Live to Explore Columbus Neighborhoods: Short North Arts District

Known for its inclusivity, vibrant local business and restaurant communities, the nightlife, and local art galleries, the Short North Arts District is one of the most iconic and lively neighborhoods in Columbus. Learn all about chef BJ Lieberman’s unique and popular restaurants in the Short North and German Village, and hear what brought him to Columbus from his successful pursuits in Washington, D.C. and Charleston.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Live fund Experienced Columbus's Live Ford Livepodcast introduces you to a new frontier of
undiscovered possibility. Columbus is a citywith an energy of its own. Joined
Boxer, Kelsey and their guests foran insider's look at a destination that invites

(00:25):
visitors and locals alike to share andexplore. We'll go behind the scenes of
popular attractions, uncover best kept secretsfor things to see and do, and
meet people who embody what it meansto live forward. Welcome back to our
latest episode of Live Forward, Liveand Experienced Columbus podcast. I'm your host,

(00:46):
Boxer, along with my co hostKelsey. Hello, Boxer, are
you I'm good? Well, you'realways good when you're inside the beautiful Experienced
Columbus Visitors Center. And by theway, I feel like they're getting more
swaged too in the visitor center.So if you get the chance to come
down, by all means you should. Absolutely it's and that's a man,
just beautiful. We're at the quarnerhere of what you got Nationwide Boulevard across

(01:10):
the street as Huntington Park. Youcould walk to Lower dot Com Field if
you want, you can. You'rea stone Ster away from nation wide arena.
So let's go. Let's go.Hey, look, our focus and
this season has been about different neighborhoods, and I'm really excited about this one
because it's one of my favorite placesto go, whether it's the gallery hop

(01:32):
just supporting the local mom and pops. And then of course you have the
most amazing restaurants and places to eaton the planet as far as I'm concerned.
And this week's guest, we're focusingon the short North. Want to
welcome b J Lieberman to the show. B J welcome, Thank you so
much for having me. You're abusy guy, by the way. I
don't know how in the world youdo with multiple places. You're running from

(01:56):
Chapman's Eat Market to Hear eight andthen Ginger. I don't know how I
do it either with you. Ialso have a two year old sons.
No, yeah, it's I cannotimagine one foot in front of the other.
You know, I would never forcethe chef life on my son,
but I certainly hope that he getsthe bug like I have. Yeah,
well, let's hear your story.BJ. How did this start for you?

(02:17):
Where you from and when did youget the bug? To do food.
That's very interesting question. So Igrew up in northern Virginia, just
outside Washington, DC, and myparents didn't really cook at all. We
ate out a lot. It's avery diverse part of the world where I
lived, so it wasn't uncommon tohave like Mandarin Chinese on Monday and then

(02:42):
sushi on Tuesday and Indian on Wednesday. So I kind of grew up just
eating everything. It was never likea weird thing to me to just try
food. So I always loved everything. I had very very few food dislikes
growing up. And then I wentto college in Charleston, South Carolina,
and that was a very different typeof food city from what I was used
to. How so bj so oh, just you know, Southern food has

(03:07):
its own like laying in the foodworld. Just everything cooked with love,
lots of butter, ingredients i'd neverheard of before, cooking techniques i'd never
heard of before. And when Iwas in college, I started working in
restaurants, just you know, workin front of the house, server assistant,
stuff like that, and I startedlearning a little bit more about wine,

(03:29):
started learning a little bit more aboutfood and fell in love with it.
And at the same time I wasgoing to college to be a graphic
designer. The restaurant group I wasworking out lost their marketing director when I'd
been there for about two years.They asked if I would help out with
some ads here and there, andI ended up taking a job in the
corporate office as their new marketing director. Our catering office was in our corporate

(03:51):
office, and after about a year, I found that I was down in
the catering kitchen more often than Iwas at my desk. So decided to
go to culinary school. And yeah, so I went to CIA in New
York and would go down on theweekends too. It's called staging where you
go and kind of work for freeat restaurant just to kind of learn things.

