Best Of Cincinnati 2019

Mar 29 - Apr 5, 2019 / Vol. 26 / No. 13

Best Of Cincinnati 2019

Have you ever sat around wishing there was a publication that would list all of the best things in Cincinnati, as determined by a group of your peers as well as a handful of select staffers at your local alt-weekly paper? Well, your wish has been granted. CityBeat has been in the business of curating…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Mechanical Bull Legend

Sure, Bobby Mackey’s in Wilder, Kentucky is known for being haunted and for serving up some of the most authentic traditional Country and Honky Tonk music in the area on a regular basis, including appearances by its musician owner/namesake (and his “Best Damn Band”) every weekend. But for many, the real attraction remains the nightclub’s…

by CityBeat Staff

Best UFO Abode

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Finnish architect Matti Suuronen designed less than 100 Futuro houses, or flying saucer-esque homes — and Covington has one of them. It was purchased in 1973 by Rob Detzel, who first saw it in an issue of Family Circle. He made arrangements for its display at a home…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Absurdly Tender Snapper

In 2009, former University of Cincinnati football player Leo Morgan opened up a restaurant to serve Clifton the authentic Jamaican food he had previously been making for his teammates on a smaller scale. Just five years later, Guy Fieri gave Island Frydays an honorary residency in Flavortown, USA thanks, in no small part, to their…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Fusian Fusion Sushi Cuisine

Local fast-casual sushi chain Fusian loves to mix up the idea of traditional sushi recipes. It’s in their name, right? This past year, they not only introduced tasty bowls to their menu, but they also engaged in more collaborations than Ariana Grande. Fusian worked with decidedly non-sushi purveyors including local barbecue joint Eli’s BBQ and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Reason For Indie Film Lovers to Come Back Downtown

It’s been a long time since downtown Cincinnati has had a movie theater of any kind, let alone an art house one screening interesting independent films. But that all changed in 2018 when Cincinnati World Cinema began screening movies again in the space vacated by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. It’s a full-circle return for indie…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Tacos

2. Bakersfield OTR 3. Nada 4. TAHONA Kitchen + Bar 5. Agave & Rye 6. Condado Tacos 7. Frida 602 8. Gomez Salsa 9. La Mexicana Restaurante Cantina & Tienda 10. Django Western Taco

by CityBeat Staff

Best Excuse to Drop 50-Plus Bucks on Pasta

Sotto is the premier special occasion dining spot in Cincy. From its sexy, low-light ambiance to its menu of fresh pastas and other rustic Italian cuisine (with accompanying price tag), this underground eatery is perfect for holidays, anniversaries, birthdays and more; it was even recently named one of OpenTable’s top 100 best restaurants in America.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Quick Succulent Stop

Yuliya Bui opened Gia and the Blooms — named after her rescue pit bull Gia — in Over-the-Rhine in 2016. She and her team have a passion for organic floral design; the shop specializes in both building and delivering bouquets (burlap-wrapped daily seasonal selections start at $35) and doing flowers for weddings and events, but…

by CityBeat Staff

Best News from Public Radio

Loyal National Public Radio listeners in Cincinnati are hearing a new voice during their lunch hour — one with a broad knowledge of the Greater Cincinnati region. Longtime news hound Michael Monks grabbed the prestigious gig hosting Cincinnati Edition on WVXU from noon to 1 p.m. on weekdays this year. Monks took the reins for…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cincinnati Visit By An Arts Celebrity

Artist-writer-filmmaker Miranda July, the biggest name among the guests who appeared at Cincinnati’s 2018 FotoFocus Biennial, was positively inspirational in her conversation at Woodward Theater with filmmaker and Syracuse University film assistant professor Kelly Gallagher. She primarily devoted her talk to one of her lesser known but enormously important efforts, the Joanie 4 Jackie underground…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Liquor Store to Buy little Bottles of Bourbon While at CVG

If you fail to stock up on booze before you fly, Cork N’ Bottle has set up a nice little 200-square-foot kiosk inside Terminal A at CVG offering various sizes of alcohol bottles to taste and buy. This satellite store sells between 200 and 300 different spirits, 85 percent of which are bourbon and whiskey,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Sign The Bengals Might Be Trying to Be Better Corporate Citizens

Despite having its stadium funded by Hamilton County taxpayers under a deal often cited as one of the worst examples of pro-sports corporate welfare ever, the Cincinnati Bengals still seemed to have a hard time not flexing their muscles and rubbing the regrettable agreement in citizens’ and city leaders’ faces. But perhaps that tide is…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Record Store that’s Almost Old Enough to Drink

Next year Shake It Records will be old enough to buy beer, but this year marks the momentous landmark of two decades in business. Recognized as one of the best record shops in the freakin’ world, Shake It has done much to put Cincinnati on the map of cities driven by music. Co-founded and co-owned…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Local Comedian with a “Cheers” Obsession

Geoff Tate’s sometimes-subdued delivery cloaks a flamethrower wit, which has earned him opening slots for Doug Stanhope; appearances at South By Southwest and Bonnaroo; regular spots on Doug Benson’s Doug Loves Movies, Getting Doug with High and High Court podcasts; and his own Cheers-themed podcast, MSHD PODCASTO, which morphed into a more broadly-themed “podcast network” and his Altered Tates pod with…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Outside-the-Box Development Policy Idea

As Cincinnati continues to experience a huge resurgence in development, more and more people have begun to wonder whether the city should be incentivizing things like housing affordability when it makes deals with developers. Cue Over-the-Rhine community group Peaslee Neighborhood Center’s Equitable Development Rubric, which looks to give Cincinnati’s community councils tools to ask for…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Woke Concert

Audiences are often reflective of the performers they’re gathered to watch. In the case of Ms. Highly Melanated, Alice in Wondaland herself, the Electric Lady Janelle Monae packed the house at her July concert at the Taft Theatre with colorful individuals from all walks of life. Monae’s 2018 album Dirty Computer was one of the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Activism Around Cincinnati’s Urgent Need for Better Bus Service

This year, Cincinnati transit activists the Better Bus Coalition took it up a notch, providing free bus benches, pushing successfully for the city’s first bus-only lane during downtown rush hour and introducing a ballot initiative to boost bus funding. The coalition has done tons of social media activism around Metro’s struggles, highlighting aging buses, riders…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Sushi

2. Cloud 9 Sushi 3. Ichiban Japanese Cuisine 4. Mr. Sushi 5. Wabi Sabi 6. Kaze 7. Fusian 8. Wild Ginger 9. Izen’s Drunken Bento 10 .E+O Kitchen

by CityBeat Staff

Best Surprise Special Guest

On Nov. 25, the 2018 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony took place at Over-the-Rhine’s Memorial Hall. The show was founded by CityBeat 21 years ago to pay tribute to the local music-makers who make Greater Cincinnati’s music scene so amazing and the 2018 edition featured one of the Queen City’s most successful artists as a top-secret…

by CityBeat Staff

Best News for Those Who Need Medical Marijuana

At long last, after months of delays, Ohio’s medical marijuana program kicked off in the waning days of 2018. The system was supposed to be operational by last September, but the process saw a number of road bumps, including legal challenges from some businesses that applied to grow or dispense medical marijuana. Now, authorized physicians…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Art House Airbnb

“Art house” traditionally has been a term used in the movie business to connote the type of theaters that favor indie and foreign films over Hollywood fare. But Mark de Jong, a trained artist as well as a renovator/reimaginer of old houses, has a different — and far more literal — meaning for the term.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Taste of Syrian Cuisine

The word “baladi” in Arabic means “my country” and introducing Cincinnatians to true Syrian cuisine, culture and hospitality is exactly what the Barazi family is aiming to do with their Clifton eatery Baladi Restaurant & Bakery. Husband and wife duo Sulhail and Hanan Barazi left Syria in 1986, relocating to Kent, Ohio and eventually moving…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Gourmet Macaroni & Cheese Food Truck

For any artist facing an audition, some general advice is to “play the room,” which means to anticipate and exemplify the subtle expectations of your intended project. MamaBear’s Mac food truck follows this tip to a tee, as its menu of sumptuous elevated macaroni and cheese dishes changes based on its location. When the truck…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Aspirational Clothing Collection

The fact that Continuum has held its own on Vine Street in OTR since 2015 is a prime example of the fact that Cincinnati is home to many humans who are interested in innovative, experimental and individual fashion. Shop owner Ericka Leighton is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best 1970s-Style Szechuan Surprise

Downtown’s Yum Yum feels like a time machine sitting inconspicuously among abandoned-looking storefronts on Race Street, with a fading sign boasting the offer to “eat as if you were in China.” Dinner service is from 6-9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday but the business hours are regarded more as a suggestion than a rule. And remember…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Show of Artistic Force

The Cincinnati Art Museum’s Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China drew in nearly 140,000 visitors — 91, 628 of which came specifically for the blockbuster ticketed exhibition. Those numbers mark Terracotta Army as the highest-attended exhibit to date since 1982’s Treasures From the Tower of London. It was such a hit that…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Salads

2. Maplewood Kitchen and Bar 3. Olive Garden Italian Restaurant (TIE) 3. Taft’s Ale House (TIE)

by CityBeat Staff

Best Ice Ball

One of Newport’s most beloved spots is Sweet Tooth Candies, and its striped red and white awning out front has been a welcome sight for young and old alike for decades. This regional gem is open year-round to keep locals and out-of-town visitors stocked up with handmade candies and ready-to-enjoy seasonal treats. In the summer,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Filmmaker-Focused Film Festival

In August 2018, local filmmaker and actress Allyson West launched the Cindependent Film Festival, with screenings in various Over-the-Rhine locations. It was a great success, drawing an overall attendance of 2,104. The event arrived with an impressive degree of planning and organization and also debuted with a scoop — the premiere of Elizabeth Littlejohn’s 24-minute…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Argument for the Skatepark as Art

Ten years since SkateAble vs Non debuted at the now-defunct Feralmade Gallery in Northside, the multimedia skateboard installation returned for a long overdue sequel at People’s Liberty’s Camp Washington Globefront. Arranged by the four members of Cincinnati’s SkateAble collective — a team of scientists, creatives and community organizers who just happen to appreciate skating as an…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Traveling Tea Party

It’s Time for Another Tea Dance is one of the best ways to spend a Sunday Funday in Cincinnati. Once a month, these afternoon parties unfold at a different local bar, inviting the LGBTQ community and allies to get together for cocktails, dancing and to bolster local LGBTQ culture. The “tea dance” is a revived…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Vegetarian Chicken Wings

The Northside Yacht Club offers better-than-expected gourmet bar food across both their brunch and dinner menus, with a special focus on meat-free versions of pub grub classics. Their 12-hour slow-smoked chicken wings are a big draw and the thoughtful menu goes inclusive with bonus “boneless” cauliflower wings. Chunks of cauliflower are covered with a PBR…

by CityBeat Staff

Best $3 Snack

A few years ago, nibbling on roasted, curried chickpeas in a former strip club while sipping on craft cocktails didn’t seem possible — that is until cocktail haunt The Globe opened on the once-seedy Fifth Street/Madison Avenue strip in Covington in the former Club Venus. (They even have a drink named after the original shower-show…

by CityBeat Staff

Best “Out of the Closet” Exhibit

The most gorgeous thing about Second Glances at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center was watching how few visitors did a double-take at seeing traditionally feminine clothing and accessories on masculine forms, or blinked at the thought of women challenging long-held notions of beauty and empowerment. Inspired by work she did with transgender adolescents, textile artist…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Get Lucky

