Teriyaki Madness opening 3 new Columbus-area restaurants!

Mark Somerson of Columbus Business First has the latest local business news including Nationwide to make $1.25B acquisition of Allstate business line

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On a Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line. We
talk to him every Friday. It's one of my favorite
times of the week. From Columbus Business First. You can
find it find him at Columbus Business First dot Comics Managing.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Editor Mark Summerson Marked morning, How are you, friend?

Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm good. How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm doing well. You know, I got to ask you
a Super Bowl Sunday. I'm sure you've been thinking about
your menu all week?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Right. Of course I guest at least for two or
three minutes.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, Campy tells me.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm like, you know, off the air, I'm like, hey,
Mark's got to have a food right. For the last month,
I've been asking him about food and snacks for whether
it's a Buckeye game or you know, some event. I mean,
there's no bigger food event than the Super Bowl. And
I know you've been thinking about it since like Wednesday.
So what's what's on the menu at the Summerson household

(00:50):
for Super Bowl Sunday this weekend?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Okay? I did? I did think about this while you
were on a commercial break. Sure, So it's gonna be
wings and I make my own dry rub air fried
wings that are delicious.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
That sounds. I mean, you had me at wing.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I think I'll be doing some wings as well, maybe
a buffalo chicken dip.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
I talked about that last half hour. But what's it?
What's your dry rub? That's what I'm interested in.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
I don't know. It's a recipe. I just follow the recipe.
It's you know, spices.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Is the recipe written on a little three by five
card by your grandma and cursor from the nineteen forty.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
No, no, no, no, this is actually from the New
York Times. I followed. They're cooking very closely, and they
have some great wing recipes. So I don't know what
the spices are. They're warm and spicy, and then I
put hot sauce on top of it, so it's delicious.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Hey, and you had mentioned that you have meat loaf
on the menu at some point.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yes, Now, we do our grocery planning on Friday mornings.
So my wife and I were in our living room
earlier planning and she's like, how do you feel about
meat loaf? Well, of course meat loaf. Grew up on
meat loaf, So that's on the menu next week, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And I don't know as a Super Bowl food, I
don't know about that, but you know what, a meat
loaf kind of sounds good.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I've not had meat loaf in a while.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
And you know, you can shape it into a football.
I mean, you can do anything with it.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Now you're talking that's actually legit. And you know it's
as long as it's not like Grandma's meat loaf. You
know that was kind of it was dry, and it just,
you know, just tasted like ketchup and.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
My my mother's meat loaf had the ketchup layer on
top of yeah, and then carrots she would stick like
little gravestones on the top. I don't understand it, never have.
It was. It was kind of weird looking and equally
weird tasting.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
You're gonna have to text me a picture of the
meat loaf. I'm I'm now curious. All right, we're here
to talk about business in Columbus, not necessarily not necessarily food,
but you know me, I love talking about food. I
see Nationwide Insurance is making a one point two five
billion dollar acquisition of a specific business unit from All
State Insurance.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
What's the story there, Yeah, it's interesting. About a decade ago,
Nationwide dropped health insurance products. They were not profitable for them.
As everybody knows, health insurances is a strange and bizarre
maze to work your way through, and it's not all
that easy for insurance giants. But now they're interested in

(03:24):
picking up a benefits business from All State and you
mentioned the price one point two five billion dollars. Now,
this is where it's called stop loss insurance to employers
and these are for employers who self fund their health benefits.
It protects them from catastrophic claims. Okay, and Nationwide CEO

(03:45):
Kurt Walker said, they're extending this protection solutions to meet
the needs of business owners every day, and so this
is something they see can be profitable for them. And yeah,
Nationwide is spending some big money to take away a
business section of state. And you know All State must
have seen some big money. That's one point twenty five
billion dollars. You can have it. Nationwide takes it, and

(04:08):
we'll see what happens with the bottom line for Nationwide
a year or two down the road. But they're gonna
say that this is a good strategy for them, and
it puts them back into a section of business where
they don't have to build it up themselves.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
It's already there and Nationwide had at one point sold
some form of health insurance. It's been like twenty twenty
five years since they were involved in it.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
In a while, yeah, they dropped it. They started cutting
that business about twenty years ago, and in twenty eleven
it sold off the last part, so it's been more
than a decade now since they've offered it. But yeah,
you're right, they started getting rid of it about two
decades ago, and now they're back in the game saying
this is the right time for it. We're going to
work with employers who already used Nationwide for all sorts

(04:51):
of things, and now it's going to protect all these
different businesses from these catastrophic claims that can especially for
heal Those who provide self funds for health benefits have
to pay. So they see this as a good way
of strengthening their business ties as well as making some
money through this new purchase. So it's an interesting acquisition

