Brutus_buckeye

I hear Javier's on court street is moving to the old Busken Bakery location on 8th and Walnut. The court street area is nice but they will have a lot more room for seating at the new place.

5/3 should do something with their air-rights on fountain place and encourage development. Probably could not support too much office space but they could add a parking deck on top of Macy's with a hotel (afterall we have an expanded convention center) and maybe some luxury condos overlooking the square. I know it is a pipe dream and highly unlikley but hey it is nice to dream.

Intelligent people can be bigots, as can people who have black friends and represent black people in court. Even conceding, for the sake of argument, that Cunningham is not himself a bigot, I stand by my comment based on the viewpoints he espouses on his WLW radio talk show. His latest tirades have been directed at Mexicans, btw. I listened to him use the unfortunate incident of that guy who recently got attacked and killed by some immigrants up in Mason to launch a racist tirade against everyone from Mexico, then everyone hispanic, then everyone whose first language was not English. So if this guy is not a bigot, he sure as hell propagates bigoted ideas under the cover of his own personal opinion and therefore remains a piece of shit. That city where that incident happened was Hamilton, not Mason. I pretty much agree with the rest of what you said. Jake has been pretty disconnected with Cincinnati over the years. References to 1990 prove my point. You could wipe the whole entire staff of WLW and I would be happier. Scott Sloan is also another one that spews his ignorant rants about the city. I called his show once and gave him a piece of my mind and he hung up on me of course. I didn't fit into his agenda. Cincinnati is definitely filled with some suburban ass clowns that know little about my beloved city but think they do... After all they read the Enquirer and listen to Willie ;) Who cares about all this. People need to quit thinking that these programs are supposed to be Newstalk and take them for what it is, entertainment. Cunningham and Sloan are both blowhards on the air who say outrageous things in order to get ratings and to entertain. I once knew a guy who used to produce the Cunningham show and he said Cunningham did not believe 3/4 of the stuff he actually said on the air. It is all a giant persona for entertainment value only. Just like a tv actor, and lets face it they are pretty good at this too since they draw a lot of listeners who seem to be entertained. Most educated people who listen to these shows take it for what it is entertainment, Granted there are a lot of idiots out there that may believe it on its face but that is life. The point of stations lie WLW is to make money and get ratings so they will cater their programming to what will draw the most ratings and return on their investment. People need to look skeptically on the information they receive with this bent in mind. If you are listening to the radio to hear real news and information listen to NPR. It may be less entertaining, but you may be more informed.

I thought Ingredients in the Westin was supposed to be a breakfast place

Yea, but Guidos is a decent pizza place. Maybe they will give away free pizza at halftime of the bengals games like they do in the Mt. Adams location.

Thomasbw You sound like you are in law school

Yes, it is a cinci institution, but they franchised to Columbus, Louisville, and Indy. The franchisees can only do the ice cream. They have the recipe and make it in their various city and distribute it to all their stores in their region. The product mix is controlled by the corporate parent in Cinci but the franchisees have a lot of autonomy as well

The Greaters stores in the Dayton area are run by the Columbus franchisee, and the Northern Kentucky stores are run by the Louisville franchisee I believe. The corporate parent only runs the cincinnati stores so the newspaper statement is accurate. The easiest way to tell if it is a corporate Graeters or franchise is whether there is a full service bakery or it is only an ice cream shop

I typically thought Cinci did a good job of building on vacant lots as opposed to constructing on lots where a building had to be removed. Yes, there is the CAC but Aronoff had partially vacant lots, in addition, 303 Broadway, Parker Flats, and the new condos at Vine and Central were all constructed on empty surface lot parking.

^ I am voting no because the other areas in the state are not elligible to take part. I dont live in Cleveland and I wont go gamble in Cleveland if they get slots. I think Cleveland is a fine city, and I used to live there but, now that I do not have a vested interest in the city, why should I support it at the expense of my own city. If Cinci or columbus had the same opportunity as Cleveland than I would happily support Isssue 3. Unfortunately, this is another example of the backers failing to use common sense in putting forth a reasonable proposal. Secondly, for those who think this will lead to many new college opportunities for students in Ohio, you were not around when they were marketing the lottery in the 1970's. The same promises were made and guarantees were given but it only led to the state diverting money it would have otherwise given to education to be used for other areas of the budget since the lottery was funding the schools. Nothing wrong with an increased source of revenue for the state, but those who think it is going to go for education only are fooling themselves.