Established in 2012, the Lucky Cat Museum in Walnut Hills’ Essex Studios houses over 2,000 cat figurines, collected at the direction of meow-stro Micha Robertson. Sometimes known as maneki-nekos, the beckoning cats are fabled to attract good luck and fortune. And, lucky us, Cincinnati’s Lucky Cat Museum is one of only a handful of such…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Build-Your-Own-Vegetable-Juice Bar

Total Juice Plus has been macerating vegetables into drinkable health beverages for downtowners since 1997. The unassuming little bistro isn’t fancy, but go anytime around lunch and the line is almost out the door with office workers looking for a vitamin-infused pick-me-up. The fresh pressed/squeezed/smushed juices come in sizes from 12 to 32 ounces with…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Reason to Say “We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Blink-182”

Just days before the 2018 edition of the Bunbury Music Festival, news came down that one of its top-of-the-poster headliners was bailing on the festival. Blink-182 canceled its Bunbury appearance, citing unforeseen circumstances (the band canceled shows later in the year as well, blaming drummer Travis Barker’s medical issues). The festival quickly offered refunds and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Local Brewery

2. MadTree Brewing 3. Braxton Brewing Company 4. Urban Artifact 5. Brink Brewing Co. 6. Taft’s Brewing Company 7. Fretboard Brewing 8. Fifty West Brewing Company 9. Listermann Brewing Company 10. Sons of Toil Brewing

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Restaurant (Since March 2018)

2. Sacred Beast 3. Agave & Rye 4. Joe’s Pizza Napoli 5. Lucius Q 6. LouVino Restaurant & Wine Bar 7. Maize (TIE) 7. Revolution Rotisserie & Bar (TIE) 8. Condado Tacos 9. Zundo Ramen & Donburi 10. Crown Republic Gastropub

by CityBeat Staff

Best Use Of Breast Milk Bags

Northside Yacht Club has always been a step above the rest, whether deciding to “dress up” as Applebee’s for Halloween (nevermind that cease-and-desist letter), throwing an Airborne movie anniversary party (people wore Rollerblades), hosting a weekly ramen night or creating a surprisingly tasty peanut butter and tequila shooter. Last year, NSYC made their own adult…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Town for Tiffany Glass

Tiffany glass was manufactured in New York, but lately Cincinnati has been the place to oooh and ahhh over the studios’ painterly lamps, vases and windows. When Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection opened last February at the Taft Museum of Art, it was the city’s fourth Tiffany exhibit in seven years. And…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Hometown Music Festival

In 2006, Aaron Dessner of The National founded the annual MusicNOW festival in his (and his bandmates’) Cincinnati hometown, bringing to town artists from the Indie Rock and “New Music” worlds for one-of-a-kind events and performances. MusicNOW has featured the likes of Justin Vernon, Sharon Van Etten, Sufjan Stevens, Eighth Blackbird, Philip Glass, Steve Reich…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Overall Pizza (Non-Chain)

2. Chester’s Pizza 3. Joe’s Pizza Napoli 4. A Tavola 5. Trotta’s Pizza & Drive Thru 6. Taft’s Brewpourium 7. Two Cities Pizza Co. 8. Strong’s Brick Oven Pizzeria 8. Taglio 9. Catch-a-Fire Pizza 10. Fireside Pizza

by CityBeat Staff

Best Fight Over a Cincinnati Gorilla Who Isn’t Harambe

What is it with Cincinnati and gorillas? This year, the Cincinnati Zoo fought a pitched legal battle to regain custody of Ndume, a 37-year-old gorilla the zoo loaned to the California-based Gorilla Foundation in 1991. Ndume was supposed to be a boo for Koko, the famous gorilla sign-language prodigy trained by Gorilla Foundation co-founder Penny…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Use of Wigs in an Art Exhibition

A survey of the sea, religion and more, Immerse marked local wigmaker and artist Stacey Vest’s first solo exhibition. Vest’s fantastical, towering wigs have appeared everywhere from atop Cincinnati artist and educator Pam Kravetz’s head (in her many parade appearances, including BLINK), at The Carnegie’s annual Art of Food shebang and parties around the world.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Expansion into Adorable Clothing

Covington’s Handzy Shop + Studio storefront is cuter than a button with its bright yellow door and panoply of adorable papergoods and accessories, so there’s no reason not to visit. But the ladies behind the brand — owners Brittney Braemer and Suzy King — have made it easier than ever to shop local by taking…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Restaurant to Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Used to Be

Littlefield Restaurant Group rehabbed a historic building in East Walnut Hills over a two-year period and in December opened Branch and an adjacent downstairs bar called Night Drop. For much of the last century, the building housed a bank, thus the name of both the restaurant and bar. The group and various architects, contractors and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Weekend Bourbon Bar

Named one of the best bourbon bars in the country by The Bourbon Review, Prohibition Bourbon Bar started as Newberry Bros. coffee and pastry shop before morphing into a speakeasy with one of the largest collections of bourbon and whisky in the world — the bar has more than 2,000 bottles, including Scotch, Irish, Tennessee…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Tactile Fairy Tale Fantasy

The front lawn of the Taft Museum of Art has been transformed into a whimsical willow-tree wonderland via the work of international sculptor Patrick Dougherty. Far Flung is a large-scale “unique fantasy experience” Dougherty (and volunteers) created by manipulating and twisting more than six tons of willow tree saplings into whirling shapes that call to…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Trend for Fans of Local Music in the ’90s

Reunions! Two of the best bands to come out of Cincinnati in the 1990s reunited two decades after their glory days and local music fans of a certain age could not have been more thrilled. In late 2018, Garage Rock kingpins The Mortals — who amassed a cult international following with their ’90s albums through…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cheese Coney You Can Only Get Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Well-hidden in Carthage, Cretan’s Chili Restaurant is an Edward-Hopper-esque landscape of red vinyl, faded linoleum and wood-paneling, serving Coke in Styrofoam cups and sandwich platters from a menu that’s essentially Arial font on laminated printer paper. George Kyrios and his sister Lilly have worked at Cretan’s since they were kids — their parents, Katina and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Veggie Burger

2. Tickle Pickle 3. S.W. Clyborne Co. 4. Arthur’s 5. Sleepy Bee Café 6. Flipdaddy’s Burgers & Beers 7. Maplewood Kitchen and Bar 8. Arnold’s Bar & Grill 9. Harvest Pizzeria 10. Bones’ Burgers

by CityBeat Staff

Best Reason to Get Right with the Lord Before Entering Kentucky

We all know by now that the Brent Spence Bridge needs a replacement. The span linking I-71 and I-75 between the Buckeye and Bluegrass states wasn’t designed to carry nearly as many cars as it does, and it’s 55 years old. Engineers say it’s structurally sound and isn’t about to fall into the river or…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Seafood

2. Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen 3. Bonefish Grill 4. McCormick & Schmick’s 5. Pelican’s Reef 6. S.W. Clyborne Co. 7. Mitchell’s Fish Market 8. Eighth & English 9. Washington Platform Saloon & Restaurant 10. Chart House

by CityBeat Staff

Best Convenience Store Owned by a Martial Arts Master

It takes discipline, endurance and patience to thrive in the world of martial arts — the same skills you need to run a small business. So when convenience store owner Reginald Stroud was priced out of his home, business and martial arts studio in Over-the-Rhine in 2015, he was equipped for the mountainous challenge of…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Sweet Ceramics

Artist Susannah Tisue is the maker behind local handcrafted pottery brand SKT Ceramics, a line of porcelain pieces — mugs, vases, dishes, teapots and more — featuring charming illustrations of plants, animals and the occasional bits of architecture. Tisue founded her studio in Brooklyn, New York in 2006 after spending time as a resident artist…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Candy House That Won’t Melt in the Rain

While CityBeat’s official position on candy houses is to be wary, as it’s likely occupied by a witch hoping to lure little boys and girls into her oven, we had to make an exception for Doscher’s Candy Co.’s new digs. Fear not, there are no confirmed cannibalistic witches on the premises, just the nice folks…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Blessing for Baseball’s Opening Day

It was a shocker when we found out last year that the holiest of all holy days in Cincinnati — Opening Day for Reds baseball — would be effectively split in two in 2018. The Findlay Market Opening Day Parade was held four days after the Reds’ home opener against the Washington Nationals, thanks to…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Turnaround

Few expected much from the University of Cincinnati’s football team in 2018. Fans had become disenfranchised during the Tommy Tuberville era, which ended in 2016 after a 4-8 record. Luke Fickell came in as head coach in 2017 with solid credentials as a defensive coordinator/associate head coach at Ohio State, but his first year with…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Strike Out for a Quarter

Surprisingly, there are plenty of cozy spots and corner bars in Northern Kentucky with vintage electro-mechanical coin-op bowling games, but something about Miller’s Fill-Inn makes it one of our favorites. Enjoy live cover bands or a Blues jam over affordable suds and a basket of popcorn, then head to the side room, past the pool…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Pumpkin Patch/Farm

2. Shaw Farms 3. Gorman Heritage Farm 4. Neltner’s Farm 5. Niederman Family Farm 6. Irons Fruit Farm 7. Weber’s Farm Market 8. Blooms & Berries Farm Market and Garden Center 9. Burwinkel Farms 10. McGlasson Farms

by CityBeat Staff

Best Stories Behind Ohio’s Fertile Alternative Rock Scene

Rebels and Underdogs: The Story of Ohio Rock and Roll offers several great interviews and anecdotes about Ohio’s sometimes underappreciated Modern Rock history. The 2018 book by Garin Pirnia (full disclosure: Pirnia is a regular CityBeat contributor) touches on innovators and pioneers like DEVO and The Pretenders (Akron native Chrissie Hynde graces the cover), and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Park (City)

2. Smale Riverfront Park 3. Eden Park 4. Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum 5. Ault Park 6. Devou Park 7. Mt. Airy Forest 8. Fernbank Park 9. French Park 10. Alms Park

by CityBeat Staff

Best Restaurant Striving to Be Waste Free

If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you’ve no doubt noticed there is a lot of waste in the kitchen. Chef Mitch Arens at Coppin’s Restaurant & Bar at Hotel Covington decided to make a serious effort to reduce the amount of collateral damage most chefs see as admissible by employing a “snout to tail”…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Tempeh Chicken Patty

The team behind OTR’s Pleasantry expanded their purview into fast-casual, chef-driven poultry with the launch of Money Chicken, a streamlined fried chicken restaurant offering sandwiches, tenders, wings and salads for less than $10. With heritage-breed chicken sustainably sourced from Joyce Farms in North Carolina (free from antibiotics, hormones, steroids and animal by-products), chef Evan Hartman…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Used Movie Retailer

Though they haven’t reinvented the wheel, the Corryville location of CD/Game Exchange gets extra credit for how they run their movie, music and video game resale shop. The employees put together themed staff picks that are not only timely, but also well curated and indicative of well-informed film buffs with a passion for the medium.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Local Music Mixologists

