Fox in the Snow’s new High Street location will open on Saturday to the public. Credit: Jack Like | Lantern Reporter
Fox in the Snow Café is getting ready to open up its new High Street location Saturday, bringing the local chain to another neighborhood for community members to enjoy.
For the first 200 people in the store, which opens at 8 a.m., the grand opening will be especially exciting, as the shop will give out freebies and host giveaways, according to co-founder Jeff Excell.
“We really try to reward the people who show up early,” Excell said. “We will have lines in the morning, and we plan on handing out shirts.”
Located at 4203 N. High St., Excell said this will be the sixth Fox in the Snow location in Columbus. He said the café had been eyeing locations in Clintonville for the past few years.
“We’ve always wanted to be in Clintonville, since 2017, and we think it’s a great community,” Excell said. “I’ve looked at several locations around Clintonville, and just nothing worked. When this location opened up, we jumped on it. We love it here.”
Eric Fenstermacher, general manager at the new Clintonville location, said Fox in the Snow serves as both a coffee shop and a full café and bakery, making its offerings more extensive than a traditional coffee shop.
“It’s a bakery and a coffee shop combined,” Fenstermacher said. “Everyone that comes here can rely on really high-quality coffee and really well-made pastries and sandwiches. The combination of these, combined with excellent customer service, is what makes us great.”
Excell said the Columbus-based chain was founded in 2014. He said its creation was built off of the love story between him and his now-wife Lauren.
“Lauren and I met in New York, and we were working at cafés that were kind of similar to this,” Excell said. “She was a baker and I was a front-of-house manager, we met and fell in love. We were dating for a while, then she came back to Ohio where she was from. We then moved here and found a building on Fourth Street that became our first location.”
Fenstermacher said Fox in the Snow takes pride in the fact that the coffee and ingredients are made in-house, and the staff enjoys this craft.
“We make all of our syrups and all of our sauces in-house,” Fenstermacher said. “Everything that goes into our coffee is made here. It’s very simple and it’s done effectively.”
Fenstermacher said the bakery is widely popular at Fox in the Snow as well, offering an array of rolls, pastries and sandwiches.
“Our cinnamon rolls and blueberry galettes are always very popular,” Fenstermacher said. “I personally love our everything Danish, which has everything bagel seasoning and chive cream cheese. Our egg sandwiches are probably the most popular food item that we sell.”
Excell said he hopes Fox in the Snow is a conversational space where people interact with each other. In a digital world, he said he hopes people unplug and get to know each other in the new space.
“I’m trying to create a sense of community,” Excell said. “We’re trying to curate a place where community can happen. What the community does with that is their choice, but we’re hoping for it to be loud, lively and full of people.”
