Tuesday, January 23 2018

We're not only experiencing a real estate boom in Columbus, we're also living through a restaurant renaissance.We've had a steady stream of interesting new restaurants opening in recent years (here's a list from 2017), and while this has meant great things for food, it's also meant that we've been blessed with some stunning places in which to experience that food.This list of the most beautiful restaurants in Columbus is a mix of old and new, but it's enjoyable to see just how many newer locations were worthy of inclusion. All of these are worth experiencing.Navigator full story: The 10 Most Beautiful Restaurants In Columbus

Tuesday Weather 🌡🌧 43, very windy, some scattered morning showers, and then a chance for showers again after 4pm. 

Navigator Originals ✏️Eat Chocolate Cake And Help Fight Child Hunger This WeekendOn January 27th, Cameron Mitchell Restaurants will be donating some of the proceeds from cake sales to Children's Hunger Alliance, an Ohio non-profit dedicated to fighting childhood hunger. Chocolate cake kind of sells itself, but if you needed a push, here you go.Facts MatterA photo of a Columbus police officer approaching a seated individual with his gun drawn went viral Sunday. Columbus PD quickly developed a bunker mentality, releasing a very defensive Twitter statement with the words FactsMatter. We take a look.Nelsonville Music Festival Announces Lineup, Including The Decemberists And Ani DifrancoNelsonville's Music Festival looks particularly good this year, with two big gets already in The Decemberists and Ani Difranco.Girls Getaway: 9 Awesome Weekend Trips For You And Your SquadThis is usually about the time each winter when cabin fever starts to set in, so if you're anything like me, you'll enjoy this list of solid weekend trips from Columbus. Some are better enjoyed when the weather is a touch warmer, but not all.Columbus Officials Went To Check Out Hyperloop One And It’s Still AwesomeThe Hyperloop aspirations are still real, and the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Committee had a nice trip to Las Vegas to check out a prototype. This entire thing feels a bit like a lottery ticket, but nothing wrong with dreaming.Let Your Thrifty Flag Fly: The Goodwill Outlet Store Is Now OpenIf you love thrift stores, this will make your day. Goodwill Outlets are special Goodwills where clothes and other items are bought by the pound, making deals even more insane than the ones found at a normal thrift store.

Around Town 🏘The real estate website Trulia thinks Columbus is one of the three best candidates for Amazon's HQ2, based on affordable housing as a metric. Amazon indicated when it kicked off the process that it was looking for a "diversity of housing options" for employees. [GeekWire]Charter school ECOT's failure might have been a national story if we were in a calmer period in America's history. The story is absurdly full of graft, should have been prevented, and is possibly the largest charter school failure in US history. ECOT at one point was educating over 12,000 children a year, making its student body the largest in America. Before closure it was graduating just 40% of students and owed the state of Ohio over $80 million. [Mother Jones]In more education news, Columbus City Schools will need to cut 163 employees for the 2018-2019 school year. This will only begin to cover a budget shortfall caused by a change in the most recent state budget. Columbus does not receive the state money it should based on the state's per pupil funding formula, and was expecting revenue to increase by 7.5%, the capped number that would have matched the last budget. Instead it will only increase by 4%. [Dispatch/Bush]

Coming Up 📆⛸ 1/24-28: Disney On Ice🎬 1/25: Heffernan & Lemme Live🐶 1/25: Open Bark Night Columbus🎭 1/26: Brian Regan🦄 1/26-28: Ohayocon👸 1/26-28: COSI's Winter Movie Series: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs💃 1/27: Wonderball🎭 1/28: Jeff Dunham❄️ 1/28: Winter Walk at Green Lawn Cemetery

Weekly Concert Calendar: 👨‍🎤🎸🎹1/23: Lana Del Rey1/24: Mako1/25: The Becca Stevens Band1/27: The British Invasion1/27: LANCO1/27: Zachariah's Red Eye Reunion featuring McGuffey Lane & Friends1/27-28: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Concert1/28: Ruth B

Longread 🐷Remember the McRib? Did you know there were conspiracy theories surrounding the hit and miss availability? What if I told you that wasn't just a marketing strategy from McDonald's?"What the McRib says about us as a society is worse than any conspiracy theory"The Awl: A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage

Something to say? Hit reply - we read it all.- James