Cincinnati musicians and mixologists MayaLou Banatwala and Kristen Kreft combined their talents and passions for their 2018 collaborative book project, Rocktails: An Amped Up Spin on Mixology. Kreft and Banatwala, who possess two of the best voices in the local music scene (showcased in their bands The Perfect Children and Heavy Hinges, respectively), were inspired…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Authentic Peruvian Ceviche

If you’ve never had the pleasure of trying it, ceviche is raw seafood cured in citrus juice and spiced with exotic peppers. Angel Batista, co-owner of Maize and a native of Puerto Rico, says it should taste like the ocean — and that’s exactly how you’d describe his restaurant’s dish, constructed with a base of…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Throwback Vocal Group

An a cappella group performing yesteryear hits from the 1920s-1960s (with a special focus on the sound of 1940s Swing), Queen City Sisters looks the part with their throwback fashion and old-Hollywood glamour. The ensemble pays infectious tribute to singing icons with area ties, like Rosemary Clooney and Doris Day, and has an obvious affinity…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Purported Satanic Tunnel

Blue Ash is certainly known for many remarkable things — a large 150-foot observation tower at Summit Park, the second location of Over-the-Rhine’s Senate, etc. — and one of those happens to be a purported tunnel to the netherworld. The story goes, local Satanic groups would meet at a drainage tunnel in Blue Ash to…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Fast Bikini Wax

Ripping hair out of your body by the root via hot wax is never going to be a comfortable or fun procedure, but the team at Heavenly Bodies makes it as painless as possible. Owner Alesia Buttrey has decades of waxing experience and it shows: Waxes here are fast — like in and out in…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place for a Cut and Cocktail

Parlour salon in East Walnut Hills specializes in creative cuts and color, bringing aspirational runway looks to the sidewalks of Cincinnati. Award-winning colorists can achieve everything from natural balayage blondes to neon-yellow art-Punk pixies — and anything in between — with the finesse of highly trained painter. Whether you want to step out of your…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Brewery in a Converted Funeral Home

Cincinnatians who are at least twice the legal drinking age may remember the omnipresence of Wiedemann Bohemian Special Pilsner cans at every family gathering back in the day. Well, “back in the day” is back, so to speak, as Wiedemann’s Fine Beer has reopened under new owners and a whole new recipe book. Betsy and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Big Biergarten News

If there’s one thing Cincinnatians love more than a local brewery, it’s a local brewery with an outdoor drinking area — especially if that drinking area happens to be elevated (cough Rhinegeist cough). So when Braxton Brewing Co. announced a $5 million expansion plan in January, which includes a 5,000-square-foot rooftop deck, it just gave…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Old Building Wearing Some Very Contemporary Accessories

If you’ve driven on any highways near Queensgate recently, you’ve definitely seen it: the red brick, 1890s-era warehouse with the bright lime green geometric addition on the east face of the building. It’s local firm Elevar Design Group’s new showspace — a home for its 80 employees, yes, but also a way to flex the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Literal Name for a New Bar

Laid-back Over-the-Rhine cocktail bar Longfellow recently celebrated its second birthday by throwing a “shitty dance party on OTR’s smallest dance floor.” Well, at least that’s how they put it in a Facebook post promoting the event. It’s apparent the bar has a good sense of humor about itself (the owners even decked out the space…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Tattoo Atelier

Walnut Hills’ White Whale Tattoo is renowned for its artistry in ink. The shop’s crew of highly skilled tattooers (boasting a higher ratio of female to male artists, for what it’s worth) creates individual masterworks on skin for clients with a bespoke mindset and range of styles that includes specialties in linework, pointillism, woodcut and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Brewery Turned Outdoor Recreation Destination

Fifty West Brewing Company has turned a stretch of Wooster Pike into a veritable outdoor recreation corridor. Across the street from the flagship brewpub sits Fifty West Canoe & Kayak, Fifty West Cycling and Fifty West Production Works (home to six sand volleyball courts). All are geared toward building community through shared experiences, which include…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Proof That the Cincinnati Sports Curse is Very Real

Last year during NCAA basketball’s March Madness, it seemed as if the top hometown teams — the Xavier Musketeers (a No. 1 seed) and the UC Bearcats (a No. 2 seed) — were both on the verge of impressive runs. Then, on March 18, each team suffered such heartbreaking, freakish losses some were calling it…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Local Winery

2. The Skeleton Root 3. Vinoklet Winery 4. Elk Creek Vineyards 5. Valley Vineyards 6. Henke Winery 7. Harmony Hill Vineyards 8. StoneBrook Winery 9. Burnet Ridge Winery 10. Verona Vineyards

by CityBeat Staff

Best Inclusive Ice Event

Hockey games can be overwhelming for just about anyone — strobe lights, smoke machines, fog horns, toppling towers of dollar beer cans. In October, the Cincinnati Cyclones turned things down a notch for an inclusive sensory-friendly game for those with autism, PTSD and other sensitivities and their friends to enjoy a night out on the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Option for Getting Around, Love ’Em or Hate ’Em

They appeared out of the blue one day last spring, setting up roosts around Cincinnati’s downtown basin. And as the flocks grew, people developed some opinions. Oh, do we have opinions about all those rentable, smartphone app-driven Bird and Lime scooters. Some folks grew to love them faster than you can zip from OTR to…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Urban Grocery Development

Urbanists and elected city leaders have salivated at the idea of a downtown Kroger for years — the city’s last one, a Kroger on Race Street, closed in 1969 — and now, with the building rising at the corner of Central Parkway and Walnut Street, it’s close to reality. The Cincinnati-based grocer announced it will…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Northern Kentuckian

2. Otto M. Budig, Jr. 3. Jean-Robert de Cavel 4. Nick Clooney 5. Cris Collinsworth 6. Colonel De Stewart (In Memoriam) 7. Maryanne Zeleznik 8. Kathrine Nero 9. Amy McGrath 10. Tom Browning

by CityBeat Staff

Best Unexpected Event Space

Opened in 2017, Taft’s Brewpourium is the laid-back little brother to Taft’s Ale House in Over-the-Rhine. While the latter is housed in a renovated church with lots of dark wood and chandeliers, the Brewpourium is a proper taproom with a more industrial look, darts, cornhole and shufflepuck in the front and a full brewing facility…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Classic Parisian Omelet

Sacred Beast is a modern diner-style destination in OTR with a solid menu of comfort-food dishes and Francophile bistro favorites, like matzah ball soup, a double-burger with American cheese and steak tartare with frites. But if you want to try a dish that straddles the best of both worlds and epitomizes the excellence of chef…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Bagels

2. Bruegger’sBagels 3. The Bagelry 4. Lil’s Bagels 5. Panera Bread 6. Einstein Bros. Bagels 7. Big Apple Bagels 8. Servatii Pastry Shop & Deli 9. Everything Bagels 10. Skip’s BagelDeli

by CityBeat Staff

Best Roasted Veggie Cream Cheese

The Bagelry has hit the ground running since opening its brick-and-mortar in October 2018, and they’ve done it on the backs of outstanding bagels (duh) and high-effort schmears. Yes, it’s effort — not fancy culinary tricks or rare ingredients — that’s responsible for the Bagelry’s successful spreads, including their improved take on the longtime bagel…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Go Nuts and Spice Up Your Life (Literally)

Dean’s Mediterranean Imports is packed so full of wonderful tastes, smells and textures that it’s hard to fit more than a few folks at a time inside the store’s narrow aisles. Maybe you’ve seen bags of their awesome roasted nuts at bars around town. Maybe you’re a regular patron drawn by the aromatic wall of…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Draft Matcha Latte

Last July, Wendigo Tea Co. and Tokyo Kitty partnered to create the world’s first nitro vegan matcha latte on draft. (Other nitro vegan matcha lattes might exist, though.) Wendigo founder Sky White, keyboardist for the on-hiatus local Rock group Foxy Shazam, infused the highest-grade of ceremonial matcha with almond and coconut milks and then placed…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Unconventional Beer Cheese

Last year, Urban Stead Cheese opened in the revitalizing Evanston neighborhood. They make cheeses like quark (a chunky German-style cheese), gouda and cheddar curds on the premises. In fact, they’re the only cheesery in Cincinnati that does this. Co-owner Andrea Siefring-Robbins worked at restaurant Hall’s on the River, a Kentucky beer cheese staple located in…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Mascot Named Gary

As FC Cincinnati launches headlong into a new league during its first MLS season, the team has also committed to a new mascot. He is orange. He is feline. He is plush. His mane, nose and wingtips (yes, he has wings) are blue — we’re not sure if that’s natural or a dye job. None…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Hatchet Job

Good news for people who love throwing axes: There are now multiple places in Cincinnati where you can toss sharpened projectiles at a wooden target. And most even sell booze. The axe-throwing craze hacked its way into the Tri-State last March with the opening of Cincinnati Axe Throwing in West Chester. The first in the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Artist Working with Discarded Music Gear

Lynne & Lucille artist Kelli Fisher has been “making almost nothings into pretty somethings” since 2013. A transplant from Columbus, Ohio, Fisher specializes in jewelry crafted from the retired gear of local musicians. “I’ve always been a huge fan of music but have never been able to grasp the concept of actually playing it,” she…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Overall Boutique (Local)

2. Elm & Iron 3. The Library Friends’ Shop 4. Rookwood Pottery Co. 5. Rose & Remington 6. BlaCk OWned 7. HOMAGE 8. MiCA 12/v 9. The Native Brand 10. Queen City Alchemy

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Get Your Fortune Read While Drinking Coffee

Last fall, Melissa Aydogan and her mother opened Turkish coffeehouse Rüya Coffee across the street from Findlay Market, inside People’s Liberty’s Globefront Gallery, which gave Aydogan a $15,000 grant to do just that. The duo brewed “strong as death” Turkish coffee from a special Deeper Roots blend in a room filled with ornate rugs and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Shawarma from a Halal Market

Cincinnati’s Muslim community is no stranger to the Halal Market in West Chester. With an international grocery and café in the same building, you can find ingredients from many regions in North Africa and the Middle East. Walk inside and take a left under the archway and you’ll enter the Laziz Café, which offers possibly…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Patron Saint of Paper

As the 180-plus-year-old Mercantile Library edits its collection of fiction to make way for new works, paper artist Sara Caswell-Pearce has incorporated pieces of the discards into collages and other treasures that help tell the institution’s story. Her debut exhibition in November as the Mercantile’s first artist-in-residence included four inspirational “santos,” or saints, wearing halos…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Chef (w/Restaurant Affiliation)

2. Jose Salazar (Salazar, Mita’s) 3. Danny Combs (Sotto) 4. Daniel Wright (Senate, Abigail Street, Pontiac Bourbon & BBQ) 5. David Falk (Boca) 6. Christian Gill (Boomtown Biscuits & Whiskey) 7. Alfio Gulisano (Ché, Alfio’s Buon Cibo, The Butcher and Barrel) 8. Frances Kroner (Sleepy Bee Café, Aster) 9. Mark Bodenstein (S.W. Clyborne Co.) 10.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Clubhouse Culture

Since 1925, a Samuel Hannaford-designed house in Walnut Hills has been home to the Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, an organization whose founding predates the NAACP and the Urban League. Built in 1888 by the same architect behind Music Hall, the brick mansion features Rookwood tile fireplaces, brass chandeliers, bay windows and white-enameled spindles…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Buy Baby Gifts

