Road Tips

Panahar - Atlanta

We were in Atlanta recently for the annual CEDIA Expo held at the Georgia World Congress Center next to the Georgia Dome. This was the second of an originally scheduled three years that CEDIA was to be in Atlanta, but a number of problems - including reported muggings of some convention goers in the downtown area - brought an outcry to move the convention out of Atlanta sooner than later. We'll be returning to Indianapolis next year, which isn't so bad for me considering I can drive to Indianapolis.

 

With that said, we have stayed out in the Buckhead area of Atlanta the past two years. Buckhead is known for its upscale restaurants and upscale shopping. And it's pretty safe to walk the streets between the hotel and the restaurants in the evening. Actually, I didn't mind Atlanta all that much and wouldn't have been upset had we had to go back for another year. But, of course, I didn't spend any time downtown other than going to and coming from the Georgia World Congress Center.

Over the past couple of years, I've been charged with finding places for our team to eat in the evenings when we get together at trade shows. I was unceremoniously dumped in that capacity - much to my relief - after the debacle we went through at Rosemary's in Las Vegas. Actually, that wasn't the big reason. I just didn't want to put the time into the research of trying to find places that would please 10 to 14 people each meal. We have a couple guys who are pretty picky about where they want to eat. One guy would eat sushi every meal if he could, but he hates cooked fish. (Yeah, I know - you tell me.)

 

I got tired of having people bitch about the places I picked out - didn't matter if they were good or bad; Italian or steakhouses - there were always complaints. And I said I didn't want to be responsible for finding the restaurants any longer. That responsibility went to my colleague, Todd, who decided to try a place that he found on the Internet that was supposed to have some of the best Indian food in Atlanta - Panahar.

 

Actually, Panahar bills itself as a Bangladeshi restaurant, of which I'm not that big of an Indian food connoisseur to know the difference between Indian and Bangladeshi cuisine. And quite honestly, I've not been back to an Indian restaurant since we went to Raja in Atlanta last year. I don't know what to order when I go to those places and have to rely upon others who are much more well versed in Indian cuisine than I.

 

There were 12 of us who made the short trip (less than 3 miles from our hotel, but thanks to Atlanta traffic and an all too literal GPS system, it was a 20 minute drive) to a strip mall on Buford Highway (see map). 9 of us went in a van while the other 3 took a cab over to the restaurant. As we walked into the restaurant, one of the waiters informed us that Panahar was a "bring-your-own-bottle" establishment. Well, we were out of luck, or so it seemed. He informed us of a liquor store just across Buford Highway. Since I drove the van, I was told to go pick out some beer and some wine for the meal.

 

One of my colleagues who works for our Canadian company accompanied me to the liquor store which didn't have much to choose from. I ended up getting the only cold six pack they had of Singha beer, but I also picked up a couple sixers of the Sweetwater 420 pale ale beer and a sixer of a beer from a micro-brewery in Athens, GA called Terrapin Beer Company. They had a rye pale ale that sounded interesting (and it was pretty good). My colleague, Terry, picked out a couple of cheap red wines that they had to offer. We figured that if anyone bitched, they could have easily hopped in the van with us. But everyone seemed to be happy with our choices.

 

Initially, the manager of Panahar had told Todd that he wanted to have a "prix fixe" menu made up for us as he felt 12 guys would overwhelm their little kitchen if we ordered individually off Panahar's menu. But Todd explained that we usually order "family style" when it came to Indian/Bangladeshi food and the manager was relieved to hear that. So the food order had already been placed by the time we got back to the restaurant with the liquor.

The first thing to come out was something called Poori Shrimp Tee-ka. Poori is a bread that is puffed up in the oven and it comes out looking like a little pillow. You mash the middle of it and then in a very ritualistic way you line up the sauteed shrimp in one row along the near edge of the poori bread, then follow that with another line of the sauteed onions cooked with spices and herbs. Then you roll up the poori until it looks like a burrito and eat it like that. I have to say the taste sensation was fabulous.

Next came a soup appetizer called Mulligatawny. This soup had a pureed mixture of orange lentils (didn't know there was such a thing), peeled tomatoes, cumin and some secret herbs and spices. It reminded me of a Mexican tomatillo soup that I've had in the past. With the poori shrimp tee-ka and now the soup, Bangladeshi food sort of reminded me more of Mexican food than Indian food.

The soup was very, very good, as well. 

Next came the main entrees - three or four different things to choose from. We had Dhaan-shaag - cubed meat (you had your choice of chicken, beef, lamb, shrimp and goat - yes, goat. And more on that later) that was cooked in the same sort of sauce that the Mulligatawny soup was in. We got some beef Dhann-shaag to start out. It was very good, as well.

Learning from my colleagues, I've found that tandoori is a staple of Indian food. Only at Panahar, they called it tondoori. I don't quite know the difference other than the spelling. Todd had ordered up some tondoori lamb for the meal. The tondoori lamb is on the left side of the place on top of the rice and peas. I've had it before and it's also very good to the taste. I'm not big on lamb to begin with, but the tondoori sauce is wonderful.

 

Bhoona Maang-sho is a seasoned spicy meat that is stir-fried with onions, bell peppers and tomatoes (on the right on the plate served over fried rice). Todd initially ordered up some of the beef Bhoona Maang-sho for the table. When that was finished he said, "Anybody up for trying the goat Bhoona Maang-sho?"

Todd married a Jamaican lady earlier this year and his in-laws had a Jamaican feast recently where goat was served. He said at first he was sort of repulsed, but it was seasoned and cooked to a point where it tasted surprisingly close to pork. I told him I'd give it a try as did one of our other colleagues and he ordered up an entree of the goat Bhoona Maang-sho.

 

By the way, in the upper part of the above picture is either mixed Naan or Keema Naan - we had both on the table. Naan is a soft flat bread that is made in Tandoori ovens. You can order it with onions, garlic, ground beef, cheese, even coconuts and raisins. We got an order of mixed Naan - a combination of cheese, onion and roasted garlic; and an order of the Keema Naan - the mixed beef version. Once again, it was very similar to a Mexican quesadilla in both style and taste.

 

The Bhoona Mang-sho with goat meat came out and I tried a piece of it. While it was similar to pork, it was also very fatty with over half the chunk that I spooned out of the dish laden with fat. I cut the fat off and tried the meat part. It wasn't bad, but I definitely would not order that as a main entree at any point in the future.

My colleagues made short work of nearly everything that was brought to the table. It looked like a fraternity feeding frenzy at the table with plates and bowls being passed back and forth, guys exclaiming, "Man, you've got to try this!", and approving grunts and groans as a new taste sensation was discovered with the next dish that was passed along.

 

While I'm warming up quickly to Indian food, I'm still not thinking that I'll be seeking it out very often while I'm on the road. Still, I know of at least two very good Indian restaurants in the Chicago area that I'd like to try at some point. The bottom line is that Panahar was very good - I don't know if it was better than Raja, but it was very good. I continue to be open to new types of cuisine and always on the look out for great taste sensations. But I'll pass on getting the goat in the future.

Charcoal Oven - Skokie, IL

The Charcoal Oven on Golf Road in Skokie, IL (see map) is one of those places that I've passed a number of times, wondered what it would be like, but have never stopped in.  It looks like an old time supper club like you'd find out in the middle of nowhere in the rural Midwest.  I happened to be staying just down the street from the restaurant a couple months ago and decided to give the place a try for dinner one evening. 

I walked into the restaurant as two men were walking out.  It was early - around 6:45 p.m. - and I was the only one in the place, save for a lone man sitting at the bar talking to the bartender.  It turned out the bartender was the owner - Rich Franco - whose wife, Maria, is the daughter of the previous owner, Phill Georgouses. 

Maria Franco came out and asked if I wanted to sit at the bar or in the dining room.  Considering there wasn't anyone in the dining room - and it was getting into the meat of the dinner hour - I thought two things.  1) It would be kind of cool sitting in the dining room all by myself.  And 2) Why am I the only one in here?  I began to regret my decision. 

I sat in an old style three-sided booth with a white linen tablecloth over the table.  Maria handed me a menu and I immediately asked her if this place was an old style supper club that, at one time, was out in the country.  She said, "Oh, most definitely!"

She told me the story of how the original business was built in 1928 - called The Oasis.  It was basically a gin joint out in the country toward the end of Prohibition.  When Prohibition ended in 1933, The Oasis flourished as a hot spot for good food and flowing drinks.  It later became known as The Little Club and was a favorite hangout for Northwestern University students fleeing Evanston to drink when it was a dry town up to the mid-60's.  The Little Club was just outside the Evanston city limits.   

Phill Georgouses began to work as a busboy and waiter at The Little Club before World War II.  Phil was called to duty during the war, but he came back in 1946 to work at the place.  He ended up buying the Oasis in 1948.  In the mid-60's, Phill put in a kitchen to serve Greek-styled meals and steaks and changed the name to The Charcoal Oven.  Rich and Maria took over the business when Phill retired a few years ago.  Many of the Greek-styled recipes that the Georgouses family had are still on the menu and I understand that Phill still checks in from time to time.

