January 2009 Issue
Best of the Best Hometowns
The communities honored in the November 2008 issue of Ohio Magazine — Athens, Chagrin Falls, Dublin, Perrysburg and Troy — are known for their hometown spirit and charm. The editors visited these stellar places and share some of their favorite finds.
Best Listening Post
It wouldn’t surprise us if the adage, “They sure don’t build them like they used to,” was penned after a visit to the Chagrin Falls bandstand on the town square. It’s easy to see why it’s a revered landmark to those who gather there for summer concerts. The limestone base was built in 1877 – only 44 years after the village was founded and a dozen years after the Civil War ended. Listen. Can those possibly be the strains of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home?”
Best Irish Goods
For more than 25 years, Dublin’s Ha’penny Bridge Imports has been peddling the best Irish wares this side of the pond. Browse their collection of gorgeous scarves, wraps and jewelry, children’s books and other Celtic collectibles and you’ll agree — you don’t have to be Irish to enjoy this store. 75 S. High St., Dublin 43017, 614/889-9615. www.hapennyimports.com
Best Dads in the Dugout
Inspired to improve Athens’ outdated baseball facilities, five local dads banded together to create ballparks that are scaled-down versions of Major League fields of yesterday and today. Now local little leaguers round the bases in half-scale versions of Fenway Park, Riverfront and Three Rivers stadiums, the Polo Grounds, and Wrigley, Progressive and Crosley fields. www.athenssandlot.com
Best Beer Fest
Fans of the “In Heaven There is No Beer” polka will find secular solace at the annual Ohio Brew Week Festival in Athens. The weeklong event (this year July 12–18) is a jackpot for lovers of locally produced microbrews, as well as anyone who wants to learn more about this much-celebrated beverage. www.ohiobrewweek.com
Best Place for Coffee and Conversation
Sure, there are other coffeehouses. But there aren’t any others that provide you with all you’ll find at NightSky Coffee House in Troy, a locally owned business that offers a family-friendly environment, plenty of space for playing board games, live music every Saturday night, a ceiling with a delightful swirly night-time design, a great breakfast/lunch/dinner menu (try Rich’s Reuben or the What’cha’maycall’it) and a fine view of lovely downtown Troy. Oh, and we nearly forgot: great coffee. 18 N. Market St., Troy 45373, 937/339-1300. www.nightskycoffee.com
Best Spot for a Spot
TehKu means “my tea” in Indonesian, and the TehKu Tea Company in Dublin has assembled a 50-flavor selection of loose-leaf teas from all over the world to help everyone from seasoned drinkers to coffee converts find their personal tea style. Don’t pass on the shop’s yummy selection of desserts and pastries for dunking. 55 S. High St., Dublin 43017, 866/698-3458 or 614/761-3808. www.tehku.com
Best Place to Shake Things Up
Everybody in town — and plenty of people from other towns around, for that matter — know K’s Hamburger Shop in Troy to be a picture-perfect retro diner/neighborhood joint/classic greasy spoon that really takes you back as soon as you step in the door. From the old-fashioned sign out front to the whaddaya-want service counter, K’s is a Troy tradition that has even attracted visits from presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Don’t miss the fabulous milk shakes. The burgers? They’re good, too. 117 E Main St., Troy 45373. 937/339-3902
Best Hidden Gem
Just off a main road in Perrysburg lie the tranquil grounds of The 577 Foundation, a historic property set aside for the purpose of serving the community with education and environmentalism. People are invited to use its community gardens, get schooled on organic gardening, explore a log cabin, watch bees produce honey and more. Solar panels heat the buildings’ water and organic herbs and flowers are grown in a biodome. 577 E. Front St., Perrysburg 43551, 419/872-0305. www.577foundation.org
Best Place to See Red
There are Ohio summer festivals, and then there is the massive, pull-out-all-the-stops event that takes place every first weekend in June in Miami County, when the entire city of Troy goes a bit nuts over small, luscious, bite-sized red fruits. The Troy Strawberry Festival claims attendance of more than 150,000 people — half again the population of the whole county — and since 1979 has been painting the town red with princesses, parades, pies and tons of great family fun. This year’s festival is June 5–7. Plan to be there: You can just follow the big strawberries they paint on the streets. www.troyohiostrawberryfestival.com
Best Birthday Treat
More than a ho-hum ice cream sundae, Stella’s Restaurant & Bar in Perrysburg gives patrons a unique keepsake on their birthdays. Women receive a handmade glass ornament and men are given an egg-shaped paperweight by local artist Gwen Smith. 104 Louisiana Ave., Perrysburg 43551, 419/873-8360. www.stellasrestaurantandbar.com
Best Message in a Bottle
To keep the town’s empty wine bottles out of the landfill, Athens artist Sherri James turns them into beautiful and functional works of art. Her business, Blue Moon Bottles, creates everything from tumblers to lamps to coffee tables out of recycled wine bottles and other materials. 740/707-4746. www.bluemoonbottles.com
Best Place to Belly Up
The menu at Salaam restaurant in Athens is inspired by the foods of the Middle East and North Africa, and luckily for those seeking something different to do this weekend, so is their entertainment. Every Saturday night, the restaurant features belly dance performances from about 7 to 9 p.m. 33 N. Court St., Athens 45701, 740/594-3800. http://restaurantsalaam.googlepages.com
Best Spoken Irish Spirit
Yarn-spinning veteran Michael O’Malley is more than a wee bit entertaining. The one-man storytelling show is a favorite at the Dublin Irish Festival (this year July 31 and Aug. 1–2) thanks to his magical, mystical Irish folk legends, Celtic myths and tales of his own travels in Ireland. Coffman Park, Dublin, 43017, 614/410-4545. www.dublinirishfestival.org
Best Environmental Endeavor
Last fall, Ohio University in Athens installed a 42-foot-long green machine — a composting unit that helps the campus divert nearly 25 percent of its solid waste from the landfill. The unit can take on up to 28 tons of biodegradable material at once, and is the largest in-vessel system of its kind on a U.S. college or university campus. www.ohio.edu
Best Gift of Laughter
Funnyman Tim Conway, best known for his side-splitting antics on “The Carol Burnett Show,” has a soft spot in his heart for the town where he grew up. “I just wanted the kids to see what normal folks were,” he explained in an interview with the Entertainment Zone Web site about his visits to Chagrin Falls. “I had,” Conway added, “the best times, I think, in my life, in Cleveland.”
