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VOL. 28 | ISSUE 01 ON THE COVER: PROJECT CENSORED 2023 ILLUSTRATION: ANSON STEVENS-BOLLEN

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Jackie Congedo, chief external relations and community engagement officer for the Holocaust & Humanity Center, addresses reporters on Jan. 3. PHOTO: MADELINE FENING

Cincinnati Holocaust & Humanity Center Offers Free Admission to Combat Antisemitism But supporters of Palestine question some of the claims they’ve touted BY M A D E L I N E F E N I N G

he Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at the Cincinnati Museum Center is offering free admission. They say their aim is to combat a rise in antisemitism seen both locally and across the U.S. and point to a report from the AntiDefamation League (ADL) that says there’s been a sizable uptick in antisemitism since 1,200 Israeli citizens were killed by Hamas militants in a terrorist attack on Oct. 7. But critics say there are problems with the report — and say that proPalestinian advocacy is being conflated with antisemitism.

Combating antisemitism with education Jackie Congedo, chief external relations and community engagement

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officer for the Holocaust & Humanity Center, said the museum will be free for guests through the end of January. “Dehumanizing rhetoric and framing have created a climate where it’s easy to lose track of our own humanity, as well as the humanity of others,” Congedo said during a Jan. 3 press event. Between Oct. 7 and Dec. 7, the ADL recorded a total of 2,031 antisemitic incidents in the U.S., up from 465 incidents during the same period in 2022. The report includes 40 incidents of physical assault, 337 incidents of vandalism and 749 incidents of verbal or written harassment. The data includes one fatality during dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian rallies in Los Angeles on Nov. 5. Recent polling data from The Economist found one in five young

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Americans between the ages of 18-29 believe the Holocaust is a myth. Michael Meyer, professor of Jewish history at Hebrew Union College in Clifton, was at the press conference to reaffirm the painful history. “(In) the year 1941, my parents and myself managed to escape the Nazi tyranny. We sailed into New York Harbor, and upon seeing the Statue of Liberty, waving her torch of promise, we rejoiced in our salvation,” Meyer said. “And yet, three quarters of a century after the Holocaust, antisemitism has once again reared its ugly head, even in this, our country of refuge.” The uptick in antisemitism, according to Congedo, is rearing its head among younger generations. “On the street, at synagogues, universities, restaurants, businesses

and, yes, even Holocaust museums,” she said. “Right here in Cincinnati, chants of death to Jews in our schools. Students telling their Jewish classmates that, quote, ‘Hitler should have finished the job.’ Nazi salutes and swastikas drawn in school bathrooms, among many other alarming incidents.” Kara Driscoll, director of marketing and events at the Holocaust & Humanity Center, said the awardwinning museum has the proven ability to transform perspectives. “When you go through this museum, you’re not only learning about the history, but the data shows that schools and kids that go through here, and the general community, have greater levels of empathy, greater levels of critical thinking skills and are able to understand

their peers a little better through this history.”

Conflicting definitions Speaking at the museum’s press conference, Congressman Greg Landsman told reporters a swastika was found on a bathroom wall at his daughter’s school, but he said a more subtle form of antisemitism is on the rise. “There is the kind of antisemitism that’s in your face. You know, think of skinheads and Neo Nazis and folks who are very upfront and vocal about their hatred of Jews, those who chant in the streets, ‘Jews will not replace us,’ and that is scary,” Landsman said. “There’s something more terrifying than that. And that is when society turns on Jews.” Landsman, who is Jewish, was one of the 22 U.S. House Democrats who voted on Nov. 7 to formally censure Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib for embracing the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The vote, along with

Landsman’s vocal support for the Israeli government, led vandals to deface a wall near his Walnut Hills office with a Barbie movie-inspired poster proclaiming, “This Ken supports genocide!” Nationally and locally, rallies for a permanent ceasefire and freedom for Palestinians have ramped up as more than 22,000 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces since Oct. 7. “When [the building next to our office] was vandalized, it said that we were supporting ethnic cleansing. That we were, you know, somehow genocidal demons. And that is the kind of rhetoric that you see on social media, that you hear during protests,” Landsman said. “The war is awful, though in order to call it genocide or ethnic cleansing, requires a belief in a conspiracy that Jews represent the worst of humanity, of society.” Amina Barhumi is the executive director of Ohio’s arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil rights and advocacy organization for Muslims. She disagreed with that assertion, telling

CityBeat that Landsman is gaslighting the public by calling allegations of genocide in the context of Gaza antisemitic. “What we’re seeing essentially happen is the weaponization of antisemitism,” she said. “Antisemitism has nothing to do with people who are demanding the decolonization of an apartheid state, and demanding a permanent ceasefire and the killing of innocent civilians that are oftentimes their own family members.” Barhumi is concerned about the museum’s embrace of the ADL’s data on antisemitic incidents, and particularly its claim that there have been 905 rallies in the U.S. that supported “terrorism against the state of Israel and/or anti-Zionism.” “When grassroots activists are speaking of Zionism, they are speaking about the Israeli apartheid policies that every human should consider a problem, because it is dangerous for all of us globally,” Barhumi said. “Our humanity is lost when we allow for what is happening to happen to anyone, because then

we are creating a standard in which any minority can then become a target for any reason that a government or regime sees fit.” Congedo said “reasonable protests that call for humanity” can become antisemitic when holding Israel to a double standard, or when a person criticizes only Israel on certain issues, but chooses to ignore other countries that are doing the same. “We could speak for a long time about the nuances of that conversation and how to distinguish, the easy way to tell the difference is to look for the tropes,” she said. “Look for the language that dehumanizes, that demonizes, that holds Israel to a double standard. That’s how we know there’s something more that’s happening outside of harsh critique.” The dehumanization, Barhumi believes, is happening to Palestinians. “Everyone that is highlighting and underscoring the killing of civilians is becoming a target of this weaponization,” she said. “I mean, let’s take a step back. Who’s killing who here?”

Human Head Found Near Location of Dismembered Woman in North Fairmount BY M A D E L I N E F E N I N G

ederal investigators have found a human head that could be linked to the dismembered woman found in North Fairmount in November, according to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office. On Jan. 3, Cincinnati’s FBI Evidence Response Team performed a sweep around the 1600 block of Baltimore Avenue where the torso of a Black woman was discovered by a passerby the morning of Nov. 5. The head was reportedly found about a block away from where the torso was originally found, but Justin Webber of the coroner’s office said they are performing a DNA test to confirm the match. “We are doing some additional testing to determine if the two, the head and the torso, are parts of the same individual,” he told CityBeat. As of press time, investigators still don’t know the identity of the dismembered woman. During a Nov. 7 press conference, Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi

On Jan. 3, local FBI agents found a human head while performing a search around the 1600 block of Baltimore Avenue where a woman's torso was discovered in November. P H OTO : M A D E L I N E F E N I N G

Kode Sammarco said there were no teeth, fingerprints, scars or tattoos to help link the body to a name, calling on the public to check in on their loved ones who fit what little description they had. “We’ve had some dismembered bodies, but we usually had a clue about who that person was,” she said in

November. “We’ve not had a case quite like this where there’s so little information on the remains that we don’t even know which direction to go.” Sammarco estimated the victim’s time of death to be sometime during the evening on Nov. 3 or the following morning. She described the victim as

a Black woman, likely in her late 20s to early 30s, about 5 feet tall and weighing around 120 pounds. She said the woman likely sustained at least one pregnancy in her lifetime. Cincinnati Police said anyone can make an anonymous tip on the case by calling CrimeStoppers at 513-352-3040.

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CORPORATE ABUSE and

ENVIRONMENTAL HARM dominate the

TOP 10 STORIES of 2023 By PAUL ROSENBERG, Project Censored senior editor

“We have made the planet inhospitable to human life.”

That’s what the lead researcher in Project Censored’s number one story this year said. He wasn’t talking about the climate catastrophe. He was talking about so-called “forever chemicals,” per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), linked to prostate, kidney, and testicular cancer and additional health risks, and the study he led found unsafe levels in rainwater worldwide. Even though this story received some corporate media attention — in USA Today and the Discovery Channel — the starkly shocking bottom line clearly didn’t come through to the general public. Have you heard it before? Has it been the subject of any conversation you’ve had? No? Well, that, my friend, is the very essence of what Project Censored’s signature “top ten” list is all about exposing the suppression (active or passive) of vitally important information from the public, which renders the public unable to act in the way that a healthy democratic public is supposed to. They’ve been doing it since Carl Jensen began it with a single college class in 1976, inspired in part by the way the Watergate story got this same sort of treatment until well after the election cycle it was part of. But there’s a second story intertwined with the “forever chemicals” pervasive presence: the revelation that companies responsible for them have known about their dangers for decades, but kept those dangers hidden — just like fossil fuel companies and climate catastrophe. The intersection of environmental/public health and corporate criminality is typical of how certain longstanding patterns of censored news weave together across the years, even decades, and how the spotlight Project Censored shines on them helps to make sense of much more than the individual stories it highlights, as vitally important as they are in themselves.

In previous years, I’ve highlighted the multiplicity of patterns of censorship that can be seen. In their introduction to the larger 25-story list in their annual book, The State of the Free Press, Andy Lee Roth and Steve Macek describe these patterns at two levels. First, invoking the metaphor that “exemplary reporting is praised for ‘shining light’ on a subject or ‘bringing to light’ crucial facts and original perspectives,” they say: The news reports featured in this chapter are rays of light shining through a heavily slatted window. Each of these independent news reports highlights a social issue that has otherwise been dimly lit or altogether obscured by corporate news outlets. The shading slats are built from the corporate media’s concentrated ownership, reliance on advertising, relationship to political power, and narrow definitions of who and what count as “newsworthy.” Censorship, whether overt or subtle, establishes the angle of the slats, admitting more or less light from outside. But in addition, they say, it’s important to see the “list as the latest installment in an ongoing effort to identify systemic gaps in so-called ‘mainstream’ (i.e., corporate) news coverage.” They go on to say, “Examining public issues that independent journalists and outlets have reported but which fall outside the scope of corporate news coverage makes it possible to document in specific detail how corporate news media leave

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the public in the dark by marginalizing or blockading crucial issues, limiting political debate, and promoting corporate views and interests.” On the one hand, all that is as true as it’s ever been. But on the other hand, the two-story themes in the number one story — environmental harm and corporate abuse — so dominate the top ten story list that they send another message as well, a message about the fundamental mismatch between our needs as a species living on a finite planet and a rapacious economic system conceived in ignorance of that fact. The climate catastrophe is just the most extreme symptom of this mismatch — but it’s far from the only one. Corporate abuse figures into every story in the list — though sometimes deep in the background, as with their decades-long efforts to destroy unions in story number six. Environmental harms “only” show up in seven of the 10 stories. There are still other patterns here, to be sure — and I encourage you to look for them yourself because seeing those patterns enriches your understanding of the world as it is, and as it’s being hidden from you. But this dominant pattern touches us all. The evidence is right there, in the stories themselves.

“Forever chemicals” in rainwater a global threat to human health Rainwater is “no longer safe to drink anywhere on Earth,” Morgan McFall-Johnsen reported in Insider in August 2022, summing up the results of a global study of so-called “forever chemicals,” polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Researchers from Stockholm University and the

Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics at ETH Zurich concluded that “in many areas inhabited by humans,” PFAS contamination levels in rainwater, surface water, and soil “often greatly exceed” the strictest international guidelines for acceptable levels of perfluoroalkyl acids. They’re called “forever chemicals” because they take so long to break down, “allowing them to build up in people, animals, and environments,” Insider reported. Project Censored notes, “Prior research has linked these chemicals to prostate, kidney, and testicular cancer and additional health risks, including developmental delays in children, decreased fertility in women and men, reduced vaccine efficacy, and high cholesterol.” “PFAS were now ‘so persistent’ and ubiquitous that they will never disappear from the planet,” Lead researcher Ian Cousins told Agence France-Presse. “We have made the planet inhospitable to human life by irreversibly contaminating it now so that nothing is clean anymore. And to the point that it’s not clean enough to be safe,” he said, adding that “We have crossed a planetary boundary,” a paradigm for evaluating Earth’s capacity to absorb harmful impacts of human activity. The “good news” is that PFAS levels aren’t increasing in the environment. “What’s changed is the guidelines,” he said. “They’ve gone down millions of times since the early 2000s, because we’ve learned more about the toxicity of these substances.” All the more reason the second strand of this story is important: “The same month,” Project Censored writes, “researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, published a study in the Annals of Global Health using internal industry documents to show that the companies responsible for ‘forever chemicals’ have known for decades that these substances pose significant threats to human health and the environment.” There’s been limited corporate media coverage that rainwater isn’t safe to drink — specifically from USA Today, the Discovery Channel and Medical News Today. But the general public clearly hasn’t heard the news. However, there’s been more coverage of the series of lawsuits developing in response to PFAS. But the big-picture story surrounding them remains shockingly missing.

Hiring of former CIA employees and exIsraeli agents “blurs line” between Big Tech and Big Brother “Google — one of the largest and most influential organizations in the modern world — is filled with ex-CIA agents,” Alan MacLeod reported for MintPress News in July 2022. “An inordinate number of these recruits work in highly politically sensitive fields, wielding considerable control over how its products work and what the world sees on its screens and in its search results.” “Chief amongst these is the trust and safety department, whose staff, in the words of the Google trust and safety vice president Kristie Canegallo, ‘[d]ecide what content is allowed on our platform’ — in other words, setting the rules of the internet, determining what billions see and what they do not see.” And more broadly, “a former CIA employee is working in almost every department at Google,” Project Censored noted.

But Google isn’t alone. Nor is the CIA. “Former employees of U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies now hold senior positions at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other tech giants,” Project Censored wrote. A second report focused on employees from Israel’s Unit 8200, its equivalent of the CIA, which is “infamous for surveilling the indigenous Palestinian population,” MacLeod wrote. Using LinkedIn, he identified hundreds of such individuals from both agencies, providing specific information about dozens of them. “The problem with former CIA agents becoming the arbiters of what is true and what is false and what should be promoted and what should be deleted is that they cut their teeth at a notorious organization whose job it was to inject lies and false information into the public discourse to further the goals of the national security state,” MacLeod wrote, citing the 1983 testimony of former CIA task force head John Stockwell, author of In Search of Enemies, in which he described the dissemination of propaganda as a “major function” of the agency. “I had propagandists all over the world,” Stockwell wrote, adding: “We pumped dozens of stories about Cuban atrocities, Cuban rapists [to the media]… We ran [faked] photographs that made almost every newspaper in the country … We didn’t know of one single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure, raw, false propaganda to create an illusion of communists eating babies for breakfast.” “None of this means that all or even any of the individuals are moles — or even anything but model employees today,” MacLeod noted later. But the sheer number of them “certainly causes concern.” Reinforcing that concern is big tech’s history. “As journalist Nafeez Ahmed’s investigation found, the CIA and the NSA were bankrolling Stanford Ph.D. student Sergey Brin’s research — work that would later produce Google,” MacLeod wrote. “Not only that but, in Ahmed’s words, ‘senior U.S. intelligence representatives, including a CIA official, oversaw the evolution of Google in this pre-launch phase, all the way until the company was ready to be officially founded.’” This fits neatly within the larger framework of Silicon Valley’s origin as a supplier of defense department technology. “A May 2022 review found no major newspaper coverage of Big Tech companies hiring former U.S. or Israeli intelligence officers as employees,” Project Censored noted. “The most prominent U.S. newspapers have not covered Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other Big Tech companies hiring former U.S. and Israeli intelligence officers.” Individual cases may make the news. But the overall systemic pattern remains a story censored by mainstream silence.

