Right Now Downtown

THE LAZY MAN’S GUIDE TO EXPERIENCE COLUMBUS DAYS

There’s a couple ways to approach the three days of festivities known as Experience Columbus Days.  You could do a willy-nilly drive around, frantically hitting as many discount deals as possible.

With that approach comes stress and angst.  Who needs all the drama when the best bang for the buck comes in one concentrated area?  Enter Downtown Columbus…

1.  It starts with a visit to the Santa Maria (the only option with an authentic Christopher Columbus connection).  Guests can explore a real relic and take the official tour at a buy one/get one rate.

2.  Over at the Ohio Statehouse, tours are always FREE.  That said, it’s a great way to celebrate the weekend and the tours of the Statehouse building and museum are going full force on Saturday and Sunday.

3.  When the demands of this rigorous schedule render you too weak to walk, enter SegAway Tours.  Now famous for the fabulously interesting local trivia tidbits, at 50% off, you save a whopping $22.50 per rider.

Of course, you’ll need sustenance to survive our grueling itinerary.  The weekend celebration includes 25% off your tab at local Dine Originals restaurants.  Downtown members include Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails,  Elevator Brewery & Draught Haus, and Due Amici.  Check out experiencecolumbusdays.com for more information and the discount flyer.

POWER TO THE PEEPS

In these days of turbulent fuel and electricity costs, let’s celebrate urban features that allow us to provide our OWN personal calorically-enhanced power.

POWER GENERATION
Although Chuck Hootman, a seasoned bike messenger and co-owner of Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails, refuses to take any credit for the existence of P2 (saying, “That belongs to its inventors, Nathan Ober and Gene Felice.”), he certainly deserves kudos for helping popularize it in our community.

The P2 is a bicycle-charged generator that has been powering movies at spots like Tip Top and the Santa Maria.  Haven’t seen it yet?  Hootman promises, “It’ll be back for Awesomefest.”

POWER PARKING
The lovely deluxe RiverSouth Parking Garage will house your car for around $80 per month.  But you can park your bike there, legally, for free.  That’s right, a section of spaces have been reserved for two-wheelers to park at no cost.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Sure it’s hard to read a map and bike at the same time – so take a peek at the free metro maps you’ll see around downtown.  The maps highlight the savviest street to travel when you’re biking here in the neighborhood.  Check out the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission for the electronic map or email info@downtowncolumbus.com to request a hard copy.

Happy Biking!

ANY EXCUSE TO EAT

It’s Bastille Day.  In honor of the occasion, we thought we’d indulge in some fancy downtown French cuisine.  Today is a day to celebrate the French Fry.

We’re not talking about the stale old freezer-burn fries.  We’re talking about fries with a little urban style… savory savoir faire.  We’re talking about…

Crinkle Cut Fries
With twice the surface area of regular old fries, crinkle cut fries deliver extra crunchy, salty goodness in every bite.  Downtown diners already know where to find this rare species of tuber: Jack’s Diner.

Exotic Fries
Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails will French fry just about anything.  Its Eggplant Fries served with Bloody Mary Sauce makes the kitchen’s sweet potato version seem positively pedestrian.

Fancy Fries
While Latitude 41’s menu changes with the seasons, a special gourmet version of French Fries is almost always available – the Truffled Fries are enhanced with a little luxurious drizzle of precious, pricey Truffle oil.

PS:  You might just catch Chef Dean James Max there this week.  He’s competing in an in-house cook-off against a former Hell’s Kitchen finalist on June 16.

Like many people in Columbus, I struggle with the tension between staying in Columbus and moving to a city that better accommodates my lifestyle.  Portland, Oregon, for example, appeals to me because it is a Columbus-size city that has made radically different choices than central Ohio for more than 30 years.  The result is a compact, transit-oriented city with a healthy core and vibrant downtown.

Columbus, however, offers something far more special: the opportunity to make a difference.  For a person with an entrepreneurial spirit, Columbus is a gold mine, whether one channels that spirit into business ownership, advocacy or community organizing.

In Columbus, entrepreneurs are heroes.  Witness Liz Lessner (Betty’s Family of Restaurants); Pete Scantland (Orange Barrel Media); John Angelo (Short North Business Association); Adam Brouillette (Couchfire Collective), to name a few.  Someone who might go unnoticed in Portland can be a meaningful agent for change in Columbus.

Portland may have its act together.  But tell me another city besides Columbus where, if you are competent, hard working and imaginative, people think you are a genius.

JACK ATTACK
Based on the sheer volume of votes, we now know that y’all love downtown restaurants… a lot. After weeks of eating and voting and eating some more, we have the public’s pick for Show Your Love: Jack’s Diner.

The owner, Chris Kowalski, took a little time out to tell us about the winning strategy. For the full effect, hum the Rocky Theme Song while reading on…

1. Surround Yourself With Affirming Messages
The diner put up signs and made carryout flyers. There were table tents, and its Web site’s front page continued the campaign. Jack’s went all out.

But what would you expect from a place that celebrates every holiday with more seasonal bling than a Kindergarten classroom?

2. Take One for the Team
Chris insists, “We weren’t really trying to win, just to get people to vote.”

3. The Secret Weapon
That’d be the double cheeseburger, on a grilled bun. Then he adds, “with a milkshake… and fries.”

If you voted for a different downtown eatery, they’re all winners in our book. You can give the other joints a prize too: your patronage!