Findlay Market is hosting a monthly craft beer series, focusing on local brewers, this summer at the OTR Biergarten.
The first weekend for the craft beer series took place in May and featured beer from MadTree Brewing Company. The next weekend for the series will occur this June 15-16, and will feature beers from Listerman/Triple Digit.
“Findlay Market is always trying to showcase anything and everything that has to do with ‘local’ Cincinnati,” explained Findlay Market’s public relations intern, Tanner Hinds. “We are a local, non-profit market and most of the business we delve into has some sort of local ties to Cincinnati or Over-the-Rhine.”
Other local brewers to be featured at the Craft Beer Series will include Blank Slate in July, Mt. Carmel in August, and Rivertown in September.
According to Hinds, featured brewers at the Craft Beer Series will be open from 11am to 5pm on Saturdays, and 12pm to 4pm on Sundays when there will also be live music.
In addition to the summer’s Craft Beer Series, the OTR Biergarten is open every weekend at the western entrance to the market house on the Elm Street Esplanade.
Findlay Market officials say that the event will take place every third week of the month until September when the season-long series will wrap up September 21-22.
Ashley, Mimi, Sithi, and Alicia Assanuvat outside of Findlay Market. Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.
Findlay Market will welcome a new vendor this May when Mimi’s Gourmet Egg Rolls & Curry Bowls opens inside the market house in between Mama Lo Hizo and Bean Haus.
The family-owned operation will add to the mix of ready-to-eat food offered at Ohio’s oldest public market, and it will build upon a family bond that has circled around food from the early days.
The mother and father, Mimi and Sithi Assanuvat, are the owners and say that they have signed a two-year lease for their space.
Sithi, an immigrant from Thailand, received his U.S. citizenship last year after living and working in America for decades in the restaurant industry. The family, he says, has been coming to Findlay Market for many years to shop at Saigon Market, and now that he is retired his daughters, Ashley and Alicia, thought it would be the perfect time to open up shop.
“Whenever you come to our house for dinner, you’ll have like five courses,” Ashley explained.
The family says that they have been working on opening the business for about a year, but that they have been waiting for a space to open up inside Findlay Market’s crowded market house.
Sithi says that all of the offerings at Mimi’s Gourmet Egg Rolls & Curry Bowls will be homemade recipes with ingredients sourced from fellow Findlay Market vendors.
The dishes are more than just family approved however. Last month Sithi’s egg rolls won the People’s Choice Award at the Asian Food Fest, and since that time others working at Findlay Market have begun to affectionately refer to Sithi as the Egg Roll Guy.
The family says that egg rolls will cost $1.75 and curry bowls, with a massaman curry style, will cost $4.95 and will include rice. Patrons will also be able to get a combo special which includes an egg roll, curry bowl, and drink for $7. In addition, the daughters, when staffing the space on the weekends, will sell their special Thai Tea.
The items to be offered at the beginning will include beef, chicken and vegetarian options, and in the future the family says that they may also offer a spring roll to appeal to Findlay Market’s many vegan customers.
“We want to be authentic and be environmentally aware,” Ashley emphasized. “We’ll be using reusable curry bowls, using fresh ingredients, and will be composting.”
An exact opening date is not yet set, but the family expects to open by the middle of May. Once open, Mimi’s Gourmet Egg Rolls & Curry Bowls (follow on Twitter @MimisGourmetEgg) will be open from 9am to 6pm Monday through Friday, 8am to 6pm on Saturdays, and 10am to 4pm on Sundays.
Those interested in getting a sneak peek at what the Assanuvat family will be offering can come join the kick-off of UrbanCincy’s annual Bikes+Brews ride at the OTR Biergarten on Saturday, May 4 where they will be sampling some of their soon-to-come Thai Tea.
Woodward is a graduate of Cincinnati State Technical & Community College’s audio/video production program. Since then he has done video production work for the Cincinnati Reds, worked as an assistant camera operator for the failed Queen City reality show, and currently works full-time as a photographer for Fox 19, WXIX.
The video showcases scenes of Cincinnati’s skyline from Devou Park, views from the Carew Tower Observation Deck, Lytle Park, Mirror Lake in Eden Park, a bustling Findlay Market, the newly renovated Washington Park, Sawyer Point, Great American Ball Park, The Banks, Smale Riverfront Park, and various shots from the Ohio River.
