Worthington Business Spotlight Series: Aardvark Wine & Beer

Adding to the appeal and uniqueness of a community, local businesses play an important role in growth and economic development. In Worthington, we have new and tenured businesses that reflect our community's character and complement our historic charm. These establishments give back to the community in ways that help build awareness, foster continued growth, and provide goods and services to Worthington and its visitors. At Building Worthington’s Future, we understand the significance of development to the city, schools, business community, and citizens. In continuing our mission to be an educational resource for the community and understanding the benefits of development within our boundaries, we asked businesses around Worthington to share their experiences as business owners in Worthington.

What inspired you to start your business and when did you start it?

We opened Aardvark Wine & Beer in November 2022. I previously co-owned House Wine in Old Worthington and decided to separate from that partnership in 2019. I've been passionate about wine and entrepreneurship, so Aardvark was an opportunity for my wife Megan and I to build our own business. I wanted to create something that was in line with our values and interests and make it an integral part of our community.

What drew you to locating in Worthington and what do you love about doing business here?

We live in Worthington and love our community. We'd rather build something near our home and have the opportunity for it to thrive and give back here. The Worthington community is a very strong supporter of local businesses and I believe they care about quality products and other intangibles of our business. We offer free delivery so it's also enjoyable to visit various people in all of the neighborhoods when delivering their wine.

With your customer base in mind, do you feel you would benefit from either more residential or more tourism/traffic? Yes to both. More people would be beneficial to any business, whether they live here or they're visiting us. I feel that Worthington is really losing out to the surrounding suburbs when it comes to development and attracting people to spend their dollars here, whether it's development, opening a business here, or visiting. With less development, there's less opportunity or potential. Gratefully, The Worthington Partnership and Experience Worthington are doing their part to keep and bring people here to spend their dollars in our community through the Worthington Farmers Market or other events.

What do you think Worthington can do to attract more business and be more "business friendly?”

I don't know all of the answers here but there doesn't seem to be much opportunity for businesses in Worthington because of the lack of development and vacancies, especially in the core of the community. I'm also not a fan of seeing the same vanilla concepts that you'll find in a strip mall in every suburb. If you look at Old Worthington and Linworth, there is a mix of small businesses that complement each other with quality offerings.

We also have a history of NIMBYism and some in our community push back on anything that creates opportunities. We should be striving to create jobs in Worthington that bring tax revenue but also offerings to add to the Worthington experience. We can preserve what's great about Worthington at the same time. There has to be a balance between preservation and creation. We need to understand what brings in additional revenue as well as what can become a costly burden.

Do you have upcoming plans that you'd like the community to know about? We're excited that we'll soon expand our business within our current building, doubling our space. Our retail area will double in size, and we'll have an area where we'll serve wine and beer. We've already become one of the leading retail wine shops in Central Ohio and will continue to grow our business and what we can do in our community.

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