Hyde Park/Oakley has a lot of good restaurants both chain and non-chain. For upscale there is Boca and Pho-Paris in Oakley or Tellers in Hyde Park. for more affordable there is PF CHangs or Arthurs in Hyde Park. Plus conveinence to the city is great in that area. it is 10 mins from downtown, there are a lot of bars and 20 somethings living in the area. There are a lot of runners and parks nearby too which draw a lot of people.

It is Federated's policy to only operate downtown stores in the largest metro markets. Cleveland does not fit with their policy. Columbus has a downtown store because they inherited it from May. It remains to be seen how long the store in columbus stays open since it does not necessarily fit with their corporate policy. Cinci will have a store as long as it remains a HQ city. It goes with the priviledge of having the corporate parent in town. However, it is interesting to note that the flagship Macy's in Cinci is not downtown but rather in Kenwood.

Detroit??

As for the best Ohio ice cream, there are many good places around the state. As for the worst Ohio made ice cream, Pierre's takes the cake.

It be one thing if Bella closing were the result of a hard working business owner who could not make it in the downtown environment but lets face it, this guy was a sheister. In one year he has had his investors pull out from Jump 05 (when they realized he did not pay payroll and liquor taxes) has presided over the closure of Watson Brothers in Blue Ash (Again, what good is a microbrewery that has no liquor license) and Donna's Diner, a popular diner in NKY for letting his liquor permit lapse again. IS anyone the least bit surprised that the same fete happened to Bella. It usually drew a decent crowd from what I saw. I was just telling a friend last weekend how Bella would probably be done by the end of the year due to all the other holdings of this guy going under. The thing that makes this worse is that it does not bode well for Teller's in Hyde Park (his other restaurant). I read a while back they had problems with their liquor taxes. I will not be surprised if Teller's suffers the same fete.

Someone who lives in Groton Lofts told me the other day that a Friday's was supposed to fill the space vacated by Redfish. I am not sure on the validity of this though.

There is open container for Oktoberfest and other occasional events down there. 16 weeks of football cant be that bad if it brings an extra thousand people downtown or keeps them down there longer. Besides, it would not be that expensive for the city to pull off, they could sell sponsorship and naming rights and have a radio station provide the entertainment. In fact, it could be a revenue generator to fund other activities at the square and throughout downtown.

Since the Bengals season is sold out, they should use that new video board to show the Bengals games for those who want to "tailgate" on the square. They could have a pregame party with bands, and beer and food for those going to the game or those who want to party, then after the game they can have post game festivities. Sort of like Heiniegate at OSU but on a bigger scale. That would definitely draw people downtown and encourage them to stay for a while after the game.

It is funny to see how the banks in Ohio have changed over the years. For a while Bank One and key were the two largest Ohio Banks. In addition, Huntington used to be a big player. Now Bank one is gone, Key has struggled mightily in the last 10 years, huntington is a joke, and Nat City & fifth Third are the dominant players based in Ohio

dont worry, columbus will soon annex toledo and then they will not have to worry about population loss.

All I am saying is that every time a restaurant closes downtown, it is not always the fact that downtown is dead or has a crime problem which is the preception the news gives you. In many cases, it often has to do with poor food or service.

I get sick of how the media says that the poor climate downtown is responsible for many of the restaurants closing. It is such a disservice to the city and makes downtown worse than it actually is. The thing is, there are a number of successful restaurant's downtown that are thriving, and more that are opening in the near future. If downtown were that bad of a market, why would McCormick and Scmicks, Mortons, and the new Brazilian place want to open up down there. People can say, "well that is because they get tax breaks" but tax breaks mean nothing if no one goes to eat there and you cant make a profit. Looking at the restaurants that have closed in the past the main reason why they closed is not because of downtown or location but there service was lacking. Redfish was horrible for the value, the Masonette needed to reinvent itself. Bella (if it closes) has a lousy owner who is a horrible businessman (He gets sued by his partners and does not pay payroll or liquor taxes). The downtown Barleycorns was lousy, and the restuarant in the Grammercy did not move because it was not profitable but rather she wanted to try a different concept closer to where she lived in Mt. Lookout. Anyway I could go on but my point is, if the owner of a restuarant is smart and knows what they are doing, and provides good service and a good value, they will be successful. I really cant think of a place that has actually closed downtown becuase the downtown market was poor, there are always other underlying reasons.

I drove by it the other night, it looks really nice.

For those that cant get on the courier website, there is a back door to access the stories. If you go to news by industry, you can gain access to the print edition stories from every city. It takes longer to see all the Cincy stories but you can still read the whole story and post it online.

I think the leveque site or the Huntington Building would be a good place to expand the surface lots in Columbus.