Intro to Eating Bethel Road

I love my town, Columbus, Ohio.

I love particular roads, ones where there are phenomenal foods to be found. There’s Cleveland Avenue and other corridors that are worth a thorough investigation but this road, this Bethel Road has a slue of restaurants and groceries and it’s actually limited in length at only 3 miles long, so it is PERFECT for this kind of project.

To the east it starts at the State Route 315 and to the west it boops into State Route 33. Using these “State Routes” makes it sound all country. Being in Ohio might sound all country too, to outsiders, but it’s well within the city of Columbus, which boasts nearly 1 million residents, and is 3 times larger than Cincinnati or Cleveland. But Columbus isn’t rural and Bethel Road is super international which is super interesting. Therefore we will eat that 3 mile stretch of road and will report out here what we find.

“We”

Who are we? That would be me and Scott. Scott and I worked together at the Ohio School for the Deaf and the Ohio State School for the Blind. We were kindred foodie buds and would find ourselves, with other food friends, searching for out of the way places to grab lunch. When we parted from those fine institutions we went about grabbing food early Friday nights, before his hour commute out of the city or an evening of him playing board games. We catch up. We eat food. We tuck into grocery stores and bakeries too.

This is Scott. He’s a tall white guy. He’s married. He’s a dad. He likes food from all over world and is excited to try new things.

With covid there was a downturn, of course, but we got back to it and I hit upon the idea that instead of looking for the next new place or searching for something we’ve not done before, how about we make our way down this one singular, spectacular street.

So plans are laid. The fanciest restaurant in the city, the Refectory is on Bethel Road-bonus! We are bringing our wives along for that dinner. My favorite Pho joint is on the street. There are quite a few bakeries and the first place that ever had bubble tea in town, is there too. Otherwise it’s mostly going to be us, catching up on our daughters, our families, our pets, our work and mostly eating some of Columbus’ best dishes.

And let it be stated clearly food is an entry way into other cultures. We appreciate the people who are putting the hard work in to their businesses and welcoming us in. We know it would be reductive to say X item equals all the history and experiences of a whole group of people. We know better. My dad was a lot more than Chicken Paprikash though he was proud of his Hungarian heritage.

Please come along for the ride and check out the places we describe so you too can support these local business owners.