The CONTINENT Columbus Ohio DEAD MALL with Hookah Bar! 

I worked as a cocktail waitress at a smoke-filled, underground cabaret club featuring local torch song singer Suzi Goldstein back in the very late ‘70’s at the Continent. The place was always packed. Does anybody remember the name of that place? Suzi was fabulous. Always wondered what happened to her, too.

I remember when it first opened in the 70s and the French Market part was filled with food stores, bakery's, etc, offering foods that were brand new to Columbus and at that time exotic/foreign. It was special and upscale to walk down the faux French looking streets.

Had a lot of fun nights at the RnR in the late 80’s.

A country bar was there! went many times to hear my boyfriend/husband play music! Great times.

Back in the 70s/early 80s it was an amazing place. The French market was astounding, there was an old time toy store, a clock maker, a cheese shop, a crystal store, a candy shop, and a tea room. Its nooks and crannies with the elaborate fountains and piped in music made it a wonderful outing.

I remember we built the new Continent Sign and i painted it back in the mid 90s . Cahoots was packed back in the day.

I saw The Tubes (She's a beauty) play a concert at that fountain next to the movie theater, about 1989-90. Used to buy Callard & Border toffee from Overbey's Emporium at the Market there.

It was pretty hopping in the mid to late 90s as well. WNCI used to broadcast from there.

Check my video "The Continent & French Market (Winter, 1988) Columbus, Ohio" for how it all looked just before things began to decline.

Interesting place. Good video. Thanks.

I remember going here in 1992. Back then I thought it was amazing.

There use to be another building there which appears to have been torn down, it was called the French Market. In the market, there was a bakery, Hickory Farms and other businesses and there was even a Damons attached to the building. I remember when the continent first opened, it was a great place and all those store fronts were full of all kinds of businesses. Its sad to see what it has become.

It was the place to be in the early 90’s. I got my first pair of Z cavarichi jeans at a men’s store there.

I was gonna say, I've lived here my entire life 35 years and never seen this place, but I remember hearing about the "parties at the continent" on the radio in the late 90s. I couldn't even find it on Google without some help just now lol which is sad because it looks really awesome!

I saw Taylor Dayne perform a free show there in the 90s

When i was in high school, this is where we would take our dates to watch movies, eat at the China Gate then come back on Saturdays and hang out with buddies. We spent a lot of money there. 😢😢

Wow- I would love to see inside one of the apartments.

Back in mid 90's I went to that movie theatre, saw Little Women w/ Wynona Ryder. The Funny Bone comedy club was there b4 it moved to Easton. Columbus has Polaris & Easton but won't revamp the continent. I'm sure that area is not a nice plc at night.

This Mall Was The Stuff Back Then,

If memory serves me right, I think club Kahootz used to be there...used to be a fun place when it was thriving. Seems like a spooky place to live 😬

I live off of 161 near Busch and I remember visiting this area. I was instantly intrigued by the architecture.

I lived there in the mid 2000s when it was long past it's prime but not quite scary. It was still a cool place to live as there were still restaurants, a few shops, and the movie theater and gym were open. The last time I visited the place ....there was just nothing there. It's still a very cool place....the bones are good...but it would need serious money to bring it back to being anything.

11:59 I believe this and the restaurant next to it was all The Funny Bone, before it moved to Easton.

I CAME TO COLUMBUS IN 1977 TO GO TO SCHOOL, AND BY THE TIME I FINISHED IN '85, MOST OF MY FAMILY HAD MOVED TO COLUMBUS---THE CONTINENT WAS THE PLACE TO BE...THE CINEMA, THE BARS AND EATERIES, THE SHOPS, AND THE FRENCH MARKET---IT WAS GREAT! I'M GRATEFUL FOR THESE KIND OF VIDEOS, BUT DAMN! IT'S ALL SO MELANCHOLY.

It really was a nice place and you had fun and no trouble like you have at other places now, but with the right investors and a vision it could make a comeback. Rescare of Ohio use to have a building for adults with mental and physical handicapped.

We used to go to the movies and then sneak into another movie and maybe a third movie back in the 80's

I was the DJ at RnR USA (what you saw as “the Oasis” at 6252). We opened it in 1987 and I was there til mid 1989 when I took a job at Clubland in Detroit (now The Fillmore Detroit). The Continent was hopping then! The RnR concept was sort of an “anti-nightclub” that instead of the strict dress codes and trendy club music we had almost no dress code, low cover charge and played a lot of danceable classic rock & soul, and threw in current stuff as the “spice” if you will. The concept worked better in Houston where people were sick of the high cover charges and attitude from bouncers. Columbus hadn’t really had a “ritzy nightclub heyday” so they didn’t really “get it.” We altered the music to be more contemporary, and I was mixing live on the air from the club on WNCI every Friday night for about a year and a half. Chris Davis is still on the air with WNCI - he was just a kid then! He and Shelley Morgan were there on Fridays to do VOs for the air. “Friday Night Live at RnR USA” was 4 hours commercial-free for the first… 6 months of it, if I recall. We shortened it to two hours later on. Our neighbor The Funny Bone comedy club was great, I remember seeing Gilbert Godfried, Marsha Wallace (from “Night Court”), Jay Johnson (from “Soap” - did a ridiculously good ventriloquist act), and Rich Hall (inventor of “Sniglets”) among others. Rapallo’s Italian restaurant was great - first place I’d ever had or heard of Stromboli. We weren’t really set up to do live music but did bring in local band “Desperately Seeking Fusion” on Tuesday nights for a while and through another long story ended up having Donny Osmond come in (this was more WNCI’s doing, they broke his “comeback” song, “Soldier of Love” in the US and he came to town as a thank you). He ended up playing some songs live with a keyboard then stayed until anyone and everyone (and let me tell you - it was the most people we’d EVER had in the place) that wanted something signed got it. Class act, that guy. We did a handful of track dates with various pop/dance folks as well, but we were really set up just for dancing. Capacity of the place was a little over 900. It was a great time! There’s a whole other story about the guy who owned “Just Sweats” who faked his death for insurance money - there’s a movie about it out there. I actually had been to his apartment (in The Continent, of course) a couple of times for after-hours partying. It was a few years later his crime thing happened.

i grew up around the corner and remember going when i was a kid in the late 90s and early 00s. then my friend friend moved to the french quarter in 2012 and there was a popular club and i think the movie theatre was still open. it’s the ghetto though. like, you will hear gunshots

i worked there in 1985-86. Frequented there my entire childhood and young adult life. The BEST place and memories!!!

I do rember this place back in the 1980's thought 2000++ this place had old style of old world charm and yet had condos plus a gym. I had my teeth clean but latter moved to a bigger location in Delaware OH! Over the years with many difference owners who own it did more FAILED adding new store or business never took off years ago! Their was bunch of high end restaurant and the French Market ( a spin off of Whole Foods luxury grocerys store) and sadly all the places people used to love is now a ghost mall and few each owner razer some store fronts in which is a dumb ideal but nooo that owner didn't care!

The aparment complex is where my nana lives now

It was still going strong in late 90’s when I was in HS. Buy time I was in college in early 2000’s it was completely dead

Whew! Just figured out how to get comments enabled at last

The last time I went down to the continent the movie theater was closed as a nuisance Giant eagle did last quite a while . It came in 2000 and left in 2018 I believe

"It's dead, Jim"

wow so sad. I remember this was the most upscale place in Columbus when I was in high school at Northland. We used to come to the cinema. And walk around the shops. Sad.

Thug life and liberal politicians, thanks