Panini’s Bar and Grill

Panini’s is a good place to go on Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights with friends. The food is typical bar food and the cheese fries are definitely a must have when drinking here. Upstairs there is the bar and dancing area. The place gets crowded during the school year on the weekends. Live DJ on the weekends. There are also a couple of projection screens on the wall to catch games on during the week or on the weekend. Expect plenty of underclassmen in here trying to get you to buy them drinks.

Panini’s is like a good friend who is fun to hang out and drink with, but on occasion parties too hard and just gets obnoxiously burning bridges drunk.
This has always been one of my favorite bars in the Campus area. The happy hour used to be the best in town (until they stopped half-​price shots) and it is a great place to start the night off. It is spacious with a big wraparound bar, and the food, while about as healthy as a garbage bag full of pork-​rinds, often does not disappoint.
Now if you decide to patronize paninis on a party night (thur-​sat) after 11pm, you will see why most people have such a love-​hate relationship with this bar. Panini’s is pretty much the only place in town that lets underage college kids in the door. What ensues cannot be fully described. Try to imagine about a hundred college kids, only half of whom can access the bar while the rest try to procure illegal drinkies from those over 21, packed butts-​to-​nuts, listening to loud Top 20 dance hits, getting barf drunk. This is why so many people give panini’s a hard time.
The staff is pretty cool though. The manager derek is cool, and most of the bartenders are all right. There is this one bouncer, however, a mean momma of a bruiser named ursula who lays down the law fairly frequently. I saw her sit on this dude’s head one time while waiting for Columbus’ Finest to show up. She is quite scary, and is to be respected.
Anyway, check this place out during the off-​times and bring a group of friends as you will be able to take over a corner of the bar and enjoy cheap drinks. Stay clear during the aforementioned «peak hours» unless you are into that kind of thing. This place is also awesome on gameday if you don’t have a ticket to the show!

Back when I was still a student, I ended up going to Panini’s almost every weekend. Not really by my choice, though. My best friend wasn’t 21 yet and we didn’t have a whole lot of options as far as bars went, so we always seemed to end up here.
Most people either love or hate Panini’s. It has regulars that are always there and people who refuse to set foot in the establishment. I’m not sure quite where I fall. I don’t really ever want to go to Panini’s, but it’s usually not too bad and I end up having an OK time.
As I mentioned, Panini’s will let you in even if you aren’t 21, but you get big X’s on your hands and you have to usually pay a $ 5 cover. And be at least 18, of course. If you are 21, you’ll get a wristband and can skip the cover most of the time. Especially if you’re female. They never seem to make me pay one, but then the guys I’m with who are over 21 have to pay. I don’t understand their system.
I think their system might actually be what the bouncer feels like doing sometimes. In my experience, most of the bouncers are quite unfriendly. But I can’t really blame them since they have to put up with the obnoxious students who come there on a nightly basis. We did become friends with one bouncer a while back, and he always let us skip the line and walk right inside. It really pays to have people you know at Panini’s. Having bartender friends definitely doesn’t hurt, either.
The location is convenient if you live on or around campus — right next to the Newport towards the south end of campus. But if you’re driving there, good luck finding a place to park on weekends during the school year. In the summer it’s not so bad, and the weekdays aren’t horrible, either. But since this bar is clearly catering to the campus crowd, that’s about all who comes here. Rowdy students, and since I think Panini’s might be the only place on campus anymore that allows 18 – 20 year olds, it can get pretty pathetic inside. Immature kids are doing whatever they can to get drunk, getting people to buy them beers and then taking them in the bathroom to drink them in the stalls.
The bathroom was always messy and smelled like beer and puke from the kids who just aren’t able to handle their liquor yet. There are plenty of stalls, however, so that’s a plus, and toilet paper can often be found in at least a few of them. Sometimes they also have bouncers by the bathroom doors to try to prevent you from taking drinks in there — they caught on to the clever tactics of the underaged! But they don’t seem to really care that much and I’ve taken my drinks in there more than once.
Panini’s is kind of cool in that when you walk in, you can either turn to the left to find the place where you can order food, or walk straight ahead, up some stairs that I’ve seen drunk people fall down at the end of the night about everytime I’ve been there, and into the main area. Then you can go up more stairs into a mezzanine area that’s got additional seating and pool tables. And if you’re up there you get a nice few of the floor below. The bar is huge (but never seems to be big enough for crowded nights) and there are a few tables downstairs and a dancefloor area. They even added a little caged in stage for skanky ladies to dance in. Behind the bar are several huge TVs and one big ginormous projector screen.
Panini’s is really popular during boxing games (not in the bar, but on TV) and they play them on that huge screen. It’s a pretty cool place to watch a game since the tables are nice, the drinks are cheap and the food is pretty good. I’ve only tried the mozzarella sticks and the quesadillas, but both were great. It’s really good bar food.
As far as drinks go, they have pretty cheap beers during their happy hour and usually on weekends they have specials on cheap shots like cherry bombs and nasty stuff like that. Stuff that the frat boys all live for.
Panini’s hosts a lot of special events and contests and stuff, one that I will mention is a weekly event: Bull Riding. They have one of those mechanical bulls in the middle of this inflatable ring so when you fall off you don’t get hurt. And it’s free, so drunk morons and slutty girls get up there and try to show off and most of the time end up making an ass of themselves. I think this is every Wednesday night. My advise, therefore, is to avoid Wednesday nights.
If you go on the right night, Panini’s can be a really fun time. But on the weekends when it’s full of horny students, it can get pretty scary. They will start blasting the grinding R&B music and you’ll see dry humping like never before. This one time two girls were there dancing provocatively on the tables wearing button-​up dress shirts and no pants. I don’t know, I guess they thought they made cute outfits, but it looked like they forgot to finish getting dressed. They thought they were cool until they slipped on a beer they had kicked over and fell off the table and everyone just laughed at them; a typical night at Panini’s for ya.

