Archives (page 6 of 12)

April 1, 2019

Suburban She-Hulk

Originally published in the April 2019 issue of (614) Magazine

When Brooke Sousa stepped on stage at the Arnold Classic’s strongwoman competition for the first time in 2016, she’d already beaten the odds. The mother of two from Westerville had dropped 115 pounds and completed her first marathon before pivoting to weightlifting. But she was still an unranked amateur with no expectation of even placing.

Sousa finished dead last in every event. It wasn’t the first time.

“Running was something I’d hated since elementary school. When we’d run the mile, I was always the last kid around the block,” she confessed. “At 10 years old, I was 180 pounds. I was the fat kid who hoped I might someday be famous for my artwork.”

She pursued that passion at the Columbus College of Art and Design, but it was her two young daughters who inspired her unlikely origin story — to get in shape and forge a new path. However, when Sousa joined a local gym, it was her raw strength, not her size, that stood out most among her fitness class.

“The lowest weight I could get down to was 215 pounds. I weighed more than that as a teenager, trying to fit in with what America expects a woman to look like,” Sousa recalled. “But I could lift a 15-pound barbell, so they called me She-Hulk and the name stuck.”

That was six years ago. Last summer, she lifted a little more.

At a competition in Norway this past July, Sousa lifted 285 pounds simultaneously with each hand in the “Hercules Hold,” carried nearly 600 pounds in the “Timber Yoke,” and dragged 17 rolling tons in the “Truck Pull” to win the heavyweight division and the title “World’s Strongest Woman.”

That first Arnold measured a different kind of strength. Sousa’s sacroiliac joint, or SI, had locked up her lower back days before the competition. She knew it was still better for future qualification to compete than withdraw. But she also feared serious injury. It was ultimately the realization that she needed a new coach, and a new approach.

“I spent four months researching coaches to make sure I would be ready for the Arnold 2017. I was undertrained and underprepared,” she lamented. “That’s how I met Matt Wenning. He competed for 25 years and set three world records without ever being injured.”

Wenning’s westside gym in East Franklinton, Ludus Magnus, was the right fit all around. Bearing the same name as ancient Rome’s most prestigious school for gladiators, it offers a modest mix of old school black iron and custom equipment for serious competitors.

“Matt’s created a couple pieces of equipment, like the belt squat machine, that taught me how to use my hips correctly,” noted Sousa. “When I first started here, I could only lift the frame, which is 45 pounds, without knocking my back out. Now I can load it up to almost 800 pounds.”

Bodybuilding and weightlifting are fundamentally different. The former is judged on appearance, the latter on performance. The two are practically as different mechanically as men and women, similar but not the same. And much like women’s hockey and soccer, there are undeniable advantages to a lower center of gravity, where a hip check or swift kick can beat their best male counterparts.

“I’d rather show judges what I can do instead of standing on stage looking pretty,” she laughed. “I actually gained 30 pounds training for my first marathon, and now I run with a 100-pound weighted vest to make myself heavier, to maintain my strength.”

Much like the men’s divisions, women’s weightlifting tends to come with injuries, often career ending. Since bouncing back from that first defeat and going pro in 2017, Sousa is now the only competitor of the original ten from that inaugural year still competing at the Arnold. Though she didn’t rank first this time, she sees her weightlifting career as its own marathon.

“You can change the events and change the competitors and it’s anyone’s game. Our scores were all so close,” she explained. “I lifted a personal best in every event and I didn’t push myself into an injury. I’m still winning.”

That doesn’t mean Sousa isn’t pushing herself. In additional to training firefighters and other folk whose safety and ours rely on proper conditioning, she also makes time for an unexpected weightlifting clientele — children with autism.

“When I used to workout at a commercial gym, I noticed a therapist struggling to work with a young girl who had autism. So, I offered to help,” Sousa recalled. “That’s what eventually led last year to The M Foundation.”

Named for two of her earliest and youngest clients, Maddy and Maggie, the nimble nonprofit couples Sousa’s experience and enthusiasm with a support staff trained in serving children with special needs into a novel combination of fitness and focus.

“When I started working with Maddy and Maggie, they didn’t have the balance the ride a bike, or squat without falling over because of weakness in their core,” she said. “I wanted to create a safe, fun environment for kids who often struggle to fit in, just like I did.”

Sousa’s work is more sophisticated than it outwardly appears. Beyond basic fitness training, the resistance and feedback of lifting weights and exercise of specific muscle groups improves overall mobility and body awareness. The social component of group classes also helps students overcome an equally daunting limitation to acceptance.

“Maggie used to struggle to do a single push up, and now her favorite activity in the gym is the bench press,” Sousa explained. “You have no idea how far she’s come to be able to rep out 85 pounds at 15 years old. She’s now to the point where she can help others use the equipment correctly, and has the social skills and self-confidence to do it.”

Sousa’s feats of strength are already becoming legendary. But she knows The M Foundation is as much a part of her legacy, and the attention her physical achievements bring to her other ambition is a record that will last long after the awe and applause fade.

Though the She-Hulk hook started as an aspirational nickname, it’s accidentally become a metaphor for metamorphosis — motivating others to look past appearance and ability to appreciate the true strength within.

“When I’m up on stage competing in front of fans and judges who’ve seen me before, it just pushes me harder,” Sousa said. “They already know I’m strong. But now I’m stronger.” ▩

For more details on Ludus Magnus and The M Foundation, visit wenningstrength.com and themfoundationkids.org

March 15, 2019

Tiny Diners

Originally published in Spring 2019 issue of Stock & Barrel

Somewhere between East Coast delicatessens and West Coast cafés is the culinary intersection of utility and community. Though the Midwest didn’t exactly invent the diner, it has arguably perfected it. But defining a diner isn’t as easy as it seems.

Tommy’s urban appeal and Nancy’s down-home feel are two sides of the same coin. Cap City and Starliner both push the envelope with avant-garde offerings, while Hang Over Easy and Chef-O-Nette certainly deserve a nod. But none really meet the standard for tiny diners, the neighborhood haunts only the locals seem to know.

Despite our critically-acclaimed restaurant scene, the classic diner is working class by design. Most offer open kitchens and open seating without a sous chef or sommelier in sight. Better still if there’s a guy with a gallery of tattoos behind the grill and the coffee is strong enough to stand up a spoon. Breakfast hours are essential; breakfast anytime is understood.

There’s an implicit social compact to rubbing elbows with strangers at tightly-grouped tables or a crowded counter, with enough knickknacks and nostalgia so that even regulars find something new every time. Off-the-menu specials and predictable patrons the staff know by name are all part of the charm.

Unfortunately, that social scene is also what may make these esoteric eateries intimidating for the uninitiated. So here’s an insider’s guide to some of the city’s best tiny diners and the plates that make them great.

BREAKFAST

George’s Beechwold Diner | 4408 Indianola Ave.

Dinky diner meets neighborhood dive on the edge of Clintonville. The steak and eggs and biscuits and gravy are both solid. If you can’t decide, you can’t go wrong with the garbage omelet, which varies from visit to visit, but includes every meat, cheese, and veggie on the menu.

