Tag: over-the-rhine

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Arts & Entertainment Business News

Performances Kick-Off This Evening for 11th Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival

Cincinnati Fringe Parade [Provided]

After an eclectic parade on Monday and a kick-off party last night, the 11th annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival officially gets started today with its first round of performances.

The 12-day event has become a national draw over the years, and organizers expect more than 8,000 people to attend this year’s festival. As expected, the 2014 rendition will boast an impressive collection of 38 unique productions and more than 160 performances at a dozen venues tightly clustered in Over-the-Rhine.

“This year’s festival is one of the biggest ever,” said Eric Vosmeier, Producing Artistic Director at the Know Theatre. “We had a record number of FringeNext applications, our high school artist version of the Fringe, and subsequently added an additional slot to FringeNext because the applications were so strong.”

 

Vosmeier also said that he is excited about the three international acts, two from the United Kingdom and one from Israel, at this year’s festival.

The growth and increasing popularity of the Fringe Festival has seemingly mirrored that of the neighborhood is has called home. That trend, however, is now also posing some problems as available, low-cost venue locations are harder to come by.

“We’re thrilled that the neighborhood has reached a critical mass of stable and thriving businesses, but the challenge this poses to our festival is real,” Vosmeier explained. “There was a time when empty storefronts were always available. There was a time when neighborhood landlords shared space at low or no cost – I remember a couple of years when my venue rental costs were $0.”

Vosmeier says that venue costs for this year’s festival were closer to $8,000, and says that organizers are looking to do everything in their power to keep the nearly two-week event in this area of Over-the-Rhine for the foreseeable future, but also realize the challenges they faced this year will probably not be going away.

Fortunately, he says, long-time supporters like Coffee Emporium, Art Academy of Cincinnati and Urban Sites continue to come through with a number of guaranteed venues each year.

The hard work put in by volunteers and Know Theatre employees is something that has helped make the festival a favorite for participating artists who are treated to the country’s smallest application fee, free housing, no participation fees and the opportunity to learn from other artists during the festival’s workshop and development series.

“We have tried to create the most artist-friendly festival possible,” said Vosmeier. “We have ample, but not the biggest box office payouts, but because we make it nearly free of costs for artists to play with us, they see the value in coming to Cincinnati’s Fringe.”

Such treatment has not only benefitted the artists, but also the festival itself. According to organizers, rolling out the welcome mat in such a way has helped foster an “extremely loyal” set of artists that are always looking to participate in Cincinnati’s annual Fringe event. Those loyal artists then, in turn, become ambassadors to other artists, of which 90% are referred by past artists.

Vosmeier also says that the return of these artists year after year better positions the city when those individuals consider relocation.

“I am currently talking with three individual artists who are seriously contemplating a move to Cincinnati, and it’s all due to their experiences stemming from the Cincinnati Fringe Festival,” Vosmeier emphasized. “Artists can be fickle and to have helped create a festival that makes an artist think ‘I might like to move to Cincinnati’ makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something pretty extraordinary.”

After organizing the festival for many years, however, Vosmeier has said that he will step down from his leadership role at the Know Theatre after the last performance concludes next Saturday.

“Working on this festival has truly been one of the privileges of my career. I love virtually everything about it,” Vosmeier told UrbanCincy. “We certainly have challenges each year. But in the end, this event fills us with so much joy and appreciation for our city, these amazing artists, and our audiences that it’s hard to focus on anything but the unique pop-up community that we create for twelve ridiculously invigorating days.”

Those who want to participate in one or more of the 12 invigorating days can do so by purchasing tickets online for just $12. The first performances get started this evening at 7pm. A full schedule for the 2014 Cincinnati Fringe Festival can be downloaded and viewed online.

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Business News

BoBa Cha Brings Taiwanese Flavor to Over-the-Rhine’s Northern Liberties

BoBa Cha Exterior (Provided)

After opening earlier this month, BoBa Cha has been attracting a healthy crowd for its bubble tea offerings at 1606 Main Street.