Toxic chemicals continue to go unregulated in the United States The United States is “a global laggard in chemical regulation,” ProPublica reported in December 2022, a result of chemical industry influence and acquiescence by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a period of decades, according to reporters Neil Bedi, Sharon Lerner, and Kathleen McGrory. A headline example: asbestos, one of the most widely-recognized toxic substances, is still legal in the U.S., more than 30 years after

the EPA tried to have it banned. “Through interviews with environmental experts and analysis of a half century’s worth of legislation, lawsuits, EPA documents, oral histories, chemical databases, and regulatory records, ProPublica uncovered the longstanding institutional failure to protect Americans from toxic chemicals,” Project Censored reported. ProPublica identified five main reasons for failure: 1. The chemical industry helped write the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). A top EPA official “joked the law was ‘written by industry’ and should have been named after the DuPont executive who went over the text line by line,” ProPublica reported. The law “allowed more than 60,000 chemicals to stay on the market without a review of their health risks” and required the EPA to always choose the “least burdensome” regulations. “These two words would doom American chemical regulation for decades.” 2. Following early failures, the EPA lost its resolve. In 1989, after 10 years of work, the EPA was banning asbestos. But companies that used asbestos sued and won in 1991, based on a court ruling they’d failed to prove it was the “least burdensome” option. However, “the judge did provide a road map for future bans, which would require the agency to do an analysis of other regulatory options … to prove they wouldn’t be adequate,” but rather than follow through, the EPA simply gave up. 3. Chemicals are considered innocent until proven guilty. For decades, the U.S. and EU used a “risk-based” approach to regulation, requiring the government to prove a chemical poses unreasonable health risks before restricting it — which can take years. In 2007, the EU switched to a “hazard-based” approach, putting the burden on companies when there’s evidence of significant harm. As a result, ProPublica explained, “the EU has successfully banned or restricted more than a thousand chemicals.” A similar approach was proposed in the U.S in 2005 by New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, but it was soundly defeated. 4. The EPA mostly regulates chemicals one by one. In 2016, a new law amended the TSCA to cut the “least burdensome” language, and created a schedule “where a small list of high-priority chemicals would be reviewed every few years; in 2016, the first 10 were selected, including asbestos,” ProPublica reported. “The EPA would then have about three years to assess the chemicals and another two years to finalize regulations on them.” But six years later, “the agency is behind on all such rules. So far, it has only proposed one ban, on asbestos, and the agency told ProPublica it would still be almost a year before that is finalized.” Industry fights the process at every step. “Meanwhile, the EU has authored a new plan to regulate chemicals even faster by targeting large groups of dangerous substances,” which “would lead to bans of another 5,000 chemicals by 2030.” 5. The EPA employs industry-friendly scientists as regulators. “The EPA has a long history of hiring scientists and top officials from the companies they are supposed to regulate, allowing industry to sway the agency’s science from the inside,” ProPublica wrote. A prime example is Todd Stedeford. “A lawyer and toxicologist, Stedeford has been hired by the EPA on three separate occasions,” ProPublica noted. “During his two most recent periods of employment at the agency — from 2011 to 2017 and from 2019 to 2021 — he was hired by corporate employers who use or manufacture chemicals the EPA regulates.” “A handful of corporate outlets have reported on the EPA’s slowness to regulate certain toxic chemicals,”

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Project Censored noted, citing stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times. “However, none have highlighted the systemic failures wrought by the EPA and the chemical industry.”

Stalkerware could be used to incriminate people violating abortion bans Stalkerware — consisting of up to 200 surveillance apps and services that provide secret access to people’s phones for a monthly fee — “could become a significant legal threat to people seeking abortions, according to a pair of articles published in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion,” Project Censored reports. “Abortion medication is safe. But now that Roe is overturned, your data isn’t,” Rae Hodge wrote for the tech news site CNET just two days after the Dobbs decision. “Already, the digital trails of abortion seekers can become criminal evidence against them in some states where abortion[s] were previously prosecuted. And the legal dangers may extend to abortion seekers in even more states.” The next month, writing for Slate, University of Virginia law professor Danielle Keats Citron warned that “surveillance accomplished by individual privacy invaders will be a gold mine for prosecutors targeting both medical workers and pregnant people seeking abortions.” Invaders only need a few minutes to access phones and passwords. “Once installed, cyberstalking apps silently record and upload phones’ activities to their servers,” Citron explained. “They enable privacy invaders to see our photos, videos, texts, calls, voice mails, searches, social media activities, locations — nothing is out of reach. From anywhere, individuals can activate a phone’s mic to listen to conversations within 15 feet of the phone,” even “conversations that pregnant people have with their health care providers — nurses, doctors, and insurance company employees,” she warned. As a result, Hodge cautioned, “Those who aid abortion seekers could be charged as accomplices in some cases,” under some state laws. It’s not just abortion, she explained, “Your phone’s data, your social media accounts, your browsing and geolocation history, and your ISP’s detailed records of your internet activity may all be used as evidence if you face state criminal or civil charges for a miscarriage.” “Often marketed as a tool to monitor children’s online safety or as device trackers, stalkerware is technically illegal to sell for the purpose of monitoring adults,” Project Censored noted, but that’s hardly a deterrent. “Stalkerware and other forms of electronic surveillance have been closely associated with domestic violence and sexual assault, according to the National Network to End Domestic Violence,” Citron noted. In addition, Hodge explained, “third-party data brokers sell sensitive geolocation data — culled through a vast web of personal tracking tech found in apps, browsers, and devices — to law enforcement without oversight.” And “abortion bounty hunter” provisions adopted by states like Texas and Oklahoma, add a financial incentive. “Given the inexpensive cost of readily available stores of personal data and how easily they can be de-anonymized, savvy informants could use the information to identify abortion seekers and turn a profit,” she noted.

“Already, the digital trails of abortion seekers can become criminal evidence against them in some states where abortion[s] were previously prosecuted. And the legal dangers may extend to abortion seekers in even more states.” “The law’s response to intimate privacy violations is inadequate, lacking a clear conception of what intimate privacy is, why its violation is wrongful, and how it inflicts serious harm upon individuals, groups, and society,” Citron explained. “Until federal regulations and legislation establish a set of digital privacy laws, abortion seekers are caught in the position of having to create their own patchwork of digital defenses, from often complicated and expensive privacy tools,” Hodge warned. While the bipartisan American Data Privacy and Protection Act is still “slowly inching through Congress” it “is widely thought toothless,” she wrote. The Joe Biden administration has proposed a new rule protecting “certain health data from being used to prosecute both clinicians and patients,” STAT reported in May 2023, but the current draft only applies “in states where abortion is legal.” “Corporate news outlets have paid some attention to the use of digital data in abortion-related prosecutions,” Project Censored reports. While there have been stories about post-Roe digital privacy, “none have focused specifically on how stalkerware could potentially be used in criminal investigations of suspected abortions.”

Certified rainforest carbon offsets mostly “worthless” “The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading certifier and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci, and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation,” the Guardian reported on Jan. 23, as part of joint nine month reporting project with SourceMaterial, and Die Zeit. “The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies — some of them have labeled their products ‘carbon neutral,’ or have told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes, or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse.” “About 90% of rainforest carbon offsets certified by Verra, the world’s largest offset certifier, do not reflect real reductions in emissions,” Project Censored summed up. Verra “has issued more than one billion metric tons worth of carbon offsets, certifies threefourths of all voluntary carbon offsets.” While “Verra claimed to have certified 94.9 million credits” the actual benefits “amounted to a much more modest 5.5 million credits.” This was based on an analysis of “the only three scientific studies to use robust, scientifically sound methods to assess the impact of carbon offsets on deforestation,” Project Censored explained. “The journalists also consulted with indigenous communities, industry insiders, and scientists.”

“The studies used different methods and time periods, looked at different ranges of projects, and the researchers said no modeling approach is ever perfect,” the Guardian wrote. “However, the data showed broad agreement on the lack of effectiveness of the projects compared with the Verra-approved predictions.” Specifically, “The investigation of twenty-nine Verra rainforest offset projects found that twenty-one had no climate benefit, seven had significantly less climate benefit than claimed (by margins of 52 to 98% less benefit than claimed), while one project yielded 80% more climate benefit than claimed. Overall, the study concluded that 94% of the credits approved by these projects were ‘worthless’ and never should have been approved.” “Another study conducted by a team of scientists at the University of Cambridge found that in thirty-two of the forty forest offset projects investigated, the claims concerning forest protection and emission reductions were overstated by an average of 400%,” Project Censored reported. “Despite claims that these thirty-two projects together protected an area of rainforest the size of Italy, they only protected an area the size of Venice.” While Verra criticized the studies’ methods and conclusions, an outside expert, Oxford ecoscience professor Yadvinder Singh Malhi, had two PhD students check for errors, and they found none. “I wish it were otherwise, but this report is pretty compelling,” he told the Guardian. “Rainforest protection credits are the most common type on the market at the moment. And it’s exploding, so these findings really matter,” said Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, who’s researched carbon credits for 20 years. “But these problems are not just limited to this credit type. These problems exist with nearly every kind of credit,” she told the Guardian. “We need an alternative process. The offset market is broken.” “There is simply nobody in the market who has a genuine interest to say when something goes wrong,” Lambert Schneider, a researcher at the Öko-Institut in Berlin told SourceMaterial. “The investigations by the Guardian, Die Zeit, and SourceMaterial appear to have made a difference. In March 2023, Verra announced that it would phase out its flawed rainforest offset program by mid-2025,” Project Censored reported. But they could only find one brief mention of the joint investigation in major U.S. newspapers, a Chicago Tribune op-ed.

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Unions won more than 70% of their elections in 2022, and their victories are being driven by workers of color Unions won more than 70% of their certification elections in 2022, according to

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reporting by NPR and The Conversation, and workers of color were responsible for 100% of union growth, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute reported by Payday Report and the New Republic. More than 2,500 petitions for union representation were filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in fiscal year 2022 (Oct. 1, 2021-Sept. 30, 2022), up 53% from FY 2021, and 1,249 certification elections were held, with 72% voting to certify a union as their collective bargaining agent. “The entire increase in unionization in 2022 was among workers of color — workers of color saw an increase of 231,000, while white workers saw a decrease of 31,000,” EPI wrote in a Feb. 2023 press release. EPI also noted that “Survey data show that nearly half of nonunion workers (48%) would vote to unionize their workplace if they could. That means that more than 60 million workers wanted to join a union, but couldn’t. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act provide crucial reforms that would strengthen workers’ rights to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.” It passed the House in 2020 and 2021 but died in the Senate, where it needed 60 votes to pass because of the filibuster. “71% of Americans now support unions according to Gallup — a level of support not seen since 1965,” Project Censored noted. “Dismantling existing barriers to union organizing and collective bargaining is crucial to generating a more prosperous, equitable economy,” EPI concluded. More than a quarter of 2022 union elections, 354, were held at Starbucks, Marick Masters explained in his January 2023 article for The Conversation. “Workers at Starbucks prevailed in four out of every five elections. Workers at Chipotle, Trader Joe’s, and Apple unionized for the first time, while workers at Microsoft and Wells Fargo also had wins,” Project Censored reported. Union activity spikes during times of social unrest, Masters reported. Unionization rose from 7.6% to 19.2% from 1934 to 1939, during the Great Depression, and from 20% to 27% between 1941 and 1945, during World War II. “Masters described the current wave of union activity as driven by record levels of economic inequality and continued mobilization of workers in ‘essential industries,’ such as healthcare, food, and public safety, who were thrust into harm’s way during the global pandemic,” Project Censored noted. “Whereas Republican and Democratic politicians often separate concerns over working conditions and pay from issues of identity, these data demonstrate how identity and workers’ rights are closely connected,” Project Censored added. “Unionization and labor struggles are direct mechanisms to better accomplish racial and social equality; the ability for people to afford to live happy and dignified lives is inherently tied to their ability to enjoy fundamental social and civil rights within those lives, too,” Prem Thakker noted at the New Republic. Despite these gains, “the power of organized labor is nowhere close to what it once was,” Project Censored wrote. “As Masters pointed out, more than a third of workers were unionized in the 1950s, whereas only a tenth were in 2021. Before the 1980s, there were typically more than 5,000 union elections in any given year, and as recently as 1980, there were 200 major work stoppages [over 1,000 workers],” compared to just 20 in 2022, which was still 25% above the average over the past 16 years. “Corporate media coverage of the labor resurgence of 2022 was highly selective and, in some ways, misleading,” Project Censored reported. There’ve been hundreds of articles on union organizing at Starbucks and

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Amazon and among graduate students, and “Yahoo republished Masters’s The Conversation article about union success in elections, and Vox, Bloomberg Law, and the Washington Post all remarked on organized labor’s recent string of certification vote victories,” they noted. “Yet corporate coverage of current labor organizing often fails to address the outsized role played by workers of color in union growth.” Nor has it placed recent union successes in the historical context of prolonged decline, largely due to private employers’ heavyhanded efforts to undermine organizing campaigns and labor laws that strongly favor employers .

