By Matteo Debole, October 12th 2020
Excited about The Arb opening up in downtown Oberlin? Here are six other businesses soon to open up in our sunny corner of Northwest Ohio:
Feral Dogs of Lorain County: In this quaint new storefront, your weird ex-friend from freshman year who lives in a village house down the street will finally be able to adopt a busted looking dog!!! It’s about time!! All the dogs are older than 10 years old, have glaucoma, and WILL bark at you in Azariah’s if you so much as think of walking to the water fountain. Yes, there is a required purchase of a winter sweater for your dog alongside the adoption. No, you can’t take it to parties.
The Joint That’s in Between One Street, and the Other Street. Currently Rebranding. Still expensive.
Hot and Triggered: After his ousting as the presidential press secretary in 2017, owner Sean Spicer wasn’t quite sure what to do with his life. But after three years in intensive outpatient therapy, Spicer was ready to open a restaurant, calling upon childhood friend Kate Gosselin (of onetime TLC fame) to act as his head chef, and securing a loan from David Archuleta (whose music will always be playing inside the restaurant). And where else could he get access to his two favorite things, raw chicken (unethically sourced), and triggered snowflakes? Oberlin, baby. There’s only one thing on the menu: a sandwich featuring a medium rare chicken thigh boiled in a vat of Frank’s Red Hot, smushed in between two house baked saltines. Smoooth.
Smol Beans and the Bourgeoisie: henlo! everyone wuvved this freshman seminar so much that professor of politics and sociology Farty Fanigold decided to turn it into a shoppe and cafe. are u a doggo who still believes there should be a heckin’ crosswalk in between the science center and wilder? do u want copies of politics books with illegible notes by a Bernie bro alumnus? do u want a safe space to do me a educate? doin you a heckin’ chat? goodbye apathy, henlo powitical doge.
Gaten’s Gorgonzola!: Do you miss the bead store? So do we. Which is why we’re so glad that Gaten Matarazzo ’73, star of Netflix’s Stranger Things, is opening his very own cheese store in the heart of Oberlin. According to Matarazzo, who was a dance major and political theory minor at Oberlin, “no one’s cheese is funkier than mine! Catch season 4 on Netflix this Christmas!” When asked if he had any spoilers, for the store or the show, Gaten started to cry, and pleaded for help, saying “PR is controlling me. I don’t even know who I am anymore. no one is safe! ” Gee whiz, I hope they’ve got mozaredla!!
Global Exhibition Escape Room: In this sized-to-scale recreation of Stevenson Dining Hall, you have 45 minutes to wait in the pasta line, get a vanilla soft serve, take the last slice of pizza, spill hamburger soup on your North Face, and run out the middle door of Griswold commons before Thomas Paine, professor Emeritus of Creative Writing and author of 1776’s Common Sense, catches you and flogs you on the balcony of the middle room for being a nasty little loyalist.