The Nati

Well, the rumors have been flying for a while now, but the Enquirer made it official today. Jeremy Thompson (who currently runs concessions for Bengals) will be buying and re-opening the OTR staple, Kaldi's Coffee and Books. I am super excited about that, and it's great to see they'll bring back live music and be part of MPMF.

We'll need to get Lily Pad live on Main Street for their official re-opening in late August. I'm glad to see this happening, it's great for the neighborhood which seems to chronically have it's ups and downs. But there certainly are a ton of new residential units coming online in the area and the Art Academy is about to open, which will be a built in customer base for the coffee house.

Update: Kaldi's will have a soft opening on July 29th for Final Friday. They will then have the following schedule in August leading up to an official Grand Opening for Final Friday in August:

• Fri 8/5 5-close kitchen closed
• Sat 8/6 5-close kitchen closed
• Thurs 8/11 5-close Kitchen open with light menu
• Fri 8/12 5- close kitchen open
• Sat 8/13 5-close kitchen open
• Tues 8/16 11-2 lunch, 5-close w/ dinner
• Wed 8/17 11-2 lunch, 5- close w/ dinner
• Thur 8/18 11-2 lunch, 5-close w/ dinner
• Fri 8/19 11-2 lunch, 5-close w/ dinner
• Sat 8/20 11- close with food all day
• Monday 8/22 10-9PM w/ food
• Tues 8/23 10AM- midnight w/ food
• Weds 8/24 10AM- midnight w/ food
• Thurs 8/25 10AM- midnight w/ food
• Friday 8/26 GRAND OPENING

Check out 88.3 - WAIF Wednesday for the Brian and Joe Radio show. The first half of the show starting at 10 AM will have the following:

City Council candidate Rev. Damon Lynch III and bestselling author
Peter Block - a worldwide leader in the practice of organizational development
and community engagement - will join us to discuss plans to change areas around
Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine.

Should be a great show. Peter Block is great, and you may just learn a couple things you didn't know about Damon Lynch. Take a listen.

Will this man be your next Supreme Court Justice:

John Roberts was appointed and the attacks have begun. I still need to read up to form my own opinion, but being just confirmed in 2003, it seems hard to imagine that he'd get held up. Since the previous agreement was for 'extreme cases', I can't imagine someone that was just confirmed to the 2nd highest court 2 years ago would be called an 'extreme' nominee.

I must say, that although I don't think it was mandatory, I was surprised that the candidate was neither a woman nor a minority.

Tall Stacks group ticket sales went on sale earlier this month and the initial results are more than 3x the sales from the same period last event. This is great news for the event. I am also pleased to see the ticket sales have gone up. You may have seen that the event actually lost money despite attracting more than 900,000 people. This was due to the fact that the 5 day festival pass (including music festival) was only $12. That is incredibly low. Especially when you consider that many of the acts that played Tall Stacks were at a music festival in Austin the month before (Austin City Limits Music Festival) that charged $75 for a 3-day event.

So I am glad to see them raise it, but still make it affordable ($20). That's a great price, but should also allow the festival to be financially successful, and bring more than a million people to the riverfront. It's a great celebration of Cincinnati History and great music... I love Tall Stacks!

Public Sales start in November, so keep an eye on the website for ticket info.