Over-the-Rhine everything-shop MiCA 12/v has an impeccably curated selection of “things”: things you want, things you need, things that now you’ve seen them you can’t live without. It’s the perfect one-stop giftshop for her, him, home and even small humans, with a wide-ranging collection of items from local and indie designers plus hip and well-known…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Theme Nights

Watching a Florence Freedom game is fun, but it’s even more fun on a theme night. The Frontier League baseball team — housed out of the UC Health Stadium in Florence, Kentucky — has all the drama of a Major League match but with a “fun uncle” kind of attitude. The wide-ranging promo schedule has…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Taste of Philly from a Walk-Up Window

You don’t have to buy a plane ticket to Philly to get a great cheesesteak. You can get a no-frills, tried-and-true cheesesteak at 13th Street Alley in Over-the-Rhine and watch through the window as they scrape a pile of hot, 100-percent sirloin steak and melty cheese off the flattop and into a bun with peppers…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Revival of Broadway’s Yesteryear

With scads of talent to perform onstage and in the orchestra pit, productions at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music can authentically replicate productions from the Golden Age of Musicals. The October 2018 staging of Guys and Dolls — which marked the 50th anniversary of the musical theater program’s establishment (the first in the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Bike Shop that Doubles as a Coffee Shop

Reser Bicycle Outfitters is a specialty bike shop in Newport that carries everything from road and mountain bikes to electric varieties and even BMX. And if you need something to get yourself amped up before you take to Cincinnati’s streets, Reser is also home to Trailhead Coffee, a craft purveyor serving Wood Burl Coffee and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cincinnati Sesquicentennial

What do the names Frank Duveneck, Julian Stanczak, Jim Dine, Charley and Edie Harper, Paul Chidlaw, Petah Coyne, John Ruthven, Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, Tom Wesselmann and Elizabeth Nourse have in common? They are all names of artists who have studied, taught or guest lectured at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in its 150 years…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Way to Spend Whiskey Wednesday

The Wednesday night crowd at Murphy’s Pub is drastically different from the crowd you’ll find at this Clifton stalwart on a weekend night. And although it can be fun to spend a Saturday doing Jägerbombs at this Irish-leaning institution, not everyone enjoys being packed shoulder-to-shoulder with college students doing late-night trivia. Wednesdays at Murphy’s offer…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Time Travel Opportunity

Time travel doesn’t require a DeLorean or 1.21 gigawatts of power. Sometimes, all it takes is the collective will to look backward. At least, that’s the concept that drove Jennie Wright’s Sankofa Experience, an immersive art project that used performance, curation and cosplay to transform the People’s Liberty Globefront Gallery into a time-warp portal. The…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Thing

2. Dinosaur Hall at the Cincinnati Museum Center 3. Madcap Education Center 4. Caffè Vivace 5. Liberty Jazz Lab 6. Queen City Kings Documentary 7. Bird and Lime Scooters 8. S.W. Clyborne Co. 9. Urban Sketchers Cincinnati 10. Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at Union Terminal

by CityBeat Staff

Best Overall Restaurant (Northern Kentucky)

2. Hofbräuhaus 3. Walt’s Hitching Post 4. Kung Food Chu’s AmerAsia 5. Bouquet Restaurant & Wine Bar 6. Otto’s 7. Frida 602 8. Greyhound Tavern 9. Agave & Rye 10. Coppin’s Restaurant & Bar (TIE) 10. Keystone Bar & Grill (TIE)

by CityBeat Staff

Best Steamy Buns

Two thousand and eighteen shall be known as “The Year of the Walk-Up,” as it seemed like every new business used the concept to sell all types of food. During the summer, 13th Street Alley started selling their Philly-inspired cheesesteak sandwiches to an afternoon and late-night crowd, joining already established Gomez Salsa (always crowded), located…

by CityBeat Staff

Best German Heritage Shopping Experience

Chriskindlmarkt is just one of many annual community-minded events organized by the Germania Society of Cincinnati, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting — surprise — German heritage in our region. A recreation of an authentic Bavarian-style Christmas market, local vendors set up shop under heated tents at Germania Park, but it feels more like a festival…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Vinyl Relocation

In February, Torn Light Records moved their storefront from Bellevue, Kentucky across the river into Clifton — expanding from 625 square feet to 2,000 square feet (plus another 1,000 for storage). Helmed by Alex York and Dan Buckley, the vinyl haven boasts an eccentric collection. You can find the classics — be it The Velvet…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Bloody Mary We’ll Miss

At the end of February 2019, The Anchor-OTR announced it was closing its doors after seven years of slinging super-fresh seafood to Cincinnatians at the corner of 14th and Race streets. It’s always sad to lose a favorite neighborhood haunt, and the loss of the Anchor will be felt quite deeply by fish fans ……

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Sample Squid Ink

OK, squid ink is not the only thing you should try at Crown Republic Gastropub, but now that we’ve got your attention, let’s talk about this wonderful eatery’s aquatic defense mechanism-turned-ingredient. Squids naturally secrete ink to evade attackers, and though it’s not likely they anticipated anyone would want to eat their excretion, squid ink is…

by CityBeat Staff

Best OTR Diner with Grit

Originally opened in 1957, Tucker’s Restaurant has been an Over-the-Rhine mainstay for decades. Operated by Joe Tucker and his wife Carla (Joe’s parents opened the diner), the restaurant took about a 14-month hiatus to rebuild after a devastating kitchen fire in 2015, but they are back and better than ever, serving breakfast, brunch and lunch…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Zoo Baby

Move over, Fiona (don’t, really; we still love you): Kendi the black rhino is gunning for the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s sassy baby spotlight. In October, the black rhinoceros tot nipped the index finger of a guest who was on a behind-the-scenes tour with zoo staff. The guy was fine and walked away with…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Lost-in-Time Diner to Grab Breakfast at Midnight

A neon sign greets Covington’s Anchor Grill customers as they enter: “We may doze, but never close.” Open 24/7 and cash-only, time seemingly ceases to exist here. Known for their goetta, chili, classic breakfast staples and whatever-they-have pie, you’ll find a little bit of everything and everyone here — from art students to regulars; from…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Best of Both Worlds Lunch Buffet

Clifton’s Elephant Walk Injera & Curry House does double duty as both an Indian and Ethiopian restaurant. The double-sided menu features cuisine from both countries, which have somewhat similar flavor profiles. If you’ve never eaten Ethiopian food, it’s kind of like Indian — both countries offer stew-style dishes consisting of ingredients like chicken, lentils, cabbage…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cincinnati High School Alumni Performance

Winton Woods standout turned soon-to-be NFL linebacker David Long Jr. put on a show at the 2019 NFL Scouting Combine, placing inside the Top 5 in the 40-yard dash (4.45) and vertical jump (39.5). And his former rival, Mount Healthy’s David Montgomery, did much of the same at the much-anticipated Indianapolis event. Long — a…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Spot Downtown to Grab Emergency Kicks for the Weekend

Quick. It’s 5 p.m. You just got off work. You have a date at 6. And your outfit is looking… not so fresh. While some people might think your scuffed up, floppy dad loafers and khakis are attractive, you’re more likely cruising toward deal-breaker town with your business-casual gear. But no fear. UNheardof downtown can…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Weekend Getaway (Within 100 Miles)

2. Red River Gorge, Kentucky 3. Yellow Springs, Ohio 4. Louisville, Kentucky 5. Columbus, Ohio 6. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail 7. Indianapolis, Indiana 8. Lexington, Kentucky 9. Adams County, Ohio 10. Brown County, Indiana

by CityBeat Staff

Best Duchamp Display in a Suitcase

Last year, the Cincinnati Art Museum devoted an exclusive gallery to the French-born artist Marcel Duchamp, who — along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse — is often hailed as one of the three greatest artists of the 20th-century. Until very recently, the Cincinnati Art Museum hadn’t owned enough by Duchamp to merit his own…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Kangaroo Taco

Sitting just across the river and around the corner from Braxton Brewing Company is Covington’s Agave & Rye. Equal parts bar and taqueria, this late-night hotspot makes tasty tacos out of everything from buttered lobster to fried avocado to… kangaroo. That’s right, to our knowledge, this is the only place around Cincinnati to get an…

by CityBeat Staff

Best T-Shirt Tribute to a Tiny Local Club Show

The poster art promoting a pre-fame Nirvana’s tiny club show at Murphy’s Pub on Clifton Avenue (one of only two gigs the band would ever do in the Queen City) was put on a T-shirt by local print/design house We Have Become Vikings and sold to raise funds for the local Women Helping Women organization.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Solo Exhibition at a Gallery

To say that “Overview,” the piece by Canada’s Marina Fridman that won Manifest gallery’s desired Manifest Prize, was “expansive” is not to use that descriptor casually. Exhibited from mid-December 2018 to mid-January 2019, the work occupied 64-by-168 inches of space, needing an entire gallery to make its impact. But beyond the physical dimensions, it expansively…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Historic Preservation Wins

Cincinnati saw two iconic landmarks — The Manse Hotel and the Mt. Airy Water Towers — protected this year with local historic landmark designations. Walnut Hills’ Manse Hotel, first constructed in 1876 as a single-family home, became a vital stopover for black visitors to Cincinnati when a black businessman named Horace Sudduth purchased it in…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Holiday-Themed Bar Makeovers

Before Jacob Trevino moved to Cincinnati, we were bereft of whimsical pop-culture bars. But since 2015, he and his Gorilla Cinema Presents company have innovated the bar industry by opening The Shining-themed The Overlook Lodge, the Quentin Tarantino-themed The Video Archive and downtown’s Lost in Translation-esque karaoke bar Tokyo Kitty. For Halloween this year, The…

by CityBeat Staff

Best “How is This Still Here?” Bookstore

The unmistakable scent of musty old books hits you like a brick wall the moment you set foot in Duttenhofer’s Books, and aesthetically, it’s like the personal library of a Mensa member with a hoarding problem. Tens of thousands of tomes, spanning nearly half a millennium, eclectically fill the space’s snuggly-fit shelves and spill over…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Industrial Dance Resurrection

Last year, long-running Cincinnati LGBTQ bar The Dock was purchased by the Ohio Department of Transportation in order to make room for improvements to the Brent Spence Bridge. With the club’s untimely closing came what seemed like an end to Darkotica, a weekly Goth night that gave local scenesters a chance to flex their existential…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Pay-What-You-Want Art Supplies

When starting an art project, one never knows what kinds of random materials they’ll need to complete their vision — or how pricey it may become. Indigo Hippo’s staff know this better than anyone, which is why no place caters to Cincinnati’s offbeat artists quite like them. Founded in 2016 by University of Cincinnati College…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Free Attraction

2. Findlay Market 3. Smale Riverfront Park 4. The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County 5. Contemporary Arts Center 6. Washington Park 7. Jungle Jim’s International Market 8. 21c Museum Hotel 9. Tunes & Blooms at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden 10. Fountain Square

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Get Branded

Camp Springs, Kentucky native Keith Neltner cut his teeth at local agencies and quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the design and music worlds, producing work for artists like Shooter Jennings and Hank Williams III. His Neltner Small Batch design group has produced branding and illustrations for some of our region’s favorite…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Local Music Interview Series

