay? The Chase building, a portion of that is slated to become residential. I don’t think cddc has formally announced, or, I’m sorry. DCi downtown Columbus Inc, has formally announced what they’re doing with the buildings they purchased around the Huntington center. Yeah, the what’s the
Tim Fulton 09:08
name of the building, the former state buildings, yeah,
Walker Evans 09:11
but a lot of those are office, and they’ve hinted that they may become residential, okay, as well. Yeah. So it’s overall. It’s a big trend, not just in Columbus, but yeah, everywhere.
Tim Fulton 09:20
Thanks, pandemic. Yeah, yeah. You know,
Walker Evans 09:24
more people live in downtown. Yep. It’s good thing, indeed. Yeah. So that was number three. Number four was a story that we republished from the the Buckeye flame. Okay? About the passage of HB eight, okay, beginning of the year, which was sort of an anti LGBTQ legislation that dewine passed, and so that that got a lot of attention, partly for the headline, you know, Governor signs anti LGBT law into effect, right? So that got a lot of people upset. Again. That was also in January, so it was a, yeah, an older article. And. The list, but shout out to the fine folks at the Buckeye flame have a republishing partnership with because them, in the Ohio capital journal, do a lot of State House news that we just don’t have the staff for. So yeah, yeah, keeps people informed. Number five was a story. I think this is a update that Brent did about the and this is the, you know, not, not our words, but it was in the headline, the hostile takeover of the SID,
Tim Fulton 10:25
okay, which, you know, it should have gotten that much attention. Yeah, I had
Walker Evans 10:31
done a couple updates on it over the past 18 months or so, but basically, DCI absorbing the special improvement districts, right? It was not a smooth process. It was not a friendly process, yeah, or heated board meetings that I was kind of going to to see how all this was kind of shaken and
Tim Fulton 10:47
so let’s give listeners just a high level of what happened. Yeah?
Walker Evans 10:52
So downtown residents and business owners and workers are all served by a couple of groups that provide safety services, clean services, a variety of different amenities. One group downtown Columbus Inc, only known as cddc, the Columbus
Tim Fulton 11:12
Downtown Development Corporation, correct to me, I’ve
Walker Evans 11:16
always described them as a little more of like a 40,000 foot view, like a master planner kind of organization. They’ve done Columbus, commons, the side of mile, a lot of like, big picture projects. They also do smaller things too. Yeah, the two special improvement districts, capital, crossroads, special improvement and discovery, special improvement. Two separate zones, two separate boards, but a shared staff between them. Yes, over I have always thought of them more as, like, the grassroots sort of thing. They handle a lot of like, cleaning up litter. You know, if there’s graffiti on buildings or gum on sidewalks, they’re out there, you know, scrubbing things. Yeah, they offer safety services. They also do some smaller events, like the Pearl Market, yep, but they handle the safety side of things. And so a grant came down, I think, from the federal government to the city. The city wanted to give the grant to the to DCI, yep, and they don’t do, they didn’t, at the time, do safety services, and that was part of the requirement, yes, someone, and, you know, I don’t want to speculate, but someone was basically saying these two groups should merge, go and kind of, you know, make that happen. And I think there probably could have been a good approach to merging the two groups, but I think the just kind of trying to slam them together, just everyone kind of got upset. Yeah, in the process, it didn’t really follow a good process. But the end result is the SIDs are gone, yeah, as of, as of now, and DCI is running safety.
Tim Fulton 12:37
And it is fair to kind of refer to it as a hostile takeover.
