Nightlife in Reynoldsburg

Gatsby’s offers its patrons plenty of entertainment, from the cheers that erupt from boisterous sand-volleyball games to the resonating vocals of live bands. Guests can watch performances from their seats or jump on stage during open-mic nights, as servers cart around trays filled with ranch-chicken pizzas and jumbo wings deep-fried in housemade Jim Beam barbecue sauce. Other finger-friendly foods include a half-pound Gatsby’s burger piled with sautéed mushrooms, onions, swiss cheese, and bacon, as well as a deep-fried and breaded pork tenderloin stuffed inside a Kaiser roll. Outside, a fleet of picnic tables provides ample seating, and a nearby sand court proffers games of volleyball to tiebreak sandcastle build-offs.

The 35-foot electric-guitar art piece suspended on the dining-room ceiling at FM Food and Music All-American Bar & Grill reflects the restaurant's musical theme. Live bands, dueling piano acts, and karaoke fill the restaurant with music several nights a week while diners dig into burgers and entrees of bacon-wrapped meatloaf named after chart-topping tunes.

Enormous projection screens and flat-panel TVs show sports night and day at Club 33. In between their own color commentary, patrons dig into hearty bar food—bacon topped burgers, sandwiches with gooey cheese, and golden-baked pizzas. On Friday and Saturday nights, a DJ takes the stage, as patrons shimmy out on the dance floor. The bar also accepts new teams into its pool league.

When Basil Restaurant opened in 2009, the Columbus Dispatch reported on owner Rhome Ruanphae's inspiration: his mother’s string of successful Thai restaurants—beginning with Thai Village in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood—that she ran with her husband while he was growing up. Rhome borrowed his mother’s culinary mastery for Basil, which teleports taste buds to Thailand with a menu of authentic Southeast Asian cuisine. Chefs gather rice or egg noodles to lay the foundation for many entrees, such as specialty kee mow, a soft or crispy maelstrom of rice noodles with thai basil, tomatoes, and bell peppers. The menu also features a rainbow of curries, soups, salads, and appetizers to keep ravenous diners from eating their napkins.

The seasoned confines of a former antique shop welcome diners to Basil Restaurant, decked out with bare brick and a retro advertisement for ice painted on the back wall. As a glittering chandelier casts light on colorful curries, wine-dark panels of varnished wood gaze at diners from the wall, and exposed lengths of ductwork add a neoindustrial aesthetic without the overkill of steam-powered dessert trays or austere Orwellian maitre d's.

The cobbled stonework that comprises Coaches Bar & Grill's exterior serves as an apt metaphor for how hard it can be to turn down items from the roster of burgers, pizza, and sandwiches. This cuisine basks in the glow of flat-screen TVs that stream a steady flow of sports games. As monitors display feats of athleticism, the kitchen staff displays feats of culinary prowess by cooking half-pound patties bedecked with cheese and bacon, along with a mélange of hot subs, sandwiches, and buffalo-chicken pizzas. From behind a dark wooden bar, their bartending counterparts pour beers and cocktails, which they disseminate to far-flung diners by shooting them out of a T-shirt cannon. The team also brings its serving game to the outdoors patio, where umbrellas shade picnic tables granting clear sightlines to several televisions.

Deep-fried sweet potato, jalapeño aioli, honey-infused wasabi. These aren’t ingredients found on the traditional sushi menu, but the chefs at Red Bar & Sushi somehow incorporate them into their lengthy repertoire of specialty rolls. The team puts their imagination to good use, designing innovative maki such as the UFC roll—crab, eel, jalapeño, and cucumber rolled together and deep-fried in a tempura batter—or the simple, but sophisticated, Samba roll made from tuna, cilantro, and avocado. Red Bar’s chefs offer the classics as well, including fresh servings of salmon, yellowtail, and octopus sashimi, and what they call “standard” sushi rolls, like the california roll crammed with crab and avocado or the philadelphia roll made with cream cheese.