Fossil fuel investors sue governments to block climate regulations

“Litigation terrorism.” That’s what Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz called the practice of fossil fuel companies and investors suing governments in secretive private tribunals to thwart climate change policies. Litigants claim climate change laws undermine their profits, and thus they must be compensated under what’s known as “investor-state dispute settlement” [ISDS] legal actions, Rishika Pardikar reported for The Lever in June 2022, following a paper in Science by lead author Kyla Tienhaara the month before. It found that “Global action on climate change could generate upward of $340 billion in legal claims from oil and gas investors,” which, “is more than the total level of public climate finance globally in 2020 ($321 billion).” A good portion threatens the global south. “The five countries with the greatest potential losses from ISDS are Mozambique ($7-31 billion), Guyana ($5-21 billion), Venezuela ($3-21 billion), Russia ($2-16 billion), and the United Kingdom ($3-14 billion),” Tienhaara reported. What’s more, “If countries decide to also cancel oil and gas projects that are currently under development, this could introduce substantial additional financial losses from ISDS claims.” “Such [litigation] moves could have a chilling effect on countries’ ability to take climate action because of the fear and uncertainty they cause,” Pardikar noted. “New Zealand, for example, recently said that it could not join the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, an international consortium of governments working to phase out fossil fuels, because doing so ‘would have run afoul of investor-state settlements,’” Lois Parshley reported for Grist in January 2023. Project Censored also cited Lea Di Salvatore’s December 2021 report that fossil fuel “investors succeeded in 72% of all cases,” winning an average over $600 million, “almost five times the amount awarded in non-fossil fuel cases.” In addition, secrecy is the rule. “54% of the concluded fossil fuel cases are confidential — while their existence is known, no case-related documents, such as awards or decisions, have been made public.” Although the tribunals may sound like courts, they aren’t. “Because ISDS systems are written into thousands of different treaties, each with different wording, there’s also no system of precedence,” Parshley wrote, after noting the practice of “double batting,” in which one individual may act as arbitrator, legal counsel, expert witness, and tribunal secretary, either sequentially or even concurrently. Most come from “an elite group of approximately 50 arbitrators who are regularly

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appointed” to most cases, researcher Silvia Steininger told Pardikar. Conflicts of interest “are viewed as commonplace in international investment arbitration and considered an inherent part of the system,” the Law Review article Parshley references said. What’s more, “Just because arbitrators decide something in one case doesn’t mean that logic has to be applied to another. Proceedings can be kept confidential, and there is no way to appeal a tribunal’s decision,” Parshley noted. Tienhaara’s paper ended with a section “An Abolitionist Approach,” where she warned, “Reformist approaches would be time-consuming and likely ineffectual, based on the experience of previous efforts.” Abolitionist examples include “Terminating all bilateral investment treaties” in order to “prevent existing leaseholders from accessing ISDS,” as South Africa and others have done “without any resulting reductions in foreign investment.” Negotiating the “removal of ISDS clauses from trade agreements, as the United States did with Canada in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” is also possible. “Another option is for states to withdraw consent to ISDS in cases involving fossil fuel investments, emulating the approach taken by Singapore and others to remove the threat of ISDS claims from the tobacco industry.” But abolitionists face two problems: “sunset clauses” that extend treaty protections “for 10 to 20 years for investments commenced prior to termination,” though they can be nullified, and resistance “from states with powerful fossil fuel lobbies.” Parshley noted that the Energy Charter Treaty, “ratified by over 50 primarily European countries,” is the largest international agreement protecting fossil fuel companies. After six countries announced their withdrawal and a modification effort failed, “the European Parliament called for a coordinated European Union departure from the treaty altogether,” but they still face sunset clause threats. While the Independent also reported on ISDS lawsuits “it only briefly touched on the concern that these lawsuits could prevent climate action,” Project Censored noted. “Beyond this handful of reports, the topic has received little coverage from major news outlets.”

Proximity to oil and gas extraction sites linked to maternal health risks and childhood leukemia “Two epidemiological studies, from 2021 and 2022, provide new evidence that living near oil and gas extraction sites is hazardous to human health,” Project Censored reports, “especially for pregnant mothers and children, as reported by Nick Cunningham for DeSmog and Tom Perkins for the Guardian.” Based on 1996-2009 data for more than 2.8 million pregnant women in Texas, researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) found that “for those pregnant women within one kilometer of drilling there’s about a 5% increase in odds of gestational hypertension, and 26% increase odds of eclampsia,” researcher Mary Willis told DeSmog. “So, it’s this really close range where we are seeing a potential impact right on women’s health.” Eclampsia is a rare but serious condition where high blood pressure results in seizures during pregnancy. “Notably, the data in the OSU study predate the widespread development of ‘fracking,’ or hydraulic fracturing, the process of extracting gas and oil from shale beds by injecting fluids at high pressure,” Project

Censored pointed out, going to note “previous coverage by Project Censored, including Rayne Madison et al., “Fracking Our Food Supply,” story #18, and Lyndsey Casey and Peter Phillips, “Pennsylvania Law Gags Doctors to Protect Big Oil’s ‘Proprietary Secrets,’” story #22, from 2012-2013; and Carolina de Mello et al., “Oil Industry Illegally Dumps Fracking Wastewater,” story #2 from 2014-2015.” The second study, from Yale, did study fracking. It found that “Young children living near fracking wells at birth [less than two kilometers (approximately 1.2 miles)] are up to three times more likely to later develop leukemia,” according to an August 2022 Guardian story. “Hundreds of chemicals linked to cancer and other health issues may be used in the [fracking] process, including heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, benzene and radioactive material,” they explained. The study, based on 2009-2017 data from Pennsylvania, compared 405 children aged 2-7 diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with an additional 2,080 children, matched on birth year, who didn’t have leukemia. The findings aligned with others, as DeSmog discussed. “One consistent takeaway from so many health studies related to fracking is that proximity is key,” they reported. “The allowable setback in Pennsylvania, where our study was conducted, is 500 feet,” Yale researcher Cassandra Clark told them. “Our findings … in conjunction with evidence from numerous other studies, suggest that existing setback distances are insufficiently protective of children’s health.” State and local governments have tried to create health buffer zones, but “The oil industry has consistently fought hard to block setback distance requirements,” DeSmog reported. For example, “In 2018, the oil industry spent upwards of $40 million to defeat a Colorado ballot measure that would have imposed 2,500-foot setback requirements for drillers.” Regulations are so weak that “In Texas, drilling sites can be as close as 45 meters from residences,” Willis told them. “Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced new proposed rules that would require 3,200-foot setbacks on new oil and gas drilling, which would be the strongest in the nation and aligns with the distance where Willis’s studies find the most serious risks for pregnancies,” DeSmog reported. “But those rules would not affect existing wells.” No major U.S. newspapers appear to have covered either the OSU or the Yale study at the time of Project Censored’s publication, although “Smithsonian magazine, The Hill, and WHYY, an NPR affiliate serving the Philadelphia region, covered the fracking study.”

Deadly decade for environmental activists At least 1,733 environmental activists were murdered between 2012 and 2021 — nearly one every two days across ten years — according to the Global Witness study, Decade of Defiance, “killed by hitmen, organized crime groups and their own governments,” Patrick Greenfield reported for the Guardian, “with Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico, and Honduras the deadliest countries,” with half the attacks taking place in the first three countries, each reporting around 300 killings. “This has been going on for decades,” scientist,

activist, and author Vandana Shiva wrote in a foreword to the report. “The report shows Brazil has been the deadliest country for environmental defenders with 342 lethal attacks reported since 2012 with over 85% of killings within the Brazilian Amazon,” Stuti Mishra reported for the Independent. “Mexico and Honduras witnessed over 100 killings while Guatemala and India saw 80 and 79 respectively, remaining one of the most dangerous countries. The report also reports 12 mass killings, including three in India and four in Mexico.” “The killing of environmental activists has been concentrated in the Global South,” and “Indigenous land defenders are disproportionately impacted,” Project Censored warned. “The Guardian reported that 39% of those killed were from Indigenous communities, despite that group constituting only 5% of the global population.” “This is about land inequality, in that defenders are fighting for their land, and in this increasing race to get more land to acquire and exploit resources, the victims are indigenous communities, local communities, whose voices are being suppressed,” the BBC summed up. “Threats to environmental activists are not limited to killing,” Project Censored noted. “Environmental activists also face beatings, arbitrary arrests and detention, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) brought by companies, sexual violence, and surveillance. A separate April 2022 report from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, as reported by Grist, documented more than 3,800 attacks on human rights defenders — including not only killings and death threats but also beatings, arbitrary arrests and detention, and lawsuits — between January 2015 and March 2021.” But, “campaigners are hopeful that progress is being made,” the BBC reported, citing the sentencing of a former energy executive to 22 years in prison in Honduras for the murder of world-renowned activist Berta Cáceres in 2016, as well as promising international agreements. The Escazú agreement, the first environmental and human rights treaty for Latin America and the Caribbean “commits countries to prevent and investigate attacks on environmental defenders,” and went into force in 2021. Mexico has ratified it, but “others including Brazil and Colombia have not” so far, the BBC said. There are also plans by the European Union to pass laws making companies responsible for human rights abuses in their supply chains. “These are game-changing decisions that could make a real positive impact for environmental defenders,” Shruti Suresh told the BBC. “We should be optimistic. But it is going to be a difficult and challenging road ahead.” There’s been scattered coverage of Global Witness’ report. A September 2022 New York Times article reporting how Mexico was deemed the deadliest country for environmental activists, a short piece the next month in the New York Times’s climate newsletter “Climate Forward’” about why Latin America is so dangerous for environmental activists, and Feb. 26, 2023, a Los Angeles Times op-ed about attacks on Mexican Indigenous communities fighting climate change all referenced Global Witness’ findings, but “Otherwise, the corporate media have largely ignored the Global Witness study about the deadly wave of assaults on environmentalists during the past decade,” Project Censored noted, adding that it had previously covered the 2014 edition of Global Witness’s report “which was also significantly under-reported by establishment news outlets in the United States.”

Corporate profits hit record high as top 0.1% earnings and Wall Street bonuses skyrocket “Corporate profits in the U.S. surged to an all-time record of $2 trillion in the second quarter of 2022 as companies continued jacking up prices, pushing inflation to a 40-year high to the detriment of workers and consumers,” Jake Johnson reported for Common Dreams in August 2022. “Astronomical corporate profits confirm what corporate executives have been telling us on earning calls over and over again: They’re making a lot of money by charging people more, and they don’t plan on bringing prices down anytime soon,” the Groundwork Collaborative’s chief economist Rakeen Mabud said. This followed Johnson’s reporting in March that the average bonus for Wall Street employees rose an astounding 1,743% between 1985 and 2021, according to an analysis by Inequality.org of New York State Comptroller data. Then, in December 2022, he reported that “earnings inequality in the United States has risen dramatically over the past four decades and continues to accelerate, with the top 0.1% seeing wage growth of 465% between 1979 and 2021 while the bottom 90% experienced just 29% growth during that same period,” according to research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). As a result, the average incomes of the top 0.1% rose from 20 times that of the bottom 90% in 1979 to more than 90 times as much in 2021. “The fossil fuel industry has enjoyed especially lavish profits,” Project Censored notes, citing Jessica Corbett’s July 2022 reporting for Common Dreams that the eight largest oil companies’ profits spiked a whopping 235% from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022, for a combined $52 billion profit, according to an analysis by Accountable.US. “Make no mistake; these profits mark a large transfer of wealth from workingand middle-class people to wealthy oil executives and shareholders,” Jordan Schreiber of Accountable.US told Corbett. “While many consumers were feeling the heavy burden of a life necessity suddenly doubling in price, oil executives were keeping prices high to maximize their profits.” “ExxonMobil profited $17.85 billion; Chevron, $11.62 billion; and Shell, $11.47 billion,” Project Censored notes. “Notably, in 2021-2022, the oil and gas industry spent more than $200 million lobbying Congress to oppose climate action.” Coverage of all this was scant. “The establishment media have reported intermittently on record corporate profits, but this coverage has tended to downplay corporate use of inflation as a pretext for hiking prices,” Project Censored sums up, citing examples from Bloomberg, ABC News and New York Times where the role of greedflation was debated. “The Times quoted experts from EPI and Groundwork Collaborative but refused to draw any firm conclusions,” they note. In addition, “The EPI study on the accelerating incomes of the ultrarich was virtually ignored” while the massive Wall Street bonuses got some coverage, they report: “Reuters ran a story on it, as did the New York Post. CNN Business noted that ‘high bonuses are also good news for Gotham’s tax coffers.’”

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ARTS & CULTURE

Raven Skyriver’s piece, “Adrift,” on display at the Clearly Indigenous exhibit. P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY C I N C I N N AT I A R T M U S E U M

Culture Through the Looking-Glass

Cincinnati Art Museum’s newest exhibit features over a hundred glass works from Indigenous artists. BY K AT I E G R I F F IT H

new exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum is celebrating the culture and achievements of Native American and Indigenous Pacific-Rim artists through a non-traditional medium. Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass is a striking display of more than 100 glass works from 33 artists that exemplify Indigenous traditions and knowledge through the medium of glass. Interpretations of Indigenous basket, textile and pottery practices are expertly crafted through various glass-working techniques and styles. The pieces range from grand sculptures and complex installments to intricate vases and glass mosaics, creating a scope of art and artists that represent 26 Native nations from the United States and Canada. Clearly Indigenous is curated by Dr. Letitia Chambers. It originated at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was influenced by the Native Glass Art Movement of the 1970s. The movement was sparked by Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee) – founder of the Institute of American Indian Arts – when he initiated a collaboration with the Rhode Island School of Design to create an art program that included glass blowing courses. The program sparked interest in generations of Indigenous artists to work with glass, which inspired Dr. Chambers to write a book and curate an exhibition on the subject. “Glass is not a traditional medium for

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American Indian artists,” Dr. Chambers tells CityBeat. “Each new generation of Native artists moves the art of previous generations forward as artists honor past traditions while finding their own creative voices and adopt new methods and materials as they become available. Native artists who have chosen to work in glass have created an incredible body of work which combines the intellectual content associated with the expression of their cultures with the beauty and technical expertise of studio glass artists.” The traveling exhibit follows a book by Dr. Chambers, which details how glass art was introduced to Native artists and the beginnings of the contemporary Native American art movement at the Institute of American Indian Arts. The book shares a title with the exhibit and was published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in 2021. “The book is organized around the artists and their methods and techniques, as well as their histories,” Dr. Chambers says. “In choosing images of the artists’ works to be included in the book, I was struck by the strong intellectual content of the work, and so I chose to build the exhibit around that content, rather than organizing it by artist.” As a result, Clearly Indigenous is a powerful collection of work that elevates traditional art, emphasizing its messages and beauty through various glass-working methods. Although fragile in nature, Clearly Indigenous glass works transcend their anatomy, yielding breathtaking,

