Doug Motz - Lost Restaurants of Columbus, Ohio

Published by American Palate
A Division of The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.net

Copyright 2015 by Doug Motz and Christine Hayes
All rights reserved

First published 2015
e-book edition 2015

ISBN 978.1.62585.455.1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015953065

print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.928.6

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

To All the Hands that Grew or Caught the Food, and the Hands that Made All
Those Meals, and the Hands that Served all the Diners, and the Hands that
Washed All the Dishes.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

As a restaurant reviewer, I never announced my arrival. I never ordered things that werent on the menu. And I have never sent anything back.

Of course, I became friends with many chefs. I selected the chefs, thirty or forty a year, to be included in the Gourmet Galaxy Caf Cookbook and wrote a piece about each one. The Dispatch published these cookbooks, with recipes or information from the chefs, in conjunction with its yearly Home & Garden Show.

Columbus has always been a great restaurant town. But gourmet cuisine was not always there. Columbus restaurants, for the most part after the war and into the 50s, appealed to mass patronage, even before the fast-food chains arrived in the 60s.

But I must say it hurt my feelings when I was denied entrance to Hamburger Uwhere they train McDonalds managers outside of Chicago. I just wanted to write about it. Im the one to tell you though: a McDonalds bun has exactly 285 sesame seeds on it.

Many a good eatery suffered early death due to its bad name. Too many words or initials can confuse the potential customers. And talk about location! Cameron Mitchells first restaurant name I nixed, as well as the chosen site: the Battleship Building by the North Market. I took a Titanic photo of him, arms outstretched, which I was going to use when the restaurant sank.

Fortunately, he changed his mind: Camerons, the first of his many restaurantshes now opening in Beverly Hills and Manhattanis alive and well in Linworth. The worst name and restaurant of all was the Turkey Trota Jim Rhodes venture with turkey sandwichesthat was going to be a chain. Thirty people became ill from the food by the next dayit didnt last long.

I used to love my Hobo Stew appearance at the State Fair Heartland Cuisine Stage. There would be one hundred people plus Bob Evans. He was at the fair to buy a hog and tell me what they were doing at the sausage factory. I gave away the review cookbooks that Sue Dawson or Peter Franklin had left.

By the way, Bob Evans bought out Jimmy Deans sausage chain. I asked Jimmy, Why are you opening in Columbus? He said, Because I want to go up against the best. And you see what happened.

Speaking of the best, Ill name them: Anything Chef Hartmut Handke made. And Kent Rigsbyheres a menu of maybe the best meal I ever ate: Sixteenth Annual Day After Thanksgiving Luncheon 2006Lobster Stew, Foie Gras, Kobe Beef Short Ribs, Venison Loin, Pears Two Ways, wines to match each course. And once I had black coffee and doughnuts at 4:00 a.m. in a New Mexico caf that will not be beat.

DORAL CHENOWETH JR.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my father, Ben Hayes, for all his note-taking and columns. Thanks to both parents, Ben and Betty Hayes, for always bringing me along. I had to act like an adult, but I got to absorb a lot of stuff few other kids got to see.

Thanks to Doral Chenoweth Jr. for all the advice, columns and memories.

Thanks to all my other sources and encouragers: Herb Brown, Gregg Eiden, Barbara and Don Gehlbach, Charles Langstaff, Dick and Harriet MacLeish, Julie OKeefe McGhee, Martha Johnson Miller and Suzan Singh.

Thanks to Tom Thomson and Margaret Marten for allowing me to write all over the map for these many years at the Short North Gazetteand for providing me a way to show the world: shortnorth.com/Hayes.

Thanks to George Bauman and all the Acorn Bookshop Nuts for the time to create this book and the supportive atmosphere for free exchange of ideas and memories.

I want to thank the town of Fairfax, California, for making me artist-in-residence for two years. My own historical tour of Fairfax led me back to Columbus history; Fairfax also gave me the friendship of Frank Gonzalez and Roy and Linda Christman.

Thanks to my son, Lucian Archimedes Moon (the artist called Lamb), and my stalwart companion, Arnett Howard.

CHRISTINE HAYES

Thanks to my grandmother Maxine Motz for instilling in me a love of reading and history.

Thanks to my parents, Michael and Mary Motz, for always encouraging me to be my best and for holding me accountable when I wasnt.

Thanks to Genie and Jay Hoster of Books on High for being the first Columbus historians I turned to when researching the tales of my beloved Old Oaks and for setting me on the path to falling in love with Columbus history.

Thanks to Jeff Lafever and Anne Evans of the Columbus Historical Society for coming up with the Historical Dinner Club series and to Walker and Anne Evans, who have so generously allowed me to write a sometime column for their amazing website www.columbusunderground.com.

For sharing so many stories and photographs, I wish to thank Rob Felty, Shelley Bishop, David Girves, Darren Greene, Cliff Madden, Nancy and Robert Tad Jeffrey, Cheryl Evans, Jeri Boetcher and Teri Swarner, Milton Lustnauer, William Harrison, Elizabeth Lessner, the Keny Gallery, Jerry Glick, Lana Waud, Scott Heimlich, Jan Whitaker, Chris Brown, Michael Caven, Tom Grote and the wonderful staff of the local history and travel department of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, including Sam Roshon and my dear friend Andrew Miller.

And this book could not have been written without the support, patience and love shown me by my husband, Todd Popp. You have listened to me read all of these stories and have heard me tell the same ones hundreds of times without going crazy. That is only one of the thousands of reasons I am so proud to call you my much better half.

DOUG MOTZ

INTRODUCTION

Imagine a world where you walk into a restaurant and there is no rock music playing, no one using a handheld device except maybe a cocktail shaker or a potato peeler and the owner is on the premises to give you a friendly hello.

You are in the restaurant to have a good meal, to be seen or to see, to be entertained. Obviously you choose one for breakfast or lunch that is familiar and inexpensive. But when you want to be extravagant, for that special occasionhow do you choose?

Columbus is a place with two rather bland rivers (except when they flood) and few outstanding geographical features. But it is a good restaurant town and always has been. Its a crossroads for people from all walks of life. Early taverns and inns did a great business. Then immigrants came and diversified the palates of natives and travelers alike. To attract the almighty dollar, themes were developed, sometimes overtaking the entire restaurant or shopping center.