(05:14):
for them, and yeah, they're back in the health game
right now.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Mark Summerson, Columbus business first dot com. Check them out
and maybe treat yourself to a subscription to Columbus Business First.
We've been talking about the gravity two point zero area
for a while in Franklinton, and they've got a new
owner and he's talking about some challenges here as he
moves forward with that area.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, we knew this thing was up for auction. We
were waiting for that auction to end and the news
to come out on who was the successful bidder for it,
and it is a developer named Tom Forton. He and
his investment property partner excuse me, brought the bought the
former Gravity two office building at auction for about seven
million dollars, which is a good price. Again, this is

(05:56):
a brand new office Class A office space. It's over
in Franklinton and he and his partners put these together.
They own other apartment buildings around town and retail buildings.
Now they're getting into the office and he says, especially
with people coming back to work now, and we'll mention
that a little later in this talk, but yeah, they

(06:18):
say that there is a need for class office space.
And if you talk to office brokers around town, that's
where if you're going to own an office building now
it better be Class A space or if your Class
B you better be making some big improvements in adding amenities.
This one's already full of them. They're going to rename
it the Newton Building, so it's no longer gravity too.

(06:40):
It's going to be right next to the first Gravity project,
of course, but he says this is the next up building,
and he says that he's going to be able to
keep the least terms, lease rates and terms fairly low.
He says it's going to be a really good value
for businesses seeking class A office space. And we'll have
to see. The office segment, of course, has suffered in

(07:01):
the past couple of years, especially after COVID and with
all the hybrid work plans, but things are starting to
change now. Companies are going back to the office and
looking for specific spaces with a lot of amenities in
walkable areas, and this ticks all the boxes. So we'll
keep following this and we'll see what the Fort and
Company plans to do with this, and we'll see what

(07:23):
happens with the Newton Building, how quickly it fills up.
And again this is Brett Kaufman's leaving a lot of
his businesses and selling them off for him. He's got
cash now and that's something that he's needed and for
the Fort and Company and their Investment partners. They have
a brand spank and new office building with a lot
of space.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, and this leads perfectly into the next segment. As
you mentioned, Mark Is, Governor Mike to Win has ordered
state employees back to the office effective next month. And
you know, this is becoming it's a one to eighty.
In the last couple of weeks is more and more
folks are being required to go back to the work,
back to the office, a physical law workspace instead of

(08:02):
working hybrid or from home. And you know, we can
have the argument on whether that's you know, a good
thing a bad thing.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I'm sure people are not happy. Some people are happy.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
I'll tell you who's happy is people who are as
you mentioned, who are renting and leasing office based downtown.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah. Well, a lot of the state office buildings have
been fairly empty over the past few years as they've
worked from remote and hybrid. There's about seventeen thousand state
employees who work in Franklin County and they're going to
have to have a place to go. So yeah, DeWine
ordered this this past week. He follows Chase ap and nationwide,
and of course, the federal government has ordered all workers

(08:39):
back too, So this is going to change things. And
the folks that we talked to who who have downtown
businesses and the Chamber of Commerce and others are saying,
this is great news. We need these people back downtown.
All of their spending because they're going to have to
pay for parking, which of course goes to somebody's coffers.
They're going to have to have lunch, and they'll go

(09:00):
out to the area restaurants. They may go to a
show after work, or they may go to a bar
for a drink with colleagues. So this means a lot
to downtown, and that's part of Downtown's thing. They've been
filling up with people new residents there, and a lot
of the new residents work downtown, but a lot of
them work elsewhere. This is going to bring a lot
of people downtown during the day, and hopefully some of

(09:21):
them will stay after night. So we'll see more of
this going forward. With a lot of companies that were
kind of holding back and waiting to see what to
do with their employees, they may follow the lead of
these huge companies and now the state of Ohio.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Well, I think ultimately it's a net gain for downtown
and then again, if you are, I want to have
the argument of so you know, oh I got to
go to work now, I've been doing my job just
fine and effective from my living room.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
But that's a different conversation.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
But it's a net gain for downtown economics, Yeah, no
doubt about it. It's probably ultimately a good move. And
we do have time for one quick restaurant. Notice Karaoki Madness,
which is my kids love that place, the one up
up at Polaris.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
So they beg to go up to Terioke Madness and
they're adding what three more restaurants in central Ohio.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, We've got one one location right now at Claire's
Parkway and Westerville is going to go to three within
the next two months, with at least one more location
set to open in Central Ohio in twenty twenty five.
So yeah, we talked with some of their folks who
are both at the management company at Denver based Terioki
Madness as well as their franchisees. They see a potential

(10:28):
for up to twenty five restaurants in the Columbus market.
That's a lot of Madness, that's a lot of Teriake
that's a lot of bowls, you know. I have not
eaten there. But anything with the name madness in there,
it's if it. You know, it could be that good
that you're mad about it. I don't know.