I’ve only been to Panini’s a few times for drinks. I have a friend who somehow always gets GREAT happy hour specials for us. She invites a certain number of people, creates a guest list, and gets us discounts and free pizza. HOORAY!
Depending on when you go, Panini’s is crowded or dull. If you go in the summer, there’s hardly anyone there. It’s a bit scary to see such a huge place with only a smattering of college students who have hung around for the easy quarter. But if you go pretty much any night of the week when school is in session, you’ll be shoulder to shoulder with the person next to you. There’s almost always some drunk 21-​year-​old celebrating a birthday there or a girl dancing on the sleeze stage. You might also bump into a few OSU football stars.
Panini’s has a few good bar games including darts, and if you’re getting the VIP treatment, they’ll set up beer pong for ya!
If you go, I recommend the shot that was created special for my buddy, Sarah. It’s called ‘dirty bathwater,’ and you make it with a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I’m pretty sure the ingredients change each time, but it always tastes about the same. Ask for Dan, he’ll hook you up.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the latest incarnation of Columbus Panini’s suffers dearly from multiple personality disorder, I’d have given it 5 stars and would not have though twice about it. Alas, stopping by at the wrong time on the wrong day (midnight on a Friday, for example) is a jarring experience that will send you running for the hills in horror.
I suppose I’ll address what I like about Panini’s first, as the list is fairly plentiful. The interior of this multi-​leveled sports bar is without a doubt roomier and more user-​friendly than any other sports bar I’ve even been to in the greater Columbus area and perhaps the Midwest. The main room features an enormous elliptical serving area that’s easy to maneuver, and is complemented by an upper mezzanine area that hosts pool tables, an additional bar, and a few extra tables as well. The number of TVs for gametime is rivaled only by the Lane and High BW3 location about half a mile north of here, but I’d say that Panini’s has them beat when it comes to viewability and channel selection. The booths on the main floor even have their own private TVs as well, which is a very nice touch. I’ve spent countless early Saturday mornings here watching OSU away games and I’ve never once been unable to view the TV while having a place to set my beer. Seating comes at a premium, but that’s no fault of Panini’s, that’s for sure.
The food here is an expanded selection of bar food that always hits the spot when paired with a tall glass of Miller Lite and a marquee sporting event. The quesadillas are huge and moderately priced, and the pizza is surprisingly good for a menu item that’s generally an afterthought at places like this. The «famous overstuffed sandwiches» are akin to what you’d find at a sports bar in Pittsburgh and include everything you’d get in the totality of your meal (fries, coleslaw, etc.) piled high on the sandwich itself. Eating more than half of one of these things at one sitting is truly one of the seven deadly sins that has made Columbus one of the fattest cities in the country. Like you’ll hear me complaining, though.
And now on to the ugly side of Panini’s. It obviously can’t help the fact that it’s located right smack in the middle of the OSU off-​campus bar area, but the choice to remain 18 and up after the unsavory dealings at Four Kegs that caused most bars to ditch that business model is certainly a conscious decision. What you’ll find at Panini’s every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night is an unruly throng of liquored up freshman and sophomores that work themselves into a sweaty fury to the soundtrack of the absolute worst club music you’ll ever hear in your life. Seriously, if you think Skye Bar is bad, stop by here on a Saturday night in the winter and be amazed at how low undergrad culture can go if only given the chance. That and a stomach fool of underpriced purple hooter shots, of course.
So let’s recap here.
The good: tons of TVs; great bar food; spacious with many seating options; upper mezzanine is excellent for private parties or other special events at which you’d like to drink as much as your liver can muster in a two hour period of time
The bad: turns in to teeny-​bopper grope-​athon after the sun goes down
The ugly: the crowd that this places deposits in to the street every night at 2:30 AM.