Jack & Benny’s Barnstormer | 2160 W Case Rd., Dublin

Hidden gem is an understatement for a joint tucked away in the back of a hanger at the recently remodeled OSU Airport. Try the legendary Gut Buster at least once—layers of egg, cheese, sausage, bacon, ham, and hash browns with a potato pancake and peppered gravy for good measure.

Stav’s Diner | 2932 E. Broad St., Bexley

Skip the standard French toast and substitute challah bread instead for something unexpected. Buttery pancakes with fresh blueberries are always in season. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Order the gyro omelet with feta, then add spinach and tomato for even more Mediterranean flavors.

Louie’s Daybreak Diner | 1168 E Weber Rd.

This Linden destination offers all the standard breakfast fare with some signature standouts, like their famous Panhandler, or a personal favorite, the Philly Omelet. Sliced roast beef and Swiss with mushrooms, peppers and onions is like a cheesesteak wrapped in an egg instead of a bun.

LUNCH

German Village Coffee Shop | 193 Thurman Ave.

Don’t let the name fool you. The patty melt is superb, covered in grilled onions, Swiss and American cheese, and Thousand Island on rye—as is the Monte Christa, the comfort food cousin of the classic club sandwich with egg-battered bread stuffed with hot turkey, ham and cheese.

Delaney’s Diner | 5916 Westerville Rd., Westerville

With a new name, more tables, and a few menu holdovers, you’ll still find the best corned beef hash in Columbus, carved into huge chunks, served with grilled red potatoes and onions, and eggs to order. Crispy country fried steak smothered in sausage gravy also remains a reliable staple.

Jack’s Downtown Diner | 52 E Lynn St.

Hard to find, even in the heart of downtown, is a time capsule of the prototypical American diner. You could shoot a period picture at Jack’s and not have to change a thing. It’s already perfect. Order the meatloaf sandwich on sourdough with a side of hash browns, just to mix it up.

Grill & Skillet | 2924 E Main St., Bexley

Nothing says nostalgia like grilled liver and onions with homemade mashed potatoes, or a thick-sliced, fried bologna sandwich—not even the checkerboard floors. But don’t overlook the weekend specials, like peanut butter and banana French toast, salmon patties with Hollandaise, or their killer kielbasa and eggs.

DINNER

3 Brothers Diner | 3090 Southwest Blvd., Grove City

The three brothers from Oaxaca helped establish the style of another local diner before opening their own. Try their namesake omelet, with bacon, ham, plantains, and Monterey Jack covered in chili sauce and sour cream—or their signature scramble with poblanos, onions, corn, and zucchini, topped with Jack and queso fresco.

Westerville Grill | 59 S State St., Westerville

On the south end of Uptown, evening hours are often the exception when it comes to diners. Don’t miss the smothered chicken, grilled with peppers, onions, mushrooms, and melted cheddar with a side of mashed potatoes, or the weekend-only prime rib, slow-roasted and served with au jus.

Philco Diner + Bar | 747 N High Street, Columbus

The only entry on the list where all-day breakfast meets beer and cocktails, this upscale Short North pit stop offers a modern twist on every recipe. Seriously consider the coffee-braised pot roast, served with butternut squash, red potatoes, poblanos, and goat cheese, with rosemary onion rings.

Fitzy’s Old Fashioned Diner | 1487 Schrock Rd.

It’s never too late or too early at Fitzy’s, the only 24-hour diner on our list. Go for the breaded and fried, sliced pork tenderloin, served as an entrée, on a sandwich, or with your eggs—or keep it simple with the Fitzer: eggs your way, home fries, and a biscuit all covered in sausage gravy. ▩

March 15, 2019

Seasoned Supper Club

Originally published in the Spring 2019 issue of Stock & Barrel

Most dinner parties start in the kitchen, and the better ones tend to end there. But some of the best in Columbus actually start in a dentist office—or what used to be one.

Tricia Wheeler, founder of The Seasoned Farmhouse, describes her passion project simply as a recreational cooking school. She arguably sells herself short. The dated dental office in Clintonville that once sat empty has evolved into a rustic, yet refined, community kitchen for ambitious home chefs or anyone seeking to hone their culinary credibility.

It was more than just a second act for the former home, restored to its original residential charm with raised beds of herbs and produce for a rotating slate of chefs. It was Wheeler’s second act as well. Following a short and unsatisfying stint in corporate security after graduating from Ohio State, she found herself at a fork in the road.

“I called my dad and said I was going to start a new business, either a catering company, or a background screening company,” she revealed. Her father played practical and asked which one would cost less to get going, and how much money she had on hand. “I told him the background screening company, and $400. He said, ‘That’s great, because the hungrier you are, the harder you’re going to work’.”

The fledgling screening company she started a decade earlier grew and was eventually acquired by an investor for a comfortable sum. Wheeler suddenly found herself out of work, but with an enviable second chance. So she relocated to New York to fulfill her long-deferred dream of going to culinary school—with her mother in tow to tend to her two-year-old, while her husband made the long commute back to Columbus.

“I figured out early on that as much as I loved cooking, I really wanted to share what I was learning with my friends,” she recalled. “They didn’t find cooking joyful as much as tedious, so I was the only one throwing dinner parties.”

The idea that would become The Seasoned Farmhouse started small—not even as a school, but as a series of classes Wheeler initially taught at the M/I Homes Design Center kitchen showroom. The concept was solid, but the space proved restrictive. And what started as nine tiny dental offices was reconfigured into an oversized kitchen and intimate dining room dynamic enough to accommodate several classroom formats.

“We have students who are straight out of college and love to cook, retirees who love to cook and are looking for something to do, and couples who love to cook and want to do something together,” she noted. “We don’t repeat a lot. I’ll teach my sauce class every other year, and we might do our knife skills twice a year. My curiosity has always been in trying things that are new.”

The Seasoned Farmhouse offers 42 classes, four times a year—an impressive schedule by even traditional culinary school standards. Yet there remains an unexpected mix of luxury and utility, with fundamentals flanked by classes in niche cuisines as well as options like sheet tray dinners, for those looking for creative ways to get a delicious meal on the table fast without the fuss.

One course that remains a perennial favorite is Wheeler’s kitchen fundamentals class, a two-night course taught over two weeks that teaches everything from sweet and savory crepes to how to make a pasta sauce from scratch with what you probably have in your cupboard.

“I like giving students that foundation, that confidence,” she added. “I teach how to make a Chicken Piccata, it’s the perfect date meal. It’s what I used to make for every date I’ve ever had,” Wheeler confessed. “I started as the main instructor, but our growth has been organic. If someone comes to us, and we like what they do, we’ll give them the opportunity to see how their talents fit.”

This evening’s guest chef for “Thai Date Night” is no exception. Damian Ettish hails originally from South Africa. But his relocation to London, and extended adventures in India and Thailand before immigrating to Columbus, epitomize the unique expertise students have come to expect. He is used to working solo, but tonight he’ll have more than a dozen sous chefs—some seasoned, some as green as the curry—but all eager to learn something new.

“Cooking for a dozen people is obviously different than cooking on the truck, when you never know how many people are going to show up. So when I teach people to cook, it gives me time to share tips,” Ettish explained. “No one is coming here to learn to slice an onion. But I’ll teach them how to cut one the way I learned to on the streets of Thailand.”