(04:11):
It's normally for like my benefit.It's it obviously benefits the restaurant as
well to have free labor, butit was my benefit to get to see
the way that different places operated,learned knife skills, all those things that
you can. And then for CIA, halfway through your curriculum you do working
externship. So I was lucky enoughto score my externship at my favorite restaurant
back in Charleston called mccrady's. Thatchef Sean Brock was the chef there at

(04:36):
the time. And then I wentback and finished culinary school just in time
for them to announce that that restaurantgroup was going to open Husk in Charleston,
and I was asked to be apart of the opening team there,
so I got my start. Waskind of like falling out of culinary school
right into the best new restaurant inAmerica. So can I just ask one
thing, BJ when it comes backingup a little bit, when you were

(04:57):
still a marketing director and you weregoing down and you were looking at food,
can you think back, was theresomething specific that just was it a
dish someone was making, Was itthat that passion bit you? It's a
good question. I don't think therewas anything specific, but I do remember
learning it's called supreming. It's whereyou peel citrus and then in between the

(05:20):
pith you take the meat of thecitrus out, so you get these like
perfect little bites of citrus. AndI was watching our pastry chef. Her
name was Anne, and I've lovedher. She was one of my dear,
dear friends. And I was watchingyour supreme citrus one day and she
was just doing it so fast,and I was like, can I can
I try that? Like you know, not often they're like a server assistant,
and he's like, can I comeback and learn knife skills? And

(05:42):
she literally took an hour to justshow me how to do and I messed
up a whole bunch of citrus andthen finally started to get it. And
it was I think that was kindof the moment that I was like,
Oh, this is like, likethis is such a small thing, that
is such a cool learned skill,Like how many more of these things exist
in this world? And I startedtalking here about like what is a good
life that I should have for myhouse, like stuff like that, kind
of like ikea knives at that time, and it didn't cook, so like,

(06:04):
yeah, I think that was probablywhere it kind of started, was
was just learning those like little skillsand then kind of realizing that that was
what I wanted to do. Andthen how do you get to Columbus?
So when I was still in Charleston, I started dating who's now my wife.
Her name is Bromwyn. She wentto College of Charleston too, and

(06:25):
she's from Columbus. So I havebeen coming here for about fifteen years,
for as long as we've been together, and it took me a little while
to really fall in love with thecity. It's mostly because her parents lived
kind of in the suburbs, soI never really got to see Columbus.
Whenever we're here, we'd come forChristmas and we'd just be driving around from
suburb to suburb suburbs, so Inever really got to feel what the city

(06:46):
was like until one of the trips. She was like, there's this spot
that I want to take you calledGerman village and a Jewish deli. I'm
Jewish, So I was like,wait, there's been a Jewish deli in
Columbus this whole time. She's likeyeah. So she took the Katzingers in
Jewish. They're in a German villageand I was like wait, like what
is this neighborhood? Like this existshere? Like this is crazy. And

(07:06):
then we drove up to the SciotaRiver and had lunch just sitting in the
park there, and I was likewait second. So then every time that
we would come back after that,we'd tried to come downtown and go to
a restaurant or go somewhere, andjust over the course of you know,
a few years, I really startedto dig it. And at that time,

(07:28):
we were living in in DC andI'd helped my friend Aaron opened three
restaurants in DC, and I kindof woke up in the middle of the
night one night and was like,I'm ready to do my own thing.
I know, I don't want todo it here, Like where are we
going to go? And we kindof had a few different cities in mine,
but Columbus was always really high upon our list. And yeah,
we found the spot for Chapman's EatMarket in twenty nineteen and decide we're going

(07:48):
to move here to do it,and kind of like the rest is history.
That's incredible. BJ living in DCfor five years, I think I
know the answer already to this,But why why not DC? Why did
you decide? Yeah, definitely nothere. Honestly, it was mostly because
I didn't want to compete with arestaurant group that I helped shild I've also,

