10 years after its start in the Short North, Brassica is poised for growth beyond Ohio
Bob Vitale- Brassica is a Columbus-based Mediterranean restaurant chain serving customizable bowls and sandwiches.
- The restaurant utilizes fresh ingredients and offers a variety of flavorful options for its dishes.
- After receiving a minority investment from Chipotle, Brassica plans to expand to new markets, starting with Cincinnati.
If you're looking for the most authentic Middle Eastern food around, Kevin Malhame knows there are lots of places other than Brassica, the build-your-own bowls and sandwiches restaurant he started 10 years ago in the Short North.
The grandson of Lebanese immigrants, he grew up eating the real deal. Brassica, he said, has never sought to go that route.
"We felt very good about taking flavors and ideas from wherever we wanted and serving our version of Mediterranean food — Columbus’ version of Mediterranean food, if you will," said Malhame, the cofounder and CEO of Brassica and its older siblings, Northstar Cafe and Third & Hollywood.
"We were not committed to approaching it with any sort of traditional mindset."
But while you might find more traditional Middle Eastern and Mediterranean restaurants around, you'd be hard-pressed to find one with a more devoted following. Over 10 years, Brassica has maintained an average Yelp rating of 4.5 out of five stars with over 2,500 customer reviews across its six locations.
The restaurant has expanded from its original spot in the Short North to Bexley, Upper Arlington, Easton Town Center and the Cleveland suburbs of Westlake and Shaker Heights. And it's poised for further expansion in the coming years, thanks to a minority investment from Chipotle, the national chain where the build-your-own model inspired Brassica's own operation.
Chipotle's Cultivate Next Fund helps businesses that it sees as strategically aligned: committed to using fresh, natural, responsibly sourced ingredients.
"Funding from Cultivate Next's minority investment will help Brassica scale to open new locations and expand to new markets," Nate Lawton, Chipotle's chief business development officer, said in announcing the move last October.
How Brassica got its start
When the popular Betty's Fine Food & Spirits announced plans to close the restaurant at 680 N. High St. in 2014, Short North developer Mark Wood approached Kevin, Katy and Darren Malhame about putting another restaurant in the space.
Kevin and Katy, who are married, were restaurant industry veterans who started Northstar Cafe in 2004. Darren, now the restaurants' president and general counsel, joined them as a managing partner a year later.
They decided on a Chipotle-esque fast-casual place that would serve Middle Eastern foods and flavors: freshly made pita, hummus and falafel, spiced chicken and beef and roasted, pickled or marinated vegetables. When Brassica opened in 2015, customers lined up out the door.
"Key components of Middle Eastern food are very, very familiar at this point," Kevin Malhame said. "Hummus and pita bread have become a staple for many people."
They wanted to take the familiar flavors a step further, though. Malhame still reminisced about falafel he ate in Paris 17 years earlier — "really, really fresh and crispy and vibrant" — and didn't want any of the grains or vegetables for customers' bowls to be considered thoughtless add-ons.
The brisket at Brassica is the same beef used to make hamburgers at Third & Hollywood, the family's more upscale, sit-down restaurant.
"Each component is meant to be really delicious on its own," he said. "Even if you just got a bowl of salad greens, it should be delicious." (The kale and napa cabbage blend is seasoned with olive oil, fresh lemon and Maldon sea salt.)
The first Dispatch review, a lukewarm 3.5 stars, still caught on to Brassica's "impressive list of flavor-bursting grains and veggies" and concluded that "those incredible vegetables are the heart and soul of this inspired restaurant."
They still are, even though the menu now includes extras such as tahini chocolate-chip cookies and the Brassarita, a frozen cocktail that combines a minty pink lemonade with tequila and Cointreau.
"It doesn’t taste like fast food, does it?" Malhame said of the whole lineup.
Where is Brassica heading next?
Chipotle's investment will fuel what has always been a slow, steady growth plan for Brassica, the CEO said. The owners took three years to open a second location, and they last expanded in 2021. The first Brassica in the Cincinnati area is set to open this spring, Malhame said.
"The approach is way more rational, thoughtful and supportive than you see in most scenarios where people come in with money to support the growth of an emerging brand," he said. "It's a best-case scenario for us."
Although nothing is in the works right now, Brassica will look at expansion beyond Ohio in the next few years, he said.
If it goes national, it will be the latest from a city that gave the world Wendy's, Max & Erma's, Buffalo Wild Wings, York Steak House, Charleys Cheesesteaks and more.
"There is this attitude that if it’s doing well here, you have an idea of how it will perform in other markets," Malhame said.
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