The dining room had that old time supper club feel to it.  Subdued lighting, tasteful decor, Frank Sinatra playing in the background.  It was like walking back into the 50's or 60's.  Maria said that the city of Skokie literally grew up around the restaurant.  "This was the place to go for an elegant meal," she said.  "But now, there's just so many choices in the area.  But we weren't going to change one bit."   

In addition to their Greek chicken, steaks and chops, The Charcoal Oven has a variety of homemade soups and salads topped with their own in-house dressing.  Sonia Carlson has been making the soups and salad dressings at The Charcoal Oven for over 30 years.  I sort of like that kind of consistency.   

While the menu isn't very deep, it did have a handful of great sounding meals to choose from.  Maria said they were famous for their Greek chicken - a marinated chicken breast that is lightly breaded and baked in the oven with lemon, garlic and oregano.  She said their butt steak was also a favorite.  And they were somewhat famous for their baby back ribs with their own homemade sauce. 

They did have a special on a sirloin steak that evening - a 16 oz. cut with a couple sides for $21.95.  I signed up for that - rare.  The sides were The Charcoal Oven's homemade potato chips and sauteed green beans with onions.  I also got a cup of the homemade lentil vegetable soup and a salad with their homemade Danish bleu cheese dressing.  Maria said she'd get it right out.

Sure enough, Maria first brought out the cup of soup and a fresh baked bread roll brushed with butter.  Both the soup and the bread were very yummy.  I'm not big on lentil soup, but this was very good.  

After I finished the soup, she brought out the Danish bleu cheese salad.  It was OK, rather bland in taste compared to other bleu cheese dressings I've had.  But the lettuce was fresh and tasty.  

 

The salad was done for about five minutes and Maria brought out the 16 oz. sirloin, but it certainly looked larger than 16 oz.  I cut into it and it was a perfect rare for me.  The homemade potato chips were interesting, but good.  And the sauteed green beans with the onion slices were absolutely fabulous.

I began to work into the steak and I found that a good portion of the steak was full of gristle.  What meat I could cut out of the steak was tender and flavorful, but the large amount of gristle was a downer to the meal.  I know it's the luck of the draw when it comes to meat like sirloin whether or not you'll have a lot of gristle.  My number came up this time.

Maria came out and saw that I had a lot of gristle in the steak.  She immediately volunteered to get another piece of meat for me.  I said, "Oh, God, no.  Don't worry.  I wouldn't have been able to finish this whole steak had it not had ANY gristle in it.  This is fine."

She said, "Are you sure?"

I said, "Yep, just the luck of the draw."  

She was so nice and throughout the meal I continued to be the only person in the place.  Not that it was bad - it was above average, overall.  Maria did tell me that the place usually is much more busy on the weekend (it was a Wednesday night when I was in there) and it was a beautiful night out.  People were probably hanging at home, doing yard work and cooking out that evening.

About three weeks ago, a friend of mine who works at Music Direct in Chicago had posted on Facebook that he had gone to The Charcoal Oven with his wife.  I talked to him after that and told him that I, too, had recently visited the place.  He said, "We lived not far from that place from 1968 thru 1977.  We'd always pass it on the way to my aunt's house, but we never stopped in.  I was always intrigued with the place and so my wife and I decided to go there for dinner."  

He told me he had the Greek chicken and he said, "It was WONDERFUL!  I was torn between getting the special that night, which was a ribeye steak, and the Greek chicken.  She told me to get the Greek chicken.  I'm glad I did."  

With my recent addition of Abt Electronics as one of my dealers, I'll be spending a lot of time in the Glenview/Skokie area of Chicago, probably staying just down the street from The Charcoal Oven on occasion.  I'll need to get back there to try the Greek chicken and I'll probably also try one of their steaks again, as well.  I love old supper clubs like The Charcoal Oven and I'll definitely go back. 

Kegel's Inn - West Allis, WI

My cousin used to live in Milwaukee on the grounds of the Veteran's Administration Medical Center when he was the canteen manager there for over 15 years.  Not far from where he lived was a German restaurant that he turned us on to - Kegel's Inn on National Ave. in near suburban West Allis. (see map)  From the first time I went there a number of years ago, I thought Kegel's Inn had some of the best German food I'd ever had anywhere.  Since I'd gone to Mader's in downtown Milwaukee earlier this summer, I decided to try Kegel's Inn for lunch on a recent visit to Milwaukee. 

Kegel's Inn has been around since December of 1924 when Austrian immigrants John and Anna Kegel opened what was termed back then as a "soft-drink parlor" which in reality was a Prohibition-era speakeasy serving customers home-brewed beer and whiskey.  A free meal of German sausages and other specialties was served to the people who ordered drinks. 

After Prohibition was repealed, the Kegel's constructed a new restaurant at the present day site.  John and Anna Kegel's son, John, Jr. ran the establishment from 1947 to 1955.  His brother, George, and George's wife, operated the restaurant from 1955 to 1966.  John Kegel, Jr. and his wife, Ruth, came back to run the place from 1966 until they retired in 1991.  Today, Rob and Jim Kegel are the third generation of Kegel's to run the establishment.  In fact, it was Jim Kegel who greeted me and sat me in the dining room when I stopped in earlier this summer.  

 
The decor of the restaurant has a decidedly old world feel to the place. The bar area as you walk in features a long walnut bar with ornamental steins placed on a shelf over a couple of mirrored walls on the back side of the bar.  Wooden-beamed ceilings hovered over antique lights with walls covered in old time paintings.  Kegel's Inn has always had a cozy and inviting feel to the place.

As Jim Kegel seated me at a smaller table in the dining room, he asked if he could get me something to drink.  I had finished all my calls for the day and decided that a cold beer would be good at that point.  I asked for a Warsteiner, but I was informed that Kegel's Inn didn't carry Warsteiner.  Jim Kegel said, "We have Spaten lager on tap."  I said I'd have that.  He dropped off a lunch menu for me to look at for the time being. 

A waitress came back with the Spaten and said, "OK, so we have a bet.  What part of Chicago are you from?"

I looked at her quizzingly and said, "I'm from the Quad Cities of Iowa.  Davenport, to be exact." 

She turned back to Jim Kegel and said, "He's not from Chicago!" 

He came back over to the table and said, "Darn.  I just lost 25 cents."  He explained that Warsteiner was a very popular beer in Chicago and it really isn't in Milwaukee.  "I can usually tell if someone is from Chicago either by the way they talk or if they order Warsteiner," he told me.  "For some reason, Warsteiner doesn't really sell very well in Milwaukee." 

I don't know.  I don't think I've ever had a Warsteiner in Chicago.  I think the first time I had it was in the Quad Cities a number of years ago. 

The lunch menu at Kegel's Inn is smaller and not quite the same as their dinner menu.   But the lunch menu still has a number of the staples that make Kegel's Inn so popular with the locals in the greater Milwaukee area - Roast Pork Shank, Stuffed Beef Tenderloin, Sauerbraten, Beef Rouladen.  It's always difficult to figure out what to get when I venture into Kegel's Inn. 

I ended up ordering the Sauerbraten with a side of Kegel's Inn famous red cabbage and a dumpling.  For starters, I got a cup of their Chicken Dumpling soup.   The lunch portions are much smaller (and subsequently cheaper) than the dinner portions, so I knew the lunch wouldn't sit heavy in my stomach. 

Not long after I ordered, the waitress brought out the cup of Chicken Dumpling soup which was very good.  And almost as soon as I finished my cup of soup she brought out the Sauerbraten, covered in Kegel's Inn homemade red wine and ginger gravy sauce.  The portions of the Sauerbraten, dumpling and red cabbage were more than enough for a lunch time meal.  Anything more and I would have wanted to take a long nap.

And the Sauerbraten was just as good as I remembered it to be.  It had been quite some time since I'd been into Kegel's Inn and I silently wondered why as I eagerly ate my lunch.  The Sauerbraten is marinated for 10 days, then oven roasted to give it extreme tenderness.  The red wine and ginger gravy is an outstanding compliment to the meat.  It was an outstanding meal. 

 

Kegel's Inn may not be as famous as Mader's or Karl Ratzsch's, the two landmark German restaurants in Milwaukee.  But I have to say that the food at Kegel's Inn rivals or even surpasses what I've had at Mader's in the past.  I still need to try Karl Ratzsch's at some point - maybe during an upcoming trip to Milwaukee this fall.  But pound for pound and dollar for dollar, it's tough to beat Kegel's Inn for great German food. 

Amighetti's - St. Louis

We have some casual friends in the Quad Cities that we run in to from time to time who like to go to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play baseball. Each trip to St. Louis, they always stop at Amighetti's on The Hill for a sandwich. While in St. Louis earlier this year, I decided to stop in for a bite.

