Ten Is The Loneliest Number

The "Top 10 Instagram Accounts to Follow" proved to be
a little more complex than I figured initially

Recently, there was a "Top 10 Accounts You Should Follow" being shared among Instagram blogger accounts, mainly in their Stories feed.  I found I started this task numerous times (especially since some had shared my account on their personal lists) but I ended up stopping.

Mainly, I found myself stopping because, well, ten was just too few, too lonely enough a number to cover all the accounts I knew deserved attention.

This blogging bit has proven to be a longer-term hobby than I ever would've figured.  Since this started up in 2014, a lot of folks have appeared and disappeared from my various feeds - restaurants, bloggers, influencers, and just ordinary folks looking to seek out folks who knew a few things.  I've never been one who's actively sought out followers, so it's been a bit of a small miracle that gotten beyond the 2,000 follower level (and for all my followers, I thank you for tagging along with me - I do really appreciate it.)

There are similar bloggers out there who do this for fun, and there are those who make it at least part of their living.  There's no right or wrong way as long as it jibes with you.

So thus, after (I hope) a complete inventory of who I follow, here are the social feeds and blogs I really find helpful for navigating around Columbus and its food and drink scene.

O.G. Columbus - Basically, there are three active people I know that fit the bill here; if you want a glance of what Columbus was like before I arrived on the local blogging scene in 2014, you should have these folks on your list:

Breakfast With Nick: Known as "Dr. Breakfast", Nick Dekker started off with a story similar to mine - as a hobby to, in his case, to let others know where the best places to nab the breakfast in the metro area.  Nowadays, after a book and some national media appearances (including this WQED Breakfast Special) he has expanded far beyond breakfast with work as a tour guide for Columbus Food Adventures (more on that below), as well as documenting his family's travel adventures and a number of articles for various local media outlets on Columbus's food and arts scene.

CMH Gourmand: Jim Ellison's blog started in 2006 with a post regarding the Columbus ice cream scene, but his ties to the local food and restaurant scene go back much further than that, with many articles and food-related ventures, including a stint as the founder of Columbus Brew Adventures.  His IG and blog has been a little slow of late, but there's a good reason for that - Ellison has been working on and just finished out his book detailing Columbus Pizza History (with its related IG feed) and been involved in getting the pop goodness of Ohio Pop out to the public at large.

Columbus Food Adventures/Alt Eats Columbus/et al: Columbus Food Adventures would never have been if it weren't for the cuisine-seeking of husband/wife team Andy Dehus and Bethia Woolf.  Starting off with the Hungry Woolf blog in 2008 (with a post on the North Market), their pursuit eventually led to TacoTrucks Columbus, Alt Eats Columbus, and finally the tour company itself, which now includes the former Columbus Brew Adventures.  Bethia and Andy's company made a neat pivot to accommodate pandemic-related restrictions with their Trust Fall concept, allowing diners to discover a number of off-menu items and international restaurants in general from the comfort of their home. They also helped out local food vendors with a number of holiday-related gift baskets featuring local food vendors.

Well-Followed Local IG Accounts:  You can just follow the folks at Columbus Food Bloggers and do well for yourself, to be perfectly honest here.  However, this group of accounts fit most if not all the following criteria for me:

  1. They have many more followers than I do
  2. Their accounts aren't any older than my social media has been around, but they aren't newbie accounts either
  3. They have remained actively posting about primarily restaurant- and other food vendor-related content the past year or so
  4. The content posted has remained in my estimation consistently engaging


A Little Of Everything: These accounts have do have their share of restaurant-related content, but the posts mix in a lot of other things such as recipes and home-cooking, local sites of interest, travel-related posts, family-related content, etc.

Adult Beverages: Here are a few social-media/blog resources for adult beverages around the metro

Baking and Homecooking: This one was a bit tougher than I realized, because I easily could put a whole bunch of retailers I really enjoy here too (Dan The Baker, Bake Me Happy, Sassafras Bakery, Dough Mama, Pattycake Bakery...there are too many to list here.)  Those accounts are more than worth following, but here I decided to limit these links to those folks who you may not realize are out there but are worth checking out.

Similar/Smaller Accounts Worth Following: These accounts are mainly restaurant-focused accounts with roughly equal or fewer followers than me, but they're worth checking out if you haven't yet.

Promising Newcomers: These accounts started up this year, but they're already showing some promise to stick around awhile.
Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)