Queen City’s king of bars

11.06.2018 - Advanced Reporting (Jour 3010)

 On the corner of West 13th and Republic, in Over The Rhine, sits a dimly lit bar — stain glass windows overhead read ‘TINCTURES’, ‘TONICS’, and ‘REMEDIES.’ Through the heavy doors and into the eclectic space, a bartender wipes down the counter, getting ready for the Tuesday happy hour crowd. To the right of the bar, sitting in a cozy corner booth is a man — his face buried into a Mac Book computer. He blends into the soft leather of his seat as if the whole place had been built around him. He wasn’t a regular of the bar but, in fact, he owned it. Stu King, founder of Circle Hospitality group and owner of the Cincinnati bar Sundry & Vice.

“He’s in here all the time, working on something,” Layne Schneider says. Schneider is one of the main bartenders at Sundry & Vice and has been here since the bar opened in 2015.

Humble Beginnings

King was raised on a small farm in the small Ohio town of Springfield. With a veterinarian father and nurse mother, hard work was something King learned from a young age — hard work on the family farm, hard work as the captain of his high school baseball team, and hard work in the classroom as an honor student. But King knew he would not live on a farm forever, recalling an early love for the vibrance of downtown Cincinnati. “looking back, it was a really wholesome way to be raised,” King says. “but I loved coming into Cincinnati as a kid because it was my idea of a ‘huge city’ at the time.”

After graduating High School in 1994, King was offered an academic scholarship to Ohio State University in Columbus. Although medicine seemed like an obvious path, he ultimately strayed from the family profession to study Communications.

“I love writing…telling stories,” King says. “[communications] allowed for a lot of broad, deep thought which was really cool to me.”

After graduation, King landed his first job with the Cincinnati Reds, in the sales department – finally moving to the city that he loved since childhood, and according to King, it fit like a glove.

“I remember my first experience driving through Over-the-Rhine,” he says. “The thing I remember was how beautiful it was, and that stuck with me. At the time, it felt like something was happening.”

During King’s first trip through OTR in 1999, the district was characterized by poverty and civil unrest. But King’s feeling that ‘something was happening’ had merit – An area that had been desolate in recent decades was beginning to awaken with local businesses, nightlife, and social happenings. But in 2001, this progress came to a halt when 19-year-old Timothy Thomas, an unarmed black teen, was shot and killed by Cincinnati police officers. What followed was the largest urban disturbance in the United States since the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

“The riots hit and all of that progress that we felt was being made, stopped,” King said. “It was disappointing and difficult to see all that really interesting progress being made come to a screeching halt because the city couldn't get its civil and human rights together.”

For King, the timing seemed right to leave Cincinnati – feeling pushed into a subconscious act of defiance against the city that had failed its community, “I loaded up my Mercury Mountaineer and drove by myself all the way across the country.”

Change on The Horizon

Not exactly sure what to do next, King began applying to law schools on the West Coast and was accepted to the University of San Diego School of Law on a full scholarship.

King became very successful after law school, something he attributes to his competitive spirit. But despite working for several years in Los Angeles, he began to long for his first love, Cincinnati. “Watching downtown LA Totally explode with development really made me think of what Cincinnati could be,” King says. “I thought back to that first drive through Over-the-Rhine in 1999. When I left [Cincinnati], that potential still stuck with me.”

It was during a holiday trip back to visit friends in Cincinnati, and a walk around the redeveloping OTR, that King’s passions came to fruition. “My first thought when I came back was ‘I want to be a part of this’,” King remembers. “It is really the reason why Sundry and Vice is here.”

After this trip, King recalls things just falling into place as if they were meant to be. With the help of a few business partners, he formed Circle Hospitality Group and began working on their first major project in Cincinnati. “I think we opened Sundry and Vice at the perfect time because people were really hungry for a different type of experience.”

That experience of Sundry and Vice something between a prohibition-era speakeasy, and a shrine to Cincinnati history, but you won’t find any old-fashioned cocktail on this unique cocktail menu, which is as diverse and changes about as often as King’s resume.

“We wanted to build a place that wasn't overshadowed by any place around the country, but at the end of the day I was still the kid from the farm, so I wanted to give it a Cincinnati hospitality feel. We wanted it to be approachable, humble.”

It turns out King is just as approachable and humble as a boss. “Working with Stu is always wonderful,” Says Ashley Ballard, who has worked at Sundry since moving from Chicago three years ago. “He takes care of all of us. He takes a personal interest in all our lives. Laughter always fills the air when he’s around, and when he’s not because that’s the type of work environment he provides at all times.”

At Sundry and Vice, King could let his passions flourish, in the city that sparked his inspiration since day one. King is a storyteller, and Sundry is a story. Every piece of furniture, every picture, every drink adding to the bigger meaning. It’s about King, about Cincinnati, about you, and about me. Every patron leaving their own mark as they sit and live here, even if just for a moment.

“I like that [bars are] the third space. It's the place that's not home or work and it's the place that you choose to go,” King said. “It’s very competitive but there's something really interesting about being in that space and figuring out why because this is a totally voluntary activity.”

He may have moved from a small town, but he never forgot the meaning of family.

“We are like one big happy family,” says Layne Schneider. “We always joke that if something were to happen to one of us, it would happen to all of us because we are always together, and all of Sundry would be wiped out ha.”

The next chapter for Circle Hospitality and King holds a new bar in the works for Cincinnati, but it is being kept a secret, for his eyes only. Although if you had to guess, it is probably another adventurous and unique tale.