September 26, 2025 • 9 mins
Mark Somerson of Columbus Business First has the latest local business news including the end of Hot Chicken Takeover
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's go over to the Legacy Retirement Group
dot com phone line and check in with one of
our favorites. It's Mark Summerson, Columbus Business. First, Mark, what's
on your menu for the Buckeye game tomorrow night?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good morning? What's in a seven layer dip? I know,
like two of the layers, but what are all.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Of the layers really? So it's like you gotta put
me on the spot.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I think sour cream, beans, cheese, meat, olives. There's five
chocolate chips like guacamole. Yeah, that's six, and then you know,
I don't know something else. There's some six layer dip,
seven layer dip. It's a layered dip.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, I'm going for one because I can't remember all
the ingredients.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
What do you have chilling in your garage fridge as
we speak for tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Right now? I have a CBC, I P A and
a Founder's Bourbon barrel Age South. Oh.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
You like that bourbon barrel age stuff, don't you?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh? Can't get enough of it?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah? Yeah, that's good, good, good, good. Well.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You know it's not often we talk about and these
are great stories that you're seeing now on Columbus Business first,
you don't hear about new grocery stores getting built a lot,
but there's there's a couple there. There's that one hundred
and twenty thousand square foot Kroger going in in Delaware
and Sunbury Road includes a gas station there, so that's
a pretty big operation.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
And then Giant Eagle going the other direction.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
They're like, we're gonna build one downtown and we're only
gonna make it twenty thousand square.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Feet and is the size of basically two Trader jos Okay,
one Trader Joe's about ten thousand. Normally, Giant Eagle goes
for eighty to one hundred thousand square feet for their
market districts. This time they're going small, twenty thousand square feet.
As you said, they're going to be in the second
phase of the Peninsula Peninsula development in downtown Columbus, just
(01:58):
across the river in Franklinton. And yeah, it's new for them.
They said, this is different, it's not a test. We've
had some success with some of the smaller ones, including
they're Bexley Stores only thirty thousand square feet across two
floors that opened up in twenty sixteen. That's done well.
They had a smaller space to move in there, but
it was great news to hear, especially for those who
(02:21):
live downtown, that they'll be another grocery. There are a
couple of groceries down there, there's Charmis. Of course Toro
is going to be moving into a spot. So yeah,
it's it's it's that's exciting stuff. So yeah, we talked
to the CEO of Giant Eagle. They said they're really
looking forward to this. It's and at the same time
they also told us they're putting one hundred million dollars
(02:43):
into updating their stores and building maybe one or two more.
But yeah, they're redoing a lot of stuff. They know
Columbus is growing. They were called upon to fill in
a hole in the Peninsula coming up. Peninsula developers have said,
we really wanted a grocery store in the first floor
of this building that's going to go up. So yeah,
(03:06):
this is exciting for both of these ventures and for
people who live downtown.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So at at twenty thousand square feet, i mean, shelf
space is limited, so they're either going to have to
carry less inventory of the usual products or just make
a decision on you know, here are some products we're
just not going to sell.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So how are they how do they make that decision?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, they haven't said yet, but they said there will
be fresh produce, meat, deli, bakery, prepared foods. They just
won't have the number in variety. So they're going to
probably pick out what they know in central Ohio sells
extremely well. Plus the people in downtown may not want
to fill up on huge bags of grocery, like four
or five bags or six. They might just want to
(03:48):
go in get something prepared or fill up their fridge
with something that they didn't have, whether it was beer, wine,
and yeah, so yeah, this is it is new for them.
It isn't going to be the biggest where you can
always catch a bus or drive out to one of
their big stores. But they are going to try this
and it'll be interesting to see what they carry.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
As long as they have the Founder's bourbon barrel stout
beer and I think they're probably good, and all the
ingredients for the seven layer taco dip as well.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yes, they only have ingredients for four later it's.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Only it's a twenty thousand square foot store. What do
you want?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Mark Summerson, Columbus Business First dot com Boy the Hot
Chicken takeover story.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I mean a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I mean, no, pun intended they were the hottest thing
around and now they don't exist anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
The final store.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Closed, Yeah that was said last weekend, the last store
at the North Market, which ironically was their very first store.