(08:13):
I don't know, DC was alwayssupposed to be a temporary stop when
we moved there. I told himhe's still one of my best friends in
the world. But I told Aaronlike, I'll help you get your first
restaurant off the ground. I'll giveyou a year, and then brown Win
and I need to figure out ourown thing. And one year turned into
seven years and three restaurants really reallyquickly. It like literally we blinked our
eyes and I was like, howhas it been seven years? And I

(08:33):
We're like all right, Like it'stime to kind of get on with our
lives. I grew up in DC. I think that an interesting like dichotomy
between DC and Columbus is a lotof people from Columbus who leave come back.
I feel like everyone from DC islike, na, I'm gone.
So it was never really like thisis where I want to like lay my
roots kind of thing. So Columbusended up being like a really awesome landing

(08:58):
spot for us, And you know, I had my worries about like is
it going to be a big enoughcity? Is am I going to be
happy with cooking the food we're nowhere? We're landlocked here, so like I've
always lived by the ocean, Likeare we going to be able to get
seafood? Are the farms here good? Like? Like all the things that
I care about for doing a restaurant, and I really feel like we have
access to the things that I wantto have access to, and it's just

(09:20):
really a lovely pace of life andyou know, quality of what. Yeah,
b J. Lieberman is with usfrom Chapman's Eat Market. Also here
Raith and Ginger Rabbit. We're focusingon another specific neighborhood this week with a
short North's Bj tell us about thename Chapman's Eat Market. I'd just come

(09:41):
up with that. Yeah, Sothat's actually kind of a funny one.
I have a thing where I willnever name anything after myself, but I'm
more than happy to name it aftermy wife's family. So my wife's mother's
maiden name is Chapman. And theyhad a poultry market on Indianola in I
don't want to mess up the dates, but I think from like the early
nineteen hundreds to like nineteen fifty yearsand it was called Chapman's Poultry Market.

(10:05):
They had a farm up in KnoxCounty and they would bring the they would
drive all around Knox County pick upeggs, pick up chickens, and bring
them down to their little poultry marketon Indianola. And the name Chapman's poultry
market is always stuck as me assomething like really classic and like the logo
was like kind of like timeless andperfect. And when we were kicking around
names for what we wanted to doin what became the Chatman's space, that

(10:30):
was kind of something where like Chapman'sMarket like chat like Chapman's Eat Market,
and we're like, that's a weird, cool name. Yeah. Yeah,
I have a thing with naming things. I always hate it until it just
kind of becomes part of like yourlexicon. So yeah, Chapman's was something
that I was like, I thinkI like it, and then over the
course of time I love it.Now. Yeah, I just can't even

(10:50):
wrap my head around not being fromhere and taking this leap of faith right
and saying, Okay, I'm gonnaopen a restaurant or I'm gonna you know,
create just my vision here and thenand then expanding and then having to
be responsible for all of this andit turning out to be so amazing.

(11:15):
I think that you can ask myparents on this one. They'll back me
up that I'm a leap without lookingkind of person sometimes, so not a
whole bunch of fear. So yeah, just you know, uprooting our life,
moving here and doing something so ambitiousreally never scared me or like that
pinged me is like the wrong thingto do. Obviously, the pandemic started.

(11:37):
I was just talking about this earlier. With the pandemic started three weeks
after we signed the lease for Chapman's. Wow. Oh okay, So yeah,
that was the whole thing. Jay. We've heard lots of stories about
that, you know, owners ofrestaurants and whatever kind of business gets through
the pandemic. What was that likefor you? And how did you get

(11:58):
through? It was really rough,to be honest. Well, on one
hand, it was really rough.On one hand, it was the easiest
restaurant opening I've ever done because wecouldn't have guests in house, so we
didn't really have to hire any hourlystaff. It was me and my chefs
who were already going to move herefrom all around, and our beverage director

(12:20):
and our director of operations and basicallythe six of us, with like two
cooks and a dishwasher, just cookedburgers, chicken sandwiches, to go things,
things that made sense, and togo boxes for about a year until
we were able to have guests inthe building again. So from that point
of view, it was kind oflike low stakes building a team like one

