Bitter war is
coming! In fact, it’s already here. The battle over the culinary legacy of our
town spills into the streets nightly.
Most of you are embroiled in it and have no idea how central you are to
its victors being decided. Big chains
and purveyors of hollow junk food have incited battle with artisans, moms and
pops. It’s a war that small business
owners offering you something unique, fresh and good appear to currently be on
the losing side of.
Make no mistake, in
a city where the choice of sustenance is quickly becoming very dense, the
decisions you make will shape the very future of Columbus and on larger scale
the world. This likely seems a dramatic
conclusion to draw, but the responsibility does in fact lie with all of us.
Many words have
been written directly linking food, music and art to the growth and cultural
richness of urban and suburban populations.
It takes little more than the quickest glance at a few other cities to
see a correlation between the food and art scenes and how desirable these places are as hubs of industry and tourism. Do we want to be Chicago or Seattle? I think that the answer is no. We can cast our own lot, go our own way drawing
from our seat deep in the heart of a state rich in agricultural potential and
plenty or choose to embrace large chains who search for the very cheapest faceless
producers and purveyors to manage cost to the detriment of the citizenry.
Now, I’m not
accusing the other side of being evil.
Many of them started off small companies, struggling to make food costs
and payroll just like most of us.
They’ve grown and succeeded at a very high level. They’ve made a pretty decent profit in our
city and have every right to do so. It’s
easy to take potshots at them, but this text isn’t about defaming them. It’s a matter of how we choose to define
ourselves as a city.
When we look at
it from even further aloft, so many small businesses support each other in
buying local and doing their very best to operate sustainably, that it puts the
prosperity and health of the city starkly in the balance. We can all choose to make it reasonable for
small farms to produce products sustainably for consumption in Ohio by choosing
to support restaurants and markets that favor these choices. We can choose to increase tax revenue and
living wage jobs by empowering our friends and neighbors to make more
jobs.
A happy side
effect could be more outstanding products made literally FOR YOU. We want to be progressive and show off to a
food literate populous so that people want to visit or move here to a place
that we love. We local Chefs want to
create and innovate so that Columbus gets its fair share of national press and
attention for more than just the latest triple bacon cheese explosion tested in
our drive-throughs.
Those of us that
toil over hot stoves, ovens and fryers… the hardworking folks that grow
beautiful, unadulterated produce and happy, well cared for animals… we all want
to take care of you. We want to please
you. We want to delight you! The best possible outcome for us is that you
really like what we do and come to see us often. Critical success is very edifying, but we
aren’t in it for the reviews. We’re
running businesses that need your support so that we can support our families
and pay our bills and help grow Columbus because we are proud to be here!
The most
important weapon you wield in this mostly polite and quietly declared war is
choice. You’ll decide, in the end, how
Columbus food will be looked at in the future.
Will we be continue to be known as a Fast and Junk Food hub of the
nation? Will the scrappy band of small businesses win the battle for Columbus’
soul? It’s up to you.