His renowned local food truck, “Fetty’s Street Food” and restaurant chops seamlessly pivot between tricks, like how to cut that onion into tiny boat-shaped slices that better hold the sauce, and his intriguing travelogue, peppered with wry humor and hands-on encouragement.

“I really love these intimate settings. It’s more my style, and you can focus more on the food and flavors,” he noted. “It’s a lot like a food truck versus a restaurant. If I can teach people how to do something on a smaller scale, as a couple, then they learn how to do it on a larger scale, like a dinner party.”

Among tonight’s students are Michael and Emily Berlin, who moved here from Chicago five years ago. Emily gave Michael a gift certificate for The Seasoned Farmhouse their first Christmas in Columbus, and they’ve been coming ever since.

“Watching how everything goes together as a home chef is different than just following directions,” Michael observed. “Columbus has an up and coming food scene, so this is what a lot of people are looking for.”

Technique is tough to teach on a recipe card, or even YouTube. Ettish imparts insights more than instructions, like how to cut a bell pepper upside down to leave the seeds behind, slicing a chicken breast for even cooking in a curry, or holding a knife properly to ensure the pungent peanut and cucumber dip for the corn cakes ends up with more pickles than knuckles.

“We’ve done more of the dinners than the classes, but we always pick up a new tip,” noted Emily. “It’s the small things you don’t know unless you’ve been trained in a restaurant or gone to culinary school.”

That first gift came full circle with a birthday party at The Seasoned Farmhouse with family and friends Michael planned as a surprise for his wife. Though Wheeler’s better known sister company, Flowers & Bread, also hosts events, the breadth and depth offered by The Seasoned Farmhouse draws a line between the two as distinct as the difference between a café and a restaurant.

“We’re a gift couples give each other. Then they invite their friends to come with them next time,” Wheeler explained. “It’s why I love being in the experience business. It feels like I’m always throwing a dinner party.” ▩

For more details and a schedule of upcoming classes, visit theseasonedfarmhouse.com

March 15, 2019

Pies Wide Shut

Originally published in the Spring 2019 issue of Stock & Barrel

Competitive eating can be a bit of a cult. Like fans of TED or The Walking Dead, there are rules and rituals of which the uninitiated are blissfully oblivious.

That’s why it seemed disingenuous to write about food challenges for Stock & Barrel without ultimately joining the inner sanctum by taking one on personally — so I did.

Joseppi’s Mega Meat Pizza Challenge was the obvious choice for several reasons. It was the only team contest, so spreading the blame as generously as the sauce would still preserve my street cred. It also had the lowest rate of success, which set the bar right at my level. Finally, the payout was pretty impressive, not that I’d be in the mood for another pie any time soon.

I presumed finding a partner would be equally challenging, but it turned out to be quite easy. One post on Facebook yielded a quick offer from someone who also had the gumption, just not a teammate.

Blase Pinkert and I are in the same neighborhood beer brewing brood. The sometimes powerlifter and Gaelic football player could crush you with a gaze as easily as a clenched fist. It didn’t hurt that he also had a reputation for eating anything at least once and a beard big enough to hide a few slices under it if the contest was close.

“In the Air Force, I was the guy who would take on any challenge, that was my role in the shop. I’ve always been an entertainer, so I fed off of the attention,” Pinkert revealed. “I learned I could get people to throw 10 or 20 on the table and make a few bucks doing this.”

We’d called ahead the week before, so they were expecting us. The crust starts out on a pan the size of a wagon wheel, and by the time they’re done topping it with successive layers of meat and cheese, it’s nearly as thick as one. It’s so big, it has to go through the oven twice and takes two people to carry it.

This is when the head games begin. The kitchen staff tells you cautionary tales about those who have failed — and the “Loser’s Bucket”. They start prepping the table with bowls of ranch dressing and barbecue sauce, explaining that the taste turns on you and most have to change it up to keep going. They warn you about drinking too much, or too little. Passing patrons and dutiful denizens weight in on the long odds of finishing, or even getting close.

When the pie hits the table, it almost eclipses it entirely. If not for the lingering heat, they could just put legs on the pan and scoot chairs under it. It looks like a cinematic sight gag, from the movie Top Secret.

We’d prepared the way professional competitive eaters do, with a stomach stretching meal the evening prior and lots of water to preserve the newfound space until go time. A few quick pics for posterity and the clock started. We went hard charging for the edges and mentally broke up the 60 slices into short-term goals.

Chew too little and you waste space. Chew too much and you waste time. At 20 minutes, we’d already blown past Cameron Fontana and his camera guy’s mark. It was looking good.

Then the meat sweats set in and we hit “the wall”.

The wall is different things for different people. For us, it was the salt of the bacon and ham that did us in. When you can’t quench your thirst and have plenty of room left to drink, but can’t stand the thought of another bite, that’s the wall. We’d each eaten about a large pizza, no small feat considering by the time we got from the edge to the center, it was more than an inch thick. Pinkert’s athletic training came into play, but we still couldn’t overcome the physics.

“It did help from a psychological aspect, the fact that you learn to push your body and ‘turn off’ or ignore the signals it tells you, to push yourself that much further,” he said.

After a few final slices, we took a break hoping for a late rally that never came. We barely knew each other before that evening, but after spending an hour gorging and gossiping, we’d joined the cult — even if we still didn’t know the secret handshake.

We parted ways, went home, and both slipped into a long carb coma, like a python that swallows a gazelle and has to chill for a few days before it finds the will to move again.

By the way, the pizza was delicious and is highly recommended. Otherwise, we never would have gotten as far as we did. Unlike almost all other local food challenges, at Joseppi’s, you get to keep the leftovers. I didn’t have to buy pizza for two weeks. And it was also an irresistible chance to try out that time-lapse app on my phone, shrinking an hour down to three minutes — scored to the theme song from Benny Hill, of course.

But bawdy British sketch comedy is another kind of cult altogether. ▩

For standard size pies, or to try your own luck at the Mega Meat Pizza Challenge, visit joseppispizza.com

(Oh, and here’s the video, for those who think they can do better.)

March 1, 2019

Outside the Box

Originally published in the March 2019 issue of (614) Magazine

Holiday weekends in Hocking Hills offer ample opportunities for outdoor adventure. But Seth and Emily Britt’s first overnight stay at the site of their modern take on a cabin in the woods was more than either anticipated.

The family of four (now five) had recently closed on the lot after an exhaustive search for just the right spot to build what would become known as The Box Hop, a home away from home built from three enormous steel cargo containers assembled in gravity-defying fashion. The sleek aesthetic and amenities break from the more traditional rustic retreats just a short drive from Columbus.

Exceeding expectations was always the plan. Getting rescued from rising flood waters in the middle of the night was not.

“Emily woke me up at around 2AM freaking out. She’s normally the calm one, but she was terrified,” Seth recalled. “The water was creeping up the side of the RV. The fire department had to evacuate us because we couldn’t get back to the other side of the creek.”