(12:41):
by one. It was like,Okay, we're a little bit busier,
we'll hire one more cook. AllRight, we're a little bit busier.
We'll hire a bartenders. We're alittle bit busier. We kind of didn't
have to open the team with likethirty people. We opened small, added
one, added one, added one. So we really got to build that
way. From a fiscal standpoint,it was a disaster. We lost two
hundred thousand dollars the first year thatwe're open. Luckily, our investor was

(13:03):
very committed to getting us through thepandemic, and the way that we talked
about it was, you know,every time that you go into construction,
there's going to be an overage,and we kind of just got in our
heads like this is just a constructionoverage. But instead of building out the
building, we're building our team.So like, let's look at like that,
we're keeping our team together. Assoon as the pandemic's over, we'll
hit the ground running. So yeah, we I basically took out like an

(13:26):
extra two hundred thousand dollars in loansfrom our investor and we got through and
the restaurant's thriving now. But Imean we're a little more bruised for the
for the journey. But sure,b J, would you say, post
pandemic that for your restaurant, areyou still seeing a high demand for takeout
orders, orders, you know,carry out things like that. We don't

(13:48):
do take out at all. Ohokay, yeah, okay, it's putting
food in a box definitely takes partof your soul away from you. Sure.
Yeah. The moment that we couldstop doing that, we did.
We also want to keep the focuson the dining experience. Yeah, yeah,
I know, I like that.So definitely we have inquiries a lot,
and I've got a lot to sayabout what the pandemic did to restaurants

(14:09):
from like a grub Hub, Ubereats perspective that we do not need to
get into today. But luckily wedon't need to be a part of that
economy. We can kind of keepit within our doors and within our control.
So yeah, I'd love to hearthat off this podcast. BJ Lieberman
is with this Chapman's Eat Market.Also here Aith and Ginger Rabbit. Why

(14:31):
the neighborhood that you're in, likeof all the neighborhoods you talked about German
Village. You you know, youdidn't get to really see downtown when you
first you know, it came toColumbus. You were all about the suburbs.
I can see why that would bedeceiving too. We have charmed suburbs,
but that only it's only half ofthe story of Columbus. So how
did you decide on where you're at? Sure? I mean, German Village
was kind of an easy one.It has all the charm of a Charleston

(14:54):
at Georgetown and Washington, DC,like really really fell in love with that
neighborhood. And then Short North wasan easy second step for us. It's
an arts district. It is kindof the beating heart of a lot of
the commerce of Columbus. Everyone flocksthere for their whole evening of bar hopping,
shopping, whatever it is. Soyou know, it's the most vibrant

(15:16):
restaurant community in the city. Andthat's like a moth to flame kind of
like, you know, we wantedto be a part of that city as
well. So and you you havelike I don't know what it's called forgive
me BJ, but there's there's likethis in the Short North. This this
organization that represents all of you,like you're you're very close knit, right,

(15:37):
so if there's an issue, nomatter what it is, you've got
someone has your back. Yeah,we definitely feel that way that it's the
Short North Commission, That's what itis. Yeah, they're fantastic, I
honestly are. One of our goalsis to be a good neighbor. I
feel like we've done a poor jobof communicating with them because we've just been
so busy and running around and likethey've had our They've had our back every

(15:58):
step of the way, and like, honestly, I feel like all of
Columbus has had our back. Likeit's part of what I love about here
and why I know it was theright move for us to come here was
the tight knit community and how muchsupport we get, and you know,
in DC we have it feels likethere's a lot of people who want to
tear you down. There's the WashingtonPost Eater, Washington City Paper, I
could go on and on, theNicheland Guy. There's just a lot of

