After Hours with Rebekah Hatzifotinos

After practicing law for 15 years and starting a family, Columbus native Rebekah Hatzifotinos was ready for a change.

For two and a half years, she threw herself into cooking classes at The Seasoned Farmhouse in Clintonville.

“I was really inspired and really wanted to do something with food, whether that was a café, bakery or bed and breakfast,” she says.

The Grandview Heights City Councilmember says a trip with her husband to Charleston, South Carolina, proved auspicious. There, the couple visited Callie’s Hot Little Biscuits, inspiring the idea to launch a biscuits-only bakery in Columbus.

In August, Hatzifotinos opened Basic Biscuits, Kindness, Coffee at 1160 Goodale Blvd., a small shop featuring a menu of flavored buttermilk biscuits and biscuit breakfast sliders. When the newly minted entrepreneur is not baking up a storm, here are some of her favorite spots around town.

First food memory: “My dad would make me ‘egg on toast’ for breakfast or what other people call ‘toad in the hole,’ where you cut out a circle from the middle of a piece of bread and toast it in a frying pan with an egg cracked and fried into the center. I thought it was magic.” 

Breakfast spot: “Our family’s fave is Northstar Café. We tend to order basically everything on the menu.” 

Special occasion meal: “There’s hardly anything I like better than a good steak, and Hyde Park has always been our go-to for birthday or anniversary celebrations.” 

Comfort food: “Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and beef gravy from MCL cafeteria. Growing up it was a special treat to head to MCL!” 

Go-to bar: “I’m 100 percent a beer girl, and I’m lucky to live right around the corner from The Ohio Taproom.” 

Hidden gem restaurant: “Maybe not so hidden anymore, but La Tavola in Grandview” 

Favorite travel destination for food: Greece