When the waters receded, the Britt family found one of the shipping containers had actually floated downstream more than 300 feet into their neighbor’s yard. Rainfall and runoff would continue to plague the construction process. But after a decade of dreaming, years of planning, and months of delays, their unlikely abode was finally ready to share with friends and strangers alike.

“It all started when I was working at FedEx as a third-shift package handler while going to Ohio State,” he revealed. “I grew up in a trailer in Jackson County and realized the shipping container I was loading was larger than the home I grew up in.”

Seth was already pretty handy, having rehabbed a duplex in Olde Towne East. The couple’s first home was a HUD house in West Jefferson that had been vacant so long it was overrun with raccoons. Neither was easily put off by hard work, or a little wildlife. A growing family drew them back to the city, but never dampened their dream.

“We sold that house when the market was up and moved to Westgate. After putting in bids that fell through on several other properties to buy and fix up, we decided maybe it was finally the right time to consider the shipping container house,” he explained. “We spent a year trying to find the right lot with the right size, location, and access. Luckily, Emily knew exactly what she wanted, which helped narrow our options.”

Emily had earned her real estate license along the way, and had a natural knack for design. Her father works in environmental construction, so those insights informed and inspired her striking silhouette for The Box Hop. But the functionality grew entirely out of the family’s personal connection to the perennial destination for hiking, rock climbing, and scenic serenity.

“We’d been going to Hocking Hills for years, so we had this mental list of things we appreciated where we’d stayed, and things that were missing,” she recalled. “We wanted to create a different spin, the kind of place that would be more than just somewhere to stay, that felt like a place we would want to live.”

Much of the meteoric appeal of AirBnB is its authenticity over another ho-hum hotel room. But trying to make a place feel more like a home can easily end up a hodgepodge. The Britts sought the right balance, inside and out, by creating a simple and sophisticated stay unlike anything else in the Midwest. The offset configuration of the two lower containers opened up a surprisingly spacious entertaining and dining area with a private bedroom and well-appointed kitchen at either end. The central spiral staircase leads to the second story patio and rotated third container with wall-sized windows at either end that blur the barrier between the bedrooms and the forest that surrounds them.

“We worried they would look boring side by side, so I played around with the design. When we considered options for the second story, I knew the containers were designed to be stacked and I could turn the top container and still support the weight. Then I just tweaked it here and there to try to line up the plumbing,” she said modestly. “The bedrooms would be a little smaller due to the width of the containers, but I knew we could work with that by bringing the outdoors in. The windows open the bedrooms to all of the seasons we have in Ohio.”

The result is stunning and unmistakable. The steel and glass that should contrast the terrain mysteriously complement it. And at the right time of day, the reflection of the pines in those over-sized windows makes what remains almost disappear into the tree line like postmodern camouflage. If you somehow combined Henry David Thoreau’s reverence for the natural world with Frank Lloyd Wright’s esoteric style, it would surely look a lot like The Box Hop. It’s Walden meets Fallingwater.

“We’ve had a lot of folks ask us if we’d ever sell the place. But for us, it’s personal,” Seth confessed. “We spent countless hours designing every aspect, and it’s still a vacation home for our family and to come with our friends.”

Anticipated additions to The Box Top include suspended seating and an outdoor shower to complete the existing patio area and hot tub, as well as a large-scale mural on the exterior that references and reinforces the emerging brand — all elements that were deferred due to construction delays. The couple coyly hinted that another container getaway isn’t out of the question. With more than 18 acres available, the additional location would offer the same privacy as the original, but with its own unique charm and character.

“For now, we don’t want to disrupt our guests with chainsaws clearing a landing spot for another house,” Emily laughed. “But we also didn’t expect to book up so quickly.” ▩

For details on The Box Hop, visit theboxhop.com

February 4, 2019

Willing to Say Anything

Originally published in the February 2019 issue of (614) Magazine

If actors are fortunate, they’re remembered for one film that epitomizes the angst, anxiety, and aspirations of a generation. John Cusack has a career full of them. From cult to iconic, acclaimed to obscure, it’s perhaps impossible to overstate his influence or put him in a box.

Indelible ensemble performances in Sixteen Candles and Stand by Me, along with leading roles in The Sure Thing and Better Off Dead, earned Cusack an early reputation as a relatable and reliable talent just as the prospects for many of his teen comedy contemporaries were flaming out after puberty.

Then came Say Anything, which remains the anthem for every misfit who’s punched above his weight, and every girl who’s fallen for the one guy her friends and parents dismissed.

Cusack could have quit at the end of the credits and we’d still be talking about Lloyd Dobler and his boombox 30 years later. But instead of subpar sequels, he offered a second act we rarely see — one built on personal passion, purposeful projects, and the crisis of conscience that closely parallels the teen rite of passage.

“I had the luxury to work in film when it was a little less corporate. People who ran the studios were individuals. They would have a portfolio they’d take to shareholders and say, ‘Here are our tent-pole films’,” Cusack explained. “But they had six or seven movies a year they would give to artists they liked. I got to make Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity, Spike Lee got to make Summer of Sam, and Wes Anderson got to make Rushmore. It was because of the tastes of a guy named Joe Roth who ran Fox, and ran Disney. We never had to beg for money, and we never had to protect the cuts.”

Even if not for Roth’s old school style and reluctance to treat test market screenings as more than just another metric, Cusack also wrote and coproduced Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity. Wearing multiple hats in Hollywood doesn’t always mean you get your way. But at the time, Cusack’s artistic vision and authority on both films were nearly absolute.

“I sort of bridged the gap between the 60s and 70s filmmaking culture and from about 2000 on when the film companies became a very, very, small fraction of these multinational corporations,” he recalled. “All I had to do for those movies was tell Joe, ‘We’re going to shoot this in 48 days.’ I wasn’t going to go a day over schedule or waste any of his money. We didn’t have to deal with financiers or studio interference. I never felt like any film I made with Joe was compromised artistically. It was a different era.”

Cusack has an impressive history of prophetic films that seemed to predict everything from the rise of mixed martial arts to the renaissance of vinyl records. And even though politics can be polarizing, his films never shy away from them.

The vilification of the gun lobby in Runaway Jury and his clever critique of military contracting in War, Inc. were both well ahead of the curve. Even Cusack’s cameos and contributing roles are often scene stealing, and frequent collaborations with friend and colleague Tim Robbins tend to be among the most subtle and subversive. With each passing day, Bob Roberts seems less like a satire and more like a documentary from the future.

Have his outspoken opinions closed some doors, or opened others? If so, he hasn’t noticed, and doubts any such differences or decisions run that deep. Much like his earlier characters, Cusack still isn’t worried about winning a high school popularity contest or becoming prom king.

“Hollywood financiers have become far more shallow and the ethics are so transactional, I don’t think people pay attention long enough to consider politics as much as what’s hot right now,” he opined. “But I’ve always been pretty consistent about needing to say what you feel and the need to put provocative stuff, dangerous stuff into art.”

Cusack’s characters are often an everyman at odds with the status quo, though he can still pull off the affable anti-hero — as a serial grifter, a contract killer, and a political assassin. But Cusack is also an underrated chameleon, having transformed into a surprising range of real-life characters, from Nelson Rockefeller in Cradle Will Rock and Edgar Allen Poe in The Raven to Richard Nixon in Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy. Inhabiting someone else’s skin is a challenge and responsibility he doesn’t take lightly.