The small Over-the-Rhine bubble tea shop is owned by Ingrid Huang and Andrew Lui. The couple previously owned Tea N’ Bowl in Clifton Heights, and said they wanted to open a shop closer to where their customers were coming from.

Huang and Lui moved to Cincinnati from California to raise their family and open Tea N’ Bowl in April 2007. The restaurant offered both the bubble tea in which they now focus, but also healthy Asian food selections. They won a Best of Cincinnati award in 2012, but after seven years their bubble tea had become so popular that they thought it was time to consider a new concept.

In Chinese, cha (茶) means tea and boba (粉圆) is a slang term that stands for the tapioca pearls typically found in bubble tea, which was popularized in Taiwan in the 1980s.

With their family and cultural roots in mind, Huang and Lui said they were looking for a new location with a steady stream of customers that would also serve as a place that would bring the community together; where friends and families can meet with no worries.

“We decided to move to OTR to make our place more accessible and now focus, 100%, on making the bubble tea better and healthier, and using fresher ingredients than before,” Huang explained.

The new shop does not serve any food, but the owners have set up an arrangement with Maki to deliver sushi to the location should customers chose to order it. In addition to the fresh ingredients, the primary focuses of BoBa Cha is on the overall health benefits of the tea they serve.

“The common thing [among flavors of tea] is antioxidants that help to clean the body and help metabolism,” said Huang. As a result, they are also offering more tea bases like Oolong, Jasmine, Green Tea, Black Tea, Golden Tea, Thai Tea, as well as organic herbs like Lotus, Ginseng, Dandelion Root, Peppermint and others.

In addition to their new Over-the-Rhine shop, BoBa Cha has a drink cart that can be found on Fountain Square every Tuesday and in Washington Park each Wednesday. Huang also says that they hope to bring the cart to Findlay Market on Saturdays and Sundays in the near future.

The owners say that BoBa Cha will close down during the cold winter months, but that they are working on arrangements with area Asian restaurants to sell their tea while they are closed for the season. In the meantime, however, the couple says they are excited to be in Over-the-Rhine.

“Right after opening we felt the welcome and support of our neighborhood,” Huang explained. “It made us feel like we were a big part of the community and so far.”

Located inside a 154-year-old building that was renovated in 2008, BoBa Cha is open Monday through Friday from 10am to 8pm, and on Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 8pm.

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Business Development News Transportation

PHOTOS: Construction Activities for $133M Streetcar Project Move Southward

Maintenance & Operations Facility

Since the dust-up in December, construction work on the $133 million first phase of the Cincinnati Streetcar has been proceeding as planned.

Those living, working or visiting Over-the-Rhine, can now see significant visual progress throughout much of the neighborhood. Meanwhile, utility relocation and upgrade work continues near the southern terminus of the initial system; and now track work is beginning to approach as rails are installed along Central Parkway.

Due to the congestion and centuries old utility systems, work in the Central Business District is expected to be messy and lengthy. In order to minimize disruptions, city officials say that they are working as much as possible at night and on weekends.

Vertical construction continues at the system’s northern terminus where the Maintenance & Operations Facility is being built; and officials say that work is now beginning on one of the first power substations at Court Street and Walnut Street.

Restoration of the Central Parkway median is currently taking place following a surge of construction activity along this stretch of the route, which, coincidentally, is located directly above the Race Street Station for the never-completed Cincinnati Subway.

Rail installation will continue to take place throughout Over-the-Rhine in the coming weeks, and gradually work its way south. Meanwhile, expect the heavy lifting that is the modernization and relocation of utilities to continue.

Due to encouraging progress, some project officials believe there is the possibility the system could open several months ahead of schedule sometime in the summer of 2016.