Actually, a couple years ago, I stopped into Amighetti's at night to have something to eat. I parked behind the building and walked in the back door. The lights were on, but there were about 7 or 8 older guys sitting around a table. They all looked up at me in unison. It was like I had walked into a mob sit-down meeting. I sort of stopped and asked, "Are you guys open?"

In a husky voice, a guy with a heavy Italian accent replied, "No, we're only open for food during the day." I apologized and did a quick about-face out the door. It was kind of funny and unnerving at the same time.

I did make an effort to get back at some point and I found myself near Amighetti's at the corner of Wilson and Marconi near the noon hour (see map). (There are also two other Amighetti's locations - one in suburban Hazelwood and another in Rock Hill in West County.) I parked in front of Amighetti's Bakery, the original Amighetti's since Louis Amighetti opened it in 1921. A small, traditional Italian style family bakery, Amighetti and his son, Louis, Jr - aka "Junior" - grew the business over the years making breads and pastries, while also making sandwiches that quickly became popular with their customers.

In the late 60's, Junior Amighetti opened a small sandwich shop on the other side of the corner from the bakery. Their signature sandwich - the Amighetti's Special - consists of ham, roast beef, Genoa salami, cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, a pepperoncini and topped with Amighetti's secret recipe Italian dressing all on a freshly baked Italian bread. A number of other places have tried to copy Amighetti's Special sandwich, most notably the St. Louis-based grocery chain Schnuck's that has ready-to-eat sub sandwiches in their deli case call "The King of the Hill". I've had a King of the Hill from the Schnuck's not far from our house in Davenport and I can say that it's just OK. I was hoping the Amighetti's special would be better.

I ventured into Amighetti's and a small line had already formed to order at the counter. The dining area was small with a handful of tables. There is a nice outdoor seating area on the north side of the building along with a walk-up window to order. It was pretty hot outside and even though the patio area had a cloth tarp over the seating area to keep the sun out, I decided to sit inside.

The menu at Amighetti's is pretty basic featuring not only their special sandwich, but a number of "build-you-own" sandwiches, as well. Amighetti's also has a handful of salads and some basic pasta dishes to choose from. Everyone in line in front of me was ordering the Amighetti's Special sandwich, so it was no surprise to the young girl when I ordered the same thing when I got to the front of the line. I ordered a half Amigetti's Special with a bottle of water.

Now, the girl behind the counter was neither welcoming or rude - just sort of neutral in her mannerisms and demeanor. She wordlessly turned to a container holding a bunch of the sandwiches, grabbed a bottle of water from one of the other girls and told me how much I owed. With the sandwich and the water, it came to around $5.50 - not a bad price for lunch.

Since Amighetti's makes a lot of sandwiches in advance, the lettuce got a little limp and wilted. In fact, the whole sandwich looked like it was just slapped together with thin slices of meat, a slice of cheese, a couple tomato slices, a smattering of lettuce and onions and topped with a large pepperoncini. I couldn't even discern the homemade Italian dressing on the sandwich. The bread was soft and a little chewy, but didn't add much to the sandwich. It was basically like getting a "King of the Hill" at Schnuck's. I guess I was trying to figure out what was so special about the Amighetti Special sandwich our friends had been raving about for quite some time.

There are a lot of places to have lunch on the Hill and it's no doubt that Amighetti's does a good business for lunch. But I wasn't overly impressed with the Amighetti's Special. In fact, there's a meat market/deli on the west side of the Hill (I can't remember the name of it, but I can drive right to it) that made me a submarine sandwich very similar to the Amighetti's Special a couple years ago and I thought it was very good. It wasn't made in advance like the Amigetti's Special so the vegetables topped on the meat were fresh and not wilted. Amighetti's may be the original, but I think there's others that do it just as good, if not better, than they do.

Michael Salerno's Pizzeria - Glenview, IL

 

It's my strong opinion that Salerno's Pizza in Chicago is probably the best pizza I've ever had in my life.  I don't know what they do to their pizza, but the taste sensations I experience with their pies are unlike any I've ever encountered.  From the first time I visited Salerno's (click here to read that entry) to the handful of times I've enjoyed their pizza, it is consistently the best pizza I've ever had.  Period. 

I took Cindy to Salerno's after an afternoon at Wrigley Field last year and she, too, was just floored with the taste of their pizza.  It's like they sprinkle heroin in the sauce as the taste is just addictive with every slice.  We continually talk about how great the pizza is there to our friends.

Later this fall, Iowa is playing Northwestern in football in Evanston.  We got tickets with our friends Scott and Marcia Schroeder and Cindy had the great idea - "Let's see if we can stay in downtown Chicago and eat at Salerno's!"  Well, that was a great idea until I tried to find hotel rooms that were reasonably priced in the downtown area for that weekend.  I think the cheapest room of a respectable hotel was still over $200 a night.  We ended up getting a room out in the north suburbs at a considerably cheaper price, but were still planning on driving into the city to have a Salerno's.

Earlier this summer, I put on Abt Electronics in Glenview, IL - one of the largest electronics/appliance/home life-style stores in the nation - for Focal loudspeakers and Cambridge Audio.  They do big business and since July I've made many trips to the north side suburbs to administer their account.  It was during one of my trips that I came across a Salerno's restaurant in Glenview - Michael Salerno's Pizzeria - located in the Glen Town Center (see map).  Since it wasn't all that far from the hotel we would be staying at later this fall, I thought I'd give this Salerno's location a try.  I thought, "If it's as good as the Salerno's in downtown Chicago, we won't have to drive all the way into the city." 

Now, I had tried the original Salerno's on Grove in Berwyn and came away from that location as entirely unimpressed (see that entry here).  It was nowhere close to the pizza at the Salerno's on Grand.  I went to Michael Salerno's Pizzeria with a little bit of trepidation knowing that it was a newer location and that the pizza ovens they used would be pretty new.  The old gas fired pizza ovens usually make the best pizzas.  But the pizza at the original Salerno's was grossly over-cooked and it was not a very good pizza.  I'm glad I went to the Salerno's on Grand in downtown Chicago first or I would have never tried it after eating at the one in Berwyn. 

The encouraging thing was that Michael Salerno is the son of Joe Salerno - the owner of the Salerno's on Grand in Chicago.   Along with his sister, Julie, and their uncle, Peter Lia, the Salerno's in Glenview opened in August of 2008.  I was really hoping the apple didn't fall so far from the tree when it came to the pizza.

It was late one evening when I finally got into Michael Salerno's Pizzeria.  This Salerno's location was remarkably different than the other two I'd visited.  There wasn't any of the 60's charm the one in Berwyn and the one in Chicago exhibited.  It was a modern facility, much smaller on the inside than the other two Salerno's, and it featured two things that the others didn't - pizza by the slice and outdoor seating.  It was sort of a warm and humid night with a threat of heavy rain, so I decided to eat inside.

This is where I got a little confused.  It didn't appear that there was any wait staff service at this Salerno's.  I went to the front counter and looked over the menu.  I ordered a small sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza and a couple bottles of Miller Lite - no Anheuser-Busch products were available.  That wasn't that big of a deal, but I made a mental note that they had no Bud Light and they didn't appear to have a wait staff.  I paid for the pizza and found a seat in the smallish dining area of Salerno's. 

After awhile, a couple other people came in and sat at a table near me.  Out of the back came a middle-aged lady who appeared to be waiting on tables.  It was just sort of strange that she wasn't around when I first got in, nor was there any signage telling those to sit on their own or wait to be seated.  It just appeared to me at first glance that this was a "serve yourself" restaurant.  It was just a very weird experience to me. 

After about 20 minutes (and a two-minute power outage from a storm that was coming through), the lady brought my pizza to my table.  First of all, they gave me a large pizza and not a small.  And it was way over-cooked.  I could tell from the burnt carmelization of the cheese on top that it was should have been taken out 5 minutes earlier.  Secondly, the crust, while thin, was also was over-cooked.  It was hard and crunchy, difficult to bite into.  While the toppings were plentiful and flavorul, the rest of the pizza was not very good.  It just didn't have the taste "pizazz" that the Salerno's on Grand has. 

I did make a dent into the pizza, but I could only eat about half of it - actually pulling the cheese and toppings off the top of my last piece because the crust was so hard and brittle.  The waitress came around and asked if I wanted it to be boxed up and I told her in a polite fashion, no, that I was traveling and didn't have a place to store the remaining slices. 

I was very disappointed in Michael Salerno's Pizzeria in Glenview.  I had so hoped that it would be just as good as the one in downtown Chicago, saving us some time and effort to drive all the way into the city to get a great pizza.  But the Salerno's on Grand is worth the drive.  Michael Salerno's Pizzeria in Glenview is not. 

