Mercantile Library's big fundraiser goes virtual to help struggling restaurants

I was a senior at Ohio University when my mother asked if I’d be interested in coming home to attend something called “The Niehoff Lecture” at the Mercantile Library. I’d never heard of the Niehoff Lecture before, but when she told me John Updike would be speaking, I – an English major with a dog-eared copy of "Rabbit Run" – immediately agreed (as long as Mom also agreed to foot the bill for my Mr. Tuxedo rental).

Back then, the lectures were still held at the library itself – a gasp of a place near the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets, with around 80,000 books and plenty of soft, leather-back chairs in which to read them. I remember being served Champagne on a silver platter. I remember someone drunkenly offering me a job I was in no way qualified for. I remember approaching Updike to shake his hand, just so I could tell people, like you, Dear Readers, that I once shook John Updike’s hand. The whole thing was so extravagant for a college kid like me that, when I look back on it now, it feels like it was part of a novel I once read, instead of my actual life.

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For the uninitiated, the Mercantile Library is a wonder. Founded in 1835, it's one of the few remaining membership libraries left in the United States, and has hosted writers and thinkers from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Melville to Zadie Smith and Chuck D. The Niehoff Lecture, sponsored by Peter and Betsy Niehoff, is the annual fundraiser that, pre-pandemic, helped pay for those A-listers to come here.

This year, thanks to COVID-19, there will be no Niehoff Lecture. Instead, the library is pivoting, as they say, to do something that will help a community as near and dear to me now as novelists like Updike were when I was a student: our city’s restaurant community. 

“It occurred to me that we should help the restaurants because: A) they are in trouble, and B) they always help not-for-profits,” the library's executive director John Faherty told me. “Anytime a library or a museum or a cultural institution is in need, we ask them to donate food. And they always say yes. In fact, I don’t know of any industry that is more giving or more kind than the restaurant industry. This is the Mercantile Library’s chance to step up for them for a change.”

Dubbed "Half Baked," the virtual event will include a four-course dinner from one of five local restaurants: Abigail Street, Jean-Robert’s Table, Via Vite, Salazar or Sotto. It will take place on Nov. 7, 7-9:30 p.m.

The restaurants will be assigned to "virtual attendees" randomly, though tickets purchased together will be assigned the same place. A few days prior to the event, you will be notified by email when and where to pick up your “half-baked” (i.e., mostly prepared, but still in need of a little oven time) dinner.

Later in the evening, you will finish “cooking” them with your assigned chefs. Finally, at 7 p.m., you can log on to the program, have a drink and chat with Faherty (I’ve drank with Faherty, and believe me, it’s worth it.) before Cincinnati-born author Curits Sittenfeld takes the so-called stage at 8 p.m. to share a brand-new short story specifically written for the event. And don't worry about the tuxedo rental. This year's event is far more casual. (Faherty claims he might just wear his pajamas.)

Tickets are $175 for members; $200 for non-members. That's perhaps about what you would pay for a celebratory dinner out with friends. In this case, however, it's also for a good cause. Faherty says the money will be split between the library and the participating restaurants. That’s a big deal, since restaurants are often asked to give of their time (and food) for free, the compensation usually being increased exposure to potential customers.

“Well, it’s a wonderful, brilliant idea on their part,” says Jose Salazar, whose Downtown restaurant, Mita's, will be participating in the event. “Normally, it would be us donating our time, now the Mercantile is donating their time for our benefit. Most people know we're not in the position to give right now. What the Mercantile is saying is ‘You guys have always been here for us, Now we’re here for you.' ”

Tickets must be purchased by Friday, Oct. 30. To buy them (and/or to become a member), visit the mercantilelibrary.com or call 513-621-0717.