Elevator Elevates Local Cuisine

The gorgeous Victorian-style interior of the Columbia Building has hosted Elevator Brewery and Draught Haus for almost 25 years, but it’s been a Columbus home to billiards and brews since 1897.

I haven’t eaten there in 2024, but it was one of the first restaurants I tried coming to Columbus (we stopped there on a Pedal Wagon ride for my birthday in July of 2023).

The stained-glass windows, intricate carvings, dark mahogany and intricate mosaics give the place a grandeur unequaled elsewhere in town (check out the WOSU video). 

The food’s great, too. I ordered the almond crusted fried chicken sandwich with honey hot sauce, lettuce, tomato, red onion, smoked bacon, white cheddar on a challah bun. It was a year ago, but it’s still a meal I think about.

The Columbia Building, itself, is on the National Registry of Historic Landmarks. Some siblings in 1897 opened the bar as Bott Brothers’ Billiards, according to the website, and the space has hosted steady business through the last 130 years – characters like local boxer Shifty Dando hung out with Fats Domino back when it was the Clock Restaurant after prohibition until a succession of failed restaurant tenants led to Elevator’s opeing at the beginning of the Columbia building’s second century.

You can spend hours there perusing the art in the billiard room upstairs, studying the filigree on the mahogany bar, ticking off the beer menu... It’s also a classy place for a cocktail.

I discovered the restroom downstairs is absolutely, 100 percent haunted. 

“Several myths and legends have been attributed to the building throughout its one hundred plus years of existence — including the presence of resident spirits,” The Elevator website confirms.

Just go down there. You’ll see what I mean.