Hey, out there Akronites, welcome once again to Around Akron with Blue Green.

And yes, we have an amazing show ahead of us today.

I'm going to head to Downtown Akron to check out a new restaurant.

Then it's over to Barberton to meet up with Nikki Bartel and check out her haunted gallery.

And then we wrap up over in Kenmore with Chris Butler.

Now to kick this show off today is to downtown Akron to a new restaurant.

Formerly, The Soulful Vegan, now it's called, Phrase Bar and Grill.

Let's go see what the Phrase Bar and Grill is all about.

- My own, journey, basically years ago, I was just having really bad digestive issues.

And that made me take a look at my diet, had to see a gastroenterologist.

And I just began my own personal journey as far as removing certain items from my diet to see how it affected my body.

With me removing meat from my diet, it was just like, probably salads, vegetables.

And it just got really boring after a while.

And I just started experimenting on YouTube and just doing, you know, a little bit, pulling a little bit of recipes from different items that I saw.

And would just go in my kitchen at home and started, you know, small.

And my mom would be my, you know, taste tester and some things I would just throw completely away.

And then other things say, you know, we're really good.

And I just felt like if I liked it as probably more people who would like it.

And I had a gym at the time and I would take, you know, food into the gym and allow the members to taste it.

Everyone loved it and it just kind of progressively grew.

I had a gym for probably eight years and I've watched and helped many, many, many people, transition off of diabetic medicine.

I've seen people with stage four cancer live like 6 or 7 years for changing their diet.

And as I stated before, even if you're not vegan, there's probably family members who may have chronic illnesses who need restaurants like this around.

So, supporting us on one end or another can, you know, substantially help a family member or a friend of yours who who has illnesses and need these type of dishes in their lives and close vicinity.

We originally started out as a full, you know, fully vegan vegetarian restaurant, but, the size of the building, the difference in the prices, the vegan community just was not big enough to sustain us down here.

So we did have to bring in, you know, regular food.

And now we're kind of finding our way and trending back up.

But initially it was, you know, really hard.

We have a lot of blended tables.

We have, wives who are vegan, husbands who are not.

You know, family members eat together as well as— We do cook our food separately so there's no cross-contamination.

I'm vegan.

We have separate fryers, color coded, utensils and things like that so that our staff will not, you know, make those mistakes.

And the vegan side, I will say our rib dinner is still our number one and it's made out of jackfruit.

Yep.

That's still our number one seller.

We're trial and error, you know, just finding a two, you know, 2 or 3, right components to give the texture and taste.

The similarity of, you know, a real meat.

So we just try to... We have, you know, a mixture of ingredients that we've, you know, come about to make ours taste this close and look as close to regular food as possible.

Do the research.

Don't go off what you think.

Get the facts, do a business analysis, find a correct location, find a great realtor and do your research.

Don't go off a thought, do your research.

That's the best advice that I could give anyone.

Because what we think and what we feel is not what you want to start a business on you want to start it off effects.

- Next up, it's down to downtown Barberton to meet up with Nikki Bartel to learn all about her amazing artwork.

Let's go see what Nikki Bartel is all about.

- It's been there all my life, but I never associated myself as like an artist.

I was like, oh, I like to paint.

Oh, I love to draw.

I love the arts, I love theater, I danced for a long time.

I did tap, jazz, ballet, that was like my dream as a teenager.

Always was, you know, drawing, painting, ripping up clothes, making new things.

Like, I expressed myself creatively through many endeavors like music, writing, I love to write.

I write a lot underneath my paintings, on my paintings.

It's like I said, it's a process.

It's always been there, but I never showed people my art.

I would gift it, like to family or friends or whatever.

There is a time in my life where I felt like I just couldn't breathe.

And I talk about this a lot because I was just stuck in life as kids.

Not the, not the best home environment.

Just working 15 hour days, you know, taking care of kids and just life.

Like trying to keep my head above water for a very long time.

Disregarded my needs, disregarded, just doing.

And I hit a spot where I literally couldn’t breathe.

And I kind of got my Artist's Way book back out, like, blew the dust off of it kind of thing.

And I'm like, I have to, I just had a need to paint.

You know, all the old tapes, all the crap, you suck, you're not good enough, what are you even thinking?

Blah, blah, blah.

All that stuff, like all these things we tell ourselves.

And I was like, I was like, it doesn't matter.

It's like it was for me.

I wasn't planning on showing anybody.

I just needed to paint.

So I made myself— I forced myself actually every day to just do something.

I had a sketchbook, I had my watercolors.