It was also learned this week that the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), the agency who will eventually operate the system, will deposit $268,278 of a remaining 1996 grant from the Federal Transit Administration into the Cincinnati Streetcar’s unallocated contingency fund. That fund, meant to cover unanticipated costs, started out at $4.7 million. Since the start of the project officials have used nearly $900,000 of those funds.

EDITORIAL NOTE: The following 22 photographs were taken by Jake Mecklenborg on Tuesday, May 20, 2014. Those interested in learning more about Cincinnati’s transit history should read his book – Cincinnati’s Incomplete Subway: The Complete History.

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Business Development News

Eli’s Barbeque, Maverick Chocolate First of Several New Tenants to Open at Findlay Market

Findlay Market business leaders and city officials gathered this morning on Elder Street to announce two new tenants that will soon open.

One of the new establishments will be the wildly popular Eli’s Barbeque, while the other is called Maverick Chocolate, which is a craft chocolate maker that will produce its product direct from cocoa beans at the shop.

The announcement comes following a several month-long renovation of three store fronts on the south side of the Market House. According to Findlay Market management, the City of Cincinnati’s Department of Trade & Development contributed approximately $500,000 to “whitebox” the three spaces – each of which is around 1,000 square feet in size.

“We’ve had a pretty significant amount of interest in these spaces, especially the final one of the three remaining,” Joe Hansbauer, President and CEO of Findlay Market, explained to UrbanCincy.

Findlay Market Storefronts

Hansbauer says that concept behind Maverick is similar to the craft coffee movement that emerged several years ago, and explained that this will be the first bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturer in Ohio.

Meanwhile, business leaders say that the real exciting thing about Eli’s, aside from the fact that they are returning to the place where they got their start years ago, is that they will stay open until 9pm six days a week.

“This will create an opportunity to generate a little more activity in the evening,” Hansbauer said. “We’re talking to some other tenants, mostly on the exterior of the Market House, where they may stay open later as well.”

While interest has been extremely high in the lone remaining space in between Eli’s and Maverick, Findlay Market management says that they are being selective with the eventual tenant for that space, and are hoping to fill it with something that is not already available at the market.

When asked what kinds of places they are seeking out, Hansbauer said that Findlay Market would love to add a smoked meat place that does their production on-site, a cookware store to compliment the market’s retail offerings, and a Hispanic grocer to help fill a gap in available food offerings.

A big goal, however, is to increase the amount of foot traffic and business activity on the quiet south side of the Market House, and improve visibility for existing businesses like Saigon Market and others.

Over the coming months, Findlay Market shoppers can expect even more changes as additional storefronts are built out on that side of Elder Street. Once all of this work is complete by the end of the year, Hansbauer expects all of the storefronts on the south side of the Market House to be occupied, with the exceptions of Luken’s cold storage building and Mr. Pig building.

One of the more prominent spaces he expects to fill up soon is the storefront at the corner of Race and Elder Streets, where the owners are looking for a café to set up shop.

“All of this will do a tremendous amount for creative foot traffic and creative vibrancy on that side of the market,” Hansbauer emphasized.

Since taking his post at Findlay Market last January, Hansbauer says that one of the challenges has been the growth in popularity of Ohio’s oldest public market. He says that there is constant interest in people wanting to open up stands inside the Market House, but no room for them to go since it is fully leased.

As a result, management and city leaders will be looking to expand the retail footprint out into the surrounding neighborhood.

“People are interested in buying and eating local, and that push has driven a significant increase in shoppers for us over the past couple of years,” Hansbauer concluded. “But the renaissance of Over-the-Rhine continues to benefit Findlay Market not only due to all the new residents, but also with those former shoppers who are feeling comfortable once again with coming to this neighborhood.”

Both Eli’s Barbeque and Maverick Chocolate signed three-year license agreements for their spaces. The third space included in this project is currently available and those interested in it can contact Joe Hansbauer at jhansbauer@findlaymarket.org or 513-604-7567.