(16:19):
stakes to cooking there where nobody's tryingto write a negative review of you.
In Columbus if someone comes in andthey don't like the restaurant, they just
don't write about you. And that'sfine. And if someone does like you
don't have something nice to say?Yeah, and no, I was talking
to you. This is random,but the food reviewer for the Tokyo Times,
And it's the first time I everheard someone say where he's like,

(16:41):
I don't write negative reviews. IfI don't like a place, I just
don't write about it. I lovethat. That's a very different way of
doing it than we do in Americanormally. But that's very much how I
feel about Columbus is like, noone's going to write a bad review in
a publication and they just want topump up good things. Well, I
do feel am I wrong here?Guys? I do feel like in Columbus

(17:02):
your success is all of our successright, because it's a whole dominant effect
I think anyway. I talk aboutthis all the time. The rising tide
lifts all ships. Like the moreI like that the more good restaurants we
can have here, the better everythingwill get. The better, our clientele
will get, the better, ourpurveyors will get, the better, our
sourcing will get. All those thingsthat all works together. So we feel

(17:23):
very fortunate to kind of be apart of this growing food community. And
you know, obviously the pandemic wasa very negative thing in every regard.
However, there was a little bitof a reset in the expectations from the
public about restaurants and a little bitof reordering what is important about a restaurant

(17:44):
and why why we try to showthe experience that we do. And I
think that it galvanized a lot ofthings within the industry here and in a
somewhat positive way. I'm not sayingthat I'm happy the pandemic happened, but
if there is a silver lining,I kind of think that the reorganization of
the restaurant world like is a shortsilver lining on it. So we've talked

(18:06):
about Chapman's. Now I want todive into here Aith and Ginger Rabbits and
what are they all about. Imean, even just the names themselves are
so unique, you know, yeah, and they all definitely have their story.
We definitely don't take ourselves too seriously, which is definitely a part of
it. Ginger Rabbit is a spacethat we'd been looking at actually since we

(18:26):
pretty much moved to Columbus it wasa basement bar that used to be a
board game bar that closed down beforethe pandemic, just kind of in the
heart of the short North tucked awaydown a short stairwell. It's only like
two thousand square feet. I've alwayswanted to own a bar. I never
knew what kind of bar I wantedto own, And after the first time

(18:47):
that, like the pandemic, likequote unquote, ended on doing air quotes
right now. In twenty twenty one, we kind of reapproached the Wood Company
about that space. There are landlordsand we decided really quick that it would
be a really cool concept to dodown there, And as a joke,
we were calling it Ginger Rabbit,just it's down a rabbit hole where it

(19:07):
came from, and we do that. We kind of wanted to do a
gin bar in one way or another, but it was always a little bit
of a joke name that we hadas a placeholder until we could come up
with a real name. And theidea for doing a jazz lounge kind of
came a little bit later in theprocess of organizing the bar, but as
it all came together, the nameGinger Rabbit really stuck for us and where
like it makes so much sense.It's a gin bar, it's downstairs,

(19:29):
it's gonna have this really cool OhI'm just like kind of getting hugged by
the velvet and everything that's down there, comfortable vibe. So yeah, we
just ran with the name and it'sstuck and I love spending time there.
We don't have a huge food program, and I'm a chef by training,
so like my job, there ismore to just like be a part of
the scenery, I guess. Butlive music five nights a week, all

(19:55):
jazz, great killer cocktails, smallfood menu. I love it down there,
super comfortable. We only have likefifty seats, so it's really intimate.
The band's love love love playing there. So that place is definitely a
big passion of mine. And then, uh, concurrently with that, we've
been building here eight And that nameis something that my wife and I've kind

(20:17):
of had in our pocket for yearsthat we didn't know how and when we
wanted to use it. But thisspace made a lot of sense. My
wife's name is Bronwyn, which isa Welsh name, and her family's Welsh,
like not like straight from Wales.They don't have accents or anything.
But that's always been a part oftheir culture. And the term here eight
is a Welsh term. It's actuallytechnically pronounced headith, but I'm not trying

