The most attractive bar in the most beautiful neighborhood in Columbus, Club 185 combines class and comfort better than any other tavern in the city. One of the oldest bars in Columbus, Club 185 has been open since before prohibition (under the name Conrad’s until 1954), the Jury Room (1831) and The Ringside Cafe (1897) are perhaps the only two that are older, and neither of those has kept the class and refinement of the jazz age intact and updated as well as 185. The bar has been in business under the current ownership for ten years, and they also run the Rossi and the newly re-opened Little Palace on 4th. Located just over the bridge from downtown at the corner of Livingston and Mohawk, Club 185 offers a beautiful space, good food, and a nice variety of spirits, wine, and beer–and all at a price significantly less than other similar establishments in town.
Open from 11:30am to 2:30am on weekdays (they open at 5pm Saturday and Sunday), 185 is always packed for lunch and is consistently busy after 10pm. In the daytime and evening hours the crowd is heavily populated by attorneys and other suit-wearing folk, but still maintains a hip atmosphere with good music choices and a young, attractive, and hard-working staff. As the evening wears on the crowd transitions into twenty and thirty-something professionals: the lights get dimmer, music gets louder, and candles are lit. The first time I walked into 185 and grabbed a seat (it’s first come, no host stand) I was so impressed by the good looking dining room and well-dressed clientèle that I thought I’d be paying ten dollars a drink for sure and that all the food prices would be in double digits as well, but not so! Cocktails and glasses of beer and wine run $4 to $9, and the food menu ranges from $3 or $4 for a grilled cheese or hot dog to $10.95 for a pizza plenty big enough for two to share with most sandwiches and appetizers are $6. Their seven signature martinis are all just $6 each anytime, which is about half the price you’ll pay most places.
Courtesy of Club 185 Facebook
Club 185 has always been primarily a cocktail and wine bar, but they are currently in the process of expanding their selection of beer. They currently offer just four beers on draft: Guinness, Stella Artois, and Bell’s Two-Hearted and Oberon (not bad if you have to have just four), but I’m told they’ll be adding four more taps in the next few weeks. They offer around thirty bottles, quite a few good rare options: a couple from Abita including Purple Haze, Southern Tier’s Hop Sun, Tröegs outstanding Imperial Amber Nugget Nectar and their Hopback Amber, Brooklynn’s Lager and EIPA, Pilsner Urquell, and Great Lakes Burning River and Irish Ale. They also carry the entire offering of Chimay Trappist Beers from Belgium in the big 24.6oz bottles: Cinq Cents, Premiere, and Grand Reserve.
Club 185 has an extensive spirits offering and will probably carry what you’re looking for. There’s a huge variety of vodka and top shelf tequila, but I was most impressed by the available scotches. In addition to the standard Johnnie Walker, Dewers. Glenlivet, Chivas, and J & B, they also have Oban, Glenfiddich, Laphroaig, Macallan, Cutty Sark, Glenmorangie, and the great and difficult to find Talisker from the Island of Skye. Smoky, sweet, and peppery, Talisker is one of my favorite scotches and is mild, smooth, and friendly enough for a novice whiskey drinker to dive in, and this is one of the only places in Columbus you can try it. All of the martinis are good, but if you want a couple to try go with the Cucumber Martini (made with Thatcher’s Cucumber, vodka, sour, and lime) or the Chocolate (made with Godiva both white and dark chocolate liquors, vodka, and cream).
There are seven wines available at Club 185. For whites they have Joel Gott Sauvignon Blanc (really excellent and lightly sweet and green appley, this is their best), Michael Sullburg Chardonnay, and gas-station favorite Danzante Pinot Grigio. Offered reds are Moobuz Pinot Noir (the best of the three reds), the extremely mediocre Lesse Fitch Merlot, and Bishop’s Peak Cabernet Sauvignon. They also offer Sofia Coppola’s champagne in the individual serving can, which is a consistently decent option if you want to offer bubbly without selling by the bottle. One of the few irritating things about 185 is the absence of any drink lists or alcohol menus of any kind. They have a martini list online but don’t have it available to look at anywhere in the bar, nor do they have a wine list to look over. The food menu is a single laminated sheet and doesn’t include any of the drink options.
The food menu is definitely a step up from average bar food. Appetizers include quesadillas, black bean dip w/tortilla chips, hot kettle chips with fresh onion dip (yum!), and the odd addition of freshly prepared pigs in a blanket (despite having been there at least twenty times, I have yet to see these). They have a couple salads, which look fresh and well-prepared, and a long list of sandwiches including a very good reuben, decent burgers, meatloaf, fried bologna, a fried egg sandwich, an havarti grilled cheese and tomato, and a well-received chicken salad sandwich. For me the pizzas have always been the best option, I get the white pizza almost every time. It’s a thin-ish crust pizza topped with lots of cheese, olive oil, garlic, oregano, and enough red pepper flakes to make it fairly spicy. They also offer a pepperoni and a margherita pizza as well as the option to create your own with some toppings. There are also daily specials including wings, tacos, and lasagna. The pizza is only offered after 4pm, and all the food is available until 1am every night (and I can’t tell what a better option at 12:30am this is compared to TeeJays).
Courtesy of Club 185 Facebook
The happy hour at Club 185 is pretty decent, it runs 4-7pm Monday through Friday. They offer $2 domestic bottles and well drinks, half price drafts, and $5 glasses of wine. There isn’t much in the way of special events at 185, although I see a trivia night there every so often. There are a couple other goodies though. In the front window they have a little retro lounge area that fits a dozen or so people on a raised platform (I’ve attended several little birthday gatherings there). There’s a cigarette machine by the side door (there can’t be too many left in town, this one takes credit cards and I think all the packs are around $8). There’s an old style photo booth in the corner for just $3, which just adds yet another good reason to bring a date here (just in case things work out long-term, first date photo-strips are especially cool). Best of all they have old-style non-digital jukebox with a really great CD selection: Awesome old standards, retro music, alt-rock and new trendy albums by artists including: Al Green, James Brown, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, Bowie, Neil Young, the Clash, Pavement, The Old 97’s, The Stooges, Joe Jackson, Florence and the Machine, Pete Yorn, Tom Waits, Guided by Voices—really too much good stuff to name it all.
The service at Club 185 is generally good. All the servers and bartenders are friendly, polite, and hard-working. At peak times they sometimes seem understaffed, and you may have to wait five or ten minutes for a server to swing by to get your next drink order—but if you’re proactive enough it shouldn’t be an issue. So, if you’re looking for a classy place to bring a date, a nice environment to have a scotch after work, a cool place to meet for after-dinner drinks, or one of the few places in town to have good food after 11pm, and you’re interested in getting one of these experiences at about half the price of the other nicer bars in town, I highly recommend coming down to Club 185. Parking is available after 5pm in the lot just across Livingston, before then it’s on the street. You can check out more information about Club 185, including their full food menu on their website.