Burger Jones - Minneapolis

Always on the lookout for a good burger joint, I came across a place in Minneapolis earlier this summer with the most intriguing name - Burger Jones.  I've contemplated for quite sometime to start a second blog that was wholly about burger joints that I've visited.  I even have a name for it - Burger Lust - after the wonderful little burger joint of the same name in Omaha that I've visited many times.  But Burger Jones - you know, when you're "jonesin' " for a burger - may be an even better name.  I was hoping their burgers were as good as their name, so I stopped in for dinner there one early evening in the late summer.

In doing research on Burger Jones, I found that the place is owned by the Parasole Restaurant Group, a Twin Cities company that also runs the great Manny's Steakhouse (click here to read about my visit to Manny's a few years ago) which is a Twin Cities icon when it comes to world class steakhouses.  The Parasole Group also run other restaurants such as Il Gatto, Muffaletta, and the new Uptown Cafeteria.   

But I also found that the Parasole Group also used to run one of my all-time favorite Italian restaurants - Pronto, located in downtown Minneapolis.  I had eaten there in the 80's and was hooked.  Cindy and I had taken a vacation 16 years ago to the Twin Cities and I took her there for dinner one evening.  Unfortunately, when I began to go to the Twin Cities for business eight years ago, I found that Pronto was no longer in business.  That was a bummer.  It was just excellent.

I figured that a restaurant corporation that owned and ran such restaurants as Manny's and Pronto must know what they're doing.  So it was with a somewhat excited eagerness that I decided to give Burger Jones a try. 

I had a long day with a couple meetings and a two-hour training for Ultimate Electronics the day I stopped in to Burger Jones.  I had a little breakfast, no lunch and was on fumes when I pulled into the parking lot in the Calhoun Village shopping center near Lake Calhoun (see map).  I needed a beer - or two - and something to eat. 

 
 
I went inside and was greeted at the hostess stand by a young lady who asked me if I wanted to eat in the dining room or at the bar.  It was a very hot day outside - temps were in the mid-90's with very high humidity - and she said, "You probably don't want to eat outside on our patio." 

I emphatically said, "Nooooo!"  I opted for one of their heavily padded and comfortable booths in the dining room as the bar area - which was very nice - was full of people just getting off work and enjoying Burger Jones' Happy Hour specials of tall glasses of domestic beers for $3 bucks from 3 to 6 p.m.  She left a menu with me and I waited for a waitress to show up. 

It wasn't long before my waitress, Laura, showed up at the table wearing one of the many styles of T-shirts that Burger Jones sells at the hostess stand.  She asked me if I'd ever been to Burger Jones before and I told her I hadn't.  I asked her how long it had been open and she said, "We opened in June of 2009."  She said they're famous for their burgers and milkshakes, but I did notice that their beer selections were pretty impressive, as well.  She asked me if I wanted anything to drink while I looked at the menu and I ordered a Bell's Two Hearted Ale.  She said she'd be right back with the beer.  I'm tellin' you - I needed one! 

The burger selections on the menu were pretty interesting, to say the least.  In addition to the regular burgers - the Burger Jones and the Cheeseburger Jones - they featured "The Hangover" burger, a burger topped with bacon, cheddar cheese, hot sauce and a fried egg.  That would be great at around 1 a.m.  They also had the "White Trash" burger - chicken-fried bacon (whatever that is), fried cheese curds and Velveeta on top of the burger.  I could just feel my arteries hardening. 

Laura came back with a glass of water and apologized to me.  "They're just changing the keg for the Two Hearted out right now.  It should be a couple of minutes." 

She asked me if I was ready to order and I was still having trouble figuring out what I wanted to try on my first visit.  I told her by the time she brought my beer to me, I'd probably know what I wanted. 

I was torn between the Black and Bleu burger - cracked black pepper covers the burger and it's topped with caramelized onions and bleu cheese; and the Mushroom Swiss cheese burger - sauteed mushrooms with plenty of Swiss cheese.  They also had a Buffalo burger on the menu, but I was looking for something a little more juicy and less lean in my burger. 

While I do like a bleu cheese burger, sometimes the taste of the bleu cheese overpowers the burger.  When Laura came back with my beer, I ordered the Mushroom Swiss cheese burger.  She said, "We make our burgers 'sorta pink' or 'no pink'.  How would you like yours cooked?"  I told her "sorta pink." 

She asked if I wanted any fries or onion rings with the burger.  The parmesan waffle fries caught my eye and I noticed that they also had a number of dipping sauces available for 50 cents.  I told her that I'd try some of the waffle fries, but had trouble figuring out which dipping sauce to choose from.  They had good ol' fashioned beef gravy to dip fries into, they also had a smoked tomato ketchup dip, a seasoned sour cream and bearnaise sauce as some of the others.  I almost got the beef gravy, but decided to try the avocado mayo dipping sauce. 

Burger Jones is not a burger "joint" by any stretch of the imagination.  It's a nice, upscale burger place that caters to families, professionals and young urbanites.  The dining area is a good sized room with large windows that look out onto the patio which, in turn, looks out onto Lake Calhoun just across Lake Street.  I've always like the Lake Calhoun area near the Uptown neighborhood in Minneapolis.  In fact, I'm beginning to really like going to Minneapolis.  With a new dealer I got a huge commitment from earlier in the day, I'm sure I'll be in the Twin Cities more and more. 

 
 
About 15 minutes - and one beer - passed before another waitress brought out my burger and waffle fries.  The presentation was very nice - the burger was dressed with heaping globs of mushrooms and swiss cheese.  The patty sat on a small bed of lettuce and the bun was a nice flaky egg bun with sesame seeds on top.  The burger was cooked exactly how Laura described it - "sorta pink".  Perfect, in my eye.

I took a bite and I noticed that it had some sort of a salty seasoning on it.  It sort of took me aback at first, remembering how my visit to Red Robin was soured because of the horrible salty seasoning they put on everything they made (click here to read about that).  But with each bite, the taste sensation of the salty seasoning seemed to diminish.  By the time I finished the burger, the seasoning taste was hardly noticeable. 

The bun was just fabulous at Burger Jones.  I've said time and time again that the bun is what can make or break a burger.  The bun was flavorful, it held together and was light and chewy.  It was a top notch burger all the way around. 

The waffle fries had a generous amount of parmesan cheese on them.  Of course, the cheese got all over the place including my rust colored shirt and black pants that I was wearing that day.  But they were good and the avocado mayo dipping sauce was actually pretty good. 

After finishing my burger, I went to the restroom.   But along the way, there's this huge picture on the wall of a guy really going after a burger.  It was interesting and funny at the same time.

When I got to the restroom just past the picture, I had to stop for a moment as instead of "Men" and "Women" on the door, they had "Chuck" and "Patty" for the signs.  Going into the "Chuck" room, I had guessed right.  At first,  I thought it had to do with the Peanuts cartoon strip since Charles M. Schulz grew up in the Twin Cities and because Peppermint Patty used to call Charlie Brown "Chuck".  But I finally figured out that it had to do with the burger concept at Burger Jones.  I'm such a dolt sometimes. 

I got back to the table and Laura came over and asked me if I wanted one of Burger Jones' desserts or an after dinner specialty milkshake.  I declined on both and got my check.  Burger Jones isn't cheap - the Mushroom Swiss cheese burger was $9.99, the fries and dipping sauce was $3.49 and the beers were $4.95 each.  Some will argue the merits of a $10 dollar burger, but it was pretty good.  I can't say it was a great value.  But Laura did a good job in taking care of me.  She was very attentive and got a nice tip for her efforts that evening. 

Before I left, I took a look around the place.  The bar area had cleared out and only a couple people were dining at the bar.  I would have sat at the bar had it not been so crowded earlier.  But it was well past 6 p.m. and Happy Hour was over.   Next time, I'll go a little later and sit at the bar. 

I'm beginning to find some excellent burger places in the Twin Cities and Burger Jones is no exception.  I'm not overly certain if I liked the seasoning they put on the burger - I'm sure I can order it without the seasoning on my next visit.  But with a great selection of beers on tap and a damn fine burger, Burger Jones has just gone on my list of "must revisit" when I get back to the Twin Cities. 

Behind the Scenes at River Roots Live - 2010

 

 

The sixth annual River Roots Live festival was held in LeClaire Park in downtown Davenport over the weekend of August 20-21.  Once again, I was called upon to be the stage manager/coordinator and did the announcements for the event.  As I tell people, I must be doing something right because the promoters of the event - the Iowa Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce and The River Music Experience - keep asking me to come back.  In all, I've been involved in five of the six River Roots Live festivals. 

 

 

We began production meetings back in June headed up once again by Marcy Hyder from the Iowa Quad Cities Chamber and her fun and able right hand gal, Jessica Kohn.  And once again, Kyle Carter headed up marketing efforts, and Tom Swanson and Kate Benson from The River Music Experience were the contacts with the bands we hired.  We continued with these meetings throughout the summer on a regular basis, getting to the point just before the festival where Marcy sort of stopped in the middle of one meeting, looked at me and exclaimed, "Wow!  I think we actually know what we're doing!"   