The Western & Southern Open is taking place right now, and a men’s and women’s champion will be crowned this weekend in what has become one of the world’s top ten tennis tournaments.
Once finished, the tournament will have drawn hundreds of thousands of tennis fans to Mason, but more importantly, it will have given Cincinnati exposure to millions of television viewers around the United States and the world.
The tournament is a huge regional draw, and it gives the region an annual chance to make its pitch as to why people should visit, invest, or move to the region. This year, the Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau decided to build off of Lonely Planet’s choice of Cincinnati as one of its top travel destinations for 2012. Unfortunately, however, the 30-second commercial does not come close to selling the narrative written by the independent travel guide.
There was no mention or view of the Contemporary Arts Center in the recent Cincinnati USA television commercial. Photograph by Thadd Fiala.
“Seen Cincy lately? The pretty city on the Ohio River – off the main cross-country interstates – gets bypassed by many road trippers, but it’s quietly transformed itself in the last decade into a worthy weekend getaway,” Lonely Planet wrote about Cincinnati. “Life centers around the river – much which can be seen by foot: river walkways are best on the Kentucky side, reached via a couple bridges including John Roebling’s Suspension Bridge (a prequel to his famous Brooklyn Bridge). Narrow, twisting (and steep) brick roads of the Mt Adams district lead past 19th-century Victorian townhouses and the free Cincinnati Art Museum, while the once-dangerous, emerging Over-the-Rhine, just north of downtown, is home to the Findlay Market and a sprawling collection of historic Italianate architecture.”
After reading that, someone unfamiliar with Cincinnati may be intrigued to visit the city to experience its architecture, waterfront, historic neighborhoods, and judge the stated transformation first-hand. What Cincinnati USA’s television spot showcases (see below), however, is the tried and true regional selling cards to families looking for an affordable weekend getaway.
There is nothing wrong with selling a good product to a captive audience, but if Cincinnati wants to start attracting new people and new interest, it will have to do something new.
If Cincinnati USA wants to build on the Lonely Planet mention, then they should sell the region on what Lonely Planet is pitching. Show the millions of tennis fans a scene from Over-the-Rhine on a Friday evening, Fountain Square on a Saturday night, the twisting streets of Mt. Adams, the University of Cincinnati’s Main Street, people biking across the Purple People Bridge, and shoppers at Findlay Market on a Saturday morning.
Fortunately, the Cincinnati USA commercial did pay attention to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center which was prominently mentioned in the Lonely Planet write-up.
“Best, though, is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, open since 2004, on the banks of the river where many slaves escaped to freedom in the 19th century,” concluded Lonely Planet’s writers.
Cincinnati has always been an affordable place and a great place for families. This narrative has been perfected over many decades. This strong calling card should not, however, preclude the region from telling the world about a new narrative that has come to life over the past decade. It’s a story about a resurgent city focused on youthful energy, innovation, independent thought, music, and a unique urban core that is hard to match anywhere in America.
Findlay Market has been a Cincinnati landmark for 160 years. Over that time it has established itself not only as a destination for great food, but also as an incubator for great food talent.
Throughout the public market’s history, it has served as the starting point for businesses and business models that have gone on to permanent operations elsewhere throughout the city. Most recently those examples include Eli’s BBQ, Taste of Belgium, and Pho Lang Thang.
“Cincinnati Deconstructed is essentially a video series profiling the people behind the food scene in Cincinnati,” explained producer Courtney Tsitouris. “But it’s really more than that. It’s a medium we use to tell stories – and to connect every day people to the chefs, farmers, restaurateurs and business owners who enrich our lives as members of a community.”
Tsitouris went on to say that much of the early focus of the Cincinnati Deconstructed series has been on Over-the-Rhine due to its resurgence as of late, and its overall importance to the region.
“It’s [Findlay Market] an incredible food hub where farmers, merchants, shoppers and restaurants all become inter-connected,” Tsitouris told UrbanCincy. “And because the market attracts all walks of life, it provides a brilliant sort of convergence of food, culture, art and conversation unlike anything we get to experience at a chain grocery store.”