Joe Deloss launched this business from a walk up window
in the County East in twenty fourteen, moved into the
North Market later that year, so eleven years ago they
opened up and boy, what a success story. This is
before Hot Chicken ever came to Columbus. We talked to
(04:57):
Joe after the closings. Craveworthy Brands took this business over
a year ago and we talked to him. He wasn't
really sure if he wanted to say anything. He's moved on.
He sold the business in twenty twenty one to Untame Brands.
Thought things were in good hands, even thought about buying
it back at one point, but yeah, it's not good.
(05:20):
So basically he says, what my legacy, what I wanted
to be. And if you look at the original logo,
there's an asterix on that and that asterisk is about
who he hired. He hired and gave work opportunities to
people who face hurdles and finding employment. This is the
people who are incarcerated or experience homelessness or other factors.
(05:40):
So he invested in these people. He treated them with
dignity and kindness and said, I always wanted to grow
and serve better chicken was just how to do it.
That was sort of the delivery method. But he created
this company with this social enterprise in mind, and it worked.
(06:00):
Once he sold it, that kind of started to change.
Ingredients started to change. They opened up a bunch of
stores probably before they were ready to, and things just
didn't go well for them. So Untamed Brands, Yeah, it's
once they were purchased by crave Worthy last year. Craveworthy
then told our dan were eating one of our restaurant porters.
(06:24):
They said, when we took this over, it was about
to close, there was no money, et cetera. And so yeah,
all they've been doing now is just cutting off the
restaurants one at a time, and now all of them
are closed. There were seven at one point.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So I wonder if there's a hole now in the
Columbus market for Nashville style hot chicken.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I know there's a Dave's Hot Chicken. There's a couple
of ros.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
There's a lot of hot chicken in Columbus now, all
sorts of kinds.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I've never had Dave's Hot chickens. I mean, I'm sure
it's great. I don't know if that's and I don't
know how they're doing, but it is. You know, is
a hot Nashville style hot chicken sandwich?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Is that? Is that a whole restaurant or is that
just a menu item? I mean, I don't know based
on what.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That's they built the menu around that. Yeah, it's basically
this hot chicken from the Nashville area is where it
grew up. And Joe Deloss said, hey, there's some really
great chicken that people in Columbus aren't tasting. Now, there's
plenty of chicken places, of course, and there are hot chicken.
You can get Korean hot chicken, you can get Dave's
Hot chicken. There's a whole bunch of them, and they're
(07:28):
on most people's menus at restaurants now. So well, now, yeah,
it's it's we're saturating.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I've got hot chicken on the mine now and I've
had I've had one of the Originals the Hattie Bees
in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
And it is it is hot, and it is good too.
Speaking with Mark Mark Summerson, Columbus Business First, I see they're.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Sinking in what it's one hundred million dollars into the
Creek Side district in Gahana.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, Gahannah is really pushing this. They've been buying up properties,
they've had this ideal in place for a while. This
is a multi phase, huge mixed use development. They're taking
blighted and vacant properties along Mill and North High Streets
in the downtown district. And the big news this week
for this one hundred million dollar project they named two developers.
(08:11):
They've got Connect real Estate, which everybody knows is run
by Brad de Hayes, who has done all sorts of
work in central Ohio from really old buildings like the
one right next to Cruz Stadium that he's redone. He
also put those new apartments in across from East Market.
He's done a lot of work. So he's in and
(08:31):
Benson Capital and they're gonna be the money behind this.
And yeah, the first phase is going to be huge
commercial development. Two seven story buildings cluedge ground floor retail,
office based apartments, a hotel and restaurants. Second phase has
been described as small town home components. This is going
to be humongous. Benson Capital is going to acquire ten
(08:52):
parcels from the Gehanny Kahanna Community Improvement Corporation for Phase
one and then you're going to see a lot of
construction going on in Gehana as this creek side project
goes up over the next few years.
