The Line, equal parts high-end restaurant for diners and training ground for the people working in its kitchen, dining room and bar, debuts Oct. 8 in Downtown Columbus.
It's a bold and unique experiment from a local nonprofit that aims to elevate the status — and pay — of people in the restaurant industry through better training for all facets from prep work to management.
The Line, which will offer dinner and brunch to start with and expand in the new year to include breakfast and lunch service, will function as a working restaurant staffed by a mix of teacher-mentors and a cohort of 10 to 12 trainees learning on the job about every part of restaurant operations.
The restaurant at 145 N. Grant Ave. is a project of Service!, created in 2020 by
three Columbus food-service entrepreneurs to support bar and restaurant workers who lost jobs and paychecks during COVID-19 business shutdowns. It has since pivoted to training and advocacy for those on the industry's front lines.
"We're trying to do better for the people who work in this industry and should be proud to work in this industry," said Sangeeta Lakhani, a former owner of Short North restaurants Bodega and The Table who co-founded Service! and now serves as its executive director.
"For us, the people are the product," she said. "Yes, of course, good food is important and good drinks are important. But this should be a chest-out, chin-up job. You shouldn’t feel you have to say, 'I'm in the industry, but I'm only doing this while I look for the other thing.'"
The restaurant side of The Line
For diners, dinner or brunch at The Line will be exactly the same experience as a meal anywhere else.
The menu developed by chef Matthew Heaggans, another founder of Service! and owner of Preston's: A Burger Joint in Clintonville and Grandview Heights, features small plates and entrees that touch on Southern, Latin, Caribbean, Asian, Italian and other flavors.
There's a full bar right inside the front door of the former Columbus College of Art & Design building, and there are booths, tables and high-top seating in the dining room. A chef's table looks into the open kitchen, and a private dining area at the back of the restaurant also can be used as an event space.
The Line will be open Thursdays through Sundays to begin operations. It accepts dinner reservations between 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. (9:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays) and brunch reservations from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Six things to try for dinner at The Line
Among items we sampled at an Oct. 1 preview of The Line's menu, here's what we enjoyed most.
Gnudi: The "naked" Italian dumplings — they're like the ricotta filling of ravioli without a pasta jacket — are delicious and creamy, and they're lifted by two sauces: a brown butter sauce and fennel agrodolce, or sweet and sour. They come as their own course at $23.
Pork collar: A breaded, fried piece of pork is paired with its traditional accompaniment, apples, in the form of a subtly sweet, subtly spicy apple curry. It's an entree at $18.
Jerked half-chicken: Just what you'll hope for when ordering (but probably with less heat), the roasted chicken is seasoned with all the rich, intense Jamaican jerk spices. It comes with rice and peas for $27.
Beef tartare: A totally unique small plate combines the spicy flavors of mapo tofu with the soft texture of beef tartare. It's on the Snacks portion of the meu for $18.
Dirty rice suppli: Suppli are similar to another Italian snack, arancini, or fried rice balls. These are given a Southern twist, though, with chicken liver and andouille sausage and come with a bit of sweet, sour chow chow relish. They're $13.
Kohlrabi salad: Crunchy shaved slices of kohlrabi and celery and accompanied by shavings of a strong Spanish sheep's milk cheese, mild Castelvetrano olives, buttery breadcrumbs and sherry vinegar. The salad is $13.
The Line's mission, besides good food
"I want the food to be good, consistent and for people to love it," Heaggans said. "But our successful product is an educated workforce. People who leave here ready to do good work wherever they go."
For diners, that's the other, less visible part of The Line.
The restaurant also will serve as a classroom and training ground for people looking to advance in food service. It's similar to Café Overlook, which Service! created inside the Franklin County Government Center in 2022 to train people entering the industry. Lakhani said The Line's program, though, is designed for people already working in food service.
Four groups of students will move through its training program each year, rotating through stints as servers, bartenders, back-of-the-house workers and bartenders. “And everyone will do dishes, because I feel like everybody should realize the value of a dishwasher," she said.
In addition to the expertise of Lakhani, Heaggans and co-founder Letha Pugh, co-owner of Bake Me Happy, students will learn from other Columbus hospitality veterans such as sommelier Gregory Stokes, owner of Accent and Cordial. The training curriculum was developed with Otterbein University and Columbus State Community College, and Lakhani said students will be able transfer to either school with credits earned at The Line.
The goal, its founders said, is to help people build careers in bars and restaurants, as owners or leaders or in whatever capacity they desire.
"That's the mission of the work, and the food is just a tool," Pugh said. "To be able to be as impactful as we believe we can be in this industry: That, to me, is success."
Follow Dispatch dining reporter Bob Vitale on Instagram at @dispatchdining. You can reach him directly at rvitale@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: The Line, a new Columbus restaurant, doubles as a training ground