Walker Evans 12:40
I mean, the people that we spoke with, those were the quotes that they gave, yeah, so that’s why, you know, our article said that that was not our, you know, definition of it. But, yeah, it was. It was strange, you know, especially in a city like Columbus, where generally people are on the same
Tim Fulton 12:56
page, and a little bit more collaborative,
Walker Evans 12:58
collaborative, yeah? And it just, it felt like, you know, shut up and do it, yeah, to a degree, but the end result, you know, the new safety force is up and running with DCI. So, like, there was never a gap in those services, which I think is really important, yeah, props to everyone for that. I’ve also heard that some of those folks that worked for the SID were hired. Okay, you know, so it’s the same people on the streets, okay, this kind of second hand information, but that’s what I’ve heard. The Pro market is gone, which also, you know, it’s, it’s struggled for a couple of years, because there’s just so many farmers markets, and a lot of the downtown workforce is not fully back to the point of, you know, yeah, patronizing that market. But the C PASS program, the free bus pass program, ton workers, is continuing. It was administered by the SIDS, by the capital Crossroads special improvement district, okay? Coda is administering it on their own now. But we just got an email like last week that said, this will is being renewed through 2026 great. Okay, which, personally is nice, because we’ve always just given our employees free bus passes. Yeah, and we foot the bill. But then when this program went into effect, it’s like, oh, well, now this is a cost savings for us as a small business, yeah, so if it went away, we’d have to just start buying bus passes again. Yeah, okay, it’s nice. I’m I use it all the time. Yeah? Please keep it. Keep it. Keep it going. It’s a great
Tim Fulton 14:20
program. Yeah. Yeah. What else is on? Okay, yeah.
Walker Evans 14:24
Number six was lo Santi expanding, okay. Are you familiar? No. So it was the news that this Cincinnati based steak house, okay, not Jeff Ruby’s, but a different one coming to Columbus, going into the old Taft space, also a Cincinnati based business, okay, in gravity, which closed, sat empty for a little while. God, and that was announced. And I just went back and looked at the story, and they were aiming, I can’t remember when it said, like October, okay, open. It’s not open yet. No, got it. But I just looked at their Instagram account, and they had some. Being posted maybe two weeks ago that said New year’s opening, okay, is what they’re aiming for. Okay, so still, still in the works, still coming. But I think, yeah. I mean, there’s so many people in Columbus from Cincinnati or Cleveland or somewhere else, yeah, anytime something from one of those cities comes here, people kind of
Tim Fulton 15:14
get got it excited about it. That makes sense. Okay,
Walker Evans 15:17
yeah. Number seven, I did think it was an interesting spot for a steak house, yeah? Like, a lot of times you see them more like convention center or Easton, or do you know the Restaurant Group behind them? It might just be
Tim Fulton 15:31
them, yeah, okay, yeah, anything to do with. Like, I’ve been very surprised by the success of June toe and the that, yeah, you know, even the restaurants here at gay and high so
Walker Evans 15:49
I’m 90% sure it’s just one location, just that one restaurant, and it says that
Tim Fulton 15:56
it’s in, you said it was coming from Cincinnati, yeah. So just one location in Cincinnati, correct?
Walker Evans 16:03
Got it? Okay, yeah, and this would be their second location, okay, I don’t think I mean, like, Bakersfield is a restaurant group like that. Family of restaurants is, like, several, yep, concepts, yeah, I think it was just one, okay, could be wrong. Wasn’t expecting to be asked number seven, the number seven story. And this is a little bit of a trend based trend based thing too, was the downtown church music hall project, which I think was announced previously, but there was a big update, just really to sort of say that it’s still moving forward because it experienced some delays, as a lot of things do. Yeah. So that was, that was number
Tim Fulton 16:38
seven, okay, their opening date worth their shooting for?
Walker Evans 16:43
It’s sometime next year. I want to say okay, because it was announced and then late 2027, so not next two years. Yeah. Okay, yeah. And I think part of it, and we can get into this a little bit more later, but I think part of their think part of their announcement was like, Hey, this is still happening right after the Athenaeum closed. Oh, yeah. And so, you know, they didn’t want people to think that, like all these projects are dead or something like that, yeah. Number Eight was the announcement of the reopening date for the Front Street Bridge, okay,
Tim Fulton 17:20
and that just came out that article.
Walker Evans 17:22
Well, that would the announcement was in like, September, maybe, yeah, but
Tim Fulton 17:26
fair, yeah, yeah. They didn’t have like, a whole nine months to gain traffic.