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meaningful compositions that have been blown, cast, slumped, sand-blasted, melted or kiln-fired, among other methods. The glass constructions can also be ground, etched, engraved, polished or fused. Works range from grand installations to delicate statements. Sculptures that embody the sacred animals of the “land, air and sea,” are prominent throughout the gallery along with baskets, vessels, bowls, statues, vases and astonishing pieces that mock fabric and woven natural elements. The gallery’s lighting in Clearly Indigenous is also used to display the striking nature of the art. Not only can glass be transparent or translucent, it can also be solid or layered yet still reflect and absorb light in ways that inflate the works’ already impactful presence. “Lighting of glass art is so important to its visual effect,” Dr. Chambers says. “Focusing the light so that it is the objects and their shadows that are highlighted, rather than the case or the room, is a key to the display of glass art.” Preston Singletary of the Indigenous Tlingit tribe of Alaska created one of the most eye-catching, graceful pieces of the collection. Lighting creates movement and repetition surrounding “Killer Whale Hat,” Singletary’s piece which consists of blown and sand-carved glass that resembles an upside-down, wide-brimmed hat. The work’s golden hue deepens at the rim, while the shallow bowl bears an elegant

pattern, which sails onto the brim and is repeated in soft shadows where the light peaks through the design. A handful of Singletary pieces appear in Clearly Indigenous, but “Killer Whale Hat” is part of a larger Singletary collection of glass works inspired by traditional Tlingit hats. Another outstanding Singletary inclusion is “Raven Steals the Sun,” which is another impressive display of blown and sand-carved glass that appears to be anything but the delicate medium. The raven’s head is black with deep red reliefs that outline its features. At a glance it appears to be a wood carving and prompts wonder at how an artist can accomplish such a creation out of glass. According to a placard in the exhibit, artists depict creatures as decoration on practical objects to display respect for birds and other animals. In origin stories of some northwest coast nations, the raven is said to have brought light to the world. “The artistry and beauty of the objects in the exhibit contribute to the first impression of the viewer. The aesthetics of the exhibit certainly create a wow factor. But the ultimate message conveyed relates to values inherent in indigenous cultures,” Dr. Chambers said. “This can be seen in the importance of caring for living things and the world we live in as depicted by the sections focusing on the creatures of the land, sea and sky. Honoring the ancestors is an important value in Native cultures and there is a section

Preston Singletary’s “Raven Steals the Sun” piece at the Clearly Indigenous exhibit. P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY C I N C I N N AT I A R T M U S E U M

devoted to this more spiritual content. A number of the objects reflect the bridging of two worlds, that of tribal tradition while living in today’s contemporary society.” Many of the works inspect contemporary issues that are connected to Native identities such as social and environmental justice. In partnership with the Urban Native Collective, the Conversations Gallery on the first floor of the museum is dedicated to generating dialogue and a deeper understanding about Indigenous People’s contemporary experiences. One might re-interpret “Raven Steals the Sun,” for more than its superficial beauty after considering the information available in the Conversations Gallery. This extension of Clearly Indigenous will be on display throughout the run of the exhibit. The REDress Project, a part of which is on view in the Conversations Gallery, calls attention to thousands of missing or murdered Aboriginal women across Canada. Placards in the gallery highlight resources and ways to take action against these injustices. Programming surrounding Clearly Indigenous is scheduled throughout February and March. On Feb. 1, Dan

Friday – member of the Lummi Nation and a Seattle-based artist who has numerous works and collaborations included in the exhibit – will visit the Cincinnati Art Museum. “Dan Friday has a compelling personal story, as well as being a leading glass artist,” Dr. Chambers says. “His totems in glass carry on his own family’s tradition as his grandfather’s carved totems of wood.” Friday’s lecture, Future Artifacts: Artist Talk with Dan Friday, will explore how he combines Native traditions and contemporary glasswork. “I hope viewers go beyond the stunning visual effect of this body of artworks to appreciate the values of the cultures that created them,” Dr. Chambers says. “For viewers who are not familiar with Native cultures, it may be an introduction to American Indians’ contemporary cultures, rather than seeing them as artifacts of the past.” Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass is on view in the Thomas R. Schiff Gallery at the Cincinnati Art Museum through April 7. Info: cincinnatiartmuseum.org.

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CULTURE

Comedian Nate Bargatze Discusses Cincinnati Connection and More Ahead of Local Performance BY B R E N T ST RO U D

tart the year off on a good note with some communal laughter on Jan. 13 at the Heritage Bank Center with comedian Nate Bargatze, who might just be the fastest rising comedian in the world right now and, maybe, the most humble. Bargatze had a big year in 2023. He sold out a three-night set at Radio City Music Hall, broke the attendance record at his hometown stage, Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, and his most recent special, Hello World, broke Amazon Prime’s record for a comedy special debut with 2.9 million views in its first 28 days, according to Nielsen, all in addition to a critically praised first time hosting Saturday Night Live. Not a bad year. Bargatze has been steadily on the rise for the last decade or so with late-night talk show appearances on Conan, The Tonight Show and others, as well as comedy specials for Comedy Central, Netflix and 2023’s Hello World for Amazon Prime. He did all of that while finding his way onto more and more people’s radar and into culture at large. He’s moved from appearing in clubs, to theaters and now, onto selling out arenas, which is where he’ll be in Cincinnati on Jan. 13, at the Heritage Bank Center for two shows as part of his most recent outing, “The Be Funny Tour.” CityBeat had the pleasure of talking with Bargatze ahead of the show about career beginnings with a Cincinnati connection, his legendary comedy mentors and now friends, his eventful last year, future plans and more.

self-deprecating. I just like making fun of myself and then people can either laugh with me or laugh at me. CB: How about modern life, technology and how crazy everything is sometimes? I know you have the new math bit. NB: (On) Saturday Night Live, in the monologue, I talk about being from the 1900s. I talk about that in my stand-up and just how quickly the times are turning and changing. The way I grew up versus the way my daughter’s growing up is just, I mean, completely different worlds. I took a typing class in seventh grade; they don’t even do that anymore. So, it’s hard to keep up as you get older, with technology. I feel like you get aged out much quicker now, so I talk about a lot of that in my stand-up. CB: Maybe because you’re such a calm voice and like an easygoing kind of guy, maybe that smooths that kind of stuff over, in some way. NB: Yeah, (laughs) I try to ease everybody down. Like, we’re all being left behind so I’m just trying to make it comfortable for us.

Nate Bargatze performs at Heritage Bank Center on Jan. 13. P H O T O : P R OV I D E D BY N AT E B A R G AT Z E

CityBeat: What kind of stuff did you grow up on comedy-wise with movies, stand-up, SNL and that kind of stuff? Nate Bargatze: Yeah, Saturday Night Live was big, especially in my high school years with (Adam) Sandler, (David) Spade and Chris Farley, (on) into Will Ferrell, so SNL definitely. Stand-up, (Bill) Cosby, (Jerry) Seinfeld, Sinbad, the ones that were clean, I could listen to. Big Seinfeld fan. CB: Does that mean your parents controlled what you listened to? NB: Yeah, so I wasn’t able to watch Eddie Murphy’s special so I just ended up watching the clean things. We’d do some Bob Newhart, Andy Griffith, a lot of stuff like that. CB: How about coming up as a standup, did you have any mentors in that world? NB: There’s been many that did it.

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Jimmy Fallon saw me at a comedy club in New York and so our relationship kind of began there and it’s continued for 10 years now with going on his show. So, yeah, he’s been a huge part and somebody I could go to as you deal with stuff, you know? I talk to Seinfeld now too, as well. So, it’s nice to get to talk to some of these guys that have done this stuff before me and just learn, just kind of hear some stories and learn from it.

that would come to shows and watch comics that were not known names.

CB: What has your Cincinnati experience been in the past? Did you do Go Bananas Comedy Club or anything like that? NB: Yeah, my first album was recorded at Go Bananas, Yelled at by a Clown (2012). Go Bananas is a great club. It was always a great spot for comics because they kind of had an audience and they really had a great comedy base

CB: Do you think that stuff has a hand in molding a comedian, those early embarrassments or humbling kinds of things? NB: Yeah, I think so because you’re making fun of yourself and the only way for you to control that embarrassment, and be in control of it, is to make fun of it and make fun of yourself. So, it’s definitely led into how I do comedy, very

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CB: You talk a lot about childhood embarrassments in the past, I’m kind of thinking about the baseball story. NB: The homer off the walk. CB: Yeah, I did a similar thing in basketball. I made one basket the whole time I played, for the wrong side. NB: Yeah (Bargatze laughs).

CB: I saw you set an attendance record at Bridgestone (Nashville arena) in April, how does working an arena feel different from a club, or even a theater? NB: It’s just not as intimate, obviously, as a club, but I’ve really enjoyed them. A lot of these, we’re doing in the round and so everybody’s kind of around you and so you’re in the middle and you have the screens, and people can think that’s not ideal, but no matter what place you get to, even if you’re in a thousand-seat place, if you’re in the back it’s hard to see someone’s face so the thing that’s great about it is when you have those screens, it’s like watching a special, but live. I notice facial expressions get bigger laughs than they’ve ever gotten because people can see them, because they’re on that screen. I think it’s so great for people to be in the room together. A lot of people tell me they’re laughing at the show, they’re laughing at the guy in front of them that was laughing so hard, and you know, it just brings joy to everybody, so it’s fun to be in a big place and do that. CB: Same thing with going to the movies and stuff. I hear you on that. NB: Yeah, it’s fun to experience things with other people.

“I was told it’s a oneof-a-kind experience and it’s exactly that. I was also told, when you get into show business, it’s a show that you think that’s how all show business will be and that was very much true.” CB: What do you make of the rise in stand-up comedy’s popularity in recent years? NB: I would imagine Netflix was a giant part of that. The way HBO was for stand-up, Netflix is like that in this newer way and now with social media and these clips going viral, people can consume stand-up comedy easier than they ever have been (able to). I think that’s all played into it. And people wanna go to things, they want to go to live shows and experience things. Stand-up has an authenticity to it because you’re hearing a person talk, it’s not a produced kind of thing, it’s that guy, whoever’s talking, the comic’s mind comes out of their mouth, so I think people like that, as well. CB: Do you have any interest in doing movies or acting work? NB: I would like to. We’re trying to figure out a few things now and kind of seeing where it goes and this tour’s been a very big tour so it’s just finding the time to be able to do something like that but I definitely do, I definitely want to create some stuff outside of just pure, straight stand-up. Though I will do stand-up forever, being able to create this stuff that will kind of live on, that’s the plan. I would like to try to shoot stuff in Nashville so I could be home and Nashville’s exploding. CB: Any bombshell news you wanna drop in CityBeat? (Laughs) NB: (Jokingly) Yeah, I’m doing Forrest Gump 2, let me just drop that. CB: Print it! (Laughs) CB: How was your experience on Saturday Night Live? NB: Amazing. I was told it’s a one-of-akind experience and it’s exactly that. I was also told, when you get into show

business, it’s a show that you think that’s how all show business will be and that was very much true. I really enjoyed it. Getting to do sketches in front of a live audience is kind of like the multi-cam, the old sitcoms and they do it that way. It was a special thing; just how quick it goes. I can’t speak highly enough of it. It was an honor to ever even get to do it and, yeah, I loved it. CB: I imagine it is, but is this tour leading up to a new special, potentially? NB: Yeah, I’m hoping to tape one in 2024, probably come out at the end of ‘24, hopefully. That’s the general plan. CB: I read something in Variety where you kind of mention manifesting things, speaking things into truth, in some way — how do you feel about that? It seems like maybe it is a good self-fulfilling prophecy to try to manifest positive things. NB: Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, you just think about what you want and if it’s always on your mind, you just gotta figure a way to get to that thing. When you’re thinking about it a lot, you know, you might not have a clear path to the end goal but everything you do will be a step closer. I would always say, you should have something — a dream you’re embarrassed to tell someone and you should have a goal you’d be embarrassed if you couldn’t reach it — and just slowly put those together and I believe you can get to that dream. CB: That’s great, man. That’s a nice sentiment, there. How about the reward of doing comedy, what it means to get to make people laugh? NB: I’m lucky to get to do it. I feel like a lot of this is kind of coming through me. Just to be out there and make people laugh, you know when you hear people really laughing it’s a really wonderful thing to get to hear and people can’t catch their breath and it makes you just smile when you’re onstage and it makes you want to get into it more. I like to hear, you know, when people leave and they’re like, “Oh, my abs hurt” and all this. That kind of stuff is just to give people a break that everybody deserves because everybody has to work very hard and life is hard and so, if I can just go be a little break for them for a little bit, it’s an honor to get to do it. Nate Bargatze performs at Heritage Bank Center on Jan. 13 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Info: heritagebankcenter.com.

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CULTURE

Inside the Heart of Cincinnati’s Boutique Fitness Studio Market BY K E N N E DY D U D L E Y

hat comes to mind when you think about boutique fitness? While some people may not know what that phrase means, others have used it to build community and lifelong habits. Boutique fitness studios are small gyms that typically specialize in one or two fitness areas for instructorled group and one-on-one exercises. Though boutique fitness studios have been around for decades, the market is booming now more than ever. According to Yahoo Finance, in 2021 the global boutique fitness studio market was valued at $49.3 billion and is expected to reach $66.2 billion by 2026. Cincinnati has seen an increase within its own wellness and boutique fitness studio scene with studios popping up all over the city. Here’s a look into Cincinnati’s fitness studio market, and the people behind it.

Pilates Center of Cincinnati Kelli Green became interested in Pilates after giving up running. “As I got older and had three kids, I was a little bit more injury prone, and I kept noticing different women and their physiques,” Green said. “I kept saying, ‘They’re older than me, and how do they look so toned?’ Most of them would say Pilates.” After a nine month training program, Green became a Pilates instructor. Pilates Center of Cincinnati follows the traditional Pilates teachings of inventor, Joseph Pilates. “The main focus on any kind of Pilates is reformer,” said Green. “Pilates today is getting a little watered down, we are a back to the basics Pilates studio where everything is quiet, it’s about perfection of detail, your form, so we (have) a different approach.” “Pilates is good for your flexibility,” Green said. “You work from the inside out, so you work the finer muscles outward, you incorporate breathing and maintain this core that is practiced. It’s a wonderful way to move. You can do it forever.” Green believes that Pilates has gained so much popularity because it is community driven. “You get to know people next to you on your machine, you become friends and I think that was something that people were missing after the pandemic,” Green said. “You have a support system, people kind of count on you and if you’re not in your class, they actually notice. Especially in niche boutique type studios like these. We’re a family so the teachers are a family and we really treat our clients as

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Jill Fishburn, owner of Define Oakley P H O T O : K E N N E DY D U D L E Y

a family. I think that’s what’s kept me in business.”