I just started painting, doodling, I called it doodle, and I just, every night I would just do something.

It started growing and I did a first vending show and I like literally had nothing.

Like I just had some jewelry I made or some sketches, some paintings, few odds and ends, things like that.

And people...

It wasn't even so much.

I don't know if it was so much like they came, they saw the art, like they liked the vibe.

They liked, I don't know, like things I would always hear like so natural or earthy or makes me feel warm inside, things like that.

And I was like, wow, you know, I didn't realize, but it was the conversations.

And through those conversations, it ignited something in me.

It was the connections I was missing in my life.

I was so isolated and just so wrapped up in just the daily grind.

And it was scary to open myself up and but it was also healing.

And through opening myself up, more paintings started happening because it was releasing these years of just like... All the things, not even, not always sadness or regret or remorse or, you know, but the joys of the joys of, like hearing my kids laugh or listening to their music come down the stairwell.

It would ike, invoke this feeling in me.

And I would get these visuals and I would just have to paint.

And that's like, literally how I paint.

So it just started, I just started doing more.

People would see, they started recognizing my work.

They're like, oh, that's a Nikki, and I was like really taken back because I didn't feel important like that.

You know, I didn't feel like... because we, me compare ourselves.

And then I hit a place where I was like, I'm not painting for you.

You know, some people will like it, some people won't.

And that's okay, because my art may not speak to everybody, but it doesn't matter, because the ones that it does speak to are the ones that need it.

So this lady and her husband came to my booth and we were just talking.

They were from Europe and, and so we were just having conversations and I was like, oh, well, they're like, oh, like, I love this.

And they were talking about how they were feeling, like we were talking about relationships and how long they are married and just like, just this warmth of just amazingness exuded from them, right?

And I was like, oh, well I have my portfolio if you want to see more.

They're like, yes, please.

So there's like going through my portfolio.

And they ended up choosing selecting two and two paintings they were gifting them to... One was for their granddaughter's christening and the other one was for their daughter's like wedding anniversary.

So those sales, it's like it's not like, oh man, I sold— It's like, oh oh my gosh, I have I like just..

Obtained another family member, you know, and it blows me away.

It's so humbling to me because when you always doubt yourself like through all the trials and tribulations, that's like, and you crave connection.

And that you can obtain connection through a passion of yours is priceless.

- Next up, we're going to learn all about the haunted history of that gallery on the fourth.

Let’s go see where this haunted history is all about.

- I had no space to create.

I had, I had to haul ten years of, you know, everything into my home.

And it's just like, I got depressed.

I just like... it was really hard.

My friend Christina.

So she had a studio space over at the same place and she ended up leaving and moving out to Colorado again.

And but we always kept in touch and when we were in the same, like studio space and stuff, we would always talk about, man, we just need to get like, we just need to get a gallery.

We just need our own space and blah blah blah.

And so out of nowhere, fast forward like just a couple years ago, she moves back and up to Ohio and we reconnect and we're talking and I'm like, oh my God, you're back in Ohio.

I'm looking through and I'm like, Facebooking.

See this, see this, space for rent.

And I'm like, it’s the old Barberton Herald building.

And I just put it out there, hey, anybody want to go in with me?

I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to do it by myself or whatever.

And she's like, take that down, call me now.

And like, literally, I'm not even kidding you in a week, in one week, reached out, had the keys, signed the lease, and we were just like, what did we just do?

We just got a gallery and kind of worked backwards.

Like, it wasn't like, you know, how normal people, normal people would have a plan.

You know, normal people would be like, you know, let's figure this out.

And I was like, no, let's just we were just like, jump, get the space.

And then we just figured it out and work backwards.

This building is over 100 years old.

It was the old Barberton Herald building, still family owned, completely haunted.

We do the haunted ghost tour.

So, Magic City Theatre is having it again.

The first one was last year, and we were part of the tour and (unknown) was the doctor upstairs.

And so apparently Doctor (unknown) Rock, still kind of resides here.

So there was a psychic that came through and did the whole vibe thing.

And so this was part of the haunted ghost walk of downtown Barberton that Magic Theatre put on.

So it will be happening again in October here.

The building is so cool.

There's tenants upstairs.

Like I said, some of them have lived here for, like, 30 years.

They're amazing people, you know, they come down, they support us, and— But yeah, the Barberton Herald.

So if I remember correctly.

So the print shop used to be in the basement and then this was like offices and all that for the Barberton Herald.

And after the like their hundredth anniversary, they just shut down.

Like no more print and it made me really sad.

So there was like no more Barberton Herald, but they have like, I forget, the one that kind of took over, but it's just more of a encompassing.

