FRONTLINES

edited by WILLIAM POWELL QUEEN CITY

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When I was 24 and opening my rst bar
in Chicago, I would pee anywhere.
Frontlines 26
As many as seven Abe Lincolns take to
the stage for plenty of big gay dancing.
Whats Happening 34
When you read the words miniaturist art,
well forgive you for picturing teeny tiny
paintings. Art 36
DECEMBER 201 1 | CI NCI NNATI | 25
Happy Hour
4EG is trying to turn this city into
a party town, one bar at a time.
BY WI LLI AM POWELL
FRONTLINES
26 | CI NCI NNATI | DECEMBER 201 1
The Portfolio
Four Entertain-
ment Groups
nine local bars
are aliveOne,
Mt. Adams
Pavilion, and
Tap & Go in Mt.
Adams; Key-
stone locations
in Covington
and Hyde Park;
The Lackman
in Over-the-
Rhine; The Righ-
teous Room
downtown; The
Sandbar in the
East End; and
The Stand in Mt.
Lookout.
Division
of Labor
The companys
growth has
allowed the
partners to
specialize.
Klopp does ac-
quisitions and
creates the con-
cepts; Cronican
operates the
food-serving
establish-
ments; Deck
runs the bars
and nightclubs;
and Halpern
manages their
four bars in
Chicago.
Rugby Scrum
In 2009, 4EG
opened a rugby
bar, Tap & Go,
in partner-
ship with the
Cincinnati Wolf-
hounds, whom
Deck plays for.
Older
and Wiser
Klopp says that
as the partners
settle down
(Deck is the
only bachelor),
the bars have
grown up. Now,
its important
that we have
comfortable,
clean bath-
rooms, he says.
When I was 24
and opening my
rst bar in Chi-
cago, I would
pee anywhere.
BAR HOP
A
FEW MONTHS AGO, I WAS
sitting in the back row at the En-
semble Theatre, waiting for a play
to start. My wife was talking, but I tuned
her out to eavesdrop on the rich-looking
60-somethings in the row in front of us. A
lady was raving about this hip cocktail bar
she had discovered before the show, The
Righteous Room. When I finally turned
back to my wife and asked for a recap of her
monologue, she grudgingly repeated that
we could get a discount up the street at The
Lackman if we showed our program. In a
nutshell, thats how Four Entertainment
Groupwith nine bars and counting
has built a nightlife empire in Cincinnati:
community-driven marketing and wide-
ranging appeal that crosses demographic,
and in this case generational, lines.
The city has been waiting for a criti-
cal mass of bar owners to gure out that
formula. Ever since Main Streets old bar
scene lost its luster a decade ago, weve
been without an after-hours epicenter.
Now, nightlife seems to nally be staging a
comeback, with 4EG leading the way.
But because their bars are all so dier-
ent, quantifying their appeal can be tricky.
Unless you have multiple personalities,
you probably dont like all nine. Then
again, unless youre the last holdout from
the temperance movement, you probably
like more than one. (And as long as youre
not lactose intolerant, you surely love the
creative ris on mac-and-cheese at Key-
stone Bar & Grill.) The idea is to create a
personality at each barthrough decor, at-
mosphere, music, food, and drinksthat
lls a neighborhood niche. Pavilion caters
to the dance-happy partiers of Mt. Adams,
The Lackman to the progressives of the
Gateway Quarter, The Stand to the town-
ies of Mt. Lookout, and on and on.
You cant impose your will of what you
think is cool upon a group of people who
want something dierent, says co-owner
Ben Klopp, who is one of the four partners
behind 4EG, along with Bob Deck, Dan
Cronican, and Dave Halpern. Its got to be
something that the neighborhood needs.
Often, it takes some time for a bars
identity to emerge. We almost didnt
put in a DJ booth when we first opened
Pavilion, Cronican says during a group
interview at their new redeveloped oces
overlooking Washington Park. His part-
ners chuckle knowingly. Its trial and er-
ror, Klopp adds. Weve repainted a lot of
buildings. More laughs.
Given the companys growth, its hard
to believe its less than a decade old. 4EGs
origin story goes like this: Klopp, Deck, and
Halpern were fraternity brothers at Miami
University in the early 90s. After gradua-
tion, Deck moved to Atlanta for chiroprac-
tic school, and Klopp and Halpern ended up
in Chicago, where they opened a pair of bars.
The only Cincinnati native of the group,
Deck nished school and moved back to
start a chiropractic practice. When Klopp
and Halpern wanted to expand, Decks ex-
perience (he had been bartending for years,
starting at Coconut Joes on the waterfront)
and local contacts made the Queen City an
obvious choice. They decided to purchase
both Chases (which morphed into aliveO-
ne) and Pavilion in Mt. Adams and brought
in Cronican, a childhood friend of Klopps
from Lima, Ohio, to help.
When aliveOne and Pavilion first
opened in 2002, the guys did everything
themselves, sometimes working 18-hour
days. Youd work all day on the business,
then you would have to work all night in
the business, Klopp says. Meaning: hours
of painting, deliveries, and accounting
followed by more hours of managing the
sta and pouring drinks. And thats to say
nothing of the time required to pursue new
projects. No matter how tired you are, you
just have to create those hours to look for
new business, Klopp says. If youve got to
go see a space at 8 tomorrow, no one cares
that you didnt get to bed until 5.
Even now, with a sta that includes in-
terns, a marketing director, and managers
who report to other managers, the guys are
always working. Going out with them would
be maddeningthey pick apart every detail
of any bar they walk into. When you own
places, its just a disease, Deck says. Im
instantly like, What are they doing here?
Klopp plays a game with his wife when-
ever she drags him to a bar he doesnt enjoy.
He assigns point values to the various as-
DECEMBER 201 1 | CI NCI NNATI | 27
pects that bother himthe music, a
light xture, that ladys shirtand
if he reaches ve points, they never
have to come back. The guys use that
sort of eld research to tweak their
existing bars.
And 4EG continues to expand.
In November, they opened a second
Keystone location in the old Hyde
Park Tavern, so eastsiders can enjoy
that gooey mac-and-cheese without
having to cross the river. Along with
Boca Restaurant Group, they are
part of a multi-building project at
Sixth and Walnut in the spaces that
formerly held Maisonette, La Nor-
mandie, and Barleycornsmarking
the third 3CDC redevelopment proj-
ect that 4EGs been involved with.
When Klopp first brought his
partners to tour a space at 13th and
Vine in OTR, they were skeptical. I
remember standing there like, What
the hell are you talking about? Deck
admits. But two years later, that
space is The Lackman, a hip bar with
a great beer selection, and the block
has taken o with other trendy spots
like Senate, A Tavola, and Taste of
Belgium. The neighborhood has
come so far, Cronican says. Its
kind of a domino eect.
4EG does good work for charities
(such as the Freestore Foodbank and
Drop Inn Center), but their ultimate
aim is to make the city a better place
to live. The partners see every busi-
ness in the local economy as sharing a
common goalgrowing Cincinnati.
Look at our business and the most
unrelated business you can think
ofmaybe Procter & Gamble, Klopp
says. When P & G tries to recruit,
Cincinnati is a viable place for top-
tier kids to move because of us. We
in turn need the Procter & Gambles
to provide our customer base. Its an
interdependency.
Or as Chad Munitz from 3CDC
likes to say, a neighborhood needs to
be a mix. Live. Work. Play. Theres
nothing better, Deck says, than
standing in the middle of one of my
bars and seeing people just having a
good time.
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