All right, let's go over to the Legacy Retirement Group
dot com phone line and check in with one of
our favorites. It's Mark Summerson, Columbus Business. First, Mark, what's
on your menu for the Buckeye game tomorrow night?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good morning? What's in a seven layer dip? I know,
like two of the layers, but what are all.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Of the layers really? So it's like you gotta put
me on the spot.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I think sour cream, beans, cheese, meat, olives. There's five
chocolate chips like guacamole. Yeah, that's six, and then you know,
I don't know something else. There's some six layer dip,
seven layer dip. It's a layered dip.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, I'm going for one because I can't remember all
the ingredients.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
What do you have chilling in your garage fridge as
we speak for tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Right now? I have a CBC, I P A and
a Founder's Bourbon barrel Age South. Oh.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
You like that bourbon barrel age stuff, don't you?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh? Can't get enough of it?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah? Yeah, that's good, good, good, good. Well.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You know it's not often we talk about and these
are great stories that you're seeing now on Columbus Business first,
you don't hear about new grocery stores getting built a lot,
but there's there's a couple there. There's that one hundred
and twenty thousand square foot Kroger going in in Delaware
and Sunbury Road includes a gas station there, so that's
a pretty big operation.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
And then Giant Eagle going the other direction.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
They're like, we're gonna build one downtown and we're only
gonna make it twenty thousand square.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Feet and is the size of basically two Trader jos Okay,
one Trader Joe's about ten thousand. Normally, Giant Eagle goes
for eighty to one hundred thousand square feet for their
market districts. This time they're going small, twenty thousand square feet.
As you said, they're going to be in the second
phase of the Peninsula Peninsula development in downtown Columbus, just
(01:58):
across the river in Franklinton. And yeah, it's new for them.
They said, this is different, it's not a test. We've
had some success with some of the smaller ones, including
they're Bexley Stores only thirty thousand square feet across two
floors that opened up in twenty sixteen. That's done well.
They had a smaller space to move in there, but
it was great news to hear, especially for those who
(02:21):
live downtown, that they'll be another grocery. There are a
couple of groceries down there, there's Charmis. Of course Toro
is going to be moving into a spot. So yeah,
it's it's it's that's exciting stuff. So yeah, we talked
to the CEO of Giant Eagle. They said they're really
looking forward to this. It's and at the same time
they also told us they're putting one hundred million dollars
(02:43):
into updating their stores and building maybe one or two more.
But yeah, they're redoing a lot of stuff. They know
Columbus is growing. They were called upon to fill in
a hole in the Peninsula coming up. Peninsula developers have said,
we really wanted a grocery store in the first floor
of this building that's going to go up. So yeah,
(03:06):
this is exciting for both of these ventures and for
people who live downtown.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So at at twenty thousand square feet, i mean, shelf
space is limited, so they're either going to have to
carry less inventory of the usual products or just make
a decision on you know, here are some products we're
just not going to sell.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So how are they how do they make that decision?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, they haven't said yet, but they said there will
be fresh produce, meat, deli, bakery, prepared foods. They just
won't have the number in variety. So they're going to
probably pick out what they know in central Ohio sells
extremely well. Plus the people in downtown may not want
to fill up on huge bags of grocery, like four
or five bags or six. They might just want to
(03:48):
go in get something prepared or fill up their fridge
with something that they didn't have, whether it was beer, wine,
and yeah, so yeah, this is it is new for them.
It isn't going to be the biggest where you can
always catch a bus or drive out to one of
their big stores. But they are going to try this
and it'll be interesting to see what they carry.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
As long as they have the Founder's bourbon barrel stout
beer and I think they're probably good, and all the
ingredients for the seven layer taco dip as well.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yes, they only have ingredients for four later it's.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Only it's a twenty thousand square foot store. What do
you want?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Mark Summerson, Columbus Business First dot com Boy the Hot
Chicken takeover story.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I mean a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I mean, no, pun intended they were the hottest thing
around and now they don't exist anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
The final store.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Closed, Yeah that was said last weekend, the last store
at the North Market, which ironically was their very first store.