Donuts N’ Akahol is the wildly entertaining YouTube interview series hosted by Graval Baehr and Branden Tatum that features insightful chats with various Cincinnati musical acts. It’s also often quite funny. As the title suggests, the hosts gather with musicians (largely from the city’s rich Hip Hop scene) to chop it up over some adult…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Way to Find Out What ‘Brettanomyces’ Is

Only a small crowd of lucky drinkers got a taste of Rhinegeist’s limited-run String Theory funky blonde ale, which seems to have totally sold out at the brewery and all known retail shelves. (Head to Rhinegeist’s website to check availability on the String Theory landing page.) There’s more than a good chance that you’ve never…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Iconic Rebirth

One of Cincinnati’s most iconic buildings will shine a lot brighter for a lot longer while providing a home to some of the city’s most important cultural institutions thanks to a stunning $213 million restoration that launched in 2016 and wrapped up this year. The massive Art Deco Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal is…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Way to Earn Yourself an ICEE while Protecting Your Mother

Green Acres Canoe and Kayak Rental offers canoe, kayak and tube rentals for humans to sit in to take a trip down the Whitewater River. Rent the crafts per person for either three, five or eight miles — depending on how long you feel like floating — and sign yourself up for several hours of…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Apartment Community

2. American Can Lofts 3. The Boulevard at Oakley Station 4. Aqua on the Levee 5. Harper’s Point Apartments 6. Alumni Lofts 7. Newberry Lofts on 6th 8. Woodbrooke Apartments 9. The Waldo Apartments 10. The Gramercy on Garfield

by CityBeat Staff

Best Offensive Mascot Almost Everyone Can Get Behind

Last October, the Chiefs slaughtered the Bengals in their game in Kansas City. Final score: 45-10. After doing what they do so well and giving a tiny bit of hope with a respectable 4-2 record to start the year, the team ate it and continued a streak that would include only two more wins by…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Bloody Mary

2. Arnold’s Bar & Grill 3. Hang Over Easy 4. The Eagle OTR 5. Northside Yacht Club 6. Maplewood Kitchen and Bar 7. Higher Gravity 8. Taste of Belgium 9. Redwine & Co. 10. S.W. Clyborne Co.

by CityBeat Staff

Best Salty Chocolate Chip Cookie

One is rarely let down by a cookie — whether it is home baked, store bought, too doughy or slightly burnt, a cookie is usually a worthwhile indulgence. Put simply, cookies have a high floor. It’s the cookies that chase the ceiling or, better yet, push the ceiling up a few stories that leave an…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Local Taproom

2. MadTree Brewing 3. Fifty West Brewing Company 4. Rhinegeist 5. Brink Brewing Co. 6. Taft’s Ale House 7. Braxton Brewing Company 8. Fretboard Brewing 9. West Side Brewing 10. 3 Points Urban Brewery

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cod Sandwich

Finding affordable fresh fish in the Cincinnati area is somewhat difficult, especially if you don’t want to pay Whole Foods prices. Tucked next to the entrance to the Florence Mall, Afishionados opened in November after relocating from Friendly Market. Alongside bakery Memorie Makers and olive oil company Kentucky Olive, the three businesses operate as Olde…

by CityBeat Staff

Best WWE Host from Cincy

When locals turn on WWE SmackDown Live, they may see a familiar face in the form of host/announcer Greg Hamilton. Born Greg Hutson, Hamilton — who chose his stage name after his  hometown of Hamilton, Ohio — spent years on the entertainment and hosting circuit in places like Orlando and San Antonio before landing his…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Vaporwave Photo Op

Malls: These havens of hearty Midwestern consumerism have been on a slow death spiral as innovations like e-commerce and Amazon work to take over the retail world. Humans are losing their lust for large-scale interior expanses of clothing storefronts, food courts and play areas with quarter-machine rockets. This change in consumer habits is possibly no…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Barbecue

2. City Barbeque 3. Montgomery Inn 4. Lucius Q 5. Pickles and Bones Barbecue 6. Pontiac Bourbon & BBQ 7. Sweets & Meats BBQ 8. Just Q’in 9. Midwest Best BBQ and Creamery 10. Big Art’s BBQ Grille

by CityBeat Staff

Best Venue for Video Art in 2018

There was a glorious moment in 2018 — April and May — when the Cincinnati Art Museum’s showings of South African artist William Kentridge’s ecstatic seven-screen film installation More Sweetly Play the Dance, in which a procession of people passes across a charcoal-drawn animated landscape as if moving in a jazzy funeral procession, coincided with…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Movie Theater Popcorn

The Esquire, Mariemont and Kenwood theaters cater to moviegoers with refined tastes for film… and snacks. Offering a vast selection of foreign films and Oscar-shortlisted titles, the Esquire family of cinemas pairs artistry with the best bag of popcorn you’ll find in Cincinnati. Salt and (real) butter flow freely into carbohydrate-stuffed paper sacks, applied carefully…

by CityBeat Staff

Best “Living” Mural

For Covington residents, the mural located on the corner of Fourth and Scott streets is now an iconic cityscape feature. But it began in 2010 with single gray-hued dog painted by collaborative street art group The London Police. They returned in 2016 to expand the mural across the entire side of the building and add…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Vegetarian Encore

Clifton coffee shop mainstay Sitwell’s reopened under new ownership last year and a new name: Sitwell’s Act II. Now owned by Florencia Garayoa and her husband Alex Barden, the couple is determined to preserve what made Sitwell’s an iconic Cincinnati hangout while adding their own philosophy and personality. While Barden is a Cincinnati native, Garayoa…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Retro Advertising

The wheat-paste mural installed last summer on a boarded-up cinderblock building at Lincoln and Gilbert avenues in Walnut Hills is in tatters now. Its old advertising slogans have been scattered by the wind. But “Yesterday Today Tomorrow” was never meant to be permanent, artists Janet Creekmore and Ben Jason Neal say. Instead, they wanted to…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Adult Swim

The renovated Ziegler Park Pool is turning into not only a community hot spot, but also a hip place to see and be seen. Partly because of the location (across from Alumni Lofts in the former School for Creative and Performing Arts), partly because of the cost (daily admission is $4 for adults, with a…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Local Hangout for Graphic Content

Located on Newport’s Monmouth Street and nestled among other independent businesses like Urban Chick Boutique, Jet Age Records, Reser Bicycle, Pepper Pod and La Mexicana, Arcadian Comics & Games has been a vibrant presence in this community for nearly nine years. More than just a comic book shop, it’s a veritable community hub and gathering…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cincinnati Skyline Revolution

Like a mini version of the iconic London Eye, Skystar is a 15-story “observation wheel” that went up at The Banks downtown at the end of August to celebrate the riverfront development’s 10th anniversary. The Ferris wheel features 36 glass-enclosed, climate-controlled gondolas that take up to six riders on a 12-minute spin for a unique…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Hang Out with Jerry Springer

As one of Cincinnati’s most famous residents, Jerry Springer might not have seemed accessible to locals during the heyday of his daytime talk show, when he was an American pop culture icon. But these days, the former Cincinnati mayor is in town often, showing a few different sides of his interests during the regular live…

by CityBeat Staff

Best ArtWorks Mural

2. “Charley Harper’s Beguiled by the Wild” 3. “Fiona and Bibi at the Cincinnati Zoo” 4. “Swing Around Rosie” 5. “Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon” 6. “Mr. Dynamite” 7. “Ezzard Charles: The Cincinnati Cobra” 8. “Dream Big and Fly High” 9. “Democracy!” 10. “Homecoming (Blue Birds)”

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cheesy Gnocchi

Cheese and potatoes are a classic pairing that’s pretty damn hard to screw up, but equally difficult to elevate to Michelin-star quality. Nicola’s, one of OTR’s most esteemed restaurants, does just that with their gnocchi. And while they don’t have a Michelin star, they do have four diamonds from AAA. The potato pasta is made…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Bit of Big Brother Onstage

You’d think that George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 (written in 1949) would be so passé that it could no longer scare anyone. But when the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company presented a stage adaptation of it in October, the classic theater company used special effects to frighten the bejesus out of everyone with a ticket. Brave Berlin,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Most Exciting Programming by a Performing Arts Institution

Cincinnati Opera, under Director of Artistic Operations and New Work Development Marcus Küchle, has distinguished itself nationwide — and attracted a newer, younger audience here — with its cutting-edge programming. In 2018, it had sell-outs for its U.S. premiere of the operatic adaptation of Roger Waters’ Another Brick in the Wall. Its chamber opera As…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Fiona the Hippo Mural Not Painted by ArtWorks

Clad in a bubblegum-pink tutu and flower crown, Fiona leaps across the side of Algin Retro Furniture’s building, backdropped in a vibrant blue. It’s a whimsical and downright adorable mural — much like artist, illustrator and Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber event manager Joshua Stout’s other work. “(I like) anything bright,” he says. “I think lots…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Goetta Invention

Goetta, one of Cincinnati’s signature meats, was invented out of necessity. German immigrants who settled in the area added grains — generally pin-head oats — to a mixture of meats to help stretch their pork and beef supply over multiple servings. The economical solution became a local staple and now goetta is one of our…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Proof that Fries Go Well with Everything

Subtitled episodes of One Piece backdrop your dinner as the bustle of OTR foot traffic surrounds your outdoor table for two. Quan Hapa isn’t just one of the most fun places to eat ramen in the city — it’s also the unlikely home of Cincinnati’s spiciest basket of waffle fries. Coated with sesame seeds and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Overall Restaurant

2. Jeff Ruby’s The Precinct 3. The Eagle OTR 4. Taste of Belgium 5. Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse 6. Boca 7. Incline Public House 8. Taft’s Ale House 9. Mazunte 10. Dewey’s Pizza

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Watch Westerns While Eating Biscuits and Veggie Gravy

Last March, former Hungry Bros. food truck co-owner PJ Neumann opened Boomtown Biscuits & Whiskey in Pendleton and hired Food Network alum Christian Gill to head the kitchen (Gill has appeared on Guy Fieri’s Guy’s Big Project and Guy’s Grocery Games). Boomtown’s concept is more than just Southern biscuits and whiskey — it’s meant to…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Little Vault of Memories

FotoFocus 2018 encompassed more than 90 photography projects in venues stretching from Greater Cincinnati to Dayton and Columbus. The overarching theme of “Open Archive” seemed wide-open to multiple interpretations. But, in the end, a tiny vault belonging to Mark Patsfall of Clay Street Press held everything we really needed to know about this huge event:…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Political Drama, Local Division

Let’s face it, Cincinnati politics is always a little weird. But this past year was, to put it simply, just plain wild, man. First, there were dueling allegations about gender discrimination and overtime pay malfeasance in the Cincinnati Police Department. That led to the dismissal of a top CPD official by City Manager Harry Black…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Pizza Buffet

Sometimes you need to eat more pizza than the restaurant can keep track of. That’s why pizza buffets are such a joy. Every Friday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Mac’s Pizza Pub in Clifton hooks it up with a variety of different pizzas with toppings to suit any taste. The pies are thin crust…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Kid-Friendly Attraction

2. Smale Riverfront Park 3. Duke Energy Children’s Museum at the Cincinnati Museum Center 4. Kings Island 5. Cincinnati Art Museum 6. Newport Aquarium 7. Great Parks of Hamilton County 8. Cincinnati Parks 9. Coney Island 10. Washington Park

by CityBeat Staff

Best Nepali Dumplings

Dumplings are just the best, so when a restaurant really nails this dish the woes of the world become more bearable. Thanks to Bridges Nepali Cuisine in Northside, the world’s getting better every day they serve momos, their take on a Nepalese dumpling. Fried, sautéed or steamed and filled with a smoky combination of herbs…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Tuna on Croissant Sandwich