Walker Evans 17:33
But good. I always kind of underestimate how, because Brent will do stories like that where it’s like, hey, they’re working on 7071 and like this ramp to rich Street is closing, or, yeah, like that. And Brent will write an article and get read 20,000 times. I’m like, wow, people really, yeah, care about that off ramp,
Tim Fulton 17:50
yeah, or whatever. But I’m curious. I mean, I’m sure you look at your source for like, is this organic? Is this coming from Facebook? Is this direct and like,
Walker Evans 17:58
I think a lot of it is social. A lot of our stuff, you know, if it’s, you know, if it’s wildly popular in that, like, first couple of days, it’s because it’s like in the news and people are reading and searching, right, that sort of stuff. Want to see those pictures, find out how to change their commute? Yes, yeah. Number nine was an opinion piece that Dave honey on. Shout out to Dave. I literally just saw him on my walk in. Oh, nice, yeah. Well, he just wrote a new opinion piece that you’ll want to read one up today. Okay, but he’s, he’s written quite a few this year, and several of them have just been wildly well received. Was this the festival one? This was the Yeah, short, North festival fatigue. Yes, it was right after the taco Festival, which I heard was a bit of a
Tim Fulton 18:44
they had to kick out, kick out the kids.
Walker Evans 18:46
Yeah, yeah. We were out of town, I think that weekend, on a trip, but I heard that it was kind
Tim Fulton 18:52
of a mess, yeah. So the story there was, there were some kids coming to the festival, causing trouble, and the way the festival decided to handle it was, kids are not allowed if they’re not with their parents. Yeah, yeah. Which, I
Walker Evans 19:07
mean, you know, that’s, that’s fair, yeah, you know, yeah. And, I mean, I think, I think the gist of his piece was sort of, like, you know, a taco festival would feel more authentic if it were, like, on the west side of Columbus, where there’s a bunch of, like, taco trucks and like Mexican
Tim Fulton 19:25
and we like, basically saying we like our short North festivals, but yeah, stop bringing commercialized festivals to Yeah, yeah.
Walker Evans 19:32
And kind of pointing out that there’s a different like, com Fest has, like, a history in the short north and there’s a nonprofit component, and it gives back, and it is loud and messy and disruptive, but they do clean up after themselves and and, but not every festival is like that. And I don’t know if you know, I can’t remember, and I don’t want to, like, pick on this festival specifically, but we’ve seen a lot of like, Fly By Night festivals, yeah, in town, you know that pop from city to city, and they come in, they grab. Money, and they take off, yeah? And there’s no community component. They don’t care about disruption. They, you know, they don’t clean up after themselves. They’re not even always that much fun. And so people go and they’re like, Well, I spent $40 and this is kind of lame, Yeah, screw festivals. And then it’s like, well, you’re kind of hurting the local ones.
Tim Fulton 20:16
Yeah, you know, if you have a bad experience, so we’re not a big fan of parachuters, yeah. You know, like we do, I think that we do welcome outsiders that come with interest and intent on being a part of our community. Yeah, even if they are new and unique, the issue is when people come in and try to force feed us things. Yeah is what we don’t like, yeah.
Walker Evans 20:40
And it’s like, Oh, hey, mojitos are like a trend this year. So we’re, there’s a mojito Mojito Festival, and it’s gonna be in 18 different cities, and it’s Ding, ding, ding, ding, or make our money. And then we’re, yeah, probably not even gonna do it again next year. Yeah. That always kind of feels a little like cash grab, fair, yeah. So, so that was number nine. And then finally, the number 10. I kind of already mentioned the 280 office conversion to the 280 office building that nationwide owns, okay, converting that to residential. That was number 10.
Tim Fulton 21:08
So people are super interested in that. Just for context, how many articles do you think, roughly, you guys put out a year?
Walker Evans 21:16
That is a great question. I’ve looked at the numbers before. I mean, it’s, you know, if I had to take a wild guess, it’s probably, you know, 1500
Tim Fulton 21:28
Okay, yeah, I was gonna guess hundreds. But yeah, yeah,
Walker Evans 21:32
it’s, Oh, it’s over 1000 for sure. Okay, you know, we’re the but also, sort of, it’s, you know, like the best of lists that we’re putting up. Yeah, there’s 50 of those alone. Okay, you know, we spread them a lot in individual articles, yeah, you know, but yeah, so those are the top 10s. And that ending on that office to residential conversion is a great segue, because that was a trend that we saw this year. So if we want to just talk about these trends a little bit, yeah. So clearly that was one. As far as development goes, I would say overall, with development, we saw a lot of like delays. You know, then there’s always some degree of delays with development, but it feels like a lot of people worried about tariffs, they’re worried about employment, you know, more so than in years past. Yeah, I think as soon as Trump took office, everyone was just sort of like, let’s, let’s
Tim Fulton 22:23
hold off for a second. We don’t know what the bull in the china shop is going to do, yeah?
