Local

Socially Just Dining: Portia’s Café

In April this year, it was no fool’s joke that Portia’s Café opened, and met desperately needed options setting the bar for a 7 points standard in restaurant salient service consciousness: 1) Vegan, 2) local, 3) organic & fair trade, 4) non-genetically modified organisms (non-GMOs), 5) gluten-free, 6) raw (nutritionally dense), and even 7) fluoride-free filtered water! Not everyone who wants to eat vegan is vegan, yet informed consumers are teeming towards robustly healthier, sustainable options, and Portia’s offers just that, with delicious living foods selections. The atmosphere is warmly charming with its bright, colorful earth tones and lively Latin music with friendly, very clean restaurant and restroom service. Don’t let the small size of the restaurant dining room fool you; over 50 vegans were served during a recent Columbus Vegan Meetup group event with overflow seating outside in the back parking lot (weather permitting). If you get a lettuce wrap, pay the nominal charge to add the gluten-free wrap on the side for a more filling meal. They are located in Clintonville, at 4428 Indianola Ave. Columbus, 43214. Open Tue- Sat 11 to 9 and Sun 11 to 3.

9 Tables (In Athens)

Nine Tables is exactly that. Nine Tables. Most often it is three 4 tops and six 2 tops. The concept is simple: for three nights per week, Nine Tables aims to serve twenty to thirty people per evening in a personal, slower paced manner similar to dining in Europe. Guests are invited to have a long, slow dinner at their own pace. Your table is yours for the entire evening from 5 pm to midnight if you choose. Tables are not “flipped” so when your dinner is complete your table gets the rest of the evening off. At first thought, one might think this would be a formal, stuffy experience…far from it, an evening at 9 Tables can be anything you want it to be. Most often it will be informal, fun and relaxing. The atmosphere is intimate, the small space is dark and cozy but there is enough space between tables for each group to have their own experience but also close enough to encourage camaraderie. The restaurant is BYOB and it is not uncommon for people to trade bottles or share during the evening. The best table to reserve is set up next to the chefs prep table which allows full access to all the action and to Chef Bill throughout the evening.

Peaves the Freepress Butler

Don't ask, please, why I decided to do it, but I did. I started my own business on the side. Truth be told, I have an abundance of idle time in my work here at the Free Press (please don't say anything to Mrs. Peaves or the nasty little cuss who is the managing editor, neither of whom read what I write). And so, with that time, I went into business for myself. What that business is, isn't important. It was the motions I had to go through to start that business that is at issue. Like any new business owner, I assumed I would need a business phone and, of course, a calling card. I believe you Americans refer to them as business cards. Either way, I needed some, or so I thought. An acquaintance designed and printed my card, though not exactly in the timely manner he had described. Eventually he proudly delivered them to me. At the time he brought them around, I was on hold with the telephone company, had been for 20 minutes.

Tale of An Accountant Who Got In Over His Head

Bill Cook has become known for plays that unfold like dreams rather than real life. With his latest, State of Control, he’s graduated from dreams to nightmares. At its center is Stan (Ben Gorman), an accountant who’s just been hired as the controller for an investment firm. The job title carries a whiff of irony because from the moment he enters the office, his life is out of control. The boss (Mark Schuliger) keeps him off-balance with compliments and cocktails and keeps pushing him to sign documents he hasn’t had time to read. Co-worker Melissa (Amy Anderson) plies him with come-ons that even Helen Keller couldn’t miss, all the while ignoring Stan’s protestations that he’s married. Things get even more uncomfortable when Stan and Melissa are sent on a “rainmaking” trip to Las Vegas and she encourages him to risk thousands on a shaky bet.

