Case Study #3: Over The Counter (Worthington)

Though I didn't know it when I started, Worthington's Over The Counter is the third of a trifecta of places I had targeted in this mini-series. The first blog post, featuring Pat and Gracie's in the Graceland Shopping Center, is a great neighborhood-style hangout in an place I always expected to have a little more restaurant action than it does. Meanwhile, Old Beechwold/Clintonville-based Bareburger and its burgers that strive for something higher (grass-fed beef as well as more exotic proteins like elk, duck and boar) had been a bit on an culinary island in the metro but now find themselves surrounded by competition.

Over The Counter (OTC, as I'll call them from here on out) turns out is in a location that I never even considered for a restaurant, but succeeds not only because of that location but also because of its quality-for-the-price comfort classics focus.

A Case Study: Bareburger Clintonville

Bareburger, a modest-sized chain of now 40+ locations in 9 states and a smattering of international countries, arrived on the Columbus scene in spring of 2014 in what seemed to be a mini-wave of gourmet burger places such as Easton's Flip Side and Gahanna's B Spot.  Bareburger differentiated itself by promising a more esoteric take on the standard burger via the use of organic ingredients, vegan options, as well as grass-fed beef and other exotic meats such as elk and ostrich. This combination, plus their creative take on the old downtown Yankee Trader space, was good enough to earn it a Best New Restaurant of 2014 nod by the readers of Columbus Underground.

When the eatery decided to open up a second Clintonville location, their general food philosophies seemed initially to me at least to be a perfect fit for the area. Interestingly enough, as time has gone on, this branch has become for me one of the more interesting eateries operating at this time within the Columbus metro, mainly for how the food scene has developed around this location.

Doubling Down on Graceland: Pat & Gracie's

Pat Murnan: gambling guru of Columbus and one of the most colorful
characters in the city's history (photo from the Columbus Dispatch)

As you may have noticed in my blog posts, the history behind an eatery is something I always try to include to some degree or another.  In some ways, that has been spurred on with my increasing interest in my current hometown's history, which has increasingly become an unofficial pursuit of mine since I've moved here.

One of the more interesting stories for me relates to a retail center I have found myself passing early and during my city travels. The Graceland Shopping Center, located close to where Columbus and the southern border of Worthington meet, has its origins in one of the most colorful and famous people from the Prohibition days in Pat Murnan.

As the story goes, Murnan, a railroad worker with a flamboyant personality, ended up winning ownership of a local casino club after one exceedingly lucky night. From there, he parlayed that fling with Lady Luck to emerge as Columbus' unofficial guru of gambling during the Prohibition era.

A satellite view of the Graceland area, as shown on Google Maps

Murnan created a stir when he started a romance with one Grace Backenstoe, who earned her keep near Murnan's main operation as the madam of a downtown brothel.  The two clicked so quite well, they moved up to settle in at Murnan's 700-acre horse farm in the Clintonville area. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Murnan dubbed their homestead Graceland in honor of his gal shortly thereafter.

As it turned out, both Pat and Grace Murnan would not see the year 1940, with Pat passing away in 1937 and Grace two years later. In 1952, local developer Don Casto announced that a retail center would be built on the land that the Murnans had called home.