You people are making me think about nifty Columbus-area bars. This makes me type a lot. ;-)

Claddagh and Rusty Bucket are both nice. They’re chain-pubs, so there might be one closer to where you are; maybe in Cleveland.

But in Columbus there’s lots of bars other than Irish style. Larry’s is a nice local bar, unique to the Ohio State campus area. It attracts a little more mellow crowd than a lot of bars there, so we end up in there fairly often.

The St. James Tavern (which I have pictures from on Flickr) is also cool; it’s small, friendly, and has a Galaga machine. It’s a great pool-table-and-jukebox kind of bar.

In the artsy Short North near the University is Betty’s, which serves awesome fried plantains, pin-up art, and NOW stickers as somewhat documented here.

Down in German Village there’s a couple or three nice restaraunts/bars. Katzinger’s and the Old Mohawk come to mind immediately. You can visit the Book Loft nearby. When I was real little, my folks lived near there and I rode a bike on the cobblestone streets in that neighborhood.

Bento A Go-Go serves fairly priced Japanese-style food and drink and has a very cool upper level bar with brushed-metal fittings. It’s very hip. I don’t go there as often as I’d like to, because the food is good.

But as bars around here go, I generally prefer the Char Bar. It’s on High Street right across from the convention center, near the North Market. It’s big enough to have some space to move around in, but not too big. The drink prices are fair, and it’s a great place to meet a large-ish group of friends, as usually happens when we have people downtown. It’s also easy to go from there to other stuff around town.

Honorable mentions: Skully’s, which has buckets of retro-style and a stage. Little Brother’s, which is great to see music in. The Brazenhead, which is an upscale, pretty Irish-style pub/restaurant that will probably be doing a reading of Ulysses in about a week. And Barley’s Smokehouse is a brewery/pub which serves great barbecue-style food. Their sauerkraut balls are fantastic.

All that said, I think my favorite kind of bar is a sushi bar. :-)