(20:38):
to hold anyone to trying to pronounceit that way. You say it's so,
well say it one more time.I got a lot of practice.
It's head I yeah, heat,but here aith is how I say it
when I'm in public, because whenI say heat I people are like,
I'm sorry. What. So thethe term here eth is a really cool

(21:00):
concept. It's like homesickness, butalmost in a good way. So if
anyone's ever seen the movie Ratatui,you know, yeah, the scene where
the food reviewer takes a bite tothe ratitui and he gets transported back into
his childhood self and his mom's puttinga band aid on his knee, and
then he takes a bite of therattui and he gets transported back into his
adult self. That's the literal definitionof here I. So for us and

(21:22):
how we want to do it isthe entire kitchen. It here eth is
a wood fired hearth, so likevery homey, the hearth is the home
of the kitchen. The whole restaurantsmells a little bit like smoke. It's
very reminiscent of a lot of differentexperiences in my life. It's a two
story building, so when you walkin, you're on the ground floor,
and the kitchen's actually in the basementwith most of the dining rooms. So

(21:42):
the upstairs is based on kind ofmy experiences going to grease for a whole
summer of my life. So it'slike blue ceilings, white stucco, really
really really cool and live plants andall this like living stuff. And then
the basement is based around fire,so you know, everything's reflective surface copper,

(22:03):
h wood fired concrete, stuff likethat, so everything reflects the flame
in the kitchen. It's a reallycool experience and we put a lot of
thought into how are we going todo it? And like shout out to
my design teams Sister East, Mikeand Ben have done all three of our
spaces, and just the thought andlove and everything that goes into it,
it's it's it's all inspiring. Wow, b J forgive me and for hearings.

(22:26):
What what kind of food are youfinding there? What are you discovering
there if you go in? Yeah, so a lot like Chapman's is it's
it's a global inspiration. And theway that I put it is like,
none of the food at the restaurantsis my food. It's I found a
long time ago in my career thatmy passion is actually talking to my team
and getting ideas out of their headand getting it onto the plate. So

(22:48):
what I wanted to do with Chapman'sEat Market was have our menu be a
reflection of our kitchen. I alwayssay that our menus like holding a mirror
up to our team. So everyonehas a diverse background, comes from a
different place. Everyone's parents cook differentthings. Especially with the nostalgia of what
we are doing at Chapman's E Marketand the nostalgia of what we're doing at
here eight. You can find Mediterraneandishes on the menu. You can find

(23:12):
Southeast Asian, you can find likeNorth African. Like, We've got a
lot of different ideas coming to thetable with that, so nothing's out of
bounce. The only rule is ithas to be delicious, so and bring
joy. Delicious and bring joy isour rule. So I know where I'm
going for date night. I knowI was just thinking that too. Yeah,
you know, as parents with littlekids. We go to all of

(23:34):
these like, you know, justgenerically, I know, I know where
you're going. You know, there'sso much to explore in Columbus and the
food scene and BJ, man,what you've done is just incredible. I
can't I mean, I want tobe in that jazz lounge right now.

(23:55):
You know, I doubt you havemuch free time, BJ, But when
you do, what does a cheflike to do? Like you not chef
things? I can tell you that. Wait, is it like the mechanic
who never gets his own cars fixed? Yeah, that's exactly what You're hardly
cooking at home. My wife doesmost of the cooking at home. She
laments the fact that I don't cookanymore at home. She's we have a

(24:19):
two year old son, so kindof an ideal day off is definitely spending
time with the family when I'm ableto. My big stress relief that I
found during the pandemic is golf.I had never played really before the pandemic,
and my brother in law lives upin pale Right on a golf course,
So you go. He started invitingme out and he's like, dude,
it's a four hour walk outside withyour friends. We don't need to

(24:41):
wear masks. We can be innature. It's kind of exercise or exercise
adjacent anyway, And I really justfell in love with it. I am
terrible, but I love just spendingfour hours just going out and just challenging
myself, taking my mind out ofyou know, restaurants and cooking and numbers
and all those things, and justlike kind of solely being focused on having
a good time for the day.So that's kind of my perfect day of

(25:03):
spending time with the family, gettingout and playing a four hour round,
having a good dinner at one ofour local restaurants if we are so lucky
to get a sitter for the evening. Yeah, is there another? Is
there a restaurant you actually love oran area of Columbus you'd like to go
visit. Yeah, that's a goodquestion. I love all food. I
have like no like dislikes, Sowe have a ton of great restaurants.

