Many people who like dining out in Columbus have high praise for Chapman’s Eat Market. It’s got a fun, global menu that takes us from the fanciest of large plates to what people say are the best French fries to be had anywhere in the city (it’s the beef fat they’re fried in). It’s set in the trendiest of neighborhoods, German Village, on an iconic street corner where the Columbus institution, Max & Erma’s, operated a popular restaurant for decades. The interior was transformed by Chapman’s from a dark wood tavern into a pink and green Millennial dream. And in BJ Lieberman, the restaurant has a lauded chef who brought his Washington, D.C., Michelin Star cred to Columbus with house-churned ice cream and General Tso’s cauliflower.
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I had what was one of the best meals of my life (so far!) on the evening of my 46th birthday at Chapman’s, set in the private dining room surrounded by friends and plate after plate of interesting flavor juxtapositions, all described lovingly by the chefs who prepared them. I recall the dessert was adorned with real gold leaf. It sparkled. It dazzled. It was edible.
And none of that was enough to keep Chapman’s open.
In July, the restaurant announced that it will close in August, after just five years in business. The news came in time for the editors at Columbus Monthly to reconsider including Chapman’s on our list of Best Restaurants for 2025, which starts on Page 20. After much back and forth—they’re still open another month, after all—we decided to pull the restaurant from the list.
That does not mean Chapman’s wasn’t one of the best places to have a fine meal in Columbus. It was. We’ll have a story online with the photos and vignette we created celebrating the restaurant.
I take the closing as one more chip on a mountain of evidence that running a restaurant is hard work, and reaching profitability is tough. The odds are stacked against these entrepreneurs. Not all of them make it. And that’s the way of things.
As for Lieberman, he recently opened an Italian place in the Short North, Metsi’s. My best wishes to him and to Metsi’s in finding success in this new endeavor.
This story appeared in the August 2025 issue of Columbus Monthly. Subscribe here.
This article originally appeared on Columbus Monthly: Editor’s Note: Chapman’s Eat Market Is the Restaurant That Got Away
Reporting by Katy Smith, Columbus Monthly / Columbus Monthly
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