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Home > Blogs > Taste: Dayton food and restaurants > Archives > 2011 > June > 09 > Entry
Side Bar to open second restaurant, eyes further expansion
Side Bar restaurant in Dayton’s Oregon Historic District will open a second restaurant in downtown Columbus this summer and is eying expansion to other markets, according to Side Bar’s owner, Brian Higgins.
Higgins said the new restaurant to be located in a four-story building at 122 E. Main St. a few blocks from the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus will have no impact on the operation of the Oregon District restaurant, which opened last spring and started dinner service 13 months ago.
“The quality of the food and service will not be diminished. We are still committed to Dayton,” Higgins said. “The great reception we got here in Dayton helped convince us that this (expansion) was possible. Dayton is a great test for the concept.”
The restaurant owner said he felt opening a second restaurant in the Dayton area would “saturate” the market and perhaps take business from the existing Side Bar. Higgins said he has long-term plans to open seven to 10 Side Bar restaurants in medium-sized markets around the country in the coming years.
Higgins said he is “shooting for a mid-July opening” of the new Columbus restaurant. The new restaurant’s menu will be similar to and contain many of the same dishes of the Dayton restaurant’s menu, with perhaps a few more entree-size offerings to complement the small-plates menu that is popular at the Oregon District location, Higgins said.
The new Side Bar in Columbus is in the former site of a restaurant called “Brownstone on Main” that closed in 2007. It is a four-story structure, although Higgins said upper floors would be devoted to an art gallery, private dining and meeting rooms. A lower level will house a piano lounge, he said. Each of the floors has a capacity of about 100 people, Higgins said.
Higgins said he is leasing the Columbus building with an option to purchase.
For pictures of the four-story building, click on this ColumbusUnderground.com story from 2009 that was speculating about a possible new tenant.
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