“If a person is alive like Brian, I just hung out with him and his wife as much as I could. That part of his life wasn’t as public as the first part of the life. He was basically a Beatle. He was on tour, they were making videos, he was recording nonstop, and then he went into the abyss for a while. People didn’t know him when he came out of it in his 40s, or that part of his life,” Cusack revealed. “You immerse yourself in a character. Obviously Edgar Allen Poe and Richard Nixon aren’t going to give you any notes. But I hope the real-life characters I’ve played represent the essence of them, the spirit of them. You don’t want to do a literal imitation, but you hope you capture some part of them that’s eternal.”

With the advent of streaming services and digital downloads, Cusack’s earlier work is connecting with new fans, often the children of those who came of age in the 80s and 90s. And though some actors may cringe at the prospect of their earlier endeavors becoming easier to find and effectively lasting forever, the timelessness of Cusack’s films, old and new, still rings true.

“There’s a great story about one of my favorite films, Sweet Smell of Success. It came out and got savage reviews. People can’t see new art when it comes out. So it sat on a shelf until someone at WGN said, ‘We have this Burt Lancaster/Tony Curtis movie. Why don’t we start playing it?” It got a cult following being screened at 10 o’clock or midnight on,” Cusack explained. “Then Barry Levinson had one of the characters in Diner quoting from the movie all the time. It finally started to get looked at again, and it’s a classic. It’s easily considered Lancaster and Curtis’ best work, but it was gone for 30 years. Now, you can’t kill a film. No matter what you do to a film, it’s going to find its audience sooner or later.” ▩

CAPA will be presenting a live Q&A with John Cusack following a screening of High Fidelity at the Palace Theatre on February 15.

Visit www.capa.com for details and ticket information.

January 4, 2019

Capeless Crusader

Originally published in the January 2019 issue of (614) Magazine

Carter Stewart isn’t your average crimefighter, and he’ll surely shun the description as much as he defies the stereotype.

Following a career watching broken systems contribute to incarceration, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio left government service to become a full-time mentor for the social enterprise sector. Riding a borrowed desk at the Columbus Foundation, he’s a one-man Midwest outpost for the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, recruited and charged with identifying worthy causes and applying Silicon Valley ingenuity to philanthropy-focused businesses — all to the tune of more than $100 million.

Imagine if instead of investing in capes and cowls, Bruce Wayne spent a fortune funding innovative approaches to solving long-standing injustices?

Not exactly cinematic, but far more effective. And it’s also more fundamental than simply fighting crime; it’s addressing the underlying circumstances that foster it. The shortage of services, access, and advocacy are all predictable indicators for both victims and perpetrators. Equipped with the insights and instincts of a prosecutor weary of always being on the receiving end of avoidable tragedies, Stewart shares his experience and expertise with fellow do-gooders, guiding them from shaky startups to scalable success.

We first met a few months back at Roosevelt Coffeehouse, itself an anchor for the local social enterprise movement. Overdue for a follow-up cup, we discussed the future of “purpose beyond profits” and why Columbus is the perfect incubator for ideas that really could change the world.

A career in criminal justice isn’t the typical résumé for a social justice champion. You’ve seen the world through an entirely different lens than most foundations. How has your work as a US Attorney informed your search for solutions through social enterprise?

It’s not uncommon to leave law to go into the nonprofit sphere, but it is uncommon to leave prosecution. The only other US Attorney I know who has done it is in Pittsburgh. I actually surveyed colleagues at the DOJ to see if anyone else had done this, and he was the only one. My desire to help is based on what I’ve seen as a prosecutor as much as my childhood experiences growing up in the South, in Atlanta. So many of the people my office prosecuted came from broken systems — school systems that weren’t adequate, housing situations that were poor. So many people in state and local jails suffer from mental health issues, addiction issues. I felt that if we could fix those broken systems, it would reduce the number of people who end up in the criminal justice system.

Social media and social enterprise seem to have come of age at the same time. There’s not a mutual dependency, but an undeniably growing parallel between purpose and purchase. What trends in digital connectivity distinguish successful social enterprises from those that fizzle out?

I can’t say there’s one pattern, but there is recognition of the importance of social media, especially for start-up organizations that don’t have a big budget and want to spread the word as far and wide as possible. Everyone we fund has to have a website. It sounds obvious, but they have to have something up and running. But we still have some organizations that are spread more by word of mouth. ROX, Ruling Our Experiences, is an excellent example. It’s a program that teaches girls leadership, entrepreneurship, self-defense, self-awareness. The 20-week program is spread, mostly in-person, by the founder, Dr. Lisa Hinkelman, speaking at conferences to school counselors — who then Google it. It’s the second bite at the apple. They hear from her first, then they learn more online and decide it’s something they want to pursue. But our organizations aren’t limited to the US, and some are dependent on social media to work. We have an organization based in Uganda called BarefootLaw. All of the lawyers are in the capital city of Kampala, but most of the people live in rural areas. So when they have legal issues, they use Facebook messaging to connect to BarefootLaw. It wouldn’t exist without that platform. So it’s a mix. Some rely on it, and for others it’s secondary. But where it’s critical for everyone is funders, who are more likely to research an organization before contacting it directly. They don’t want to raise hopes or expectations too early. It’s interwoven and social entrepreneurs recognize that.

There can be friction between traditional nonprofits and social enterprises serving the same cause. Ideally, raising awareness creates a larger pie, and everyone gets a bigger slice. How should social enterprises answer the concern that they’re competing for the same donors and dollars?

There is a perspective among some funders that there are too many nonprofits — to solve education, to solve poverty. Instead of creating new ones, we should improve and, perhaps in some cases, combine the ones that we have. There’s a degree of creation exhaustion. I happen to disagree. You need constant creation and rebirth, new ideas cycling in. Traditional nonprofits that have never considered the social enterprise model might feel threatened by that new entity going after the same funding dollars. In an ideal world, the new entity inspires the older entity to change and to grow. I consider the YMCA one of the oldest social enterprises in the country because they have a revenue stream. You pay for membership. So even though most nonprofits haven’t had that revenue stream, social enterprises have been around. It’s just been a small slice. I haven’t heard traditional nonprofits wishing social enterprises would go away as much as how can they be more like them and less dependent on philanthropic capital. And I think social enterprises can learn from nonprofits, their leadership structures and governance models. It’s a dynamic evolution that will hopefully lift everyone up.

Traditional businesses can also feel threatened by social enterprises. We don’t just vote every four years for president and every two years for Congress. We vote every day with our wallets. How do both kinds of businesses build brands that inspire their customers to become agents of change?

That competition should help businesses recognize the importance of having a second bottom line. Maybe not a social mission, but a mindset of corporate citizenship. That’s what drives people to Roosevelt Coffeehouse. They know when they spend money, the company does good things with it. It’s a brand they feel good supporting. TOMS Shoes is a classic example — you buy one and they give one. Not all tension is bad, and there can be positive creative tension between traditional businesses and social enterprises. Draper Richards Kaplan has someone on staff with whom we connect all of our entrepreneurs, to understand that communications is how you reach people, but branding is more, and an essential part of our process. Some folks come with more savvy than others, but in addition to helping build capacity they’re also building a brand. It’s something you should do in the early stages of your organization, so it becomes ingrained in your DNA.

