Since I was in the home state of Orville and Wilbur Wright, arguably the country’s most famous bicycle shop owners, perhaps I shouldn’t have been all that surprised to see old bikes suspended from the ceiling, but I was. I was sitting in the Greenhouse Tavern, a melded French American gastropub in downtown Cleveland. A friend of mine had recommended the sustainable restaurant and bar on what was my first trip to the Buckeye State. As an Australian with limited time and money to travel the U.S., Cleveland and the Rust Belt more generally weren’t stops I’d intended to make when I mapped out my must-visit itinerary for my free weekends. I guess I’d credulously accepted the washed-up rock ‘n’ roll hub and manufacturing junkyard reputations that preceded them. However, there, perched at the Greenhouse Tavern’s dark-wood bar, enjoying a Johnnie Walker Black cocktail spiked with Sichuan peppercorn syrup, I realized I’d rushed to judgment.

And honestly, it probably shouldn’t have taken a fancy drink for me to recognize that.