Outskirts Sports Bar & Grill promises sports action, music, good food
It’s a former bank branch that eventually found new life for years as the Sports Page, which closed its doors suddenly a year ago.
Now the property at at 5736 Veterans Parkway, at the intersection of Whitesville Road in north Columbus, is back up and running as The Outskirts Sports Bar & Grill.
Assistant manager Ron Antinore said The Outskirts is working to gain traction at the location which has 27,000-plus vehicles a day passing by it on Veterans Parkway, according to a Georgia Department of Transportation traffic count.
“Lunch time is a little slow. Dinner time’s a little bit better. The bar is getting real good business,” he said. “It’s just trying to get people in here knowing that we’ve got the kitchen and they can come in and order food and eat instead of just sitting at the bar and drinking.”
The Outskirts, which has 177 seats inside and two outside patios with a bar and TVs, opened its doors March 22, holding a grand opening a few days later. The staff of nearly 30 simply aims to please, he said.
“We’ve got a six page menu,” Antinore said. “One page is lunch and another is our cocktails. One of the pages is our shareables, which is our appetizers. We have wings and salads, and we have burgers and sandwiches. We have three stuffed burgers that we offer up.”
The All Star Group out of Houston, Texas, is operating the new sports bar and grill, with a city building permit showing $50,000 was spent on the 5,766-square-foot bar and grill to get it ready. Just prior to The Outskirts landing there, The Bank Lounge, with a black exterior, had a very brief run. The structure itself was built as a Columbus Bank and Trust bank branch in 1976.
Inside, dominant behind the main bar, is a 330-inch curved high-definition projection screen, one of 29 televisions inside the venue that also has a large screen available in an area that doubles as sports viewing seating and a dance floor with a light show when bands and deejays are in action.
There are dart board machines in one nook of The Outskirts and a couple of pool tables in another corner. Last weekend, the establishment had an Ultimate Fighting Championship match as its marquee television event on the large screen. Antinore said customers can expect plenty of that and more.
“We’re trying to do a poker night, doing a dart tournament, doing a biker’s night, coordinating with the bikers to have them come in one night a week,” he said. “We’ll have NASCAR, the UFC, football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer. Any sport, if you want to watch it, we can find it and we’ll play it for you.”
Antinore himself, a graduate of Smiths Station High School, is a veteran of the club scene over the last two-plus decades, he said, starting out in Atlanta. Now he’s back in Columbus where he still has family.
“I’ve worked a lot of major cities around the country,” he said. “It’s the perfect business to travel the country. I could go to any city and get a job, and I did, and live anywhere I wanted to. I’ve been coast to coast from Atlanta, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Hollywood California, a lot of time in Florida, Pensacola, twice in Tampa, West Palm Beach.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2017 at 1:55 PM with the headline "Outskirts Sports Bar & Grill promises sports action, music, good food."