25-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Clocktower Kitchen + Bar to open in historic Plain City building this summer
Plain City's historic clocktower building is getting a new farm-to-table restaurant.
Plain City's historic clocktower building is getting a new farm-to-table restaurant.
Clocktower Kitchen + Bar expects to open this summer at 101 S. Chillicothe St. in the growing Central Ohio community.
It will take approximately 9,000-square-feet and two floors of the more than 10,000-square-foot building.
New Grounds Coffee, which is expected to open next month, will occupy the remaining space in the building which is topped with a 123-year-old clock.
Andy Warnock and his Westwood Collective, along with Plain City resident Rayce Robinson, bought the building in 2023 with plans to redevelop it. The ground floor most recently was an antique shop and historically was a hardware store.
Clocktower Kitchen + Bar is a new concept from Benjamyn Greig, Shane Whitacre, Chelsea Whitacre and Jenna Fisher.
The Whitacres own Chef's Table Catering. Fisher and Greig are restaurant industry veterans.
'We came over to the building, we and saw how much work Andy and Rayce were putting into it and we wanted to be part of it,' Greig said.
Greig's worked in hospitality since his teens. In addition to local experience including five years at Local Roots in Powell and, most recently, five years with High Bank Distillery, he also spent four years helping open and run restaurants in Las Vegas.
He has helped with Chef's Table since its founding in 2012.
Clocktower will serve American classics with an emphasis on fresh ingredients with local farm-to-table sourcing.
'We have access to so much great produce, so many great farms out here,' Greig said.
The menu still is in development.
The hope is to be open in time for Rock the Clock, the annual outdoor concert and street festival put on by Tim Dawson, owner of The Grainery in uptown Plain City.
Robinson said Clocktower will fill a need in the local dining scene as an elevated offering.
'There's a lot of pizza options here and (The Grainery) does an amazing job, but this will be different, a full-fledged upscale restaurant,' he said.
The restaurant will seat 110 to 120 in the main dining room, which will include a sizable bar in addition to booth, banquet and table seating. There's a room on the first floor that can be either additional seating or private dining space.
The second floor, up a historic set of stairs, will be for events run by Chef's Table. It'll hold approximately 120 for everything from weddings to corporate functions.
Warnock and Robinson also own the neighboring building that houses a Brick House Blue coworking space.
'When we're hosting meetings there from companies like Ease Logistics or Kimball Midwest or Cardinal Health, they'll be able to leave that and come here for a meal or cocktail,' Robinson said. 'This is a great complement to that.'
While the developers and restaurant operators see a local need for the growing community, the hope is to draw more visitors to Plain City's evolving uptown scene alongside The Grainery, The Silo music venue and 114 West, a private cocktail bar.
Though it might strike some as being far, Plain City is minutes from I-270 and an easy drive from Dublin or Hilliard.
'People probably thought Powell was far out there about 20 years ago,' Robinson said.
Westwood also has projects and investments in downtown Hilliard and London.
A.M. Scott Distillery initially was going to operate a restaurant and bar in the clocktower building, but departed the project late last year.