NYXX Cycle Nick Melnyk discovered his passion for cycling in a search for connection. “I went to University of Cincinnati, and I started school at the College-Conservatory of Music for theater, and it was a really small program,” Melnyk said. “I left the program after my first year, and it was hard for me to adjust from being at that super small program that was kind of its own school on UC’s campus to then being in the large university. I had a hard time making friends and meeting people. I had a friend who was going to the rec and she said, ‘You should come take this spin class with me,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t know what that is.’ I fell in love, worked up the courage to audition, then taught in college. From there (I) had a love and passion for it.” Melnyk found that music made cycling more enjoyable for him and uses this to make cycling fun for others at NYXX Cycle. “What I wanted to open here was much more rhythm based and less about stats and metrics. For us, when we first opened, (it was about) determining how we introduced that to people who have not ridden like that before and getting them to like it. We were shocked at how quickly people

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Tori Butler, an instructor at Define Oakley, leads a Bounce class. P H O T O : K E N N E DY D U D L E Y

started to adapt and have fun.” Melnyk runs NYXX Cycle as a no pressure environment. Welcoming new and old riders alike, he wants riders to feel comfortable no matter where they are in their cycling journey. “Any class you take here, you see different types of people from physical abilities, age, gender, race, sexuality, everything in this room,” Melnyk said. “That was a huge thing for me, so seeing that growth has been cool. I think a lot of us expected to see people we always taught over the years at other gyms, and

it’s been so cool to see all these new faces.” Melnyk thinks that boutique fitness has always had a special role in fitness because of the larger nationally known boutique studios, but Peloton and the pandemic were the real push for the boom in group fitness. “Covid happened and Peloton blew up, that was the thing. When that happened, people realized, ‘Oh wait, I miss working out with people,’ and it’s just not the same. It’s not just cycling I think, it’s any group fitness atmosphere.

Kelli Green, owner of Pilates Center of Cincinnati

Nick Melnyk, owner of NYXX Cycle

P H O T O : K E N N E DY D U D L E Y

Patrick Coyne, owner of Contrast Studio P H O T O : K E N N E DY D U D L E Y

I go and take tons of group fitness classes, for me I need someone to tell me what to do, I need that accountability and I just love the energy of other people around me. I think there’s something really special about it.”

Define Oakley Jill Fishburn and her husband have owned Define Oakley since November 2022. Fishburn found her passion for fitness through Define, which was a factor in purchasing the studio. Define offers cycling, barre and bounce (HIIT done on a trampoline) classes. “The former owner posted that she was looking to sell the studio,” Fishburn said. “My first reaction was, ‘This is my happy place, I can’t let that go.’ My

husband and I are very entrepreneurial, we’ve always known we were gonna do something, the plan was to always work for ourselves and we reached out. It happened really fast, we met with her in early September and we took over Nov. 1. I didn’t want to change anything about it, I changed little things but the base of what Define has always been for nearly a decade is exactly the same. The previous owner felt the same way, she didn’t want to pass it off to anybody that was going to massively change it. She still teaches for us, we have 12 active instructors and more than half of them have been with the studio since the beginning which is really unique.” After graduating from UC, Fishburn realized that despite being active throughout high school, she had not

been active at all in college. She tried to get active again by going to the gym with her husband but realized that she needed motivation outside of herself. “[Define] had a sale, seven classes for $77, for whatever reason that one stuck. I was like I can spend $77 and do anything seven times, I got hooked on bounce. It’s so fun, it’s a killer workout and I finally looked forward to what I was doing in terms of exercising. It became easy to show up and easy to motivate myself to come, eventually just addicting. It got to the point where if I didn’t start my day here, my day was off.” Fishburn says that outside motivation is a big reason people find boutique fitness so appealing. “I think my story is definitely a common one, it’s so hard to motivate yourself, especially in a postCovid world where we weren’t able to go places. Everybody got out of routines and everybody was looking to get back with people. Now that people are allowed to do that again, showing up and someone knows your name when you walk in the door or they’re shooting you a text that they miss you when you didn’t show up — that accountability is a piece that I think sets group fitness apart.”

Contrast Studios Contrast Studios offer an alternative path to fitness for Cincinnati as the first sauna and cold plunge club in the city. Contrast therapy combines hot and cold temperatures for physical performance and mental wellness, with a recommended 57 minutes a week in the sauna and 11 minutes a week in the

cold plunge. Contrast therapy offers benefits like increased metabolism, accelerated muscle recovery, improved cardiovascular health, boosted immune system, accelerated injury healing and more. Co-founder Patrick Coyne’s experience with contrast therapy is what motivated him to bring a studio to Cincinnati. “This was formulated in January, signed the lease at the end of April, then we opened up Oct. 5,” Coyne said. “For me it was very personal. I’ve always dealt with mental health issues, and I was sick and tired of medicine. I didn’t want to feel numb anymore, and I had done it for about six months by myself, without telling people or even thinking about a business plan because it helped me. After the last one at my buddy’s house, I came outside, and I was tired of using his place, so I Googled cold plunge in Cincinnati — nothing. Cold plunge in Ohio — nothing. Cold plunge in the U.S.? There’s very few businesses, and when there’s that big of a lack of product and a huge demand, that’s when I decided to come up with a business plan.” Coyne uses his businesses to add value to people’s lives through wellness. “I really wanted to affect the masses’ mental health-wise because not everyone can workout. We just surpassed 200 members in less than four weeks, we’re at 250 members right now.” Though contrast therapy is trendy, Coyne believes that the science behind it is the reason for its popularity. “Everyone likes new, exciting things that can better themselves without having to put themselves through rigorous workouts.”

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C I T Y B E AT. C O M

FOOD & DRINK Dining in the New Year

Greater Cincinnati chefs and tastemakers predict the dining trends set to take over the city in 2024. BY L E Y L A S H O KO O H E

n the eve of every new year, prognosticators try to peer into the future and see what the coming 365 days will hold. In the restaurant industry, this forecast of trends runs the gamut and is largely dependent on who you talk to and when you talk to them — especially if they’re mostly PR professionals who have never mise en placed. National publications try to forecast for the nation, and industry-specific advocacy groups, like the National Restaurant Association, forecast according to their members. Eight Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky-area food service professionals, including chefs, sommeliers and a local food influencer, gave us their wellearned two cents on the trends that will infiltrate industrial and residential kitchens alike. Read on below to start planning your 2024 eats.

“Newstalgia” Since 2020, restaurants have been plagued with any number of setbacks — financial, labor, economical, etc. The era of fanciful and exotic dishes has taken a backseat in place of keeping the lights on. This coming year, our panel of industry voices see a more refined return to comfort and stability, in the kitchen, on the plates and in seats. “I definitely think it’s going to be a year of stability,” said Kayla Robison, a local chef and consultant, most recently at Arnold’s Bar & Grill. “Last year and the year prior [were years] of closure. We did still have some good openings. Those of us who are already in the business and in the grind are going to be at this point of stability.” As food prices skyrocket at the grocery store, Robison sees a turn back to the recipes that fed the generations

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Chef and consultant Christian Gill (right) predicts 2024 will be full of “newstalgia”— a new way to appreciate nostalgic eats. P H O T O : C H R I S T I A N G I L L I N S TA G R A M

before us, when a little went a long way. “One way to make things even more affordable is doing what the generations prior to us did, making things from scratch, using pantry ingredients,” she said. “You’ll have entrees that are composed of simpler ingredients, that still have this incredible experience and flavor. That labor of love is really going to come through more and more and we’re going to get to taste it.” Places like Arnold’s have always been about comfort food. “We do try to follow some trends, but lead with comfort foods,” said Chris Breeden, owner of Arnold’s. “So that way it keeps us from staying too stale. Basically we do that by hiring people with fresh ideas and allowing them to run with whatever their ideas are.” Take the Arnold’s short rib and grits. It’s a spin on shrimp and grits, but with prime rib, which Breeden calls a “hot commodity” in the food industry right now. The New York Times’ own food trend forecasting sees soup as the top dish sweeping the nation in 2024. “I think that comfort food is definitely a thing we’re going to keep moving towards,” said Emma Cotter, director of operations and sustainability with Sleepy Bee. “I think we see that both in embracing and reimagining classic dishes, and then also I think that’s where a lot of different regional and global cuisines can have spotlight moments. Each culture’s comfort food has been getting a lot of traction the last

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few years. The pandemic really pushed us all back to comfort food.” Cotter also noted the success fast food outlets are experiencing, as what were once cultural cliche spots like Applebee’s and IHOP start to cash in on what has turned into cultural cache. “These suburban chains are having better business than they’ve had in a decade, so predictability and comfort is definitely something that people seem to be gravitating towards,” she said. Christian Gill, a chef and consultant based in Northern Kentucky who has competed on several TV cooking shows and runs Food Fight 513 with Robison, agreed. “You’re going to see ‘newstalgia,’” said Gill. “Newstalgia is basically new takes on ‘70s, ‘80s classics, even into the ‘90s, which is triggering for us 30-something-olds. A lot of, ‘in with the old, but in a new way,’ with a new twist on it. A reimagining of classic dishes — salisbury steak, ambrosia, weird shit from the ‘70s, jello; gelatin in general will make a big re-splash.”

Vegetables are in vogue Vegetables, too, are coming back. Not that they ever really left menus, but veggies are again appreciated for what they are, not just what they can become. “There’s a movement for making plant-based foods plant-based again,” said Robison. “Essentially, the imitation meat is starting to go away. People are

really challenged with making a vegetarian entree or vegan, but in a good way. Chefs are going to have to challenge themselves — let’s turn a head of cauliflower into something delicious and not ground up to have the texture of chicken.” Food blogger/personality Dione Wu, of @drinkingdiningdione on Instagram and TikTok, agreed. “There’s definitely more of an emphasis on healthy,” said Wu. “I think because people are becoming more health-conscious, they’re seeing what other options are available. That’s not to say they would eliminate meat from their diet, but I think they’re trying to incorporate more plant-based foods, just eating more fruits and vegetables honestly.” Wu started her food-centric Instagram when she moved to Cincinnati from Columbus in 2015 as a way to document and share her experiences in her new city. She is passionate about getting people out of their restaurant ruts and trying all the new and exciting options available in Cincinnati. “There’s one newer plant-based restaurant coming to Court Street downtown, AV [All Vegan],” said Wu. “I think plant-based restaurants are going to be popular.” Paul Weckman of Otto’s Restaurant Group agreed. “There’s been a lot of chatter about people moving away from fake substitute meat products and really this

Mid-City Restaurant

Sleepy Bee Cafe

P H OTO : A I DA N M A H O N E Y

P H O T O : FA C E B O O K . C O M / S L E E PY B E E C A F E

awakening that, hey, diners just want really good vegetables, let’s make them more center of the plate,” he said. “Let’s do different things with them.” Weckman and wife Emily operate the Otto’s group of five restaurants, which include Otto’s Frida, The Standard, Larry’s and Mama’s (which has a rooftop bar opening in 2024), all located in the Mainstrasse area of Covington. They just purchased a farm in southern Indiana, and Weckman said he’s looking forward to spending weekends out there and exploring growing their own vegetables there, especially hard to source ones, for the restaurant group. Even the smallest turns toward sustainability like this are good for the industry and the planet. Sleepy Bee has gone a step further, achieving B Corp Certification, which is a distinction for businesses that have altered certain methods to be more socially and environmentally responsible. Sleepy Bee is the only restaurant among only eight local businesses to do so. “It helps underscore our story for our guests and makes it easier to talk about,” said Cotter. “To keep framing the language of how and why around sustainable sourcing, and especially around humane and equitable treatment of our team. As we go forward, we want to just keep making sure we tell that story, alongside serving delicious food, because that will give us the best grounding from which to pivot and evolve as a business as we go into this relatively uncertain global time and future.”

Back-to-basics booze and beer Along the nostalgic lines, our panel of experts foresee a return to simplicity in the drinks we imbibe in 2024, too.

“Most people just want something that tastes good,” said Breeden. “Craft beer is becoming more focused to the everyday person, so they’re dialing back a lot on their crazy robust flavors and trying to just [have] good-tasting, approachable beers.” Mike Stankovich, founder and owner of Mid-City Restaurant and the bar Longfellow, agreed. “I’ve noticed that IPAs have kind of fallen off,” he said. “Longfellow has always had a devout following of European beer drinkers because we have German imports, [and] we just picked up an Ethiopian lager, [but] our IPA sales have kind of fallen off really hard.” Same goes for liquor. “With cocktails I might be skewed on this, because at Mid-City our list is only classics, but [I think] people are more inclined to order a well-made classic cocktail than maybe a foodbased cocktail,” said Stankovich. “I think money’s tight so people are going to go with tried-and-true cocktails than going out on a limb and trying some insane concoctions.” There’s a comfort to knowing the team behind the bar, and trusting them to help you make your best possible decisions for the night’s drink (or drinks). “People are going to go to the smaller joints where they have a rapport,” he said. “Hart and Cru is a good example. People trust them to know their taste buds and buy their wine for them — there’s less risk involved.” Speaking of Hart and Cru, sommelier Brittany Marsh thinks the stories behind the products are one of the biggest driving factors in consumption and purchase, and hits on the next trend.

Personalities, stories and experiences “At Hart and Cru specifically, we’re a European wine bar and we love celebrating the small producers,” said Marsh. “What our job is is telling stories about these producers — it’s more talking about the people behind the wine, it’s really cool to share the stories and [winemakers’] eccentric qualities. People can relate to stories.” Wine can be a very intimidating thing to order at a restaurant or wine bar with an extensive list of unfamiliar names and types. Marsh also serves as director of education at Hart and Cru and is dedicated to helping people learn about and enjoy wine. “I think people are really opening up to trying new things,” she said. “People order what they know, but this current generation, a lot of people are challenging it. [They] want to try the strangest thing you have by the glass, the most esoteric,weirdest, funky thing you have.” Marsh predicts a huge focus on winemaking regions like Portugal and the Canary Islands that tend to fly under the radar in the U.S. where availability has been slow to open up. Locally, it’s once more about people. “I do think a lot of the local entrepreneurs and what they’re doing with wine stands out more than the wine that’s made here,” she said. She pointed to former city councilwoman Yvette Simpson’s foray into winemaking, the recent collaboration between Oakley Wines and Field Recordings, and the vibes at small wine shops like Iris Read. Stankovich agreed. “Prior to the pandemic, there were a handful of bars opening up that were specifically [chef ] owned,” said

Stankovich. “You had these bars popping up that were rooted in the owners’ personalities. So I got kind of worried when the pandemic happened that a lot of the smaller people would go out of business. I’m pleasantly surprised that post pandemic and going into 2024, we have a lot of that happening again. I’m happy to see it kind of going back to these chef driven restaurants.” A smattering of these incoming restaurants: the recently opened Wildweed, which started as a pop-up and has grown into its own brick-and-mortar, and is run by David Jackman, who was the pearl in the center of the shortlived oyster that was PearlStar. Colette OTR, a “mostly French” restaurant from chef Danny Combs, who previously helmed the kitchens of both Boca and Sotto. Aperture, a long-awaited venture from chef Jordan Anthony-Brown, finally makes its debut in Walnut Hills. Other trends noted by our esteemed panel: More pop-ups leading to more brick-and-mortar transformations, a la Wildweed. Robison is doing a pop-up at Arnold’s on Jan. 18. Food halls, like The Gatherall, Element Eatery, and Oakley Kitchen, remain a popular and viable option for both consumers and potential restaurant operators to try something new. Lunch as the new happy hour, especially in downtown Cincinnati, where several return-to-office mandates by business district cornerstones, like Kroger and P&G, mean a return to eating lunch out in the city center. On Court Street alone, Chef Hideki Harada (of Kiki in College Hill and Sen in Findlay Market) is opening Daruma, Derrick Braziel is opening taco restaurant Pata Roja and Stankovich has Mid-City eyeing a potential lunch service.