The Midwest often gets overlooked when it comes to venture capital, despite our academic credibility, technological capacity, and desirable test market demographics. What does the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation see in Columbus that many still miss?

We’re a particular type of donor. Not all donors look for what we look for, most don’t. Most foundations I know won’t fund an organization unless they’ve been around for four or five years. And they don’t always look for organizations with the potential to scale. They look for organizations that are well-run, already likely to survive, and succeeding in their mission. We look for organizations at an earlier stage, those that have finished a pilot and want to go big. Not just Columbus, but in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Chicago, maybe nationwide. We look for ideas that have the potential to disrupt, to change broken systems, and not many funders share that desire. But in Columbus, there’s a hunger for it. Social enterprise is a buzzword, and they’ve been in Columbus for years before I got here. But 75 percent of funding still goes to the east coast and the west coast, and that’s a huge oversight. People were looking for mechanisms to get national funding to Central Ohio, to build and scale the organizations that are here and those just getting started. There’s a synergy between governments and businesses, nonprofits and social enterprises. It’s an enthusiasm and pride many on the coasts don’t realize is here. I was once one of those people. I lived in New York and California. It was my wife who decided we were moving to Columbus 13 years ago, and I still tell people it’s the best decision I never made. ▩

For more on social enterprises and the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, visit drkfoundation.org

December 17, 2018

Secret Ingredient

Originally published in the Winter 2018 issue of Stock & Barrel

Amid the monotony of formulaic fast casuals, Sweet Carrot exceeds expectations with every bite. Refined, yet whimsical, their fascination with corn cakes and smoked meat despite an industry of imitation obsessed with buns and bowls isn’t just daring. It reinvented Southern cuisine with a downhome flare that’s downright defiant.

Perhaps that’s because founder Angela Petro is cast against type, as both a restaurateur and an entrepreneur. She’s not Gordon Ramsey barking orders and berating the staff, nor some smug, Silicon Valley visionary constantly pitching the next big thing. Petro actually stumbled into Sweet Carrot neither by design nor necessity. The impulsive purchase of a food truck as a mobile R&D platform for her decades-old catering company proved so unexpectedly popular when it launched at the Columbus Arts Festival, a permanent location became all but inevitable.

The original in Grandview was an instant hit at the old Rife’s Market, but the second at Polaris was slow to take off. So the third in Dublin has focused on what restaurant patrons increasingly expect, a conscientious kitchen with menu options for everyone, regardless of dietary restrictions or preferences. It’s still fast casual, but with a thoughtful, artistic take on comfort food destined to grow beyond Central Ohio.

“It all came together as a curated experience. I would say it was fortuitous, at a time when I was starting to explore this kernel of an idea,” recalled Petro, whose established enterprise Two Caterers had reached a pivotal point. “When we started, we were doing simple drop-off lunches. But as we pushed ourselves, we became thought of as a high-end catering company, with creative presentation at a competitive price.”

In those early days, Petro wasn’t just wearing a proverbial chef’s hat. She was taking orders, working the kitchen, making deliveries, often serving her creations on-site, and washing the dishes at the end of the day. Eventually, the boutique catering business that landed a few big gigs had become something rewarding, but still unintended.

“My background is blue-collar. I grew up never having catering, and that’s where most of us live. But people still have parties, they still have a need. Every now and then, you need help with food, but you aren’t throwing a $30k graduation party or a $60k wedding. I still had that feeling we weren’t really serving the market that we set out to service.”

Unable to shake the perception as a prohibitively-priced caterer for many, and uncertain any amount of marketing would change popular opinion, Petro envisioned a sister brand that would capture that long lost clientele.

“Everyone contributed ideas to what we could roll out on our food truck — our sales team, kitchen staff, and our chefs. It bolstered this thought that we could go after this market of folks in Central Ohio who wanted wholesome food at a price they could afford, without someone in a bowtie wearing white gloves holding a silver tray,” she recalled. “That’s how Sweet Carrot started.”

The commitment to creative comfort food has always been a true community project. One of her chefs pitched the idea of savory corn cakes as a base, and brisket and pulled pork from the commercial smoker Petro picked up at auction were the perfectly decadent, working class complement. Their signature corn salsa, adapted from the recipe repertoire of staff member’s family potlucks, has become a ubiquitous condiment. Even the name came by way of a friend whose knack for word play was among many happy accidents.

“He sent me an email that said, ‘Did you know Sweet Carrot is an anagram of Two Caterers?’,” she chided. “So that became the name of our food truck, even before we knew what we planned to serve.”

The result is a menu that is neither seasonal, nor static, and adapting to customer expectations. Their corn cakes are gluten-free, their slaw is dairy-free, and vegetarians aren’t the only ones swooning over their fried artichokes — a callback to that first Columbus Arts Festival where they were cleverly sold as “fried arts”. And much like any credible country kitchen, little goes to waste, with yesterday’s brisket and pork becoming today’s Brunswick stew, chicken meatballs joining kale and black-eyed eyes in tomorrow’s soup. Even the leftover mac and cheese is coated in breadcrumbs from leftover rolls and flash fried to preserve their gooey goodness.

Petro admits she’s been the beneficiary of both luck and good fortune along the way, from a tiny little lunch company to a beloved local food truck that prompted patrons visiting Columbus for the Country Living Fair to personally plead her to open an outpost in their hometowns too. Even the name Sweet Carrot and its origin are metaphors for what great restaurants do best, turning existing ingredients into something completely new and unexpected.

“I believe in this brand, and never conceived of it as a one-off. When we opened the first Sweet Carrot, I struggled creatively to try to find the guardrails, to keep it as something that could be a multi-unit restaurant,” she recalled. “I wanted everything and the kitchen sink. When we first opened, I had a wine section and wanted to have a small market with products packaged to take home. If I’d opened it as a single location, it would have been a very different concept.”

The character of Rife’s Market was both a blessing and a curse. Petro and a team of staff and friends were sanding tables and painting the walls themselves. But the design and layout were more intuitive than intentional, setting a high bar for replicating the aesthetic at additional locations with less inherent character. Though Polaris was ambitious and demographically desirable, the new Dublin spot reveals the maturity of a brand ready to break out of Columbus.

“This third iteration is not the end, because there’s so much we’re going to learn. So though it is tempting, and exciting, and flattering to think about opening another location, it’s also the right time to pause,” she noted. “We’ve opened two restaurants this year, as a very tiny company, and we are definitely looking to keep expanding and evolving. We’re small, but mighty.” ▩

To find the nearest Sweet Carrot, or check out their catering or special diets menus, visit sweetcarrot.com

December 13, 2018

Barbershop Quintet

Originally published in the December 2018 issue of (614) Magazine

The foremost fear of many musicians is failing to fill a room, and rightly so. The club circuit is cutthroat, and light ticket sales and lackluster turnout can easily kill a band’s future before it even begins.