I’ll admit, I was very fond of the old Panini’s South before it closed and was demolished to make room for the South Campus Gateway. I was more skeptical when Panini’s reopened and is now multi-​stories, incredibly spacious, and well-​lit. It just doesn’t have any of the feel that Panini’s South did. Can you imagine Panini’s South with booths with individual TVs in them? I can’t.
Having said that, I do like this Panini’s. It’s a great lunch spot for those that work on campus, especially during March Madness! What could be better than enjoying a beer and panini while you watch games on Thursday and Friday? I mean, we all know that no real work gets done on those days in March. The menu at Panini’s is rather large and ranges from standard bar appetizers to sandwiches and salads to paninis. For bar food, I do think the prices are a tad high, but after you consume enough beer, it doesn’t matter.
Last year, my husband and I celebrated St. Patricks Day at Panini’s while watching March Madness. The best thing is that OSU’s winter quarter always ends around St. Patricks Day and March Madness, so most of the students are gone on Spring Break. While the bar did get crowded as the night went on, it wasn’t unbearable and also green 32 oz beers were $ 1 if I remember correctly. I love good drink specials on a drinking holiday! I’ve also frequented Panini’s on Friday and Saturday nights while OSU is in session and each time I’ve gone, the bar hasn’t been very crowded at all. I’ve never gone on a Thursday night, but I can imagine that is the night all the fraternity and sorority people are there, as well as the 18+ crowd.
All and all, a decent campus bar that runs good drink specials and serves pretty good food.

Panini’s is a spacious multi-​level bar with lots of well-​placed televisions. I’ve only been for lunch or happy hour, so I can’t say what it’s like at night. (I try to avoid the 18+ campus bars at this point in my life.) At lunch and happy hour, it’s pretty empty.
Panini’s serves standard bar food like wings and nachos. Contrary to what the name implies, its signature sandwich is not squished and toasted in a panini press. Rather, it is a version of the famous Primanti Brothers’ meat, fries and slaw between thick slices of dense white bread. It’s a serious sandwich, and satisfying, but a little steep at around $ 6.50. (The two for one dine-​in special on Thursdays, however, would be a great value for two people.) I would like the sandwich even more if the place didn’t smell faintly of last night’s beer spillage, but it’s better than trying to eat at Bernie’s.