In May 2018, part of the Collective Espresso team opened up urban deli and mini grocer The Takeaway across the street from their OTR coffee shop on Woodward and Main Street. The name tells you almost everything you need to know — they sell to-go food — but it’s more than that. The menu contains…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Get Your Freak On

You can’t usually buy a pickled octopus in a jar in the same transaction as a stack of used vinyl, but that’s what Hail Dark Aesthetics is here for. A second outpost of the Nashville-based oddities shop, the Covington storefront allows shoppers to flip through rows of Rock and Country records and shop everything from…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Edible Offspring

Last year, the Thunderdome Restaurant Group hatched CityBird, a chicken tender takeout restaurant on Vine Street located right next door to the Eagle OTR, a favorite fried chicken eatery which is owned by the same company. The CityBird menu is built around high-end chicken strips. The strips are made from free-range bird, which is brined,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Interfaith Humanitarian Effort

In 2018, local immigration activists stepped up to help those caught in the political crosshairs of a new, “zero tolerance” immigration push. A multi-generational, multi-organizational, interfaith effort led by organizations like the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, the Cincinnati Interfaith Workers Center, Transformations CDC, immigration attorneys and activists is seeking to provide legal help, shelter,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Retro Rental for Groovy Campers

The lure and lore of hitting the open road, of Route 66 and road trips, highways and cross-country adventures is ingrained in the American ethos like Manifest Destiny and Jack Kerouac novels. And part of that idealization is conjured up in wholesome those-were-the-days nostalgia — all-night diners, neon signs and rolled-down windows. Local company Route…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Way to Become a Cincinnati City Guide

In coordination with the Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Certified Tourism Ambassador (CTA) program is designed with local economy in mind — and an objective to enhance the Greater Cincinnati experience for those visiting our region, either for work or recreation. Certification, which is open to anyone, requires attending a one-time interactive class and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Extended Birthday Party for a 75-Year-Old

With a month-long celebration for most of the 2010s, Cincinnati has honored the legacy of King Records, the locally-based record company whose impact on everything from the music industry to the sound of popular music today cannot be overstated. Last year, the city-wide celebration of King’s outsized influence on American culture was even bigger due…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Peppermint Panties

Local performance apparel company Jumper jumped on the super-soft undies bandwagon last year by launching a line of cozy modal underwear for men and women… with a twist: Their comfy undergarments were made with bonus Peppermint Tech, featuring fabric infused with all-natural peppermint fiber. According to the Jumper website, “Everybody knows the peppermint leaf is…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Ugly Sweater

Skyline really rang in the yuletide cheer last year with a chili-themed “ugly” Christmas sweater. The full-knit acrylic pull-over featured 3-ways lined up in the shape of a Christmas tree and was ridiculous, magical and kind of hideous. Regardless, the marketing masterminds over there hit on a cultural “ugly” zeitgeist and the sweater run sold…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Eternal Stepping Stone to a Bigger Job

Thanks to its seemingly endless stream of coaches who have gone on to bigger things, Miami University earned the nickname “The Cradle of Coaches.” But in the past few decades, it seems almost a given that when an NCAA basketball program needs a new coach, they’re not headed to Oxford — they’re going to come…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Actual Lunch Angels

Sometimes you have days at work when you’re so busy you can barely get up to pee, let alone figure out how or what you’re going to feed yourself. Thankfully, the true angel humans at 53T Courier have been bringing lunch (and dinner) to downtowners (and CityBeaters) via bicycle in the rain, sleet, snow and…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Restored Sign

One of Cincinnati’s marquee music destinations has a new…er…marquee. The Woodward Theater, a popular music and events venue in Over-the-Rhine, received a $150,000 grant last year to bring back its historic exterior signage — a vital part of the neighborhood’s vibrant, diverse streetscape. Owners of the Woodward used the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Partners…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Municipal Efforts to Save the Planet

The City of Cincinnati’s move toward renewable energy is an encouraging, ongoing effort to do our part in avoiding a grim environmental future. The city has achieved an 18.4 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since it started measuring those emissions in 2006, recently built one of the country’s first net-zero energy use police stations,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cincinnati-Made Barbecue Chips

First off: This pick is not about Grippo’s barbecue chips, although Grippo’s barbecue chips are in fact delicious. They taste like a summer pool party, come in nostalgic 1960s packaging and have that tongue-coating tang of paprika, heat and MSG. But, if you want something less orange and non-GMO, Hen of the Woods’ Touch of…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Existential Cocktail Destination

With a name conceived as a playful homage to philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Frenchish brasserie Sartre OTR sits on the ground floor of the Rhinegeist building and serves up a changing menu of snacks, shareables and mains with a Parisian bistro sensibility. The food is good and interesting. Order whatever “beignet” is on offer; whether it’s…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Geographically-Themed Food Item

It takes a monumental meal to represent an entire nation, and La Mexicana’s Flag Burrito is just the dish for the job. Topped with green and red salsas, which are divided by a small border of sour cream, the hefty wrap yields a delicious bounty of pinto beans, rice, cheese, onions, cilantro, lettuce and tomato.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Park at the Center of the News in 2018

In this politically passionate age, any proposal requiring public input can become a burning battle of words and hurt feelings. And there are few places in Cincinnati that have more ardent supporters than Burnet Woods and the Clifton Cultural Arts Center. So when the CCAC floated a proposal to build its new home in the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Wings

2. Buffalo Wild Wings 3. Northside Yacht Club 4. Wild Mike’s 5. The Oak Tavern 6. Bones Brothers Wings 7. Buffalo Wings & Rings 8. Putters Sports Grill 9. SmoQ 10. Quaker Steak & Lube

by CityBeat Staff

Best Masonic Lodge Turned Multi-Purpose Art Collective

The Lodge is a remodeled 9,000-square-foot Masonic Temple that is now bustling with artistic pursuits of all sorts. The space is home to photography, screenprinting and art studios; an electronic repairs service; and a performance and event space. The conversion began when Scott Beseler purchased the Dayton, Kentucky building in 2011 and it has grown…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cheese Club

There’s that old saying, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” The Rhined’s cheese club would make even Groucho Marx go back on his word. This cheese of the month club eliminates the need to leave your house to obtain coveted dairy deliciousness. Each month, a box…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Gyro Pita Bread

Warm as a ray of sunlight, soft as a cloud and perfect in every way. This is of course how one would describe the pita at Chicago Gyros & Dogs. This Clifton staple provides the perfect bed of bread for its signature pita sandwiches. Open for 35 years, the pita at this place is durable…

by CityBeat Staff

Best News for Fans of Eastern European Eats

Sarah Dworak never thought she would make her living from pierogies. But as the granddaughter of Ukrainian immigrants, she didn’t have a say in whether or not she inherited the gene for pierogi mastery: Her Baba (or grandmother) made sure she learned how to make the little half-moon shaped dumplings, stuffed with fillings like cabbage,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Store to Find an Attractive Toaster

The Findlay Market-adjacent Artichoke OTR brings a fashionable flair to cooking by carrying design-forward bakeware, utensils and appliances. Been binge-watching The Great British Baking Off and feel an itch to mix in your own pastel Mason Cash bowls? Or perhaps you need to simmer something in a red ceramic tagine? Or bake a cake in…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Maintained Mountain Bike Trail

Cincinnati weather can make it difficult to keep up a hobby of mountain biking — one day of rain can keep some bike trails closed for many days after because of a lack of maintenance or a lack of effort. But Mitchell Memorial Forest in Cleves has got it together with their handmade and challenging…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Convert a Punk into a Deadhead

Owner Chrissy Antenucci named her Italian-inspired takeaway spot The Wheel after the Grateful Dead song, saying she cooks the way the band plays — highly improvisationally. And the results are, in short, delicious; her creamy roasted carrot sandwich will give you heart eyes. Picture the scene from Ratatouille when top-tier cartoon rat Remy holds up…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Display of Resilience (And Great Cooking)

Monica Williams spent the last six years cooking soul food at her popular West End take-out spot Just Cookin’, often drawing lines of customers eager for her meatloaf, cornbread, ribs, greens, grilled salmon and other home-cooked favorites. Just one problem: Williams’ spot was in the historic State Theater on Central Avenue, which had to come…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cincinnatian

2. Brian Garry 3. Pete Rose 4. Molly Wellmann 5. Tamaya Dennard 6. Bob Herzog 7. Anthony Muñoz 8. Nick Lachey 9. Drew Lachey 10. Cam Hardy (TIE) 10. Chris Seelbach (TIE)

by CityBeat Staff

Best Use of Electric Violin

The great American composer John Adams wrote the two-part The Dharma at Big Sur in 2003 for solo electric violin and orchestra as a tribute to California composers Lou Harrison and Terry Riley, and it magnificently mixes Western avant-garde experimentalism with the swirling, spirited Raga of Indian music. It’s as open and receptive to the universe…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Take a Visitor

2. Findlay Market 3. Over-the-Rhine (TIE) 3. Smale Riverfront Park (TIE) 4. Jungle Jim’s International Market 5. Cincinnati Reds Game 6. Cincinnati Museum Center 7. Cincinnati Art Museum 8. Carew Tower Observation Deck 9. The Banks 10. FC Cincinnati Game

by CityBeat Staff

Best Scenic Designs (Again and Again)

Regardless of the show you see onstage at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, it’s been the genius work of Brian c. Mehring for more than two decades, during which he’s created more than 100 productions. The son of local community theater parents and a 1996 grad of the theater design program at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Curious Cocktail Ingredients

The day after Christmas, folks from Northside’s The Littlefield opened Branch, a global-inspired restaurant situated in the 1920s-era Central Trust Bank in East Walnut Hills. Their cocktails are named after financial terms, like Reverse Mortgage and Preferred Risk. Downstairs lurks a speakeasy-like bar, Night Drop. It has the same cocktail menu as upstairs, but the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Fungus Fortress

Architect Terry Brown was a University of Cincinnati professor of architecture and interior design, but to most in our region he’s known as the guy behind Hyde Park’s famed “Mushroom House.” Guests at street level will notice a winding entry staircase and misshapen exterior constructed of metal, glass, ceramic and warped wood shingles, suggesting a…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Gift from Mussolini

Yep, the rumors are true: The Capitoline Wolf statue in Eden Park was a gift from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini — and that’s not even the strangest part. The bronze sculpture depicts a she-wolf nursing two young boys, and it’s every bit as intriguing to witness in person as you would imagine. Intended to honor…

by CityBeat Staff

Best G.O.A.T. Goat Yoga

Has a lack of barnyard animals ever prevented you from taking up yoga? If so, say baaahmaste to Yogoat, a local startup that provides at least four baby goats for assorted yoga events. These adorable, well-behaved little livestock may arrive in aww-inducing costumes and will almost certainly climb on top of you in the middle…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Beekeeping Supplies

Cory and Krystle Gaiser have a passion for sustainability and, by extension, bees, and operate Gaiser Bee Co. with the primary goal of educating the masses on the importance of the honeybee. Their urban farm is a home not only for bees, but also chickens, peacocks and goats; beginner beekeeping classes on their property —…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Brewery for All Day Drinking

