From remote diners to downtown political havens, the restaurants of central Ohio satisfied palates for generations. In the era of Sunday drives before interstates, fabulous family-owned restaurants were the highlight of the trip. Sample the epicurean empires established by Greek, Italian, German and Chinese families. Recall the secrets of Surly Girl's chandelier, the delicious recipes handed down by chefs and the location of Flippo the Clown's former jazz hideaway. Following their previous book, Lost Restaurants of Columbus, authors Christine Hayes and Doug Motz deliver a second helping of unforgettable establishments that cemented central Ohio's reputation for good food and fun. That includes eighteen destination eateries in fifteen surrounding towns.

Dig into the storied restaurant history of the Buckeye State’s capital city. Ohio’s capital city has long had a vibrant restaurant culture that included German immigrants, High Street eateries and the fads of the times. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas wrote their thanks for a great meal at the Maramor. Yankees star Tommy Henrich held his customers spellbound with stories in his Diamond Room. Mama Marzetti dropped William Oxley Thompson’s birthday cake and swept it back up off the floor. Join authors Doug Motz and Christine Hayes as they explore the stories of Woody Hayes’s Jai Lai, manhole cover menus and bathtub décor at Water Works, as well as many other lost and beloved restaurants.

For nearly a century Columbus, Ohio pizza parlors have served up delicious meals by the tray and by the slice. This history goes back to the 1930s, when TAT Ristorante began serving pizza. Today, it is the oldest family-owned restaurant in the city. Over the years, a specific style evolved guided by the experiences and culinary interpretations of local pizza pioneers like Jimmy Massey, Romeo Sirij, Tommy Iacono, Joe Gatto, Cosmo Leonardo, Pat Orecchio, Reuben Cohen, Guido Casa and Richie DiPaolo. The years of experimentation and refinement culminated in Columbus being crowned the pizza capital of the USA in the 1990s. Author and founder of the city's first pizza tour Jim Ellison chronicles one of the city's favorite foods.

Collection of historical photographs of Columbus, Ohio.

Pigging Out is a state of mind -- the ultimate dining experience. In France, pigs are used to sniff out and find truffles, one of the true delicacies of haute cuisine. In Pigging Out in Columbus, author Carl Japikse is not looking for truffles, but for the ultimate food ecstasies in Central Ohio. And there are plenty of them to be found -- 111 in all.

With the opening of the Ohio State Reformatory in 1896, the state legislature had put in place "the most complete prison system, in theory, which exists in the United States." The reformatory joined the Ohio Penitentiary and the Boys Industrial School, also central-Ohio institutions, to form the first instance of "graded prisons; with the reform farm on one side of the new prison, for juvenile offenders, and the penitentiary on the other, for all the more hardened and incorrigible class." However, even as the concept was being replicated throughout the country, the staffs of the institutions were faced with the day-to-day struggle of actually making the system work.