Right Now Downtown

CINCO DE ME-O

There is a time and a place for Taco Bell (late night food run).

There is a time and a place for Chipotle (college daily diet).

But grown-ups can’t eat the same damn thing every day.  It gets depressingly redundant.  Thanks to Kevin and Lori Ames, downtown diners can now enjoy distinctly different five-dollar lunches every day of the week.  While other restaurateurs are designing economically impossible menus with $37 entrees, this duo is feeding the people.

With its affordable flatbreads and sandwiches, Cafe Lola ushered in the Ames Era last fall.  Now the operators are introducing their newest baby in the Huntington Bank Building: Cinco.  Says Lori, “We chose the name Cinco because everything will be offered for around five dollars or less.”

Cinco’s menu is based around three items: burritos, tacos and salads.  Customers customize their orders with choices of steak, chicken, pork or vegetarian rice and beans.  The salsas are house-made, and the salad dressings branch into continental flavors with choices that include Caesar and Honey Balsamic.

Between the two Ames projects, adults with discerning palates can score a never-ending variety of interesting downtown lunches for five bucks.  That’s some business smarts.

Cinco made its debut last week.  The new spot is open weekdays from 10 am – 5 pm.

As I glanced out of my office window recently, I saw a very odd-looking band marching down the Broad Street sidewalk.  Unable to resist the urge to investigate, I walked over to the Statehouse lawn and discovered a traditional Ottoman Empire military band playing in front of the McKinley Monument.

Downtown is rife with such wonderful distractions, including parades, demonstrations, and impromptu concerts.  A couple of years ago, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) put a naked woman inside a cage at Broad and High and drew a large crowd of admiring men, as well as a few women.

At about the same time as PETA made its appearance, a large Eritrean demonstration occurred on High Street in front of the Statehouse.  The event drew hundreds of people in flowing, muslin clothes who made passionate pleas for their cause.

Like many things I experience downtown, Mehter, the Turkish band that marched by my window, made me happy to be alive.

PANT PANT PANT

An admission: pets are for other people.  Yes, the doggies and the kitties are dear, sweet things, but they require food and love and veterinarian services.  No, thank you.

Then again, even the biggest stonehearted Grinch will discover things to marvel at inside Lots to Wag About (405 E. Mound Street).  It’s a brand new shop that features fabulous finds for pets.  Owner Marcie Radell explains, “I like to search for unique items that you won’t find anywhere else.  For instance, I have two lines of hand-made leather and vinyl collars and summer t-shirts that were printed right here in Columbus with a Columbus theme.”

Well now… that’s extremely cool.

Radell knows pets; she’s a vet tech, so she’s really interested in stocking items that keep animals healthy, like organic pet foods and interactive toys.  The tech is actually a transplant to Columbus with an interesting observation about our trendsetting city.  “I’m from Rochester, NY and it’s very interesting to see that other cities like Rochester are using Columbus as a model for their own downtown revitalization.”

Since when does New York look to Columbus for cool?  Since now, it seems.

With the construction of a downtown dog park and plenty of pet-friendly living space, maybe there is a little room around here for a dog.  Suggestions?

As a retail-starved Columbusite, I became inspired by a recent trip to Toronto.  Toronto has thousands of beautiful, independent, neighborhood retail stores.  Seemingly, every other block has a walk-in green grocer, a bakery, a full-service pharmacy, and other retail services.  (I did spot one big box store on the outskirts of town).  How can a city support so many small retail stores?  Why do residents spend more money on the same products walking to these stores instead of driving to big box stores?

Turns out, many people who live in Toronto do not own a car, or own one vehicle instead of two or three vehicles.  Instead of spending $400, $600 or more a month per vehicle on car payments, insurance, gasoline, and parking, they spend $100 or $200 per month on transit, car rentals and taxi cabs.

The money saved makes the relatively high prices at neighborhood stores a bargain, because their use is part of an inexpensive lifestyle choice.

My trip to Toronto makes me wonder how many neighborhoods in Central Ohio could support Toronto-style retail strips.

Columbus is a funny place.  Its residents support a town center at Easton, but not a town center at Broad and High.  Most fear taking public transit, yet subject themselves to the documented dangers of driving an automobile.

They move to God-forsaken places beyond the outerbelt “for the sake of the children,” then complain, adults and children alike, about living in the ‘burbs.  All of my 14-year-old daughter’s friends are desperate to leave their cul-de-sacs and visit her at our Short North home, where they can walk to the movies.

What’s with drive-through coffee houses?  Isn’t a coffee house supposed to offer an aesthetic experience?  Does Wal-Mart really offer a less expensive lifestyle when you have to own a fleet of cars to get access to them?

Welcome to my new blog, where I will pontificate about the great mysteries of Columbus and celebrate our tiny steps toward a rational existence.

Cleve Ricksecker

FABULOUS CLEVE

Or not.  Cleve Ricksecker may be many things, but one thing he is not is fabulous.  In fact, he’s officially boycotting the use of the term in his upcoming blog about Downtown Columbus, In Search of a City.

Well, fabulous.

So what else do you need to know about Cleve?  Hmmm, he only has nine fingers.  There’s more, read on.

Cleve Ricksecker loves the Cleveland Browns, but that really has nothing to do with his name (which is not Cleveland but James Cleve Ricksecker).  The Browns love is a family thing.  He says, “During a Browns’ game, my mother and I pretend we are in the Dawg Pound and bark at each other on the telephone.  We dislike Art Modell even more than Richard Nixon.”

Anyway, more than the Browns, Cleve loves Downtown Columbus.  That’s good, since he’s the Executive Director of Capital Crossroads and Discovery Special Improvement Districts.  His very first job (ever) was in maintenance at the Green Granite Hotel in New Hampshire.  The most impactful (literally) lesson he learned on that first job was respect for the power of gas.  While explaining the safety features of gas heaters, he set off an explosion that “singed all the hair on both my arms.”

That was his first explosion.  Just wait and see what he’s got in store for us…

]Capital Crossroads SID would like to graciously thank the downtown community for their generous contributions to the food drive for Holy Family Church over the past few weeks.  Holy Family Church suffered extensive vandalism in June, which disrupted their food pantry and hot lunch services, which feed upward of 1,000 people daily.  Over 850 pounds of food were collected during the drive and cash donations exceeded $300!

Special thanks to Plante Moran; 65 E. State Street; AEP; all of the tenants of One Columbus; Bricker & Eckler; COTA; New Visions Group; 33 N. Third Street; CAPA; Karlsberger; and the .