It wasn't all just Barberton anymore, it's like surrounding.

But yeah, this building's been around a long time.

Like a long time.

If you're here at night and you're shutting down, you just feel like the, like...

In your chest, do you know what I mean, like, not so much here.

Well, there's residents upstairs, but so not so much like hearing, but there are moments of, like, clanks or whatever, but also very old pipes.

But you can feel like you can feel like, yeah, like something's just kind of watching me, you know?

But it's cool.

So the ghost tour there was Doctor (unknown).

He would come down the stairs.

And but there was like, a nurse, and she passed away.

And the story that was told during the ghost tour is that she is afraid to leave the building.

And so when the psychic came, she saw her like... she was like, you can go it's okay to leave.

And all she saw was like her putting her hand through that front window.

And like, her hand would go through and like, the vision that she received was that her hand would just, like, disintegrate.

Like she'd push her hand through the window.

And so she doesn't want to leave because she will just disappear completely.

- Now to wrap this show up today, it's a legend in Akron.

We're going to visit with Chris Butler in Kenmore.

Let's go see what Chris Butler is all about.

- I been okay with reservations.

I'm, a geyser.

I have geyser issues.

I have started playing drums again like I did at high school and loved it.

But about a year ago and in, gosh, almost— Yeah, a year and a half now.

I got rotator cuff issues that I had to quit this fabulous band.

I was having so much fun, you know, I get behind the drums that I'm 15 years old and I'm having a wonderful, fabulous time.

And I had to go through all kinds of, you know, surgery and rehab and all this stuff.

And the operation was not very successful.

So I had to do all this work around because I had the opportunity to play drums with my friends, Long Tall Deb and Colin John this Summer 2025 in July in the UK.

And I'll be damned if I was going to not do that.

So I did extra exercises on weight lifting and got myself, you know, reasonably together and did the tour which was just the best.

And I had a great time.

So I'm back, but, you know, with reservations, you know, so.

My last project which is recording an album, co-producing with Long Tall Deb and Colin John, and they do contemporary blues.

Several of the songs are in the spirit of, say, the Staple Singers.

The tone was, self-empowerment, change, being human, doing the right things in a contemporary blues context.

The record is doing very well and the blues circuits that actually started to cross over.

And it's kind of interesting because that's like a later life.

I did not expect, you know, this— I was kind of done with the music biz, you know, and that was musical playing.

But with the biz and this project it is a really good record, but it seems to be resonating with people, not just that it's the blues, but also the social consciousness aspect of some of the songs.

The reviews are coming in from around the world and they're picking up on that, including places, surprising places like Russia.

If there was a very positive review from Russia that was kind of a dissident review, they go down to 1 or 2 of the, of the social consciousness songs.

And you could tell even in Google Translate that the writer was sympathetic and was also thinking about his own, his or her own situation under Putin, which is, you know, treading a really fine line there getting to be a real fine line here, right?

So, yeah, you may lose your job if you're critical of the current administration.

You could do a lot worse if you're critical in Russia.

So it was a very interesting to read that review that someone picked up on that, on that tone of some of the songs.

Which also gets back to why I've been, why I've done what I've done for the past 40 or 50 years.

Because, and this is I'm going to jump around a little bit So it's non-sequitur time.

There's a new Devo movie out and it tells their history and how they were inspired... wrong word...

Forced into acknowledging the truth of de-evolution by May 4th, at Kent State.

I was also there and also, you know, very, very much affected by being shot at by my own country.

And, if you go into the arts after an experiment like that in the back of your mind is, you want to be subversive because obviously you have a trauma and anger about that.

And if you're doing something in the arts that is going to add to the subversive tone of anything they— That it will not just add to it the tone will be subversive.

And they are a prime example of it and I think my stuff in a subtle way, more subtle way, was also subversive.

Let's take the Waitresses.

I was a man writing songs for a woman from a woman's point of view.

And I was trying to incorporate what I knew and what I was learning about.

Second wave, third wave feminism.

And, people were like, oh, how could you do that?

You know, and it's like, oh, what?

That's what's going on in my environment.

And, you know, Shakespeare didn't, you know, he wrote a lot of, a lot of female characters and, you know, what's the big deal?

People write screenplays and plays or whatever, you know, for a genre other than themselves.

Big deal.

But if you dissect some of the Waitresses songs, it was definitely by attempt to be quietly subversive in my own way.

- Thank you once again for watching this episode of Around Akron with Blue Green.

If you have any questions or comments, you can catch me on social media.

Thank you, and have an amazing day.