Our budget had grown so we could get bands like The Marshall Tucker Band, Creedence Clearwater Revisited and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.  And given that the last two years of River Roots Live (see the 2008 entry here, and the 2009 entry here) were on the streets of downtown Davenport and free to the public, we had to make it free at LeClaire Park, as well.  Once you open that door, it's going to be difficult to shut it. 

 

 
In addition to the music, it's also the annual Rib Fest - the 13th year there's been a rib festival (and the 12th year I've been involved).  We had six national rib vendors and a couple of local guys show up for the festival this year.  Over the past couple years, the rib vendors were inundated with people once we opened the festival up free of charge.  All the rib vendors ran out of food quite early a couple years ago.  Most of them were back last year and brought even more food, but many were out of food by the time 10 p.m. came around on Saturday night. 

 

 
This year, the rib vendors had large refrigerated trucks parked in the lots near the park, hoping that they wouldn't run out of ribs again this year.  One of the long time rib vendors, Desperado's, was back this year.  Their owner, Lee Rice, had suffered a stroke earlier this year and was confined to a wheel chair.  Lee, who was well over 400 lbs when I first met him years ago, had dropped over 100 pounds before the 2009 River Roots Live/Rib Fest.  He said he was looking to drop another 50 to 75 pounds.  Well, he certainly had, but it was sad to see him in his wheel chair, able to only move the left side of his body. 

By the way, check out the unique smoker in picture on the upper right.  I've seen pictures of these pistol-shaped smokers, but had never seen one up close until the Texas Thunder cooking team brought this one out for display during River Roots Live.  It's a true working smoker with a wood box off to one side and the barrel of the "gun" acting as the chimney.  I'm not certain I'd want one, but it was pretty interesting to see.

Production work on River Roots Live began on the Wednesday night before the festival.  Scott Rexroat's stellar production crew from Rexroat Sound and Elite Productions began to set up the two stages that we had literally side by side in front of the band shell at LeClaire Park.  This worked tremendously well for me compared to the last couple of years where we had two stages about 75 yards apart.  I had a lot of logistical problems working between the two stage areas and there was a lot of running back and forth between the areas.  With the larger stage in front of the band shell and the smaller stage off to the side, the lay-out worked tremendously for us.  We did get a little cramped back there from time to time, but we made it work.

 

 

 

This is what the stages looked like after the roofs were up and the lights were set.  Scott Rexroat had over 150,000 watts of power for 72 bass speakers and about a dozen P.A. horns all controlled by six sound boards for both front of house and stage monitors.  Between what Scott had and what he got from Joe Murphy at Murphy Sound in Iowa City, we had over 120,000 watts of light power combined for both stages.  I'm telling you, this was certainly a big time production.

Of course, it wouldn't be River Roots Live if we didn't have some rain to contend with.  I think five of the six events have been hampered by rain at some point - either during set up or during the show.  We knew rain was going to be coming on Friday evening and we were fully anticipating having to either cancel or push back some starting times with the bands.  We were able to get Lojo Russo, a local guitarist/singer, up on stage at 5:30, but it began to rain around 6:15.  It continued to rain steadily for the next couple hours, hard enough that we had to shut the music down even though we have roofs over the stage and tents over the sound boards. 



We ended up canceling three bands including Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons - a band from Wisconsin that features the son of a Baptist minister (Chisel) as their front man.  I was looking forward to their show as I'd heard that Chisel got a lot of his stage presence from watching his preacher father give fire and brimstone services as he was growing up.  Now his son is playing the devil's music...

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

The Marshall Tucker Band was the headliner on Friday night.  Like many of the old time bands we've had in the past, there was only one original member of the band still around - lead singer Doug Gray (seated in the lower right corner of the picture on the left).  Three of the original members of the band, including the two Caldwell brothers - Toy and Tommy - are dead.  The other members - drummer Paul Riddle and flutist Jerry Eubanks - retired from the road a number of years ago. 

The Marshall Tucker Band continues to play today anchored by guitarists Stuart Swanlund and Rick Willis.  Georgian Marcus James Henderson takes over the reed instrument parts of the band and spells Gray on some songs where the 67-year-old can't quite hit some of those notes like he used to nearly 40 years ago. 

Because these classic rock bands usually only have one or two of the original members in the band, their bread and butter is their live shows.  They usually don't do albums any longer and they have to be damn good in concert or people aren't going to come and see them.  Marshall Tucker has a rabid following as witnessed by the nearly 3,000 people who stuck around in the rain to wait for their show later that evening. 

I don't usually have much interaction with members of the band, but I did spend about 10 minutes before their show with the members of the band, joking back and forth with them and their road manager, David Warren.  Doug Gray and David were telling me about a time out in Colorado a few years ago when the promoter had the band play in the middle of a driving rain with lightning dancing all over the place.  "There had to be 2,000 people on this hillside, all holdin' umbrellas, with all this lightning." David told me. 

"Crazy people," Doug said.  "But that's our fans.  The funny thing about it was that it was really lightnin' out when we were playin' 'Fire on the Mountain'."  (The song features the line "Lightning in the air...")

I wished Doug Gray to have a good show and he gave me sort of a half-hug and a hand shake.  My t-shirt was wet from being out in the rain earlier and he told me, "Now, I don't mean to sound like an old grandfather, but, Son, you've got to change outta that wet shirt!"  I told him I was going to do that just as soon as I got off the stage.   

Nice guys and they did a pretty good job on stage.  I can't say it was a stellar show  from what I saw and heard (remember, I don't get to see many shows in my capacity of stage manager), but they did do a good job. 

Our Friday night was closed out by Backyard Tire Fire, a Bloomington, IL-based band that plays American roots-style rock.  These guys played at River Roots Live in 2009 and were stepped on - literally - by Joe Bonamassa who began to play his set while the band was playing their last song on the small stage.  It was one of the most unprofessional things I've ever witnessed in my years of working these events.  And the Backyard Tire Fire guys sorely remembered the slight.  They all laughed when I promised the guys this year that they could start playing during Marshall Tucker's encore.  

Saturday awoke to gray skies and cool temperatures.  Our first band wasn't scheduled to start until noon and Creedence Clearwater Revisited wasn't due in until about 10:30 a.m. for their set up and sound check.  Compared to other early morning load-ins we've had in the past, this was a piece of cake.  I was actually able to sleep in and got to the stage area around 8:30 in the morning.  

The road crew from Creedence got in and immediately began bitching about this and that.  We had a problem with the bass guitar amplifier and it was evident that it wasn't going to work for the performance.  That didn't make them happy.  We had six stage hands on deck to help them with set up and they didn't think that was enough.  One of the guys on the Creedence crew suffered a small cut, more of an abrasion, on his arm and demanded to see the Emergency Medical Technician on site.  And he came back with this bandage that covered about a third of his forearm - sort of overkill for the small scrape that he had.  

But after awhile, the Creedence crew began to settle in, they warmed up to us and things began to get a lot better with them.  The band had played in western Nebraska the night before and it was a 650 mile, 10 hour drive overnight for the band and crew.  So it was understandable that the crew was a little cranky at first while the band was back in a hotel room sleeping and resting up for the show later in the evening.  

The sun came out just before noon making everything hot and sticky as the first bands began to play.  We had a pretty spacious backstage area with some RV trailers that were used for dressing rooms or "chill stations" for the bands.  We had a great catering service put on by Mike and Mary Monfort again, with help from Neil Vigars who did a lot of the procuring of food and drinks for the back stage area and to put in the band's trailers as part of their contract riders.  That's one of the problems I have with River Roots Live being paired with the Rib Fest - I hardly ever get a chance to take the time to go try some ribs.  But the Monfort's always do a good job of providing some great food to the bands and production crew.  

 

We had a pretty good sized crowd for the afternoon, partly because of the draw of the ribs and the fact that it was free admission.  We knew we were going to have a huge crowd that evening and everyone from the cops to the beer guys to the rib vendors were gearing up for the night.  But in the meantime, the music continued and it featured an eclectic mix of American-roots-based music, modern bluegrass, hip-hop/reggae, and spacey hippies era rock.  The band pictured on the right is a local Quad City band -Bumper Crop - fronted by Craig Smith, whose wife, DaMel, cuts my hair at Salon Luce in downtown Davenport.  (A little plug for Craig and DaMel who own the shop.)

By the way, I'd be very remiss if I didn't mention a couple of things.  First, many of the pictures in this entry are courtesy of Tony McKinney who works for Rexroat Sound.  Tony takes a lot of great photos from his vantage point either on stage or out at the front of house sound board.  So I have to thank Tony for letting me use some of the pictures.

Secondly, I have to acknowledge that I had help this year in the form of my lovely wife, Cindy, who was my assistant behind the stage.  Last year, Cindy said to me, "What do you do after the show is over on Saturday night so that you don't get home until 3 a.m.?  I suppose you just sit and drink and carry on with everyone." 