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EATS

The Hottest New Restaurants and Bars in Greater Cincinnati BY C I T Y B E AT STA F F

Baru is an elevated sushi and cocktail concept located in downtown Cincinnati. P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY 3 C D C

ver the last year, the Greater Cincinnati area welcomed a lot of new and exciting restaurant and bar concepts to the local dining scene. From popular chains expanding to the Tri-State to newcomers with offerings ranging from authentic Italian to fresh seafood and oysters, and bars and breweries with unique, fantastical concepts, here is just a sampling of the new restaurants that opened in 2023.

Razzo 1201 Broadway St., Over-the-Rhine Pendleton welcomed a new pizza and natural wine bar in the former Boomtown Biscuits & Whiskey space this October. Razzo, which means “rocket” in Italian, is owned by Michael Guilfoil and Christy Wulfson, the team behind Bar Saeso and the Airbnb The Carriage House. Wulfson and Guilfoil created a cozy, neon-lit space with a bar, dining room and patio. The Italian menu, featuring Roman-inspired pizzas (a panbaked version known for its rectangular slices and interesting toppings) and natural wines by the glass, plays into the Italianate architecture around

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Pendleton and the neighborhood’s European feel, as well as the team’s personal love of Rome. You’ll also find various pasta dishes on the menu and gelato for dessert.

Atwood Oyster House 1220 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine Atwood Oyster House opened in November in the former PearlStar location. Featuring a menu focused on oysters and seasonal seafood, Atwood is helmed by executive chef Seth Ridgill, who most recently worked under chef Hideki Harada at Kiki College Hill, and pastry chef Kayla Hunley, formerly of Pleasantry. Ridgill’s menu is playful but elegant, characterized by a Southern accent and rooted in French technique. Hunley, meanwhile, is behind the restaurant’s full dessert menu and also collaborates with Ridgill to introduce creative concepts to the savory side of the menu. Atwood also has a full bar, which serves a diverse menu of classic and creative house cocktails. The wine list features 16 wines by the glass and 80 bottles, all of which were selected to complement the restaurant’s seafood and vegetarian dishes.

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Second Story 100 W. Sixth St., #2, Covington Covington’s Second Story bar, the latest vision from Lost Co., is an artistic, Southern Gothic oasis for every sort of reveler. Like its sister bars Somerset and Alice in Over-the-Rhine, Second Story leans into Lost Co.’s fanciful designs and concepts. The bar’s main space is a large room with stylish and comfortable seating, dazzling chandeliers and hand-painted murals, complemented by large windows. It also brings some garden vibes indoors, featuring a giant artist-created tree “growing” behind the bar that houses bottles of spirits. Second Story also treats its cocktail menu like a conduit between the bar’s three pillars — conversation, art and music — to make all three work together. On the menu, patrons will find cocktails with a variety of bases, not leaning on any one spirit too much. Drinks are made with housemade syrups and housemade tonic and feature amari, which are herbal liqueurs that typically come from Italy and France. There’s even a housemade version of “Fireball” cinnamon whiskey. And like the views

through the windows in the main space, the cocktail menu will change seasonally, offering guests fresh experiences with multiple visits.

Golden State Tacos 704 Wooster Pike, Terrace Park Think fresh and juicy produce, laidback vibes, “sensational” margaritas — and octopus. That’s just a dash of what you’ll find at Golden State Tacos, a new Terrace Park restaurant that’s serving California-Mexican cuisine in an inviting, neighborhood atmosphere. Co-owner Daniel Wright says Golden State Tacos is a casual, family-friendly restaurant with a “fun and bright” menu that doesn’t take itself too seriously. That fun and bright menu features various takes on Southern California staples like fish tacos, fresh and crunchy salads, hand-squeezed juice, esquites (street corn), nachos and carne asada. And while the adult menu will satisfy parents, Golden State Tacos also offers a kids’ menu for the little ones, and the retro Spartanette camper on the patio will soon offer s’more kits for kids (and perhaps nostalgic adults as well).

vintage bar, complete with stained glass and imported from Malahide, Ireland. It was built in 1957 and stood for 62 years until 2019 and was refinished for the pub’s opening.

Opal Rooftop Restaurant & Bar

Like its sister bars Somerset and Alice, Second Story leans into more fanciful designs and concepts. P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY S E C O N D S T O RY

its atmosphere and unique menu, all centered around its bar, which has been strategically placed to be the focal point of the restaurant. The idea behind Baru is stay-and-drink sushi, inspired by izakaya, which are beloved Japanese establishments where guests can stay, drink and unwind long into the night. Its menu is sophisticated but approachable, with fresh fish flown in daily, American and Japanese wagyu and shareable items. It also offers omakase meals, where guests leave dining decisions up to the chef.

The Red Leprechaun

Atwood Oyster House opened in PearlStar’s former location. P H O T O : I N S TA G R A M . C O M / @ AT W O O D OYS T E R H O U S E

Alive & Well 3410 Telford St., Clifton Spirit-forward cocktail bar Alive & Well opened in Clifton’s Gaslight District in August. Owner Andrew Salzbrun says the bar provides an “out of the norm” Ludlow experience, blending the grandeur of the building’s historic Art Deco façade with a punk-rock ambiance. The drink menu features a curated selection of top-quality spirits, as well as cocktails

and wines. Salzbrun says the bar is also partnering with other neighborhood establishments, like Two Seven Two Bakery, Graeter’s, Silverglades and Al’s Delicious Popcorn to offer a snack menu.

Baru 595 Race St., Downtown This elevated sushi and cocktail concept places most of its focus on

20 West Freedom Way, The Banks Ireland came to The Banks this fall with the opening of The Red Leprechaun. The concept is led by the Fishbowl at The Banks team, and owner Daniel Scott partnered with chef Brian Duffy from the Spike TV series Bar Rescue to create the menu. Scott describes the spot as a traditional Irish pub with a modern flair, from their menu to the live music. The menu is a mix of Irish fare — think fish and chips, shepherd’s pie and a traditional Irish breakfast complete with bangers and black and white pudding to help soak up all the Guinness from the night before — and American (and Cincy-style) dishes like chili cheese fries and burgers. But unique to The Red Leprechaun is the

535 Madison Ave., Covington A new place to take in the views of Greater Cincinnati while enjoying a delicious meal and fine wine opened in Covington this fall. Opal Rooftop Restaurant & Bar is the newest concept from husband-wife duo Bill and Morgan Whitlow, who want the restaurant to offer a luxurious, yet accessible, experience. At the center of that experience is the restaurant’s Grillworks wood-fired grill, the only one of its kind in a two-hour radius. This unique grill drives Opal’s open-fire grill and wine-forward menu, which features dishes made from fresh, local fare and products, and the craft cocktail menu and wine selection have been curated to complement the dishes. And to complement the beautiful view outside, the restaurant’s interior design was specially curated by the Whitlows, who even hand-made some of the light fixtures. Morgan said guests will notice the very intentional details throughout the space that will change as they move through the restaurant, much like the way an opal or other gemstone shifts light and color.

Al-Posto Italian Ristorante 2710 Erie Ave., Hyde Park The home of Teller’s of Hyde Park for 25 years reopened this spring as “Italianinspired” Al-Posto, an Italian phrase that translates to “at the spot.” The approachable Italian menu features a variety of classic pasta dishes like cacio e pepe, spaghetti and meatballs and orecchiette, as well as dishes like branzino, a filet and a gourmet cheeseburger. The compact list of wines available by the glass, according to the menu, is “hand selected by wine director & sommelier, Austin Heidt.” The selection of just 14 choices — two-thirds from Italy — features an organic pinot grigio from Veneto as the house white, a luscious falanghina from Campania and a smooth Super Tuscan from the Camigliano winery south of Florence, Italy.

Parkside 2637 Erie Ave., Hyde Park If you’re a fan of Delwood in Mt.

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cheesesteak. Additionally, you’ll find unique variations of classic dishes, like the Korean-style Lindsey’s potato salad.

Lookout, you’ll also love its sister restaurant, Parkside in nearby Hyde Park. Delwood’s fan-favorite classic double cheeseburger is on both menus, and the overall decor and mood, which can be described as a modern and welcoming vibe where you’ll often run into a neighbor or two, are also similar. But Parkside also stands on its own legs, with a menu consisting of dishes you won’t see at Delwood, like its housemade pimento cheese served as a dip or atop a cheeseburger. And while it’s not a Peruvian restaurant, you’ll see some influences, like in the empanadas and yuca fries.

LoVe on Fourth 138 W. Fourth St., Downtown Downtown’s newest nightclub, LoVe on Fourth opened in early December under Cincinnati entrepreneur Rico Grant. The club offers cool, sultry vibes and an elevated clubbing experience that caters to young corporate professionals and creatives. LoVe on Fourth features bottle service, a DJ booth with state-of-the-art sound and lighting and eight VIP sections. There’s also a strict dress code, so check your fit before you try to hit the dance floor.

Five on Vine 1324 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine The newest venture from Crown Restaurant Group officially opened its doors in January. At its core, Five on Vine’s menu is meant to represent CRG’s perspective on how American food traditions have evolved. It includes savory shareables like oysters and OTR Wellingtons (local sausage and mushrooms wrapped in puff pastry and served with whole grain mustard); homemade pastas; and traditional entrees with a twist, like the Roasted Amish Chicken with kale panzanella and apricot jus. It also has a beverage program that highlights its selection of reserve cocktails made from premier spirits and a crafted collection of martinis.

VV The Italian Experience 1026 Delta Ave., Mt. Lookout New café and shop VV The Italian Experience opened in April on Mt. Lookout Square, promising to dish up an authentic Italian experience in the Queen City. Owners Melissa and Andrea De Giorgi wanted to recreate an Italian la cafeteria, a place for family and friends to spend time together, relax for breakfast and lunch and enjoy aperitivo, or happy hour with delicious bites. The space is simple yet elegant and combines both vintage and modern Italian styles in a seamless and welcoming manner. When you first walk in, you’re greeted with a display of Italian pastries you can grab for breakfast or as a mid-day pick-meup, all made in-house. VV also features a full-service coffee bar, with drinks made from coffee beans imported from Lecce, the owners’ hometown. For lunch, the menu offers fresh-made paninis, fresh salads and soups and pasta. And the aperitivo menu rounds out the food choices. Some of these tasty bites include trays with Italian cured and uncured meats, cheeses, vegetables and spreads that can be enjoyed with Italian cocktails, like a negroni, Paloma or the house-crafted VV cocktail made with rum, apple liquor, simple syrup and lime juice.

ACES Pickleball + Kitchen

Golden State Tacos serves up delicious margaritas and California-Mexican cuisine. P H O T O : C AT I E V I OX

Solstice

Onolicious Hawaii

1544 Madison Road, East Walnut Hills Tropical-themed Solstice opened in East Walnut Hills in late June. The folks behind Solstice are familiar with the neighborhood, given that their charming cocktail bar, Anjou, is a stone’s throw away, on Woodburn Avenue. In contrast to most taco-centric eateries, the cocktail menu doesn’t lean heavily on margaritas or other tequila drinks. That’s in part because it’s not a Mexican restaurant; instead, the focus is more generally on the tropical parts of our planet. Thus, drinks, as well as food, borrow from flavors developed near the equator, including Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. The food section of this menu is fairly simple, divided into “Sharables” and “Tacos.”

1005 Walnut St., Downtown Hawaiian barbecue joint Onolicious Hawaii, which got its start as a stall in the Oakley Food Hall, officially graduated to a new brick-and-mortar restaurant in May. Onolicious’ menu features tropical fare made with locally sourced ingredients. Patrons can expect a variety of classic Hawaiian dishes, as well as other island-style offerings like coconut French toast and matcha mochi chicken & waffles — a weekend brunch staple.

The Flock 927 Race St., Downtown A new, laidback LGBTQ+ ultra-lounge hatched in downtown Cincinnati this summer. Following Ignite Entertainment moving its popular LGBTQ+ bar, The Birdcage, to a bigger location, the company turned the space into The Flock. Owner Juan Imeroni says he wanted The Flock to marry the vibe of The Birdcage to the intimacy of a lounge. Plush seating, backlit tables, lounge spaces and a lowered ceiling along the bar were added, along with aviary-themed decor and accents. At The Flock, guests can imbibe in a polished craft cocktail menu that spotlight classic drinks with modern twists. And entertainment is slated for every weekend, featuring local performers, burlesque shows, karaoke and more. Plus, patrons can get free and safe rides between The Flock to any of Ignite’s other venues in downtown and Northern Kentucky.

2730 Maverick Drive, Norwood This new, state-of-the-art pickleball complex features 11 cushion-based courts designed for all skill levels – both indoor and outdoor. After a fun game of pickleball with the family, head over to the full-service restaurant and bar, where the menu features dishes crafted with local and seasonal ingredients from regional farmers, artisans and producers. You can try elevated bar-fare appetizers like their Sweet Chili Pineapple Wings or loaded nachos topped with ground beef, queso, pickled jalapenos, cilantro, pico de gallo and crema. ACES also serves a range of sandwiches, bowls and salads and has a dedicated kids’ menu.

Level One Bar + Arcade

213 Woodward St., Over-the-Rhine Taco bar Yoli’s opened next to Ziegler Park and its pool over the summer, making it the ideal destination for hungry pool-goers. The menu offers customizable tacos, burritos and salads with rotating proteins, as well as cocktails, margaritas and a selection of beer and wine. As for the interior, it’s colorful and meant to provide a fun and relaxed atmosphere. The horseshoe bar offers 15 seats and is surrounded by table seating. Outside, guests can make use of two patios: one for dining and another for shuffleboard and other outdoor activities.

