Eye Opening Trip to Bellefontaine

On Tuesday my retailing class took a fieldtrip to Bellefontaine, Ohio. We went on this trip to see how an Ohio Northern Alumni, Jason Duff, has been restoring the downtown area. Since I have been attending Ohio Northern, I have never driven to Bellefontaine. I assumed that it was a small town with nothing to do, like Ada. I was very wrong. I was able to see through this field trip that there is interesting places to eat and shop at in Bellefontaine. A pizzeria, Six Hundred Downtown, is locally owned by a five time world champion pizza. Ohio's best brew bar, Brewfontaine, is also located in Bellefontaine's downtown. Two places that really caught my attention were City Sweets & Creamery and Whit's Frozen Custard. Both of these places sell my favorite part of any meal, dessert. There were also multiple boutiques or stores that sold clothing, furniture or jewelry. We were able to stop in to many of the shops down town, but I am planning a trip to go in the future so I'm able to take my time and shop around more. 

Jason also gave us insight on how he's been able to bring back life to downtown Bellefontaine. The craziest bit of information he gave us, is how he purchased each boarded up and neglected building for one dollar. Although he purchased the building for a single dollar, he has had to spend large sums of money on actually restoring the buildings to pristine condition. He also talked about future plans, like adding in a Mexican restaurant with a tequila bar, Brewfontaine is adding another building next door with an outdoor patio for hosting events and restoring a larger building that could possibly be a concert venue. I was extremely impressed with the town of Bellefontaine, that I originally thought had nothing worth my while of making the half-hour trip.