Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 00:33:00

A former bank in Old North Columbus now deals in craft beer and loud guitars. Ace of Cups at 2619 North High Street was opened in 2011 by Marcy Mays - guitarist of the beloved Columbus band Scrawl - who turned the handsome old bank building into the north campus area's essential bar and concert venue: a 300-capacity concert room within a 375-capacity building, run by and for the city's musicians, artists and scene lifers. A decade of Mays's stewardship made the room a fixture for up-and-coming local, regional and national acts, music and cultural festivals, and staple dance parties like Heatwave and Sad Boyz. New owner Conor Stratton took over in 2021 and doubled down: renovated interior and patio, an expanded events calendar - karaoke and trivia Sundays, the monthly Punk Rock Pawn Shop market, even Unsanctioned Pro Wrestling - and a food lineup that stacks Columbus institutions, with Ray Ray's Hog Pit's barbecue truck outside, Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace moving in-house and the vegan-friendly Blackened Coffee Co. working the patio's drive-thru window. The bones stay the same: a fully stocked bar pouring local craft beer and house-infused liquors, a large covered patio, a proper green room for the bands and a stage rig - X32 desk, Crown-amped mains, seven monitor wedges - that outguns most rooms its size. It is the neighbourhood bar the Old North wanted and the small venue Columbus's scene needed, and it manages to be both on the same night. The room's standing in the national small-club circuit outruns its size - touring agents route first Columbus dates here on the strength of the sound rig and the crowd, and the venue's survival through the pandemic years, buoyed by community fundraising and the ownership transition, was treated locally as civic news rather than business news. High Street's bus lines stop at the door, the Old North and campus neighbourhoods walk in, and the bank vault energy still suits a room that holds the neighbourhood's valuables: its bands.