It’s typically not too difficult to relax once you sit down with a pint in any brewery, but 3 Points Urban Brewery really upped the game by offering daytime coworking hours, similar to how people treat coffee shops as their remote work site. As early as 9 a.m. during the week, you can shuffle in,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Capturing of King Records Onstage

Six years ago, Cincinnati Playhouse artistic director Blake Robison asked playwright and director KJ Sanchez to consider creating a show that would tell a “quintessentially Cincinnati story.” With Cincinnati King — about the city’s mid-century recording company, King Records — he got exactly what he asked for. Sanchez took the time to interview musicians and others…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Friendly Findlay Produce Stand

Roth’s Produce is the first veggie vendor when you enter Findlay Market from Race Street, one booth over from their friendly rival, Catanzaro Produce. Fun history via the Findlay Market website: Mark Catanzaro, of the original Frank Catanzaro Sons & Daughters Wholesale Produce family (they sold to a wholesale distributor in 2006), runs Roth’s. Ron…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Second Place Slushie

Imagine those big, constantly churning slushie machines at the grocery store. Now imagine a free-flowing slushie machine filled with bourbon that you don’t have to ask your mom to buy for you. Second Place is your place for a reasonably priced, strong frozen cocktail that tastes good with anything. Especially after your first slushie. Or…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Overall Burgers (Non-Chain)

2. Arthur’s 3. Krueger’s Tavern 4. Nation Kitchen and Bar 5. Tickle Pickle 6. Flipdaddy’s Burgers & Beers 7. Roney’s 8. Bard’s Burgers & Chili 9. Quatman Café  10. Gas Light Café 

by CityBeat Staff

Best Brunch-Side Entertainment

Brunch serves several functions in our society, foremost being a graceful means to justify a few drinks before noon. Now, there’s the food and fellowship appeal too, but you’re probably getting real sick of your spouse’s friends and hearing about their relationship drama. Luckily, drag queens have stolen the spotlight once again to save us…

by CityBeat Staff

Best As-Seen-On-TV Pancakes

Don’t be dismayed if the line is out the door when you arrive at Maplewood Kitchen and Bar downtown. For one thing, it’s worth the wait, but just as importantly, they have a super-efficient operation that moves you along quickly. While you wait, you can ponder your many excellent choices — starting with cocktails. There’s the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Actresses Who Are Representing Cincinnati in Hollywood

The Barry Jenkins-directed If Beale Street Could Talk — based on James Baldwin’s 1974 novel of the same name — is vibrant, poetic and moving with lush colors that meld with each flare of emotion. It explores black love in 1970s Harlem, where Tish is engaged to Fonny, an artist whom she’s been friends with…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Efforts Supporting Affordable Housing

Greater Cincinnati has a reputation as an affordable city, at least compared to the soaring, four-figure average rents in places like New York City and San Francisco. But that’s deceptive. Hamilton County has a 40,000-unit gap in affordable housing, according to a study by the Greater Cincinnati Local Initiatives Support Corporation — a huge deficit…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Big Bearcats Hoops Investment

After playing their 2017-2018 home games at Northern Kentucky University’s BB&T Arena, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats basketball team returned to its own campus to play at Fifth Third Arena after an extensive renovation project. The upgrades have been so impressive, every time a new TV announcer comes in to broadcast a UC home game,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Super-Soft Cincy Wear

Rivertown Inkery + Apparel was launched in 2013 as a screenprinting business before turning into a full-time career in 2014. After being a strictly digital and pop-up presence, owner Doug Burns went brick-and-mortar last year with a fresh storefront in downtown Oakley featuring his small-batch and nostalgia-inducing apparel. His “wearable memories” invoke the style —…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Multi-level Used Bookstore

We see fewer and fewer bookstores — independent and chain — every year and, when a new one does open, it’s likely going to offer a limited selection that occupies little space. Ohio Book Store is like a mecca for bibliophiles, spanning five floors of retail space. It’s easy to get lost among the racks…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Authentic Taste of Africa

From the outside, Darou Salam may seem small — it is set back, nestled underneath trees and shares the same building as the Northside Tavern. You may even miss it at first glance. But although humble in appearance, this is Cincinnati’s best-kept secret for authentic African food. Darou Salam offers Senegalese cuisine ranging from lamb…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Restaurant for Fine Dining

2. Sotto 3. Boca 4. Orchids at Palm Court 5. Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse 6. S.W. Clyborne Co. 7. Nicola’s Ristorante 8. Primavista 9. Jeff Ruby’s Carlo & Johnny 9. Restaurant L 10. Jean-Robert’s Table

by CityBeat Staff

Best Movie Star Ambassador for Cincinnati

Since 2015, Bruce Willis (of all people) has filmed three straight-to-DVD/VOD movies in Cincinnati. In 2016, Lionsgate Premiere released Marauders, his first Cincinnati-filmed movie. Willis starred alongside Entourage’s Adrian Grenier in the bank heist film. In 2017, Willis returned to the Queen City to shoot another bank heist-type film, Reprisal. (The same production company as Marauders produced it.) The film took…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Sign of Hope for Cincinnati Sports in 2019

After an eminently forgettable 2018, the Cincinnati Reds are looking like they are serious about making a run for the playoffs in the coming season, even offering fans hope that the team might just be the one to end decades of bad luck for local pro (and college) sports and win a championship. Though they…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Dine on Christmas Day

On Christmas, finding an open restaurant that’s not Waffle House is scarce in the Cincy/Northern Kentucky area. (Though, dining at Waffle House on Jesus’ birthday is totally acceptable.) But if you seek good food, and maybe food that isn’t honey ham or a pile of cut-out cookies, head to Kung Food Chu’s AmerAsia in Covington.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Electronics Superstore

Sure, Micro Center is a chain with about 25 stores nationwide, but the electronics mega-superstore got its start in Columbus, Ohio in 1979. The “large format” layout, for which the store is known, began in 1982. Located on Mosteller Road in Sharonville, our local Center features free in-store clinics (upcoming events detail smartphones and tablets…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Bit of Broadway on a Cincinnati Stage

Thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda, theater fans — and moden day humans in general — now know more than expected about Alexander Hamilton via Hamilton: An American Musical, an unlikely megahit based on the Founding Father’s life. The touring production of this musical smash that came to Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center for the Arts Feb. 19-March 10,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Selection of Herbal Teas

Walking into Lydia’s on Ludlow is like walking into a little hippie haven. The café features floor-to-ceiling — including on the ceiling — crystals, cloth painted with yoga-centric art and a variety of work by local artists. There is a lot going on in this bohemian enclave, including in their extensive selection of herbal teas…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Brunch

2. First Watch 3. Sleepy Bee Café 4. Maplewood Kitchen and Bar 5. Orchids at Palm Court 6. Grand Finale 7. The Greyhound Tavern 8. Hang Over Easy 9. Cozy’s Café & Pub 10. Nation Kitchen and Bar

by CityBeat Staff

Best Happy Hour (Drinks)

2. Higher Gravity 3. The Righteous Room 4. Coppin’s Restaurant & Bar 5. S.W. Clyborne Co. 6. Bar Louie 7. Rhinehaus 8. Northside Yacht Club 9. 16 Bit Bar+Arcade 10. Gypsy’s

by CityBeat Staff

Best Museum Exhibit

2. Ansel Adams: A Photographer’s Evolution at the Taft Museum of Art 3. Guitar: The Instrument that Rocked the World at the Cincinnati Museum Center

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Read About Cincinnati Sports

Although sports and sports coverage are among the top things people like to argue and complain about most in this crazy world, Cincinnati is actually quite lucky when it comes to those who’ve chosen to write about and cover our local teams professionally. Some of that talent got expertly consolidated by The Athletic, a subscription-based…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Night Market

Market Bleu, held quarterly at the Contemporary Arts Center, is a different approach to the maker pop-up that showcases elevated handmade products and fine arts from local vendors in a museum setting. The more streamlined approach to a modern market focuses on high-quality works from working artists — think an upscale flea with vetted vendors.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Detroit-Style Pizza

Parmesan and red pepper have been thrown amid hour-long debates about which is better: New York or Chicago-style pizza? But few realize the argument isn’t as black and white as it’s so often portrayed. A happy medium is lost in the scuffle — Detroit-style pizza. And no Cincinnati restaurant does it better than Taglio, from…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Make-Your-Own Pizza Parlor

If you’ve ever felt restricted by the all-too-vanilla topping selections found in most pizzerias, Zablong is the answer you’ve been waiting for. This Chipotle-style build-your-own pizza joint gives you the freedom to create an oblong ’za (get it?), offering 28 toppings ranging from prosciutto and spicy chickpeas to ghost pepper salami. Fresh mozzarella or their…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Bright Return

BLINK is making its second appearance in Cincinnati in 2019, with a promise to be bigger and brighter than ever. It was announced that the popular light and art festival — which saw a million visitors during its inaugural 2017 event — will spread across the Roebling Bridge into Covington this year. For the first…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Travel Series Pilot to Feature Cincinnati’s Cool Side

Yoni Wolf, frontperson of the internationally acclaimed Indie Pop band WHY?, moved back to Cincinnati several years ago after building his musical reputation while based in California. With the pilot of The Wandering Wolf, his proposed video travel series created with Scott Fredette and partly funded by a grant from the People’s Liberty philanthropy lab,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Breakfast

2. First Watch 3. Taste of Belgium 4. Maplewood Kitchen and Bar 5. Sugar n’ Spice Restaurant  6. Hang Over Easy 7. The Echo Restaurant 8. The Main Cup 9. The Original Pancake House 10. Wild Eggs

by CityBeat Staff

Best Way to Get High in Blue Ash

Though not the most notable ascent around town, the commute up Interstate 71 from Cincinnati is a gradual incline toward one of the highest points in Hamilton County: Blue Ash. And it’s now gotten a lot higher. The city topped its 850-foot natural elevation by more than 150 feet with the installation of the Blue…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Virtual Ride on the Rails

Each Saturday from May to October, The Railway Museum of Greater Cincinnati is an authentic place to take a trip back in time, even if it doesn’t offer train rides or docent-led tours. For $4 admission ($2 children), visitors can step out to survey a mostly gritty lineup of 70 passenger and freight cars sitting…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Bar/Club (Since March 2018)

2. The Birdcage 3. Pins Mechanical Company 4. Tokyo Kitty 5. Lucius Q (TIE) 5. Wiedemann’s Fine Beer (TIE) 6. Arts’ on the Ave 7. Caffè Vivace 8. Top Cats 9. Amigos Bar and Patio 10. Samuel Adams Cincinnati Taproom

by CityBeat Staff

Best Secret Pizza Pop-Up

Mysterious Sicilian pizza pop-up party Secret Pizza began last spring at Mainwood Pastry in Findlay Market. Mainwood Pastry already had a reputation for making stellar croissants, cakes and other bready goodness found in some of the city’s best coffee shops, so it’s no surprise that owner Dave Hart (co-owner of Collective Espresso) found success in the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Cincinnati Rollergirls’ Player Name

This was a close race. The Cincinnati Rollergirls’ roster is chock full of talented skaters with impressive names, including Hot Slice, MIRDERHER, Sailor Scary and FireBolt. But it’s Pistolwhippin’ Wendy, who made her CRG debut in 2009 and plays pivot, jammer and blocker for the team, that takes the cake. Catch Wendy and the gang…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Swabian-Style Soft Pretzels