Walker Evans 22:26
And so that that’s turned into holding off for a month, holding off for six months, holding off for a year. So there are things that have been announced that just haven’t even broken ground, okay? And it’s, it’s kind of, you know, I think some people are quick to say, like, well, you know, Columbus is screwed. It’s like, this is everywhere, yeah, everywhere in the country is kind of pins and needles about stuff, you know, yeah. So yeah, I mean that that was kind of the larger development trend. We did see a lot of music, stuff, activity happening this year,
Tim Fulton 22:56
okay, when we host in addition to that study, yeah,
Walker Evans 23:00
and that’s why we chose to do our big table conversation in October. Shout out to Columbus foundation for hosting those on the topic of, like, the music industry, the music scene. And so we had, you know, people who work within the industry, venue operators and owners. We had working musicians in this very room, yeah, kind of sitting around the table to talk about that stuff. You know, as I mentioned, the Athenaeum closed, which was a out of city, out of state operator that was struggling to convert, you know, they purchased it maybe a year before we ran it for about a year. But Kappa, you know, investing in the music hall. Derek Pinnell panel, I always say his last name, wrong, okay, owner of the Blue Note, yeah. Jazz bar on Main Street opened a second location downtown, and he’s working on a third location in Franklinton. Great. So new, new, you know, jazz music. But also, I think his pavilion in the Franklinton is going to have all kinds of music, okay, yeah. Rambling house closed, but it has new owners, and it’s going to be reopening, yep. And kind of stay as a music venue, yeah. So, I mean, a lot of venue related stuff, but, you know, music festivals, I went to one back in August and kind of discovered some some local music. And, yeah, so I think there’s, there’s a lot of buzz and hype. And as you mentioned, the study, and we kind of talked about it already, yeah, the music district thing. And, you know, yeah, whole conversations we had about that, but it seems like something that people want to see better support for and more active participation
Tim Fulton 24:32
in. Yeah, absolutely. Which is good,
Walker Evans 24:35
kind of a weird trend that we saw this year. Yeah, was restaurants closing and then reopening. Okay, which is super rare, yeah, just turn around and smiled. Because, yeah, we’ve talked about this a bit. The first one that kind of, I think, caught our attention was the 1126 restaurant in the short North Okay, sushi restaurant in the old surly girl spot. Yeah, yeah, it closed, and then several months later. Are. They’re like, surprise, we’re reopening. Not new owners, not same owner, same spot, same everything. Okay, down for several months. I’m not sure why. We didn’t really, you know, yeah, yeah. And then maybe they don’t even want to say, Why, yeah. But I was like, Okay, well, that was kind of weird. But then we saw, on a much faster basis, rosebuds in Delaware, which is a Josh Dalton restaurant, okay, closed, and then, like, two weeks later, they’re like, never mind, we’re reopening. Okay. I was like, okay, that’s also kind of weird. Mid City Garage in Marion village, kind of quietly closed. Okay, when you look back on social media from the summer, there’s comments of, like, I tried to stop in here, and, yeah, it was dark. Where, where are you guys? Yeah. So there’s no, like, formal announcement, but then like,
Tim Fulton 25:40
well, it’s embarrassing when you I mean, sure, should announce it. Like, yeah, bossy girl, right? Did, yeah,
Walker Evans 25:49
I so maybe it was unplanned, unexpected. But two weeks ago, they’re like, Hey, everyone, grand reopening, yeah, okay, several months later, it’s just back in business again, the blue
Tim Fulton 25:57
danube reopened that in under very different, very
Walker Evans 26:02
different circumstances, but also kind of weird that it’s like, oh, surprise, it’s back.
Tim Fulton 26:05
Yeah, yeah. Can I critique that just for a minute? And true Sure.