Illuminated Art Sprouts in Conservatory’s Gardens

This winter, as usual, you’ll be able to celebrate the holiday season by taking in the Wildlights display at the Columbus Zoo. But you’ll also have a gorgeous alternative just a mile east of Downtown. The major exhibition “Bruce Munro: Light” opened last weekend and will remain on view through Feb. 8 at the Franklin Park Conservatory. Lori Kingston, the conservatory’s marketing director, said it would be great if “Light” attracts some of the families who enjoy holiday spectacles such as Wildlights. But she also said illuminated exhibitions like this have appeal throughout the year, not just in December. “I think light draws people all the time, no matter what the season,” she said. Munro, a Brit who started out as an industrial lighting designer, specializes in massive works that combine transparent spheres and other objects with shifting colors and even sound effects or music.

So Many Books, So Little Time?

First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School by Alison Stewart During the 1880s through the 1950s–what the African American historian Rayford Logan called “the nadir of American race relations,” when the striving of blacks was met by the iron fist of white supremacy–America’s first black high school became the springboard to almost a century of black achievement. In 1870 with some public money, a small legacy from Myrtilla Miner, a white leader in educating poor black women, and the prodigious efforts of Washington’s black elite, the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth held its first classes. After bouncing around to various locations, Congress appropriated $112,000 for a permanent structure, and the M Street School was opened to black students in 1892. A number of its earliest teachers had been trained at Ivy League schools, studied abroad or held advanced degrees. Because of Jim Crow, they were often unable to find work in their chosen fields, and so migrated to Washington, D. C. and the M Street School, which was renamed Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in 1916.

Wexner’s “Blues For Smoke” Exhibit Is Art You Can Feel

The current Wexner Center “Blues for Smoke” Exhibit comes to Columbus at a time when Contemporary Art Centers such as the MOMA and artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat are referenced by Rick Ross, Jay Z, Lil Wayne and Kanye West over rap radio outlets 100 x's a day. My wishful thinking is that more people can afford the admission at the Wexner vs. buying an expensive luxury car, so art is about to be embraced by the masses. I did not have a private jet to fly to “Blues For Smoke” prior showings at MOCA in L.A.

Endorsements for the upcoming Election

Early voting for the November 5th General Election starts on October 1st, so it is time for The Columbus Free Press to issue its recommendations on key contested elections and issues facing voters of Columbus. To frame our endorsements, let’s start by reiterating our Mission Statement (see below). If you agree with our mission, then we would ask that you consider following our political endorsements.

A lot like Cheers, The Pub Out Back

The Pub Out Back is an unlikely bar in a likely place. If that makes sense. It is tucked into a small space in a small strip of shoppes hidden behind the main drag of Olde Worthington. It is an easy place to miss. That is part of the charm of the place and why it is the pub out back. While Olde Worthington might not seem to be a pub crawl destination of choice, the area offers one of the best areas to do so, in a compressed block. In addition to easy to spot pubs like Old Bag of Nails and PK O’Ryans, the choices out front also call home to the bar at Rivage, House Wine, La Chatelaine and a really good happy hour at the bar of the Worthington Inn. Insiders, like Robert Kramer, of the independent village of Riverlea, know the upsides of the drinking choices of this mini-downtown and for folks like them, the Pub Out back was created.

Socially Just Dining: Loving Hut

I love it when I find businesses that stand for something beyond taste and quality in their service consideration. The world certainly needs more love, and you may just find it at “Loving Hut.” Love for all earthlings is what they strive for in their delicious, often organic, including several gluten-free and always vegan offerings- the entire menu is full-service, safe for vegans. Everything is delicious, often nutritiously dense (though there are some fried and processed foods) and affordable. You can get an appetizer, a main course, a foo- foo drink (non-alcoholic smoothie) and a dessert for under $20. Their delectable selections often delight the most skeptical of non-vegans. They empower customers with great resources, interesting reading all delivered in a friendly, crisp, clean, peaceful atmosphere. This is not fast food, everything is made to order, so if you are in a hurry, call ahead and make that need clear. They are a short 8 minutes from downtown (not in rush hour traffic) in the Blacklick shopping center: 6569 East Livingston Avenue, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068, open 4 to 9 Mon- Fri, Sat 11-8, closed Sunday.

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