Well, there is some of that, but I am pretty busy getting stuff put away, cleaning stuff up, helping with this or that.  Last year, she stuck around after Joe Bonamassa played on Saturday night and helped me with my duties.  She said, "I really had no idea of all the stuff you do at these shows!"  So, she volunteered to help out behind the stage this year and she did a great job.  At times, she would be sitting around, feeling guilty that she wasn't doing something at that moment.  But as I explained to her many times, "Don't worry.  You'll get busy.  We just need you to be ready when we need you." 

Later in the afternoon, Cindy came up to me and said, "Hey, WQAD wants to interview you over by the backstage entrance."  I went over there and WQAD's Brian Boesen, whom I'd met before on a couple of occasions (including the night before when he was hanging out in the VIP area of the festival with Cindy and our friends Greg and Jenny Hipskind), was wanting to put me on camera.

Well, I looked like hell - sweaty, hair all askew - and I protested about being put on camera.  He said, "Oh, come on.  We'll just do a head and shoulders shot."

 

If you want to see the segment that Brian did on River Roots Live, including my little part of the interview he did with me, click here. 

The crowd began to fill in quite rapidly on Saturday evening in anticipation of both Creedence Clearwater Revisited and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.  We had some last minute requests above and beyond the standard tour riders that we have to fulfill for national acts like those two bands.  Kate Benson, who is the events coordinator at the River Music Experience, did a great job with many of these requests including running out to get mouthwash so Grace Potter's road crew could clean the face of the microphones. (I never heard of that before, but it certainly made sense - especially at a festival.)  Here's Kate in an all too familiar pose with the phone pressed to her face as she cheerfully ran down some inane request from one of the bands. 

 

One of the true highlights of River Roots Live is discovering bands that I'm not familiar with and this year that band was Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights, a Dallas-based band that played good ol' straight-forward rock and roll.  I had a chance to catch a bit of their set and I was standing with a couple guys from Rexroat Sound at the monitor board on the small stage who were just amazed at how well these guys played.  And they did do a great job.  It was the perfect lead-in to Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Here's a couple pictures of the crowd just before Creedence played that evening.  In the picture in the upper left, you see the back of Eric Kranz of Rexroat Sound, affectionately known to his friends as "Chikken", getting things ready for Creedence to take the stage.  The picture on the upper right is one that Tony McKinney took just after the show began.  Police estimated there were between 20,000 to 25,000 people at the park that evening.  It was just absolutely packed - the most people I'd ever seen at LeClaire Park. 

Creedence Clearwater Revisited has only two of the four original members of Creedence Clearwater Revival - drummer Doug Clifford and bass player Stu Cook.  John Fogerty, who wrote most of the great Creedence songs, has his own solo career and wants nothing to do with the reincarnation of the band.  Fogerty's brother, Tom, died 20 years ago when he contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion for a back ailment.  The original CCR may be the first main stream roots rock act to make it big.  I still have trouble believing they were from the San Francisco Bay Area and not from the Mississippi Delta. 

 

The other members of Creedence Clearwater Revisited feature lead singer John Tristao, whose vocals are very similar to John Fogerty's.  Before his work with Creedence, Tristao was with a Bay Area band by the name of People!, who had a hit back in the mid-60's called "I Love You".  We've seen Creedence Clearwater Revisited at Summerfest in Milwaukee in the past and his Fogerty-like vocals were the key to making the band sound like, well, like Creedence Clearwater Revival. 

Guitarist Tal Morris and guitarist/keyboard player Steve Gunnermake up the rest of the CCR band.  Morris has worked with the likes of Huey Lewis and the News, Ronnie Montrose, and the Sons of Champlin.  Morris replaced original Creedence Clearwater Revisited guitarist Elliott Easton - formerly of The Cars- a few years ago.  Steve Gunner is sort of the "everyman" for Creedence playing not only guitar and keyboards, but doing some background singing, playing percussion and a little harmonica. 

 

Creedence (pictured at right during their show at River Roots Live) showed up around 8 p.m. for their 9:00 p.m. show.  Their road manager, Wayne Nagel, is a music industry veteran, probably best known as one of the co-founders of the Austin Rehearsal Complex - a.k.a. - the ARC - in Austin, TX.  The ARC was known as the hub of Austin music in the 90's with a large number of area musicians using the space to rehearse and record.  Nagel was also the manager of the famous Continental Club in Austin for a number of years.  The number of bands and artists that have made their way up through the ranks of the Austin music scene and who have played the Continental Club since 1957 is mind-boggling. 

 

Wayne was a very nice guy in a down-home Texas sort of way.  He was a somewhat imposing figure with a barrel chest, but had a quick smile and was very easy to work with.  He was overly grateful for the requests he put forth and was very appreciative of our efforts in making sure everything came off without a hitch.  I've always said the national acts are usually the easiest to work with, even if they can be a little demanding.  There's a lot of give and take when it comes to working festivals, and bands like CCR and The Marshall Tucker Band understand that.

 

Unfortunately, the management for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals didn't quite understand that (as did the management with Joe Bonamassa the previous couple of years).  Grace Potter's tour manager, Ben Erickson, was a nice enough guy, but a little high-strung and overly demanding at times.  Ben heads the Elysian Artist Group, a management firm that handles both business and tours for the likes of Grace Potter and Martin Sexton. 

 

One of the last minute requests we got from Ben was a police security detail in and around the backstage area for Grace Potter.  Grace Potter is a rapidly rising star in the music world and she's not bad to look at either.  With her long hair and long legs, it's little wonder that she probably gets hassled by fans on a regular basis.  However, Ben told me that one of the biggest problems she has is with other musicians hassling her - especially at festivals like River Roots Live.  So, we had to coordinate with the Davenport Police Department in getting one of their uniform cops to accompany Grace at all times and stand guard outside her trailer before and after the show.  Mark Hanssen, lovingly known as "Lumpy" to his fellow cops, drew the short straw to take on this task.  Mark told me, "I have no idea who Grace Potter is, but by Monday, I may be one of her biggest fans."

Another strange request from Ben Erickson was that no one was to be on or near the stage area during Grace Potter's show.  We had three stairwells up to the stage and he wanted security posted at each one.  Well, we couldn't do that and I told him that we just didn't have the manpower.  I just decided to clear the backstage area of all non-essential personnel including some of the bands who had played earlier in the day.  That was one of the more unpleasant parts of my job as the stage manager. 

As Creedence was winding down on stage, it was evident that they were running over their time allotment.  And, quite frankly, that was fine with me.  Nearly every song that CCR played was one that you'd hear on the radio at almost any time on any day.  It was an amazing run of songs they had with the original band. 

Wayne Nagel, Ben Erickson and I huddled before Creedence ended their show.  Wayne explained the way they did their encores - come off stage, go back on for two songs, come off again, go back on for two final songs.  We wanted Grace Potter to start almost as soon as Creedence made their way off stage.  Ben knew this would cut into their 10:30 p.m. starting time by about 10 to 15 minutes.  Ben was told that they had to be off stage by midnight per noise restrictions for the City of Davenport.  (I found out later we had a variance for the noise abatement.)  I told him that if Grace went 10 minutes past midnight, I'm sure the cops wouldn't roust them from the stage.  Mark Hanssen was standing right next to me and I looked at him and he sort of shook his head "no" when  I wanted confirmation to that.  Still it didn't set well with Ben.

As we went to the smaller stage with Grace and the band, Ben was having a mini fit on the stage.  "We're the f***ing headliners here!  We shouldn't have to get pushed around by a bunch of has-been musicians!"

I turned on my heels and went right up to his face. I said, "Hang a second, son.  CREEDENCE is the headliner tonight!  Look at the crowd that came out to see them!  Do you think this crowd is for Grace?  3/4's of the people here have never heard of Grace Potter!  Your job is to hold the crowd and to make new fans!"  And with that, I jumped off the stage and went to the backstage area.

Later on, after Grace began her set, Ben came up to me and apologized.  He said, "Sorry I snapped at you earlier.  You're right.  Creedence is the headliner and we're just the clean up act."  Glad he saw it that way.  And I'm glad that I didn't have to tell him that Creedence got about 3 and a half times more money than Grace did.  But every cent we paid to Creedence was worth it.  They did one helluva job. 

One of the problems with being the stage manager and announcer for the event is that most people think that I'm in charge of the whole event.  We have a television crew from Impact Video that provides the Jumbotron screen and does television production for the event.  A lot of times in the past, they've shown me on the Jumbotron when I do my little bit of announcing.  Over the past couple of years, I've had a wireless microphone and would stand off to the side of the stage out of sight of both the cameras and most of the people.  But I still get recognized from time to time.

 

One of those times occured during Grace Potter's set.  Grace Potter's Hammond B-3 organ was set up to the far side of stage right and we didn't have any handheld cameras set up for that stage.  We just had one camera situated on top of the scaffolding above the front of house sound board.  The only problem was that right in between Grace and the camera was one of the decorative lamp posts that are in the LeClaire park bandshell area.  So the cameraman couldn't get any shots of Grace Potter for the Jumbotron. 

