The Shops on Lane Avenue

What to expect at The Shops on Lane Avenue

The Shops on Lane Avenue is the retail block that sits on the southern edge of Upper Arlington where West Lane Avenue runs toward the Ohio State campus, and it is the city's most polished commercial address. The centre was reworked in the 2000s from an older Lane Avenue shopping centre into a walkable arrangement of storefronts with pavements, planting and structured parking, anchored by a Whole Foods Market and filled out with national apparel and lifestyle chains, banks, a pharmacy and a strong cluster of restaurants. It matters to a visitor for two reasons: it is the only place in Upper Arlington that feels like a small urban high street rather than a car-first strip, and it is where you will find the city's best-known sit-down dining within a two-minute walk of one another.

In practice you park once and do everything on foot. The supermarket is the workhorse — a full Whole Foods with hot bar, salad bar, bakery, coffee and a beer and wine section, easily good enough for a $12-$16 lunch eaten at the window counter. Along the frontage the chains do what chains do, which is fine for a forgotten charger, a raincoat or a gift. The restaurants are the reason to come back after dark: Northstar Cafe on the block for daytime and early evening, and Hudson 29 a short walk west on the same road for a proper dinner. Pavement tables appear from April, and on a warm evening the stretch has genuine life to it, with students, families and Upper Arlington regulars mixed together.

Plan it as either a lunch-and-errands hour or a dinner-and-drinks evening; trying to do both in one visit wastes the day. If you are here for food, book the evening table and arrive early enough to walk the block first. If you are here for the supermarket, come before 10:00 or after 19:00 and you will park at the door. Skip the idea of a full day's shopping — the retail run is maybe twenty units deep, and anyone wanting scale should drive to Easton Town Center or the Short North. What this block does better than either is convenience: everything you need for a week's stay in one stop, with somewhere excellent to eat at the end of it.

Getting there is easy from every direction. The centre sits on West Lane Avenue between Tremont Road and the SR-315 interchange, roughly a mile south of Tremont Center. From downtown Columbus take I-670 west to SR-315 north and exit at Lane Avenue, then head west — about five miles and twelve to eighteen minutes outside rush hour. From the Ohio State campus it is a mile and a half, five minutes by car or twenty-five on foot along Lane Avenue. Parking is free in the surface bays and structure, with no validation required. COTA runs the Lane Avenue corridor, giving this centre far better bus access than the rest of Upper Arlington, and rideshare from downtown is about $13-$20 or $8-$12 from campus. Cyclists can join the Olentangy Trail at the river end of Lane Avenue in ten minutes.

Costs: nothing to enter, nothing to park. Whole Foods hot bar and salad bar sell by weight at roughly $10-$12 a pound, so a full box lands at $12-$18; a coffee is $3-$5.50, a bakery pastry $3.50-$6 and a week of groceries for two $140-$200. Northstar Cafe mains run $14-$18 with a coffee at $3.50-$5.50. Hudson 29 sits higher, with mains broadly $18-$40, a starter $10-$16 and cocktails $12-$16, so two people dining properly should budget $90-$130 with drinks and tip. Chain apparel is priced as it is nationally. Ohio sales tax is added at the till rather than shown on the shelf, and restaurant tipping of 18-20% is expected on top of the menu price.

Best hours: the supermarket is calm from opening to 9:30 and after 19:30, and busiest Saturday 11:00-15:00 and weekday evenings 17:00-18:30. Shops are quietest on weekday mornings. Restaurants fill from 18:00 on Friday and Saturday and are hardest to walk into on Ohio State home football Saturdays, when this whole corridor floods and traffic on Lane Avenue crawls for hours — check the fixture list before planning a visit for a September or October Saturday. Sunday brunch, 10:30-13:30, is the other reliable queue. Seasonally, April to October is the pleasure because of the pavement tables; January and February are functional, indoor and quiet.

It suits self-caterers, couples looking for a real dinner, students' visiting parents and anyone staying nearby who wants a decent evening without driving downtown. Access is good throughout: level pavements, dropped kerbs, lifts in the parking structure, accessible bays and step-free entries to the anchors and restaurants. Families are well served at lunch and early evening; after 20:00 the tone shifts adult. It works as a rainy-afternoon plan better than most of the city because the supermarket and the larger stores are indoors and you can eat under cover. It suits a one-hour gap only for the supermarket run — the restaurants are not fast, and Hudson 29 in particular is a sit-down-properly proposition.

Nearby, Northam Park is under a mile north for a walk after eating, and Miller Park and the Mallway are five to eight minutes northeast by car. The Ohio State campus, Ohio Stadium and the Wexner Center are a mile and a half east along the same road, which makes the block a sensible pre- or post-event stop; the Olentangy Trail crosses at the river, ten minutes away, for a flat riverside walk. Griggs Reservoir Park and the Scioto riverbank are a ten-minute drive west along Fifth Avenue or Riverside Drive. If you want a longer evening out, the Short North's gallery and bar strip is fifteen minutes southeast, and Grandview Avenue's independent restaurants are ten minutes south.

The honest caveats: for all the pavement and planting, this is still a car-centred shopping centre with a busy four-lane road through the middle, and crossing Lane Avenue on foot is less pleasant than the photographs suggest. The retail is largely national chains, so anyone hunting for independents should be at the Mallway or on Grandview Avenue instead. Parking is free but the structure is tight and the surface bays near Whole Foods are the first to go. Prices at the anchor supermarket are noticeably above the Giant Eagle at Kingsdale for the same basket. And on an Ohio State home game day, the entire corridor is best avoided: traffic, parking and restaurant waits all triple, and no amount of planning fixes it.

Plan your visit TicketsFree Free entryYes Time needed1-2 hr visit WhereOld Arlington Opening hours Supermarket daily 7:00-22:00 Shops Mon-Sat 10:00-20:00, Sun 11:00-18:00 Restaurants to 22:00, later Fri-Sat Hotels near The Shops on Lane Avenue

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