Last year, Drew Rath, owner of Tuba Baking Co., single-handedly introduced modern-day Cincinnatians to Swabian-style pretzels. Swabia borders the state of Bavaria in the southeastern corner of Germany. Unlike Bavarian-style, which Cincinnatians are most accustomed to, Swabian-style pretzels have a higher fat content, contain rye and have skinny “arms.” That way, you simultaneously experience a…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Blend of Sports and Theatre

Shakespearean drama. Gravity-defying acrobatics. Unitards. You don’t have to break the bank to enjoy the spectacle of pro wrestling. The Northern Wrestling Federation offers WWE-sized thrills in the cozier confines of Fairfield’s UAW Hall. Over the past two decades, the indie promotion has garnered a cult following of die-hard wrestling fans and curious locals. Eight…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Major-League Sports Newbies

After months of waiting, political wrangling, angst over the location of a stadium that wasn’t for sure going to happen and a few false starts, the news came last year on May 29, when Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber stood with FC Cincinnati leadership and Mayor John Cranley in the cavernous Over-the-Rhine taproom of…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Ham and Brie in a Bookstore

The best bookshops are also the ones that feed their customers, it seems. The Booksellers on Fountain Square is a great downtown stop to peruse paperbacks and glossy new magazines, but one could be led to believe its main purpose in this world lies in its café menu. Among other options, it offers a delightful…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Photography Exhibition

The visual arts scene in Cincinnati would be substantially poorer without FotoFocus and its determination to present photography and film from around the world, past and present, in multiple venues here every two years during fall. In 2018, its New York-based artistic director and curator, Kevin Moore, organized Paris to New York: Photographs by Eugène…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Wine Bar

2. Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant 3. Unwind Wine Bar 4. 1215 Wine Bar & Coffee Lab 5. Crafts & Vines 6. Somm Wine Bar 7. Higher Gravity 8. Liberty’s Bar & Bottle 9. Marty’s Hops and Vines 10. Oakley Wines

by CityBeat Staff

Best Political Drama, State Division

Ohio’s gubernatorial campaign was more staid and policy-oriented than we had anticipated last year and most other big Ohio elections were relatively drama free, save the contest between Aftab Pureval and Steve Chabot for Chabot’s U.S. House seat representing Hamilton County’s West Side and Warren County. That fight got nasty quickly, with allegations that Pureval…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Hope for New Generations of Jazz

Cincinnati’s Liberty Jazz Lab concert series wrapped up its inaugural 2018 season with The Bad Plus, one of many contemporary acts that have helped keep Jazz healthy and vital by pushing the music forward and making it appealing to younger audiences in the process. The acclaimed Minneapolis trio was a great closer for the concert…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Wine and Cheese Pairing

Oakley Wines started as a boutique bottle shop just off the main drag in Oakley. And then it became more than a neighborhood hang when upward of 100 people started stopping in for Friday-night wine tastings. So, expanding with demand, owner Zach Eidson revamped the basement and turned it into The Cellar bar. In September,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Late-Night Sushi

It’s late, most of the restaurants are closed and you’ve had quite a bit to drink. In the direst of circumstances, you could get a sober pal to pick up something from a drive-through, but what about your unyielding sushi craving? How dare you ignore that? Izen’s Drunken Bento was literally created for this scenario.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Overall Bar/Club

2. Sundry and Vice 3. Queen City Exchange 4. 16-Bit Bar+Arcade 5. The Birdcage 6. Higher Gravity 7. Northside Yacht Club 8. Arnold’s Bar & Grill 9. Queen City Radio 10. MOTR Pub

by CityBeat Staff

Best Creamy Whip to Open in Pendleton

If you’ve ever been savagely addicted to soft serve ice cream (and who hasn’t had to get that monkey off their back?) then you know winter is a dark, dark time due to the fact that all the local creamy whips close for the “slow season.” Well, Pendleton Parlor is the best (or worst) thing…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Find Local Makers When There Isn’t a Pop-Up Market

So you love all the makers you can find at markets like The City Flea or Oakley Fancy Flea, but there isn’t one this weekend. Where can you scratch that shop-local itch? Deerhaus Décor, perfectly situated in Findlay Market, carries one of the best selections of local arts, crafts and apothecary. Founded in 2016, the…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Barbecue Paying Tribute to the Founding of Cincinnati

There’s a new pitmaster in Pendleton. And while the name of the barbecue joint may look like “luscious” — which isn’t a bad association — the restaurant is actually called Lucius Q (loo-shus q), a moniker taken from a Roman general with special ties to Cincinnati. The Roman association is pulled through in the branding,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Buy Pre-Rolled CBD Joints

Yes, medical marijuana has finally been legalized in Cincinnati, but that doesn’t mean everyone who could benefit from it has access to the plant, due to the stricter list of conditions required for a “green card” in Ohio compared to other medical states. The psychotropic (aka gets you stoned) compound THC is still heavily regulated…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Commemorative Watch for a National Landmark

Our beloved Union Terminal is back in action after having been partially closed for more than two years to conduct a $228-million historic restoration. To commemorate the National Historic Landmark’s monumental makeover, Cincinnati Watch Company designed a limited-edition Union Terminal Watch modeled after the building’s iconic exterior 18-foot clock. A portion of every $499 watch…

by CityBeat Staff

Best New Regional Music Festival

Bill Donabedian is a Cincinnati music festival legend, after founding two of our area’s biggest and most beloved musical events of the past 20 years — MidPoint Music Festival and Bunbury Music Festival. In 2018, Donabedian took his talents 45 miles north of Cincinnati to Waynesville, Ohio to debut the Bellwether Music Festival, a two-day…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Homegrown Kids Music Alternative for Parents

Aimed at children ages 3-7, each of the seven silly tracks on The Corner — a Hip Hop-flavored album project from Vernard Fields, Adam Hayden and Charlie Padgett that includes a beautifully illustrated book — is a different vignette dealing with fundamental early life lessons, such as on “Pick Up Your Towel” and “We Like…

by CityBeat Staff

Best $1 Oyster and $5 Bubbly Night

Rich’s Proper Food and Drink opened in November, adding to Covington’s burgeoning restaurant scene. Located next to Duveneck Square and named after a watch store that used to exist in the space decades ago, Rich’s offers New Orleans-inspired Creole-meets-Southern food, from muffuletta sandwiches to mac-and-cheese-stuffed egg rolls. Every Wednesday night, they do East and West…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Sunday Night Happy Hour

Coppin’s Restaurant & Bar at Hotel Covington offers your standard Monday through Friday evening happy hour (some wines and beers are a couple bucks cheaper). However, late last year they also introduced a “reverse happy hour” every Sunday at 8 p.m. and running until midnight. Spirits like Wheatley Vodka, Second Sight Spirits Rum (distilled in…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Candy Store

2. Graeter’s Ice Cream 3. Schneider’s Sweet Shop 4. Maverick Chocolate Co. 5. Fawn Candy Co. 6. Supreme Nut & Candy 7. Esther Price Fine Chocolates 8. Jungle Jim’s International Market 9. OTR Candy Bar 10. Tickled Sweet

by CityBeat Staff

Best Worth-the-Wait Bottle of Bourbon

If patience is a virtue, there may be none more virtuous than Ken Lewis, former proprietor of The Party Source and current owner of New Riff Distilling. In what some might consider an ill-advised business decision, Lewis launched a brand-new venture knowing that his first name-brand product would take four years to hit the shelves;…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Find Non-Local and Non-Regional Beers

A couple of years ago, when Landlocked Social House owners Anne and Andrew Decker opened their coffee and beer emporium in Walnut Hills, they ushered in a new experience of coffee and beer together, so customers could always be caffeinated and buzzed. What sets them apart — besides exclusively using Dayton, Ohio’s award-winning Wood Burl…

by CityBeat Staff

Best CBD Seltzer

Sold at a variety of retailers across the Greater Cincinnati area, Queen City Hemp has been leading the way of CBD products in Cincinnati. For those who have not heard about the growing trend of CBD oil, CBD stands for cannabidiol and is a product of cannabis. Yes, like marijuana. But CBD is labeled non-psychoactive…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Housemade Mixers and Soda

In December, former Metropole chef Jared Bennett and former Maribelle’s eat + drink chef/owner Mike Florea teamed up with MadTree Brewing co-founder Jeff Hunt to open Karrikin Spirits Co., a distillery and restaurant located in an industrial park in Fairfax, near the Frisch’s Mainliner. On-premises, they distill several spirits, including vodka, gin and apricot brandy.…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Tokyo-Style Ramen Spot

Luckily, ramen has made a big resurgence in popular eating habits and that means we can progress beyond instant soup in Styrofoam cups and appreciate authentically prepared bowls of hearty broth and luxurious noodles. Zundo Ramen & Donburi wants you to eat their ramen with authentic efficiency. The pièce de résistance of the menu is…

by CityBeat Staff

Best TV Podcast Empire

Run by Cincinnatians Jim Jones and A. Ron Hubbard, the Bald Move podcasting empire has amassed a large cult following with entertaining weekly podcasts. Generally focused on popular television shows (as well as the occasional movie), the pair examines episodes week to week with a charming, fan-centric brand of nerd humor and insight. Bald Move…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Reason to Get Right with the Lord Before Entering the West Side

If you were 76 years old and thousands of cars drove over you every day, you’d be tired, too. In 2017, motorists snapped pictures of concrete falling from the literally crumbling Western Hills Viaduct, reminding us that, despite officials’ promises that the bridge is safe, our gateway from the center of the city to Price…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Microcosm of the Controversy Over Native American Mascots

Thanks in large part to the Cleveland Indians baseball team’s “Chief Wahoo” logo, Ohio has forever been a part of the controversy over Native American sports mascots. And as the culture has gradually shifted away from using mascots some find offensive and racist, high schools have increasingly been dealing with the issue, particularly in Ohio,…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Used Video Game Retailer

If you’ve ever found your living room too crowded with video game consoles and accessories (you nerd), you’ve likely wondered how to reduce the clutter and earn a bit of cash or credit toward your next gaming purchase. Of course, there are pawn shops and other avenues for reselling, but for the best deal it’s…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Nonprofit Restaurant

A collaboration between Findlay Market and CityLink Center, which provides integrated services to help individuals break free from poverty, Social OTR offers a working internship in a fine dining restaurant for the community’s unemployed and underemployed talent pool. Students get fundamental, hands-on culinary training at no cost to them, and all the money the restaurant…

by CityBeat Staff

Best Hiking Trail

2. Loveland Bike Trail 3. Sharon Woods 4. Mount Airy Forest 5. Miami Whitewater Forest 6. Devou Park Backcountry Trails 7. French Park 8. Trillium Trails Wildflower Preserve/Glenwood Gardens 9. Ault Park 10. Boone Cliffs Nature Preserve

by CityBeat Staff

Best Place to Buy Hip Glasses

Picking out the perfect pair of hip glasses is no easy feat. Balancing the need to be in vogue without being shallow and distinct while remaining tasteful is a tough task for even the fiercest of fashionistas. But fear not, online glasses retailer Warby Parker’s sleek brick and mortar location in OTR — only the…

by CityBeat Staff

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