Walker Evans 26:09
Truth be told, I feel like I’m talking the whole time. Please
Tim Fulton 26:13
give me a break. Truth be told, I have not been in the new one, and I’m sure the staff is lovely. I’m sure the new ownership is great. They didn’t seem to do a whole lot of work on, Let’s replicate the menu. And I know that they’re bringing back some things. And I do know, like I even messaged them when my because my brother and sister, we all grew up three blocks from there, and they were like, we should all go one day. And so I met, hey, do you guys have brunch? No, we don’t have that yet, but just not a lot of the same menu items. I would just, I had hoped that they would stick to to do, like a yes and do,
Walker Evans 26:53
where’s the old menu? Because I only ever went there a handful of times, like in college. Yeah. So remember, it was 20,
Tim Fulton 27:00
you know, they had a breakfast burrito that was really good. They had this thing called the Dube dinner Deluxe, which was a fancy grilled cheese sandwich and a bottle of champagne.
Walker Evans 27:12
I remember that being on the menu, yeah, yeah. Like $150
Tim Fulton 27:15
yes, yeah. And just like, you know, really just solid diner, grilled cheese and just little, I know people are gonna be like, you forgot about this dish. I’m like, I didn’t need it. Yeah.
Walker Evans 27:30
So, huh? Well, I went once with a friend, okay, and to the new one, to the new one. And it was fine, okay, yeah. But also I’m like, do I just not have the nostalgia eyes for it,
Tim Fulton 27:43
okay? Or, you know, and it’s diner food, yeah?
Walker Evans 27:46
I mean, he had, I think fish and chips were, like the special that day. Okay, that’s what he had. And I, what did I have? I think I just had a sandwich. Okay?
Tim Fulton 27:57
I’m forgetting it was fair, yeah, it was fine.
Walker Evans 28:00
It was fine. Yeah, I’m not trying to say it was forgettable, you know, like, in a bad sense, but also just sort of, like, you know, if I lived close to it, yeah, great, okay, but I don’t know if I’d go out of my way fair for it. I will give it a chance. I think it probably scratches that itch for people that want just sort of
Tim Fulton 28:16
like a dive bar food, okay, kind of, kind of thing, yeah, that’s fair, like, tip top,
Walker Evans 28:21
or yeah, for me, like, Old Town Tavern is kind of that, like, it’s close, yeah, to home. It’s, you know, it’s comforting, yeah, it’s not gonna win any awards for the cuisine, but it’s good, and it’s always busy. Yeah, there’s always people in there. So, yeah, yeah. So along those lines, though, the recent news that the spice bar is coming back on Park Street.
Tim Fulton 28:42
No, yeah. What? Yeah. Did you miss that? I The 90s are alive in Columbus. Dream of the 90s, the dream of the early to be clear, spice bar wasn’t around in the 90s. But, like, sure, yeah, quickly
Walker Evans 28:55
thereafter, yeah. Oh God, in the same spot. So part where Park Street, the owners Cantina. It’s Corso. Chris Corso is reopening spice bar.
Tim Fulton 29:05
Okay, yeah, so you got to come on this podcast, and we got to talk about your long and storied history.
Walker Evans 29:12
Yeah, I’m sure you would love to, yeah, yeah. I’ve talked to a couple friends and like, we should throw we should have, like, a DJ night there with, like, yeah, old Yeah, MIDI slut and Jason lemon, Lyman and Jeff pond Yes, and DJ John D and also, you’re not allowed to come in unless you’re over the age of 40, but it’ll just be house music from from nine until 11.
Tim Fulton 29:37
I i assume they just closed originally, because it really wasn’t that profitable. But like,
Walker Evans 29:43
Yeah, well, also Corsa moved from like the nightclub model to more of like the restaurant model, right? Because, like, even prior to spice bar and sugar bar and like, yeah, that run on Park Street. I mean, they were just running like club, like nightclubs,
Tim Fulton 29:59
by the way. For those of you listening who didn’t know those places existed right next door to it, there was a bar called spice, and there was a bar called Sugar. Kind of sugar and spice? Yeah. Of course, everyone at the time said, like, where’s the everything? Nice bar. Yeah. So when is it opening?
Walker Evans 30:17
Sometime next summer. Okay, yeah. I can’t remember the exact opening date, but
Tim Fulton 30:21
please get this party on the books. Okay, make it part of your plan 20 which you need to talk about, right?
