The Best Restaurants, Bars and Other Food and Drink Spots in Marysville, Ohio

Can’t-fake-this charm is baked into Uptown Marysville. For the uninitiated, Uptown is Marysville’s de facto downtown. Maybe such up-is-down nomenclature is fitting for Marysville, a community about 30 miles northwest of Columbus, which can list among its charms being historic yet modern, rural yet urban.  

While part of the Columbus metropolitan area, Marysville is also the governmental seat of farmland-rich Union County. With fewer than 30,000 residents, Marysville is still a small town—but hosts major centers for global corporations Honda and ScottsMiracle-Gro. It’s growing, too. A recently announced $81.4 million mixed-usedevelopment near downtown promises 250 apartments, restaurants and other amenities.

Comprising just a few easily walked blocks, Uptown is rife with civic pride and entertaining enticements like three brewery taprooms, staunchly local-sourcing cafés, a must-visit cocktail lounge, a Mexican treats emporium and several fun drinking spots. Here’s a deeper look into these Uptown highlights, and a heads-up on the landmark pizzeria less than a mile from the historic district. 

Baked Treats & Coffee 

Kitschen Bakery (117 E. Fifth St.) is a comforting place that can restore your faith in the turbulent 21st century. Talented and imaginative baker-owner Katy Porter-Conley creates homey yet distinguished pastries with ingredients sourced the old-fashioned way—from a long roster of nearby farms, including “a little bitty farm” that Porter-Conley owns. Advertised on an ever-changing chalkboard in a plant-filled café where tableside flowers are real even in winter, Kitschen’s delights might include bacon croissants; honey-cornmeal scones; terrific iced lemon rolls; and signature local-fruit pies, like a knockout double-crust apple with leavening cinnamon and citrusy accents. Characteristically, coffee is brewed with small batch-roasted beans from Hilliard’s woman-owned Ark Coffee Co.  

For dozens more coffee options—plus homemade ice creams (courtesy of Marion’s Riverside Dairy)—head to likewise local-sourcing the Coffee Hall and Creamery (124 N. Main St.). Decorated with old-time photos of the (not drastically altered) streets outside, this long-and-narrow, laptop-friendly, modern café also offers smoothies, locally baked goods and inexpensive yet tasty and house-made breakfast sandwiches and casseroles. 

Cocktails & Spiked Slushies 

Like the past and the present, you could say Honda and Marysville are inextricably linked. Such narrative threads are braided together at House of Spirits (318 E. Fifth St.), a retro-mod cocktail lounge owned by Bruce Daniels, whose Honda Marysville dealership has a convenient source of cars from Honda Marysville Auto Plant. Occupying a grand old house built in 1884, and replete with ornate and period-appropriate fixtures, inside this aptly named establishment, the spirits in your glass come with blasts of the spirits of the past. The first-class cocktails include spot-on classics, but also creative quaffs like the outstanding I Can Feel The Storm In My Knees, shaken with Ransom Old Tom gin, lemon, sparkling cider and spices. More House attractions: over 300 bourbons; Old Fashioneds that can be smoked with several choices of wood; and small plates like bacon-enhanced Cajun shrimp and grits. 

If liquor-spiked slushies sound good—they are—Slushed Up (116 N. Main St.) hits that cool spot. Expect instantly appealing flavors, like espresso-vodka and whiskey-peach, served at a whimsical bar with tiki-style lighting and wacky, Key West-esque décor. 

Pub Grub & Pizzas 

Leon’s Garage (326 E. Fifth St.), also owned by Daniels, is house in a revamped old automotive service center. A large and sprawling, Swiss army knife of an entertainment complex, Leon’s is where multitudes gather for: sports watching; live music; pour-your-own-beer taps; and pub grub like the signature pulled pork sandwich and the recommended Rickenbruce spicy double-smashburger. 

Just a little off this Uptown eatin’ path is perennially bustling Benny’s Pizza (968 Columbus Ave.), a Marysville icon that makes some of the best Columbus-style pizzas you’ll ever crunch into. So justifiably popular that a separate building is used for carryout orders, Benny’s is a converted and vastly enlarged former Frostop root beer shop (still crowned by a giant mug) that resembles an old-school sports bar inside. A huge menu is offered, but it’s hard to resist one of Benny’s thin, cracker-crisp, near perfect pizzas generously topped with plump lumps of garlicky Italian sausage, “Old World” pepperoni and banana peppers.  

Fresh Beer & Other Refreshments  

“Ninety percent of our beer ingredients come from the Marysville area,” says owner-brewmaster Teddy Valinski about his “experimental” Walking Distance Brewery Co. The brewery (222 E. Eighth St.) makes an impressive signature stout (dubbed Tuxedo) along with idiosyncratic, but easy-drinking, often-changing brews inspired by, say, chicken tikka, tepache (a kombucha-like Mexican beverage) and the Columbus Crew. Add a disco ball and a friendly space with rustic wood that hosts Crew-watching parties, bingo and drag events, and you have one of the most alluringly quirky spots in town.               

A short stroll leads to the remodeled former vintage bank that houses a branch of Heath’s Homestead Beer Co. (108 S. Main St.). Homestead's refreshing Digital Delight IPA can be paired with tavern-style fare, like Homestead beer-brined chicken in a sandwich garnished with Homestead beer-cheese.   

Just across the street sits a recently opened outlet of Powell-based Ill Mannered Brewing Co. (117 S. Main St.). Its roomy, long-and-narrow space is a good place to catch a game on TV and sip a light-but-bright Ill Manna Slamma blonde ale.        

For booze-free cool treats, it’s hard to beat welcoming, Michoacán a Pedir de Boca (302 E. Fifth St.). In addition to bubble-gum pink walls, Michoacán offers vibrant paletas (ice pops) and ice creams in flavors like guava and nutty mazapan, plus garnish-happy, street-style snacks like mangonadas and nachos locos. 

Catch This Local Attraction

The Avalon Theatre (121 S. Main St.): Built in 1936, this performing arts theater has retained the look of its original art deco façade despite necessary remodeling. It hosts concerts, films, theatrical performances, comedy acts and other events, all accompanied by local, farm-grown popcorn and Homestead beer. 

This story is from the March 2024 issue of Columbus Monthly.