1331 Walnut St., Over-the-Rhine You can put your old-school video gaming skills to the test at Level One Bar + Arcade in Over-the-Rhine, with its catalog of classics like Donkey Kong, Q-Bert and Mortal Kombat and an impressive collection of pinball machines. (This house of nostalgia also has Nintendo 64 and Game Cube, the realization of which just made millennials everywhere collectively groan – or that could have just been all of our backs and joints giving out at once.) At the bar, there are two dozen local beers on tap along with game-themed cocktails. Food isn’t served at Level One, but guests can order takeout from local restaurants and vendors.

The Park Diner

Fabled Brew Works

4160 Hamilton Ave., Northside They say good things come to those who wait, which holds true for the newly opened The Park Diner in Northside. After six years of hard work, the husband and wife team of Kevin Pogo Curtis and Allee Thompson finally were able to welcome customers this spring. The menu offers a mix of diner favorites, such as Angus chuck burgers, shoestring French fries, creamy mac and cheese and a beer-braised pork loin

331 Kenton Lands Road, Suite 300, Erlanger The legend of this small, fantasyinspired craft brewery and meadery started this past June. Fabled Brew Works sprang from the mind of five friends who really enjoy beer and wanted to bring something new to Cincinnati, both in aesthetics and in the actual brew offerings. What came from that is a sylvan-like taproom that looks like it sprung from between the pages of

Yoli’s

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a storybook – a fantasy forest that leads to the door of a thatched-roof cottage, a half-timbered storefront with books in its “windows” and an apothecary. A hollowed tree sits behind the bar. You almost feel like the hero or heroine about to embark on an epic journey. And those elements of fantasy, folklore and myths also make their way onto the tap list, featuring brews with names like the classic American lager Paul Bunyan and Minos the Bull (an imperial stout with pistachio, marshmallow and fudge). The brewery and meadery puts its focus on fruit-forward beers and things you don’t find a whole lot of in the region: bold stouts, meads and dessert-inspired varieties.

The Acres 9941 Reading Road, Evendale Before it was recently overhauled and rebranded as The Acres, Etter’s Golf Center had offered a basic driving range and a small mini golf course since it opened in 1950. The Acres debuted in June 2022 and now features two mini golf courses, a Trackman interactive golf simulator and the golf center’s first full bar and restaurant. They also added space to just hang out. There are fire pits, cornhole boards and plenty of outdoor tables and seating. The food menu at The Acres’ restaurant is a short selection of what managing partner Todd Gailar calls “elevated American classics.” The Acres consulted with Chef LeRoy Ansley, formerly of Queen City Hospitality (Senate), to create the menu.

Rusk Kitchen + Bar 2724 Woodburn Ave., East Walnut Hills Opened in April, Rusk Kitchen + Bar serves up eclectic American cuisine and elevated bar food alongside beverage options like beer, wine and housemade cocktails you can enjoy on their rooftop patio, even in the winter thanks to its heated dining igloos. With its cozy, welcoming vibes, Rusk aims to become a neighborhood go-to where you can watch the game, enjoy date night or just hang out with friends. The menu features a variety of lunch and dinner dishes, including sandwiches, burgers, entrees and salads, as well as late-night bites served until midnight during the week and 2 a.m. on the weekends. Brunch is served on Sundays from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., with classics like omelets, pancakes and a breakfast burrito on the menu.

Primo Italian Steakhouse 6 S. Broad St., Middletown Anchoring the prominent corner of Walnut and Sixth streets Downtown, Prime Cincinnati has become a mainstay restaurant on a block known for some of the best restaurants in the city. In 2023, Prime gained a sister restaurant

Order amazing drinks and beat your high score at Level One Bar and Arcade Over-the-Rhine. P H OTO : B R I A N C RO S S

in downtown Middletown. With a solid foundation to build on, Prime’s owners partnered to open another upscale steakhouse with its own identity. Prime goes Italian with the new concept, Primo. The menu features a heavy focus on pasta dishes, like the Tagliatelle Alla Bolognese (featuring pork, beef, tomato, ragu and Parmigiano Vacche Rosse) and Ravioli Burro e Salvia (made with butternut squash, ricotta, butter and sage, but also leans into its identity as a steakhouse with a variety of bistecca options.

Livery 9320 Montgomery Road, Montgomery This new tapas spot features a menu of empanadas, ensaladas, ceviche, tacos, tortas and other Central and South American dishes made with the freshest ingredients. For dessert, guests can try housemade churros, flan and tres leches. It also has a fully stocked bar with an expansive tequila and cocktail list, top-shelf spirits, wine and beer, as well as specialty margaritas. And when the weather’s nice, you can enjoy your meal on their outdoor patio.

Conserva 225 Elm St., Ludlow Tapas restaurant Conserva may be one of Northern Kentucky’s best hidden gems. Owner and head chef Challis Hodge studied Spanish tapa cuisine to recreate an authentic experience with a medley of options. One popular dish on the menu is a Spanish national favorite, Tortilla Española, made using potatoes, egg, olive oil and salt. And if you’re a fan

of dips, the gambas al ajillo, or Spanish garlic shrimp, is made using sherry and guindilla pepper and served with dippable crostini. The menu also features vegetarian and gluten-free options.

The Well/Grub Local 8 W. Seventh St., Covington Described as equal parts cool and casual, The Well provides a laidback and cozy lounge, as well as a large patio, with plenty of seating throughout and large-screen TVs, making it a great game-day destination. Its restaurant arm, Grub Local, is helmed by chef Mitch Arens, the former executive chef at Hotel Covington. The menu offers a tasty spin on classic American cocktails and drinks, like the Chicago-ish Dog and Philly Cheesesteak Tots. Arens says Grub Local is also all about revamping hometown favorites, like their Jumbo Coney. Their drink list includes $11 specialty drinks, wines, some draft beers and a variety of canned beers and seltzers.

Killer Queen 180 E. Freedom Way, The Banks Killer Queen is The Banks’ newest cocktail bar and pizza joint, with a menu that focuses on build-your-own pizzas, plus appetizers like salads and soft pretzels. They also boast a cocktail menu featuring drinks “inspired by the most treacherous kings and queens in history,” the bar says. The restaurant and bar has a high-energy atmosphere with an Americana-style interior, including a wrap-around bar, and is a catch-all for any activity, whether you’re enjoying

daytime drinks, watching the game or dancing until 2 a.m.

Amador 1 Levee Way, Newport Havana has come to Greater Cincinnati. Amador opened at Newport on the Levee in May with a menu featuring traditional Cuban dishes like empanadas, croquetas, and Cubano sandwiches, but with an “Amador twist.” The energetic and playful atmosphere aims to transport diners to a tropical vacation, with its jungle-esque vibe, lush greenery and an outdoor patio that overlooks the Ohio River and Cincinnati skyline. And unlike other Cuban restaurants, their small plates are meant to be shared. To drink, the restaurant has Cuban coffee, craft cocktails and Latin American beers, wines and rare spirits.

Chacabanas Cuban Sandwiches 1809 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine If you love Cuban sandwiches, you need to try one of the newest eateries in town, Chacabanas (named after the shirt style popular in Cuba and the Dominican Republic). This sandwich shop specializes in authentic Cubanos with three options: the classic El Cubano (roast pork, ham, swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard on toasted Cuban bread); the Ybor City Cubano, made with roasted pork shoulder and featuring the addition of Genoa salami; or the Croqueta Preparada – their Cuban topped with their croquettes. Chacabanas also offers antojitos, or snacks,

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like yuca fries, empanadas and their croquetas.

former Pleasantry restaurant, 118 W. 15th St. in OTR.

Binski’s Bar

Voodoo Brewing Company

2872 Colerain Ave., Camp Washington When Binski’s Bar opened in Camp Washington earlier this year, it did so with the goal of being Camp Washington’s communal watering hole. The bar sits in a bright green building from the early 1900s that was originally a saloon and boarding house (wink wink). An Old Style sign hangs outside — “a signal to anyone in Chicago you’re about to walk into a great bar,” says owner Kiel Erdelac. Inside, visitors will find some classic bar staples like a CD jukebox, darts, rotating drink specials and a community that makes you feel welcome.

120 E 8th St., Downtown Meadville, Pennsylvania-based Voodoo Brewing Company brought its eclectic vibes to Cincinnati this year. The brewery/brewpub offers a variety of its award-winning beer, including some seasonal offerings, for every kind of taste, as well as handcrafted cocktails. To eat, Voodoo Brewing’s menu has bar-food staples, like nachos and burgers, but Cincinnati’s brewpub also has some Queen City-style offerings, like the Seven Hills Chili Bowl (cavatappi noodles smothered in Voodoo Brewing’s secret Cincy-inspired chili and topped with shredded cheddar, red chili beans and diced onions) or the Porkopolis Pig Wings, made with wings from Eckerlin Meats.

Gilligan’s on the Green 400 Wyoming Ave., Wyoming Gilligan’s on the Green opened in a former Wyoming firehouse in early November as an extension of the Village Green park and performance pavilion. The restaurant and taproom offers Irish and American fare for lunch, dinner and weekend brunches. On the menu, you’ll find classic Irish dishes like fish and chips, beef stew and shepherd’s pie with a Cincy twist alongside a mix of Irish- and American-inspired appetizers, sandwiches, burgers, salads and soups. Gilligan’s also has a full bar with wine, craft cocktails and beer brewed by West Side Brewing.

Colette 1400 Race St., Over-the-Rhine A restaurant from chef Danny Combs opened just steps away from Washington Park this November. Colette embodies Old World style, with a warm and inviting atmosphere that doesn’t lose that neighborhood feel. On the menu, you’ll find French and French-inspired cuisine like Raviole du Dauphiné (served with Comté cheese, ricotta and brown butter) and Steak Frites (an 8-ounce Creekstone New York strip steak with peppercorn sauce and served with fries). To drink, guests can choose from an extensive list of sparkling, white and red wines, craft cocktails and beer. And for dessert, don’t miss out on the Tarte Colette (chocolate fondant cake) or the MilleFeuille (caramelized puff pastry with crème diplomate).

Cowboy Sally’s Texas BBQ 7521 Gibson St., Liberty Township A new barbecue joint with slow-cooked meats, scratch-made sides and cheap, strong drinks opened in Liberty Township in December. At Cowboy Sally’s, you’ll find authentic Texas-style barbecue, cooked low and slow to infuse it with a rich, smoky flavor. Meat options include all the classics, as well as some

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Indulge in a fruity cocktail at tropical-themed Solstice.

Shake Shack

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unique offerings like tofu “burnt ends.” Guests have the option of getting their meats as tacos, hoagies, sliders or as a plate with two sides, cornbread, pickles and barbecue sauce. They also come à la carte as a quarter-pound or half-pound. To drink, choose from a selection of wine, beer or Cowboy Sally’s “cheap and strong” cocktails, including its alcoholic Slushees and the Giddy-Up! (vodka; tequila; Ole Smokey White Lightnin’; whiskey; pineapple, apple and orange juice; lime; and fruit). Cowboy Sally’s also has state-of-the-art robot servers to bring you your food and karaoke nights.

Lil’s Kitchen 601 Overton St., Newport; 301 Sixth Ave., Dayton Lil’s Kitchen, formerly known as Lil’s Bagels, opened in its shared space with Roebling Point Books & Coffee in April after failed lease negotiations pushed them from their Covington cafe. Lil’s Kitchen at Roebling Books and Coffee is a combination of Roebling’s third location and Lil’s Bagels reimagined. Inside, a taste of the former Lil’s Bagels’ colorful, funky interior blends into bookshelves, eclectic art, a full coffee bar and a modest but delectable menu of food. While the new menu has moved away from bagels and more toward sandwiches and other cafe offerings, everything is still made with the same chutzpah.

Feel Good Food Stop 6836 Main St., Newtown Feel Good Food Stop opened in Newtown this spring to offer nourishing breakfast and lunch dishes alongside some familiar favorite sweets from Fork and Pie Bakery. Guests will find a variety of breads, baked goods and pastries,

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all provided by Fork and Pie Bakery, including quiches, tarts and gluten-free breads. The restaurant also offers a full breakfast and lunch menu, with everything from breakfast quesadillas and avocado toast to açaí bowls and chicken and biscuits, much of the dishes crafted with organic and seasonal ingredients.

Galley on the Levee 1 Levee Way, Newport Newport on the Levee got a few more dining options when Galley on the Levee opened this October. The micro food hall offers four fast-casual concepts. Stick and Buns offers a variety of Asian dishes like bao, Korean chicken wings, beef bulgogi skewers, a crispy Thai chicken bowl and rotating dishes influenced by Kentucky and the Levee. For tacos, visit Los Tacos Hermanos. Four Mile Pig offers small-batch barbecue, and Zaria Italian Street Eats has a mix of pizzas, including gluten-free options; hand-rolled piadas and readymade and customizable pasta bowls – all using local and fresh ingredients.

Wildweed 118 W. 15th St., Over-the-Rhine Wildweed offers a menu that’s pastacentric and seasonally driven, but don’t call it an Italian restaurant says owner David Jackman, a Michelin-star chef. Jackman says he wants Wildweed to celebrate and showcase the best cultivated and wild-harvested products our region has to offer. The restaurant got its start as Sunday Sauce, a pop-up in Oakley, in 2019 and has gone through a few different iterations since. But now, Wildweed is planting its roots on Walnut Street, preparing to move into the bottom floor of the Columbia Flats project in Overthe-Rhine. But until then, you can grab a dish of this handcrafted pasta at the

7669 Blake St., Liberty Township Popular milkshake and burger chain Shake Shack finally opened its doors to its first Greater Cincinnati location this December. The fast-food chain is best known for its hand-spun milkshakes, as well as elevated American classics like their made-to-order burgers, crispy chicken, crinkle-cut fries and signature Hot-Ones Spicy ShackSauce for those who need a little punch in the mouth with their meal. They also offer a Veggie Shack, as well as non-dairy shake and frozen custard options.

Five Iron Golf 80 W. Fifth St., Downtown National indoor golf and entertainment company Five Iron Golf recently opened at Fountain Square. The 13,000-square-foot facility has 13 golf simulators, as well as other leisure games and a full bar and restaurant. On the menu, you’ll find classic apps like spinach and artichoke dip, chips and guac and boneless wings, as well as flatbread-style pizzas, sandwiches, sliders and wraps. To drink, try a cocktail like their Aperol spritz, Rain Delay, or choose from a selection of their wines, beers, ciders and hard seltzers.

bb.q Chicken 150 W. Fourth St., Downtown This South Korea-based chain opened its first location in Cincinnati this spring. bb.q, which stands for “best of the best quality,” serves Korean fried chicken in a variety of flavors, like honey garlic, golden original and Gangnam style, with black pepper sauce. The menu also offers a selection of Ddeok-Bokki, a Korean street food made of rice and fish cakes, as well as sides like french fries, pickled radish and fried dumplings.