Empty seats are hardly a concern at the most exclusive live music venue in Columbus, where the audiences rarely outnumber the performers and it’s typically standing room only.

That’s because it’s not a basement bar or small stage. It’s a barbershop.

Jim Morris might surprise you as the proprietor of a place called The Mug & Brush. With his wavy white mane and robust beard, he looks like someone who hasn’t seen the inside of a barbershop in a while, not the owner of one. (Two in fact, between the original in the Old North neighborhood between campus and Clintonville, and now an equally quaint second location in Gahanna.)

But as the creator of an indie music series shot on a shoestring that has acts lining up to get in, his relaxed locks and attitude are entirely on brand.

“We started with a couple of prototype sessions with The Floorwalkers and Nick D’ and the Believers. Even before that, I’d asked just about every video and sound guy who came through the shop about the project,” Morris recalled. “I’d cut Keith’s hair for about ten years, but hadn’t seen him recently because he was growing his hair long. He stopped by and I told him about the idea. That’s how I finally hooked up with the crew.”

Keith Hanlon is exactly what you’d expect from a seasoned sound guy. As a producer and audio engineer, he’s as adept at booking the bands as he is running the board in a recording studio that’s far more complex than just a warm old room with high ceilings. Hanlon is affable and technical, intent on isolating each performer’s voice and instrument with assuring precision, despite the odd mix of textures and street traffic.

“The biggest issue I have is bleed onto the vocal mics. It depends on how loud the drummer is,” Hanlon quipped, himself a drummer. “As we’ve progressed, we’ve gone from a pieced together PA system for monitors to a decent USB mixer and enough equipment accumulated along the way to create a studio feel that still sounds live.”

“It began with a few friends and bands we knew, like Birdshack and Righteous Buck. They agreed sight unseen, it was a leap of faith,” Morris revealed. “They didn’t know the crew or exactly what it was all about, but they said, “We’re in,” anyway. Within six months, bands were calling us.”

Though The Mug & Brush Sessions is a music series, don’t mistake it for a podcast. It’s decidedly cinematic, with multiple cameras and a balance of shots that never looks or sounds sanitized or slick. With angles and close ups as high and tight as a haircut, it’s raw and refined at the same time.

“We do several takes, but we don’t intercut. Sometimes you’ll pick up something only one person will notice,” Hanlon explained. “You may see it on the performers face, but we’ll just let it go and use another shot. I’d rather have an imperfect performance than lose the magic.”

Getting a big sound out of a small space isn’t easy on either side of board. Bands used to playing for hundreds, perhaps thousands also have to scale down their performance to the intimate surroundings. Engineering can also prove imperfect, amplified by the occasional OS update with unintended consequences.

“Things break down, and an update can render a piece of equipment useless. Doc Robinson had eight performers, the most we’ve ever had in the room. I could still use the mixer, I just couldn’t record from it,” Hanlon explained. He ended up cobbling a couple of pieces of equipment together to manage the monitors and capture the recording, syncing the 10-channel session afterward. “It was the only way we could do it. Sometimes, you just have to make it work.”

Though there is a bent toward indie rock and Americana, there are definitely no limits on genre. From local folks who have earned audiences beyond Columbus, like Lydia Loveless and Josh Krajcik, to the EDM of Damn the Witch Siren and spunk rock darlings Cherry Chrome.

“I’d like to see more of the less frequent genres we’ve had, like Blueprint and Dominique Larue,” Morris recalled. “We also had a chamber music string quartet once, Carpe Diem.”

“We try to book acts with musical diversity and diversity in general. I’d love to have a Somali or Latino group, something you won’t find outside those communities,” Hanlon followed.

As a Midwest crossroads, their relationship with Natalie’s, proximity to the Newport, and pipeline from Nashville has also yielded some unexpected acts for The Mug & Brush Sessions.

“We’ve had Peter Case, and Califone, and Greg Trooper, though there are so many local acts, we really don’t have to look outside Columbus,” noted Hanlon. “I’d love to get Michael Hurley. He’s always playing at Nelsonville Music Festival and up at Natalie’s.”

Beyond the bands, the real genius of the show is how scalable and shareable it is. Shot on the same DSLR platform favored by independent filmmakers, it feels authentic without being claustrophobic. Hosted on YouTube instead of some hyper-restrictive or homespun solution, it’s easy to send to a friend with a click. For many bands, it’s become a measure of credibility or a professional milestone, like the local equivalent of an appearance on Austin City Limits or MTV Unplugged.

It’s also just as easy to watch it on a television screen as a smartphone or computer. Performances also hold up on even bigger screens, occasionally featured at Mojoflo’s Music Video Mondays at the Gateway Film Center. The stripped down style of the sessions actually succeeds where most music videos fail, transporting the audience to a live performance, as though they’re sitting right there in a barber chair between Jim and Keith, taking it all in.

“We’re creating an archive of the Columbus music scene we hope will still be relevant decades from now. But that wasn’t exactly our original intent. We just wanted to feature local musicians in a new way,” Morris noted. “When we started, I hoped we might make it to 100 episodes. But now that we’re five years in, who knows. Maybe we can make it to ten?” ▩

For a complete archive of The Mug & Brush Sessions, visit themugandbrushsessions.com

December 13, 2018

Second Story

Originally published in the December 2018 issue of (614) Magazine

There’s no perfect formula for connecting artists and audiences, much to the dismay of musicians, promoters, and the fans they fail to rope into their orbit. But if there were one, the secret ingredient that distinguishes nuisance from noise would probably be the venue itself.

Maybe that’s why mindful musicians and their faithful followers are driving in droves to a former furniture store out in Newark for craft beer and cocktails before settling in for shows that defy expectations at any decibel.

Unlike an aging arena or basement bar, Thirty One West was built for music, back in the days when Newark was known as “Little Chicago” for its robust theater scene. But after decades of decline, like most medium-sized Midwest towns, the satellite city has been torn between playing second fiddle to a tempting metropolis just over the horizon or forging its own destination identity. The dance hall days are over. Fire claimed some, neglect got the rest — all but this one that happened to find a second life as a low-frills furniture store waiting to be rediscovered.

“During construction, we did a series called the Ballroom Revival Sessions. We wanted to share with folks where we were in the process and were eager to have music in the space and hear how it sounded,” explained Tom Atha, champion of Newark’s own larger revival and a familiar face for anyone who’s ever been to Thirty One West.

The Church Street “project” as it became locally known includes a barbecue joint, a yoga studio, a play café, and an art space featuring Atha’s alma mater Denison University. But the second story live concert venue and street level bar are the jewels in this downtown crown of urban renewal. Atha also operates Earthwork Recording Studio down the block, so creating a small space feel despite the enormity of the undertaking was always a priority.

“We started inviting friends in to perform, but also offer an update on construction. It allowed us to do some interviews and gather insights from artists on what they look for in a venue,” he recalled. “With someone like Sean Rowe, we were really curious about his interest in house shows, and how could a larger venue still capture the intimacy of a house show. It helped us share what we were doing and get some music out there before we even had the doors open.”