 

This infuriated a number of people who were back toward the middle part of the park.  I went out to the front of house during Grace's set (I always like to go out to the sound board because, quite frankly, that's the best sounding place for any concert) to hang for a bit.   One very inebriated 30's-something lady came up to me and began to complain.  "Hey, this is a bunch of shit!  We can't see Grace Potter.  What the f***'s wrong with the cameraman? I can do a better job than he can!"

I said, "See that lamp post between here and the stage?  Well, it's right in the way of the camera and where Grace is standing." 

She drunkenly said, "Well, that's a bunch of shit, man!"

I got closer to her face and calmly said, "Hey!  How much did you pay to get in here?"  She backed off very quickly after that.

Later on, Grace came out from behind the organ and stood at center stage for a good portion of the rest of the night allowing the camera to follow her around.  

As I said earlier, I tried to keep all non-essential people from the back stage area while Grace was playing.  We had a few people from the Iowa Quad Cities Chamber come back, including Executive VP Tom Flaherty, Marcy's boss.  I had to explain to him that we couldn't have anyone close to the stage area and he helped make sure that happened.  However, one guy was right up behind the stage taking pictures with his Iphone.  And he wasn't wearing any backstage credentials.  I went up to him and sort of pulled him away from the stage area.  I said, "Who are you!?"

He said, "I'm the lead guitarist for Creedence Clearwater Revisited!"

I looked at him in the face and saw that it was, indeed, Tal Morris.  I said, "Oh, man.  I'm sorry.  Grace Potter's manager said that he didn't want anyone hanging close to the stage area and I didn't see any credentials on you."

He sort of laughed and pointed at their tour bus.  "My credentials are on the bus!  I've never heard of these guys and I wanted to get pictures so I can say I played on the same bill with them when they get really big!"  

Well, Grace went about 20 minutes over the midnight curfew.  I was a little unhappy about that because she was really milking the crowd that was left - about 3,000 strong by the time the night was over - and stringing out her songs.  I stood over on the now bare main stage with Tom Flaherty and his girlfriend waiting for Grace to get over.  Now, she was good, but I thought she was also a little egotistical when it came to the end of her show.  

As we were standing there, Tom came over to me and shook my hand.  He said, "Thanks for not screwing up."

I looked at him funny and said, "You thought we would screw up?"

He said, "No, I'm serious.  Thanks for not screwing up.  This means a lot to me and the Chamber."   

After getting Grace off the stage and loaded up to get back to the hotel, Cindy and I began cleaning up the trailers and backstage area.  One of the fringe benefits of cleaning the trailers after the headliners have been in them is scavenging the remains of their food that is part of their contract riders.  Creedence had a sandwich tray along with cheeses, wines, beer and some other munchie food.  Grace Potter's trailer had a similar spread.  Of course, they never come close to finishing any of the food provided.  Creedence had asked for ribs from one of the rib vendors and we got some for them to take on their bus. 

 

Looking back, it was a pretty stressful River Roots Live for me.  But it was also one of the most rewarding of all I've been involved.  I had a lot of great help in the back stage area and I can't go without acknowledging the great help I had from Tom Swanson and his wife, Katie, along with Tim (Red) Roberts who were the defacto stage-hands and jack-of-all trades all weekend long.  And I have to also acknowledge the help from CC Backline in Peoria - Chad Cook and his partner, Kris (aka "Squid") - who provided a number of backline instruments, amplifiers and speaker bottoms for a number of the bands.  Everyone worked so well together that it really took a lot of pressure off of me. 

After we finished up, I sent Cindy home and helped out with a few more chores.  The RRL production staff met up behind the stage area around 3 a.m. for a few beers, to tell some stories and share some laughs.  We keep telling each other that this would be the last time we do River Roots Live, but I have a funny feeling that I'll be getting a call from Marcy sometime in March or April of next year making sure I had that weekend open.

Joanie's Pizzeria - St. Louis

Another shout out to my sister-in-law, Becky, who was telling me a while ago about Joanie's Pizzeria in the Soulard area of St. Louis.  She was incredulous that I'd never heard of Joanie's.  "I can't believe you've never been there after going to St. Louis for all these years, " she half-scolded me.  "I think it's the best pizza in town."  

Her sister, Katie, lives in the neighborhood and helps out at Joanie's from time to time.  Becky told me that there's a good chance I'd run into Katie at Joanie's.  While in St. Louis for a series of meetings and some product trainings earlier this summer, I stopped in for dinner at Joanie's.

Joanie Spurgeon is the "Joanie" behind Joanie's Pizzeria.  Since 1995, Spurgeon has been churning out pizzas topped with the freshest ingredients she can find.  Surgeon regularly ventures up the street to the Soulard Farmer's Market to get fresh produce and toppings for her pizzas.  Joanie's signature Pizza Margherita is topped with fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella that I was told she gets from the Soulard Farmer's Market.   

(Update July 2015 - In late May of 2015, Joanie Spurgeon officially handed the reins over to her manager of 4 years Jeff Schneider.  She is still involved with the restaurant, but she felt that she really needed to start to slow down.  Schneider said that the core of the business will stay the same, but he had some ideas to spruce up the menu a bit.  We were there the weekend of July 18 and the pizza was still the same.  Picture at left courtesy Sauce Magazine.)

The other plus for Joanie's pizzas is that they use mozzarella cheese and not the St. Louis-style provel cheese on their pizza.  Some pizza places in St. Louis give you a choice of provel or mozzarella, some only have provel.  I couldn't find any reference anywhere that Joanie's offers a provel cheese pizza.  While I don't mind provel cheese on a pizza, I'd rather have mozzarella.

It was an early evening visit to Joanie's and I pulled up to the corner of Menard and Russell in Soulard (see map) and found a parking space just up the street from Joanie's.   The Cardinals were in town that evening and a number of people were gathering at Joanie's for a pre-game meal and to take Joanie's complementary shuttle to Busch Stadium.  I went in and was met by a waitress who wanted to know if I wanted to sit downstairs in the bar area - which was heavily filled with smoke (St. Louis County's smoking ban goes into effect early next year) or sit upstairs.  Another waitress said, "Hey, don't forget out back!"

Joanie's has a very nice little back patio area, as well.  It was sort of warm outside and I decided to head upstairs to have my pizza in the upstairs dining area.  There's two rooms upstairs, a larger room toward the front of the building and a smaller toward the back.  The waitress guided me to a small two-person table and dropped off a menu.  She took my beer order - while in St. Louis, I always order a Budweiser - and told me she'd be back to take my order when she dropped off the beer. 

Joanie's is also famous for their calzones - a Napoli-style stuffed pizza that features both mozzarella and ricotta cheese along with your choice of topping.  I love a good calzone, but I was there for pizza that night.

That's not to say that Joanie's Pizzeria is all about pizza and calzones.  They also feature a number of sandwiches including their own "Soulard Muffalatta" topped with Joanie's homemade olive spread.  I understand it gives the muffalatta over at the Blues City Deli a run for their money.

Joanie's also features basic pasta dishes such as lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, and chicken alfredo with penne noodles.  And the menu at Joanie's also has four different types of salads to choose from.  And through the week, Joanie's has a handful of lunch specials on the menu. 

There are three different types of pizza crust to choose from at Joanie's - thin, thick or double crust.  They have a 9" personal-sized pizza available for all three types of crust, as well as 12", 14" and a giant 16" pizza (double crust not available in 16").  I figured that a 12" would work for me - I was pretty hungry as I didn't have lunch earlier in the day.  Of course, I got my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza. 

By the time the waitress got back to take my order, I'd already downed the beer.  Not that the service was slow, but I DOWNED the beer.  It was a hot day, I'd just gone through a two-hour training earlier in the day and I needed a cold one.  I gave her my pizza order and told her that I definitely needed another beer.  She raised her eye brows and said, "Wow!  That went down quick!"  Anyone who knows me knows that the first beer usually goes down rather quickly. 

The decor in the upstairs dining room at Joanie's featured paintings of St. Louis landmarks such as the Fox Theater, Soulard Market and the infamous Eat Rite Diner.  Large windows looked out onto Menard Ave. and helped give the room some ambient light.  A couple flat screen panel televisions were turned on to ESPN providing a little bit of entertainment for those were were interested.   

 

About 20 minutes passed and my pizza made it to my table.  I'm telling you, I have to quit writing my entries early in the morning.  The above picture of the pizza is just making my stomach do jumping jacks.  The asymmetry of the pizza's shape showed that it was definitely hand-tossed and topped with ample amounts of pepperoni, fresh sliced mushrooms and Italian sausage.  Although the Italian sausage wasn't really in big chunks as I like it, it definitely wasn't ground up in to fine pieces like I find back home in the Quad Cities or out in Indianapolis. 