Joe Deloss launched this business from a walk up window
in the County East in twenty fourteen, moved into the
North Market later that year, so eleven years ago they
opened up and boy, what a success story. This is
before Hot Chicken ever came to Columbus. We talked to
(04:57):
Joe after the closings. Craveworthy Brands took this business over
a year ago and we talked to him. He wasn't
really sure if he wanted to say anything. He's moved on.
He sold the business in twenty twenty one to Untame Brands.
Thought things were in good hands, even thought about buying
it back at one point, but yeah, it's not good.
(05:20):
So basically he says, what my legacy, what I wanted
to be. And if you look at the original logo,
there's an asterix on that and that asterisk is about
who he hired. He hired and gave work opportunities to
people who face hurdles and finding employment. This is the
people who are incarcerated or experience homelessness or other factors.
(05:40):
So he invested in these people. He treated them with
dignity and kindness and said, I always wanted to grow
and serve better chicken was just how to do it.
That was sort of the delivery method. But he created
this company with this social enterprise in mind, and it worked.
(06:00):
Once he sold it, that kind of started to change.
Ingredients started to change. They opened up a bunch of
stores probably before they were ready to, and things just
didn't go well for them. So Untamed Brands, Yeah, it's
once they were purchased by crave Worthy last year. Craveworthy
then told our dan were eating one of our restaurant porters.
(06:24):
They said, when we took this over, it was about
to close, there was no money, et cetera. And so yeah,
all they've been doing now is just cutting off the
restaurants one at a time, and now all of them
are closed. There were seven at one point.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So I wonder if there's a hole now in the
Columbus market for Nashville style hot chicken.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I know there's a Dave's Hot Chicken. There's a couple
of ros.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
There's a lot of hot chicken in Columbus now, all
sorts of kinds.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I've never had Dave's Hot chickens. I mean, I'm sure
it's great. I don't know if that's and I don't
know how they're doing, but it is. You know, is
a hot Nashville style hot chicken sandwich?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Is that? Is that a whole restaurant or is that
just a menu item? I mean, I don't know based
on what.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That's they built the menu around that. Yeah, it's basically
this hot chicken from the Nashville area is where it
grew up. And Joe Deloss said, hey, there's some really
great chicken that people in Columbus aren't tasting. Now, there's
plenty of chicken places, of course, and there are hot chicken.
You can get Korean hot chicken, you can get Dave's
Hot chicken. There's a whole bunch of them, and they're
(07:28):
on most people's menus at restaurants now. So well, now, yeah,
it's it's we're saturating.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I've got hot chicken on the mine now and I've
had I've had one of the Originals the Hattie Bees
in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
And it is it is hot, and it is good too.
Speaking with Mark Mark Summerson, Columbus Business First, I see they're.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Sinking in what it's one hundred million dollars into the
Creek Side district in Gahana.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, Gahannah is really pushing this. They've been buying up properties,
they've had this ideal in place for a while. This
is a multi phase, huge mixed use development. They're taking
blighted and vacant properties along Mill and North High Streets
in the downtown district. And the big news this week
for this one hundred million dollar project they named two developers.
(08:11):
They've got Connect real Estate, which everybody knows is run
by Brad de Hayes, who has done all sorts of
work in central Ohio from really old buildings like the
one right next to Cruz Stadium that he's redone. He
also put those new apartments in across from East Market.
He's done a lot of work. So he's in and
(08:31):
Benson Capital and they're gonna be the money behind this.
And yeah, the first phase is going to be huge
commercial development. Two seven story buildings cluedge ground floor retail,
office based apartments, a hotel and restaurants. Second phase has
been described as small town home components. This is going
to be humongous. Benson Capital is going to acquire ten
(08:52):
parcels from the Gehanny Kahanna Community Improvement Corporation for Phase
one and then you're going to see a lot of
construction going on in Gehana as this creek side project
goes up over the next few years.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.