It didn’t take long for word to get out that there was something special about the acoustical street cred of their quirky old ballroom with a bar in both the basement and the balcony. That’s why acts that could play anywhere are reconnecting with their roots at a venue that brings artists and audiences together. From the growling blues of Taj Mahal to the jazz-funk fusion of Spyro Gyra, performers seeking something kindred in a place that is both old and new have taken notice.

“For me, the biggest part of choosing a venue is whether the audience can hear the show as we intend it. You don’t want it loud, and reverberant, and noisy. I really prefer to have a listening environment,” revealed Steven Page, who played his first gig at Thirty One West in October. The former front man for Barenaked Ladies knows what makes a room and an audience both hum. “I’m pretty aware of the fact that my audience isn’t 22 anymore. They’re not going to want to come see me and stand on a concrete floor for five hours.”

Many musicians often have only rudimentary information about a venue before playing there for the first time — city, capacity, and little else. Bookers and promoters schedule the shows. One delivers the talent, the other the audience. But when artists are impressed by the right place, or turned off, everyone tends to hear about it.

“Lots of artists compare notes, especially the horror stories. You’ll always remember the really terrible ones. But if there’s a new venue opening up in town, or one that’s developing a new reputation, you automatically share those experiences with other musicians,” Page noted. “I’ll go to my agent and say I really want to play there again. And that helps get more acts booked there as well.”

Every venue has a different vibe, and Thirty One West seems to occupy the fabled Goldilocks zone right in the middle, large enough to achieve critical mass, yet small enough for the shared experience not to get lost.

“If a room is acoustically dead, some songs won’t have the same kind of expansive feeling they would in a more lively room. And if a venue is really noisy, it’s harder for us to hear ourselves onstage. If notes go out and wash around the room, we may have to choose songs that require less precision. The strokes are broader,” Page explained. “There’s a song that we do some nights, an old Barenaked Ladies song called Break Your Heart. If the room feels right and sounds right, and the audience is engaged, it becomes this perfect storm. I’ll do it incredibly intimately, if I feel like my voice is going to carry in that room. I’d like to do it every night, but I’d blow my voice out. So it’s the kind of performance you only get if the room can support it.”

The ballroom doesn’t necessarily look like what you might expect from that moniker. There aren’t velvet curtains or a punch bowl at the end of the room for thirsty wallflowers. Instead, there’s an expansive wooden dance floor that resonates with each note with a mix of modest tables and chairs. Yet the room is so tuned in, there’s actually a sign in balcony warning patrons to mind their voices, as the acoustics carry conversations all the way down to the stage.

“Sometimes we’ll play in a place that’s really ornate, like an old church, or a venue that seems really dressy, and you can tell an audience is intimidated by that. They aren’t as expressive right off the bat, so you have to work a little harder for them to feel less self-conscious, let go, and enjoy the show. I like those challenges. Honestly, I like having to work for every bit of applause. It’s easy to take it for granted,” explained Page. “If the room is right, the audience is at ease. That’s when unpredictable things happen. We have the freedom to mix up of the set list, or an encore. Someone may shout out a request we haven’t prepared or played as a trio, and we’ll try it out anyway.”

This is where Thirty One West really ups the ante on venues, and is a credible threat for the predictable digs folks are used to in Columbus. They know the room so artists are also at ease, tuning their tech like the whole building was one giant instrument instead of turning everything up to 11 and hoping for the best.

“The folks at Thirty One West told us it was the first time for a lot of people there at the show, so hopefully connecting with a new clientele will help build that core audience. For us, the staff and crew were great, easy to work with from the monitors to the PAs. They were helpful and hands on and really knew how to work their equipment,” Page revealed. “That’s a big difference. Sometimes you go into a place and that’s not the case. But when you work with people who know the room, it makes our job so much easier, knowing we can go on stage relaxed and that the audience will hear the show as it should be.”

Even so, old habits are tough to break with some tours that tend to look past smaller shows or locales, despite the increased attention from performers and their patrons.

“It could be daunting initially to attract acts that are used to playing right in Columbus. We thought it was a really beautiful building, aesthetically and acoustically. That’s what’s going to win them over. It’s such a great listening room — without being precious about it,” Page opined. “I remember playing a couple of gigs over the years, places where they actually shush people if they talk. I feel I have to earn people’s quiet. But if it’s a talky room, maybe it’s because audiences can’t hear us as well. Everyone here was relaxed, enthusiastic, and into the show. That’s what the right venue can do. It’s not just the building, it’s the audience it attracts.”

However, the ballroom is only part of what distinguishes Thirty One West from your typical concert hall. It’s about building that elusive connection between artists and audiences into something that doesn’t fade away after the encore.

“We started the 31 Club when we launched, which is our $100 membership. The idea was to embrace our core audience, get feedback, offer some cool perks, and create a relationship and a dialogue to know how we were doing. We do member appreciation shows, there are discounts at our bar, discounts on our merch, we open access to ticket sales early, and give away tickets via lottery,” Atha explained. “This past year, we extended our memberships to include a Season Pass at the $500 level. That includes two general admission tickets to every show for the calendar year. You still get all of the perks of the 31 Club, plus a couple of tickets to each show.”

Imagine buying concert tickets like Netflix instead of going to Blockbuster back in the day. Instead of only going to see the bands you know, you’re more likely to discover new ones — and that’s kind of the point.

“Folks were coming out to shows they never would have otherwise. If we have enough members who do that, we can take bigger risks as a music venue, and do a better job curating, if we know there is a core audience to support it,” Atha revealed.

Thirty One West also created the Stereogram Sessions, bringing two musicians into the studio separately, laying down four or five tracks, pressing each session to a side, and hosting a vinyl release party featuring both of the artists.

“It marries both of my endeavors in downtown Newark together. But there was another challenge we were also trying to solve. We’ve had success bringing in national talent, but we’ve had a harder time booking acts from Columbus because audiences can see them there anytime,” Atha explained. “So that’s where the idea was born, let’s give Columbus audiences an excuse to come here to see a Columbus act by offering a different experience. We’re a listening room, so we appreciate when music is valued in a focused way. Vinyl accomplishes that in a way digital streaming can’t and ties our performances at Thirty One West to a permanent product.”

Luckily, you don’t have to wait for the next show or a vinyl release to stop by the street-level bar below the ballroom

“The Bootlegger was created and branded as its own space, because it’s open whether or not there is a concert,” Atha explained. “We never charge admission for events at the Bootlegger. It gives us a connection to the community and a great place to vet talent as potential openers for future shows.”

Locals are still discovering Thirty One West, but so are folks from surrounding cities and states, slowly building that loyal base of patrons and supporters competing venues will surely envy.

“We still have first timers coming through our doors all the time, but we’re starting to build that core audience we’ve always wanted. But people are still coming here to see the bands, so we do everything we can to treat them well,” Atha noted. “That feedback that makes it back to the booking agencies or management is what sets us apart. It’s why we get calls for shows routing through Ohio wanting to try someplace new. It’s still a hard pitch, but it’s why artist feedback on what we do differently is essential — and we try to knock it out of the park with every show.” ▩

For details on upcoming shows at Thirty One West, or to see their Ballroom Revival Sessions, visit thirtyone-west.com