Walker Evans 30:27
Yeah. So, yeah. Also, kind of in that same vein, Basil tie is reopening. Oh, that’s kind of brand new Rome. The owner is going to serve the food out of the VHS bar that he runs down the bridge. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. So, so basil back, and then also, it’s been closed for a small amount of time, but Creole kitchen just reopened. Or anything around the corner from my high just saw that move from Mount Vernon to long street, but there was a lot of downtime in between. So it’s okay. It’s been offline for a while. Okay, yeah. So, yeah. Again, that’s, that’s
Tim Fulton 31:00
kind of, I will say, with trend, 80% of these, like some of them, it’s just people going in and acquiring a name or whatever, and Corso, I don’t know,
Walker Evans 31:09
the strange ones were the ones where it’s like, same owner, same spot. They just, like, shuttered.
Tim Fulton 31:13
Here’s the theory. It’s, it’s just money, it’s just probably cash flow issue, or they needed to get some friends and family money or a loan, or it’s always money, man,
Walker Evans 31:26
yeah, I feel it. And that kind of ties into something else, you know, that I want to say because, I mean, we’ve heard from a lot of people, a lot of business owners, artists, like, it doesn’t matter who you are, like, money is tight. Everyone’s freaking out, you know, it, you know, everyone’s like, Oh, the stock market is great, the economy is great. And it’s like, yeah, but food costs a lot, and yeah, health care is a lot, and this is going up, and that’s going up. And so even though we see a lot of times like a retraction in spending, entertainment spending, you see fewer restaurants open, things like that, you still continue to see, like, civic investment happening, yeah? Like, we even saw this, like, you know, when the recession hit 2008 ish, like, every construction project just, like, kind of slowed to a crawl, yeah? But the city’s like, we’re still gonna invest in the Scioto mile, we’re still gonna invest in Columbus Commons. Like, we’re still gonna like, put money into infrastructure, yeah, so that we can, like, bounce back faster. And so I think it’s still,
Tim Fulton 32:24
you’re heartened by that. Yeah, okay, it’s
Walker Evans 32:26
good to see. So, like, Franklin Park Conservatory announced a big, like, major upgrade. The Ohio village is under construction right now. That’s a big, sort of state funded upgrade for that site, the Capitol line, which is kind of breaking ground this month on construction, the first phase of that will destroy our street for the next, all of next year. Yeah. But, you know, those seeing those kinds of things means that hopefully, once we weather, you know, the smaller storm, like Columbus, still, you know, isn’t, isn’t like completely shutting down and
Tim Fulton 32:58
right comes out ahead, yeah, yeah. So that’s, that’s my hope that is good, yeah.
Walker Evans 33:03
Also a lot of leadership changes. This year, GCAC has a new ton, yeah? Film Center has a new leader. The Wexner Center will have a new leader. Their leader just left Columbus, Symphony Orchestra, Franklin arts district, a lot of arts, I guess I went through and just like, looked at Arts, I’m sure there are a lot of business changes, yeah, but just a ton. Of arts, like, yeah, yeah. To all happen in the same year is kind of big, yeah, yeah.
Tim Fulton 33:29
And, honestly, totally unrelated. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Walker Evans 33:34
So I think that’s kind of interesting and exciting for what you know comes next, yeah? 2026, and beyond.
Tim Fulton 33:40
You should do a piece on the new class, the new
Walker Evans 33:44
the freshmen of 2026
Tim Fulton 33:46
Yeah. Okay, yeah. I like that idea.
Walker Evans 33:50
And I will say too on the arts side of things, having all of these new galleries open downstairs, or a lot of them, some of them open previously, but there was kind of a collective opening over the summer of relocated Lindsay gallery, Hammond Harkins, I’m gonna forget some of them, the chaos contemporary that was new. God, why am I forgetting the other one? But Sarah Gormley is across the street. No places downstairs, right? And so having them all do collective openings, especially like the four that are sort of attached in the back, yeah, really feel like something special to like, it’s Friday after work, and like, spill down there and go see a friend’s art opening. And like, bump into people and
Tim Fulton 34:35
rising tide, right? Like, yeah, go to all the shows you may be exposed to an artist that you wouldn’t have been exposed to previously.