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Business Development News

Connoisseurs, Novices Can Start Getting ‘Half Cut’ at OTR’s New Beer Cafe Today

HalfCut Interior Seating

Tom O'Brien and Jack HeekinOver-the-Rhine will welcome another craft beer establishment when HalfCut Beer Cafe opens at southeast corner of Twelfth and Walnut Streets today.

In what seems to be a trend in the competitive OTR beer marketplace, HalfCut will attempt to distinguish itself from the rest with a unique twist – it is a beer café where their “beeristas” will help recommend beer choices and get to know their customers in a relaxed setting much like a coffee shop.

“When someone walks up to the counter, you’ll get to learn and sample different beers in a way that’s different than other bars,” Jack Heekin, HalfCut co-owner, told UrbanCincy. “We’ll learn where each customer is in their journey, and we’ll work with them.”

Heekin says that the important thing is understanding and getting to know each customer’s palate; saying that not everyone wants to try every beer, but that HalfCut will aim to inform them about the particular brewery and process used to make each particular beer.

To that end, the owners say that while they will have 16 taps at first, they will all be styled the same as to avoid people choosing a beer based on their familiarity with it or their fondness for its tap design. Later they will have the ability to expand to 32 taps.

The philosophy is one that was not crafted overnight. Instead, it came about during a more than 6,000-mile road trip in the name of beer education.

“What we’re really trying to do is add something that’s unique to Cincinnati,” Heekin explained. “When we were on our road trip we came up with this linear process of learning and wanted to bring it back to Cincinnati.”

This will not be the first attempt, for this group, to bring something new to Cincinnati. Several years ago the same team launched the now seemingly omnipresent Pedal Wagon, which is a 14-seat bike that can be reserved for special events and pub crawls. After starting with just one wagon in 2012, they now have three on Cincinnati’s streets and one in Columbus, with several more to be added later this year.

“Pedal Wagon helped us learn how to make something from nothing,” Heekin noted. “It made us realize how important it is to focus on both the customers and workers, and also how important it is to differentiate your idea.”

The group immediately differentiated HalfCut by launching a crowdfunding campaign through Indiegogo. While the campaign had aimed to raise $5,000 to help with build out costs of the 800-square-foot establishment, they ultimately raised nearly double that.

Heekin says that HalfCut also received some financial assistance from the Greater Cincinnati Microenterprise Initiative’s Microcity Loan.

The cozy HalfCut interior seats about 30 people and features tables and seating that are much lower to the ground than most bars. In an effort to keep the atmosphere relaxed, the owners also say that music will be set at a low volume and that they will close at 10:30pm during the week, midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, and 6pm on Sundays.

To the owners, HalfCut, which is a 1920s slang term for the perfect state of mind after a couple of beers, is not the kind of place to go out and get hammered, but rather the type of place where you might go for some good conversation.

While they are unable to brew their own beer on site, HalfCut will offer a number of locally brewed beers as well as an extensive collection of craft beers from around the country that Heekin says are difficult to find elsewhere in the region.

Customers are able to choose from both an in-house and a to-go selection of beers. Those looking to take some beer home with them, either from the counter or HalfCut’s walk-up window on Twelfth Street, can choose between 32- or 64-ounce growlers, 22-ounce bombers (similar to a wine glass look), and standard or mixed six-packs.

Gomez Salsa will also soon be operating out of the walk-up window, selling tacos, burritos, taco salads and other items. This walk-up window along Twelfth Street was previously home to Lucy Blue Pizza, which relocated two blocks away on Main Street in March 2013.

Those who decide to stay inside and linger, perhaps to enjoy the 20-foot mural from Neltner Small Batch, will be able to order flights, pints, or 22-ounce bombers of any beer on tap, and also choose from 20 to 25 rotating bottle selections.

Heekin and co-owner Tom O’Brien said they signed a nine-year lease on the space and have hired eight employees. They will start serving customers today at 4pm.

All photographs by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.