(25:26):
I don't want to like shout anyoneout in no, I understand, because
I'm afraid I'm going to forget otherpeople mostly, but all my friends know
because they see me at their spotsall the time. But but yeah,
I'm a big fan of our ofour entire restaurants seen here in the city,
and we definitely all support each other. We all go to each other's
restaurants. And last night was oursecond soft opening it at here eighth and

(25:48):
I had, like most of thechefs in Columbus in and we all have
awesome time together. We all knoweach other. It's I've always wondered that'd
bj So it's a close knit group. All the chefs of owners of other
restaurants, they they all support eachother. Yeah, I would say for
the vast majority in most part.Yeah, you know, everyone feels the
way that I do that the moregood restaurants, the more good restaurateurs we

(26:10):
have in the city. Like,we're not in competition with each other.
We're here to help the entire foodscene and be better. So yeah,
Hey, one more thing part oftown? Is there is there one you
like to go visit, hang outwith the family? Is it downtown?
Is it? Is there an areain Columbus you like to go visit?
Sure, we live in Wyland Parks, so we like walking around there a
lot. We definitely go down thePiota Mile a lot. Right when we

(26:34):
moved here, we lived downtown,like we kind of got through the pandemic
by taking walks on the mile.Yeah, so now that we have a
child, we like to bring himdown there. I love Schiller Park,
right near Chapmans. It's close enoughthat when I was having a stressful day
Chapmans, I would just go walkdown to Schiller and have like a lap
and have a think and then comehome. So like that place always holds
a very special meaning to me.Yeah, Parker Roses, we go to

(26:57):
yet. I think it's so fascinatingthat you come from a family where they
weren't cooking. Yeah they are kidding. You were eating takeout and that's what
molded you, you know. Butbut you had these tastes from all these
different cuisines and that's you know,and then you become the chef. It's

(27:17):
so cool. I've always enjoyed travelingtoo, and I've always enjoyed history.
So like the intersection of food culturehistory like wars, like all those things
people invading other people. The mashupsof these things like food is such a
living history that it really makes melike geek out about why things go together
and how things go together and howwe can create new things that tell a

(27:41):
story. That that inspire us.And like I said, when I travel,
I really try to soak up everythingabout like why a culture is the
way that it is, and howit feeds into their food and their agriculture
and you know, just all thething. It's so endlessly interesting to me.
And I feel like that creative oflike trying to pull ideas from different

(28:02):
places in different ways of doing things. Is is h such a satisfying experience?
Yeah? Which is the great connectorisn't It's the greatest one thing we
can all bond on. Absolutely needwe need to eat right, so hey,
as we BJ, as we wrapup here. When it comes to
Short Norse specifically, is there couldyou describe it in just one word?

(28:23):
Oh gosh, vibrant would probably bemy one word. Yeah, it's it's
a you know, like I said, the heartbeat of the city. It
really is all everyone comes to theShort North at one point or another.
Yeah, well, this has beena lot of fun. I'm so excited
for you, b J. I'mso happy for your success. What a
great story too, by the way, just your upbringing and like you know,

(28:45):
on the heels of what Kelsey saidtoo or you're right now, So
glad that you decided on Columbus.Raising your family here. I think it's
the world's greatest place to raise yourfamily. So b J. Lieberman,
a part of Chapman's Eat Market,Your eight and Ginger Rabbit, thanks for
being part of this podcast. Thankyou for having me live fun today.

(29:11):
Thanks for listening to Experience Columbus islived Ford Live. For this podcast and
others, go to experience Columbus dotcom.