Walker Evans 34:43
Yeah, and I mean, a couple of them came from the Short North. I think there’s still a lot of great galleries in the short north that should be supported. Franklinton still has a lot of, like, art stuff going for it. And so I think the sign of a healthy city is to have multiple arts districts, multiple entertainment districts, shopping districts. And so it’s really. Great to see, you know. And shout out to Jeff Edwards, who, yeah, invested in making a lot of this happen. But it feels very cool. And I overheard someone at one of the events, they’re like, This really feels like New York in here right now, which is, like, kind of a silly thing to say, but it’s like, it feels a little magical in the air. Yeah, when you’ve got like, 200 people hanging out, drinking wine, looking and, you know, there’s stickers. People are buying stuff.
Tim Fulton 35:21
I love it. Yeah, I love it. So that’s kind of cool. Do you want to share your plans for events next year? Sure, yeah, let’s announce it.
Walker Evans 35:30
All right. Go ahead for anyone still tuning in at the end of the podcast, yeah. So Columbus underground is turning 25 years old, almost at 2025 a quarter century. A quarter century. Yeah? And our birthday is technically at the end of the year, like November, okay, but we’re gonna celebrate all year long. We’re gonna kick it off with you, yeah? Of all people, January, I think January 8, yeah. We’ll formally announce this and put the events
Tim Fulton 35:57
Yeah, and invite everyone. Yeah. I’ll be returning to my own old stead is Team Tim. Team Tim, trivia, host trivia, yeah. Where’s that? Cure? Cure, right here, around the corner downtown. Yeah. And then what else are you in addition to your DJ event at spice?
Walker Evans 36:14
Exactly, yeah. So cure, so we’re trying to hit an engagement point with as many different facets of the community as possible. Community as possible. Yeah, the trivia community, you know, do something with arts related music, cocktails, food, comedy, you know, just try and wrap our arms around everything, okay, as much as we can, which is the opposite of events we normally do. Like the Coffee Festival is just one thing and it’s one thing and it’s gigantic, yeah? And these are gonna be a lot of just like little small pop up, one off kind of things to celebrate throughout the year. So probably one a month. And not all of them are event based things. Some of them will be like, collabs on products. We did an alcohol collab, a vodka collab with echo spirits. Okay, in 2021, okay, when we turn 20 Okay, so we might do that again with them. I haven’t, I haven’t talked to Joe yet. Okay, things like that that aren’t, like, really an event, but like, hey, check out this. Yeah, release, you know, can
Tim Fulton 37:14
we have a big party in November? Maybe we’ll see, come on, let’s make that the spice night, yeah, maybe those were the DJs that were popular when you came around. Yeah?
Walker Evans 37:28
Well, I just mean, it’s such a big patio. November might be a little cold fair. Yeah? We might, we might do that during the summer, okay, but we’re talking about doing a comedy and coffee mashup. Okay? Because we’ve never really, we do we have our coffee beer event, but we’ve never done anything really with coffee cocktails. Okay, so we’re like espresso martinis, and stand up comedy might be kind
Tim Fulton 37:50
of a Okay, yeah, you’re gonna have an unruly crowd. I’ll tell you that. Oh yeah, yeah. I’m all
Walker Evans 37:54
jacked up on espresso so that talking to a band about maybe doing like, a pop up house show at Sweeney’s, okay, some live music there early in the year, a lot of it’s still kind of forming, yeah? And so we’ll announce the first couple of things and then have more
Tim Fulton 38:12
more to come. Well, we look forward to celebrating Columbus underground all year.
Walker Evans 38:15
Thanks. Yeah. And you know, some of the best ideas are things we haven’t even thought of yet. So like, in June, we might think of something fun for November.
Tim Fulton 38:21
Yeah, so absolutely, yeah. Cool Walker, thanks for the roundup. Yeah. Cheers to 2026.
38:28
Onward and upward. Thank
Tim Fulton 38:41 you for listening to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. Again, you get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast.com Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of The confluence cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite editorialist. If you’re interested in sponsoring the confluence cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info, at the confluence cast.com, our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I’m your host. Tim Fulton, Have a great week.