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MUSIC

Story of the Year P H OTO : C O U RT E SY O F STO RY O F T H E Y E A R

Revisiting the Classics Story Of The Year is celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Page Avenue, with a walk down memory lane. BY A L A N S C U L L E Y

wenty years after their 2003 major label debut album, Page Avenue, put Story Of The Year at the forefront of an emerging emo scene where bands combined melodic, hardrocking songs with a mix of screamed and sung vocals and highly charged personal lyrics, the band is once again making noise in the music scene. After seeing a return to action with the December 2017 release of the album, Wolves, get interrupted by the pandemic, 2023 became a busy year for Story Of The Year. The band released a new album, Tear Me to Pieces, in March, spent part of the summer opening for Yellowcard and have now begun a tour that celebrates the anniversary of Page Avenue.

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For fans of Story Of The Year, it’s a welcome return, especially considering the band’s activity had been spotty throughout most of the 2010s, and there were times when it wasn’t clear how active the band would be going forward. “Part of it was this kind of music just wasn’t as popular for a few years, in the early 2010s. So we slowed down as well,” singer/guitarist Dan Marsala explained in a recent phone interview. “Yeah, there were a lot of years where it was like ‘Okay, are we done? Is this a thing that maybe we’ll just kind of do here and there?’ We never even thought about breaking up or anything because it’s our band and we love what we do. It was just whether or not we were going to do it full time or not all the time.

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“And then we just started getting more excited and more excited and put out our last record, Wolves. And we were like ‘Okay, people still do like this,’” he said, noting that the recent resurgence of interest in the early 2020s for emo bands has also given Story Of The Year a boost. “It’s such a turnaround from where we were even like five years ago. It’s so exciting and so fun again, and we all 100 percent decided yes, we want to do this forever, as hard as we can until the fans stop showing up and they won’t let us do it anymore.” Page Avenue was clearly a life-changing moment for the four original and still-current members of Story Of The Year — Marsala, guitarist Ryan Phillips, bassist Adam Russell and drummer Josh

Wills. (Longtime guitarist Philip Sneed, who joined soon after Page Avenue was ousted from the band in 2018). Formed in St. Louis in 1999 under the name Big Blue Monkey, the band released five independent EPs by 2002 and had become a frequent presence in the city’s club scene. But they realized things were reaching a dead end in St. Louis and moved to Los Angeles hoping to land a record deal. Funnily enough, the group had already made a contact in St. Louis that would soon put their career on a whole new trajectory. Just a couple of months earlier, in May 2002, Story Of The Year had won a contest to play at Pointfest, an annual all-day modern rock festival sponsored

“He just kind of put everything in perspective,” Marsala said. “We had ‘Until The Day I Die’ written pretty early on, so he was like ‘That’s a good song. I can tell that one’s good. We’ll work on that one.’ But most of the other ones, he was like ‘Look, I think you guys can do better.’” by KPNT radio. The band used the appearance to hand out sampler CDs and videos to virtually anyone backstage who was connected to a band or the music industry. One of the videos reached John Feldmann, frontman of the band Goldfinger, a record producer and an A&R representative for Maverick Records. He liked what he heard and saw, and soon Story Of The Year got signed by Maverick and Feldmann was hired to produce Page Avenue. It turned out to be a good pairing, although during the course of writing and recording Page Avenue, the band frequently butted heads with Feldmann over his rather blunt, straightforward assessments of songs the band submitted. “He just kind of put everything in perspective,” Marsala said. “We had ‘Until The Day I Die’ written pretty early on, so he was like ‘That’s a good song. I can tell that one’s good. We’ll work on that one.’ But most of the other ones, he was like ‘Look, I think you guys can do better.’ And he kind of just convinced us to get in the practice space and write as much as we humanly, possibly can. We would bring songs to him every couple of days and he’d be like ‘Okay, that is a good one. That’s a keeper.’ Or we would bring three other ones and he’d be like ‘Nope, not good.’ He would always say ‘B-side at best. That’s a b-side. It’s not a good song.’ And as kids, we were crushed. We’re like ‘I love this song, dude.’” There was enough frustration then, in fact, that Story Of The Year chose a different producer, Steve Evetts, for their next album, In The Wake Of Determination. But Feldmann and Story Of The Year remained on good terms, and Feldmann produced some songs on the 2008 album, Black Swan. Looking back two decades later, Marsala is far more complimentary of Feldmann’s work on Page Avenue. “We were still finding our style and finding out what our band was,” Marsala said. “We were just trying so much weird stuff. We were bringing in all these like ‘80s metal influences and like the grunge thing, trying to stay up with what The Used and Taking Back Sunday were putting out currently. It was such

a confusing time. We had no idea what Story Of The Year would turn into. So I think Feldmann had a more clear vision of what he thought our band was going to be. “With perspective now looking back I’m like ‘Wow, he was completely right about everything,’ and that’s hard to take as a young, fragile-ego-ed kid,” the singer/guitarist said. “But he was very influential in the direction of those early days.” It turned out Feldmann’s instincts about “Until The Day I Die” were correct. It became the lead single and peaked at No 12 on the charts. A followup single, “Anthem of Our Dying Day,” reached No. 10 on the alternative rock singles chart, as sales of Page Avenue climbed to 800,000 copies. In fact, Story Of The Year wanted to reunite with Feldmann for Tear Me to Pieces, but his schedule never aligned to allow him to take on the project. Instead, Feldmann recommended Colin Brittain, which Marsala said worked out well, both as a producer and co-writer. “We really wrote probably about seven or eight of the songs in the studio once we got there, just writing with Colin and just being in the studio coming up with ideas,” Marsala said. Now Marsala and his bandmates are excited about doing the 20th anniversary of Page Avenue tour — he noted the songs will be scattered throughout the set, but the full album will be performed — and the band members plan to begin work on a new album early in 2024. Long known for their energetic and athletic live shows, Marsala said that aspect of Story Of The Year hasn’t changed, even though the band members are now in their 40s. “I’m still a 17-year-old kid in my brain and everything is exactly that same,” Marsala said. “My voice is actually way better now since I take care of it more and warm up properly. I can sing and scream better than I ever could, which is awesome. That’s a bonus. The jumping around on stage, now that’s a lot harder than it used to be.” Story Of The Year plays Bogart’s on Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. Info: bogarts.com.

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SOUND ADVICE

Kiss Off IV: A Tribute to Kiss P H OTO : ST E V E Z I EG E L M E Y E R

DIGABLE PLANETS Jan. 23 • Bogart’s In 1987, Ishmael Butler (“Butterfly”), Craig Irving (“Doodlebug”) and Mary Ann Vieira (“Ladybug Mecca”) formed the jazz rap group Digable Planets in Brooklyn. In 1993, they released their seminal debut album, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), now more than 30 years old. Alongside their counterparts like A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers and De La Soul, they infused rap with jazz samples. Their signature song “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” not only became a part of the hip-hop canon, but it also won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Vieira’s “cool like dat” voice contributed a much-needed

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female perspective in a male-dominated space. In 1994, they released their sophomore record, Blowout Comb, a political record about Black liberation. Though it didn’t produce any hits, it influenced other artists. With only two albums under their belt, Digable Planets broke up in 1995. All the members of the group have done solo projects, including Butler’s Shabazz Palaces. In 2005, the group reunited for a tour, and since 2015 they’ve been steadily touring. They haven’t released any new full-length material but released the compilation album Beyond the Spectrum: The Creamy Spy Chronicles and a live album. Butler’s smooth talk-rap lyrics imbue

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everything from rapping about “where I’m from” to the timely abortion rights “La Femme Fetal.” Butler raps: “If Roe v. Wade was overturned, would not the desire remain intact/Leaving young girls to risk their healths/And doctors to botch, and watch as they kill themselves.” Considering this was written more than 30 years ago, it demonstrates how on the pulse the group was with progressive rights that still echo today. Despite only releasing those two records in the ’90s, Digable Planets remains a force in hip-hop and beyond. In June, they’ll perform at the Hollywood Bowl with legends like Common, the Roots and Queen Latifah. The trio has staying power because

of their ahead-of-its-time lyrics and the fact that great rap doesn’t go out of style. Digable Planets plays Bogart’s on January 23 at 6:30 p.m. Info: bogarts. com. (Garin Pirnia)

KISS OFF IV: A TRIBUTE TO KISS Jan. 27 • The Southgate House Revival Kiss themselves may have just played their last Cincinnati performance in October of last year, shortly before their final ever concert held in New York on Dec. 2, but the spirit of the band and the music live on. This is thanks in part to fans like the group of

27 at 8 p.m. Info: southgatehouse.com. (Brent Stroud)

BRANFORD MARSALIS

Digable Planets P H O T O : J E S T E R J AY G O L D M A N , W I K I M E D I A C O M M O N S

Branford Marsalis P H OTO : U. S. E M BAS SY B R AS I L I A , W I K I M E D I A C O M M O N S

Cincinnati area musicians and organizers who host the annual Kiss Off event, held this year on Jan. 27 at the Southgate House Revival. The event, now in its fourth year and the first since Covid, acts as a fundraiser for storied local venue the Southgate House Revival. The Kiss Army (Kiss fans) joins forces with the Salvation

Army for a yearly one-night volunteer fundraiser concert which helps out with the Southgate House Revival’s equipment expenses. Organizer Tina Sullivan, vocalist for local band Phantom Queen and owner of Bang Bang Hair Salon says she used past experience with a similar group show to put together the first Kiss Off

shortly after Southgate House Revival’s 2011 relocation, when photographer friends mentioned having trouble photographing shows because of the new venue’s lighting rig. “Morrella (Raleigh, general manager of Southgate House Revival) and all the people at that place are like family to me, and I couldn’t think of anyone who deserved help more than they did,” Sullivan told CityBeat. “They’re always so giving and supportive of our local scene here.” This year’s goal will be a new sound system for the Lounge stage. Sullivan, who bought her first record, Kiss’ self-titled debut, as a child at Phil’s Records on Dixie Highway, says the Kiss theme is due in part to the band’s huge catalog of songs to pick from and the opportunity for attendees to dress up. She compares the shows to Halloween, complete with a costume contest for the finest dressed Kiss lookalike. “Everyone brings it and gets so pumped up about it,” Sullivan said. “If I had to mention just one highlight, I’d say having the best rock photographer in town (Steve Ziegelmeyer) who’s actually shot the real Kiss probably too many times to count, comes every year and shoots the whole show, free of charge because that’s how much he wants to show his support for the local music scene and all things Kiss.” Local musicians perform Kiss classics at this year’s Kiss Off fundraiser on Jan.

Jan. 28 • Memorial Hall Award-winning jazz musician Branford Marsalis has helped carry the medium forward, building on traditions and, at times, stepping outside of them. Marsalis is also a composer for film, a multi-genre collaborator, a sometimes actor, an educator and more. Born in the home of jazz, New Orleans, Marsalis, along with brother Wynton Marsalis, have become jazz legends in their own right. While a student at Berklee College of Music and early on in his career, Marsalis played with jazz legends like Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey and Herbie Hancock, as well as with his brother Wynton’s quintet before moving on to his first solo release, 1984’s Scenes In The City. Marsalis began a long working relationship with musician Sting in 1985 and formed his own group, the Branford Marsalis Quartet, the following year with the release of Royal Garden Blues. The group would go on to win a Grammy in 1992 for I Heard You Twice the First Time, the first of three for Marsalis. He became the bandleader for The Tonight Show that same year, bringing along the members of his group before leaving in 1995. Additionally, Marsalis has popped up all over the musical landscape: he plays saxophone on Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power;” blended contemporary sounds and hip-hop with jazz to great effect with his collaborative project Buckshot LeFonque; built a storied connection collaborating with the Grateful Dead, along with countless other guest appearances. As an actor, Marsalis had a part in Spike Lee’s School Daze (1988), as well as a handful of other on-screen appearances including the 1987 comedy Throw Momma From the Train, two cameos in episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and more. On the other side of film and TV, Marsalis has composed music for films like Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020), Rustin (2023) and his Emmy nominated score for Tulsa Burning (2021). Marsalis also served as the Creative Director of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Ascent Series in 2013, performing many concerts with the orchestra. Branford Marsalis performs at Memorial Hall on Jan. 28 at 8 p.m. Info: memorialhallotr.com. (BS)

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DOUBLE O AGENT CROSSWORD

BY B R EN DA N E M M E T T Q U I G L E Y W W W. B R E N DA N E M M E T TQ U I G L E Y.C O M logo

34. Raise interest, maybe?

Across 1.

Bits of garnish

Pest control target

35. R&B singer Norwood forgoing the band? 39. Dutch South African colonist

10. Hesitant to join in

42. Young-___ (small fry) 43. Go this-a-way

16. “Light dawns on Marblehead”

44. Stage direction word

17. Compliment the double reed wind instrument?

48. Steph Curry, vis-à-vis the NBA AllStar Ballot?

19. Baby shower attendee

53. Mathematician Lovelace

20. Fenders are often attached to them

54. Making minor adjustments

21. Bloop single’s outcome, at times

55. A pair of

22. “Gimme Shelter” singer

56. “Heartbreak House” playwright

24. Object often cut in office pranks

32. Beating in a photo finish 34. Debt security

NYC cathedral, familiarly

35. Congeniality

Gun-owner’s paper

36. Booming

Combining figure

37. One who works with a stethoscope

Ancient Egyptian goddess

38. To be paid

The Theatre Cat in “Cats”

39. “Strategery,” e.g.

Issue in porn?

43. Cab alternative

Gloat over annoyingly

Back in the good old days

45. Polynesian island formerly known as Otaheite

Upton Sinclair masterwork

27. Car seat piece 29. Some lactation consultants: Abbr.

61. Laundry room fixture

13. Wanted badly

30. Compete

62. Zelenskyy’s nat.

18. Kimono accessory

31. Cellphone set-up cost

63. Makes happy

23. Crack house?

33. Right triangle’s side

64. Baseball team with a skyline in its

25. Ready for business

59. It’s a bout finished: Abbr.

60. Cheer for Lionel Messi

LAST PUZZLE’S ANSWERS:

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56. Memphis record label whose logo is snapping fingers

52. Listing in a filmography

51. Leather puncher

50. In ___ (unborn)

49. Slopping sounds

12. Bridge no-no

47. Least polished

11. How undisputed facts are taken

58. When the curtain goes up for a Verdi opera?

46. “When the Snow Is on the Roses” singer

10. “Band on the Run” band

57. David Bowie’s wife

25. Black cat, maybe?

28. Somewhere overseas, say

66. Like some pigs Down

41. One of a sheepdog’s watch

15. “Not again”

65. “___ soon”

33. Drop it

40. Diploma alt.

14. Readies a baseball for a young batter

26. Peanut Butter Cakesters cookie

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