Best Picturesque Bakery
It’s hard to find a table on a Saturday morning at the Lamplight Café and Bakery in Perrysburg, probably because of the glass cases full of decadent-looking muffins, cupcakes and cookies. Or the pies — displayed on cake plates with glass tops. Add friendly service and cute decor to the mix and you’ve got a feast for the eyes — and the taste buds. 121 W. Indiana Ave., Perrysburg, 419/874-0125
Best Place to Feel the Beat
Folks in Troy just looooove summer music. They especially love it outdoors and downtown, where a number of concerts fill the evening air. The Summer Concert Series brings pops, classic rock, country, bluegrass and more to the Prouty Plaza stage downtown most Friday nights. Then there’s the annual visit by the Cincinnati Regional Pops Orchestra and, topping it all off every year, the Mayor’s Concert, which brings the Dayton Philharmonic Concert Band on the third Sunday in August. The Mayor’s Concert is always preceded by the city’s Festival of Nations — another reason to visit. www.visitmiamicounty.org, www.troyohio.gov
Best Place to Satisfy Your Appetite for History
Chagrin Falls’ celebrated Gamekeeper’s Taverne has a past that’s as rich as the Fire Grilled Cedar Salmon the restaurant is known for. In 1927, Arthur Crane – famous for his invention of LifeSavers candy and for being the father of poet Hart Crane – opened Crane’s Canary Cottage, an eatery that quickly became a gathering place for an eclectic assortment of luminaries, including humorist Will Rogers, aviator Charles Lindbergh and industrialist John D. Rockefeller. Today, you, too, will feel like a star by partaking of one of the renovated tavern’s award-winning entrees. 87 West St., Chagrin Falls 44022, 440/247-7744
Best Threat to Big-Box Retail
In a time when independent, mom-and-pop stores are routinely put out of business by corporate retailers, Mills Pro Hardware & Supply in Perrysburg has held its own since 1928. The personalized service customers have come to expect and the employees’ in-depth knowledge of products have kept customers coming back for 80 years, despite the presence of several large home-improvement stores nearby. 130 Louisiana Ave., Perrysburg 43551, 419/874-4502
Best Place to Find Not-So-Shabby Chic
The Second Hand Rose in you is guaranteed to bloom after a visit to Stash Style in Chagrin Falls, a home-furnishings boutique specializing in salvaged treasures. Antiques span the gamut from a 1920s French Provincial armoire to a tufted settee from the ’40s reupholstered in linen. Which only goes to prove that everything old can indeed be new again. 46 N. Main St., Chagrin Falls 44022, 440/247-2550
Best Place to Be a Kid in a Candy Shop
When you walk into MJ’s Candy Bar, you half expect an Oompa-Loompa to jump up from behind the counter to greet you. This colorful shop in the heart of Dublin is stocked with all the sweet treats you remember from childhood and a whole lot more. There’s even a do-it-yourself station where the little ones can fill up plastic tubes with a rainbow of colored sugars called Pucker Powder. 72 N. High St., Dublin 43017, 614/336-8170. www.mjscandybar.com
Best Place to Get a Jump on the Competition
This is an event with real legs. Established in 1967, the Dublin Kiwanis Frog Jump has returned summer after summer, making it the community’s oldest annual event. One Saturday each June, thousands of youngsters make their way to Coffman Park with hopes that their frogs finish a hop ahead of the competition. www.dublinkiwanis.com
Best Place to Get Lectured
Inquiring minds who want to know congregate in northeast Ohio every summer for Chautauqua-in-Chagrin, a four-week series of lectures and concerts conducted in Chagrin Falls by members of New York’s renowned Chautauqua Institution. Seminars offered last year tackled a range of timely topics, including “The Ethical Frontiers of Science,” “American Foreign Policy: Leadership and Dialogue” and “Healing the Globe.” Classical and chamber music performances provided soothing interludes. For information about the 2009 series, call 440/247-9700 or visit www.chagrinfalls.net.
Best Place to Dig Up the Past
The local history room in Way Public Library in Perrysburg contains information and displays about the area’s past, including historic photographs, maps and more. Those with ties to the area looking for their ancestors can get help in local genealogical searches. 101 E. Indiana Ave., Perrysburg 43551, 419/874-3135. www.waylibrary.info
Best Unique Architecture
Steel walls. Steel floors. Steel roof. Steel just-about-everything, except for the glass in the windows. The Hobart Welded Steel House Co. of Troy built all-steel homes for private use between 1932 and 1941, when such things apparently seemed both practical and desirable. Today, nine of these still stand in a historic district on Hobart Circle near downtown; others are scattered through town (for addresses, visit www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/OH/Miami/state.html ).
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