From the first bite, I was hooked.  It was a great pizza.  The crust wasn't crunchy, but it wasn't limp, either.  The mozzarella cheese was outstanding - some of the best mozzarella I've had on a pizza.  But the toppings are what made the pizza - the combination of Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom were all very fresh and flavorful.  Each piece was overflowing with toppings and flavor. 

As I was leaving, I went outside to take a couple pictures.  I stepped into the back patio and there was Joanie Spurgeon asking me if I needed any help.  I said, "No, I just ate upstairs. I just wanted to get a picture of the patio on my cell phone camera."

She asked, "So, how did you like it?"

I said, "It was very good.  I'm very impressed." 

Joanie said, "That's great!  Thank you!  So, you'll be back?"

I told her I would.  I liked everything about Joanie's - the pizza, the service, the atmosphere.  I'll be more happy when they ban smoking in St. Louis after the first of the year as the bar area downstairs was very smoky.  Nonetheless, Joanie's Pizzeria is probably in the top 3 of pizza places I've visited over the years in the St. Louis area.  I can't wait to go back later this fall to get another one. 

Nitty Gritty - Madison, WI

After our visit to the Madison Farmers Market one Saturday earlier this past summer, Cindy announced she was hungry and wanted to get something to eat before we took off for The Flower Factory south of Madison.  One place that I wanted to try for quite sometime but never had the chance to before was the Nitty Gritty in Madison.  Located near the Kohl Center and the University of Wisconsin campus, I've been told that the Nitty Gritty had a burger that was on par with such venerable places as Dotty Dumpling's and the Blue Moon, two Madison establishments that both received high honorable mentions in my most recent Top 10 Burger list.

For over 40 years, the Nitty Gritty has been known as not only a great gathering place for fans before and after U of Wisconsin football or basketball games, but they also pride themselves as being THE destination in Madison for birthdays and other celebrations. 

The Nitty Gritty was founded by Marsh Shapiro (right), a Madison native who was also a local television personality.  The Nitty Gritty first started out as a little neighborhood bar with picnic tables for seating.  In the early 70's, Shapiro began to book musical acts into his little place - primarily blues acts such as B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters and Bonnie Raitt.  The Nitty Gritty would continue to showcase a number of national acts until 1974. 

The Nitty Gritty was also infamous as being a place in which the counter-culture crowd would hang out.  Numerous protests against the Vietnam War were staged outside the Nitty Gritty with tear gas cannisters sometimes popping against the side of the building. 

However, the Nitty Gritty is part of an even more sinister footnote in history.  On August 24, 1970, a large bomb was detonated on the University of Wisconsin campus damaging dozens of buildings and killing a U of W professor.  It was at the Nitty Gritty that the four conspirators planned the bombing of Sterling Hall - a research facility on campus targeted because of the ongoing research work toward the war effort going on inside.  The bombing literally ended all radical anti-war movements in the U.S. and many of the Vietnam War demonstrations in Madison lost their emotional momentum after the blast.  

In the mid 80's, Shapiro sensed a change in attitudes of patrons and students at the U of Wisconsin and re-invented the Nitty Gritty as "Madison's Official Birthday Bar."  Shapiro claims there have been over 400,000 birthdays celebrated at the Nitty Gritty over the past 25 years.  In fact, when we stopped in to the Nitty Gritty just before noon that one Saturday, we were asked by the hostess if we were part of the birthday party going on up stairs.  

A few years ago, Shapiro and his wife, Susan, opened a second Nitty Gritty location in suburban Middleton (see map).  In 2009, Shapiro semi-retired from the business and turned over ownership and day-to-day operations of the Madison location to his son-in-law, Lee Pier, and Nitty Gritty assistant manager Eric Suemnicht.  Shapiro, his wife, Pier and Suemnicht all own the Middleton location, however, Shapiro is looking to sell that to Pier and Suemnicht at some point in the near future. 

We had parked down the street and walked up to the corner of Frances and Johnson to the Nitty Gritty (see map). There are two dining areas on the main level of the Nitty Gritty.  We decided to sit in the bar area with a number of dark wood booths lining the walls and a large square shaped bar in the middle.  A number of flat panel televisions were tuned to the World Cup.  We were given menus and decided that it wasn't too early to get a beer.  To my delight, the Nitty Gritty had Capital Supper Club beer - suddenly my favorite summertime beer.  Cindy got her old stand-by, a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. 

The walls of the Nitty Gritty are lined with picture upon picture of Marsh Shapiro with politicians, sports figures, broadcasters and other celebrities.   It reminded me somewhat of the pictures on the walls around Blueberry Hill in St. Louis.  Cindy said, "This guy must be pretty proud of himself.  

Each day at the Nitty Gritty they feature a burger normally not found on their regular menu.  That day they featured a natural, dry-aged grass-fed burger grown from beef from a Wisconsin farm - Fountain Prairie Farms.  Other burgers that are featured include a "Pepper and Egg Burger" - a green pepper and egg top that one; the "Corny Burger" - topped with a corn salsa and pepper jack cheese; the "Parisian" - a burger topped with bleu cheese crumbles, a marinated red onion and served on a crossaint; and the "Wisconsin Brandy Burger" - topped with Wisconsin cheddar cheese, brandy marinated onions and a homemade mayonaisse.  The Nitty Gritty features over 20 different burgers on their "Burger of the Day" list each month.  However, the Fountain Priaire Farms burger is always featured on Saturday. 

In addition to their featured burgers, the Nitty Gritty has their famous "Gritty burger" - a 6 oz burger topped with their homemade "Gritty" super-secret sauce what has been described as being a sour cream base.   They also have a Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese burger, a "Pretzel Bender" burger that is served on a pretzel bun with pretzel mustard and onion rings on top, and something called the "Four Alarm Burger" - a burger topped with pepper jack cheese, jalapenos, hot sauce and jalapeno pepper bacon.  I almost went with that, but remembered that we were traveling.  

Also, the Nitty Gritty features a number of other items such as salads, veggie and salmon burgers, a number of variations of grilled chicken sandwiches, other sandwiches including a reuben and an Italian melt sandwich that sounded great, as well as the usual bar fare appetizers. 

Cindy asked our waitress about the featured burger, the grass-fed beef burger.  She said, "The beef is really lean, but it's very flavorful.  I like it a lot."  She said it was topped with their onion straws.  Cindy ordered up one of those. She also ordered a side of fries to go with the burger.  The girl said, "Our burgers are usually cooked medium-well, unless you specify."  Cindy said that was fine with her.  "Gritty sauce" also comes on the side with the french fries. 

I hemmed and hawed for a moment going back and forth between the featured burger, the "Four Alarm Burger" and the "Roasted Garlic Burger" - topped with roasted garlic and onion straws.  I finally decided upon the featured burger, medium.   I decided against the fries or any of the other sides they had to offer.   

After a while, our burgers came out and I had fries in my basket.  When I reminded the waitress that I hadn't ordered fries she said, "Oh, that's right.  Well, we won't charge you for them."  (They'll take two bucks off the price of the burger without a side.) 

I could immediately see they were severely overcooked.  My "medium" burger were more well-done than anything.  The life had been cooked completely out of both of them.  I wondered if it was because of the natural beef having less fat content in it than a regular "Gritty burger".  But it was charred and lifeless with no discernable taste whatsoever.  

As I was trying to gag down my burger, I felt something funny in my mouth.  I knew it was something wrong.  I reached into my mouth - yes, I know, bad manners at a public restaurant - and pulled out a long hair with a piece of beef dangling from it.  Cindy about lost it on the spot.  She went, "Eee-yew!!  Yuck!!"  

I called the waitress over and I pulled up the hair with the dangling piece of beef.  She said, "Oh, my God!  I'm so sorry.  Let me get you another burger right away."   

I said, "Hey, tell the cook to make it medium-rare this time.  And without the hair, if he could."  

She said, "I'll see to it."  

I ate some of Cindy's fries as I waited for my burger.  Honestly, I was losing my appetite the more I sat there and thought about pulling a long hair out of my mouth with a piece of overcooked hamburger dangling at the end.   But I will say the "Gritty sauce" was a nice condiment to dip the fries in. 

When the waitress brought out my second burger, she told me, "We're not going to charge you for the burger, sir."   Then she stopped and winced and said, "Oh, and he gave you fries again!  I'm sorry!" 

I'll bet if I pitched a fit, I probably wouldn't have had to pay for either of our burgers or fries.

And I probably should have - this burger was as equally overcooked as the first one and Cindy's.  I had a couple bites and gave up.  The waitress came over to check on us and I said, "Quite honestly, you can take this away.  This was a horrible burger and I've clearly lost my appetite."  She wordlessly picked up the baskets and took them away.  

The waitress brought back the bill and she had, indeed, taken off the one burger.  I paid in cash and still gave her a five dollar tip because she was pretty attentive and did take care of us when we needed another beer. 

The Nitty Gritty's natural burger was just horrible.  One of the worst burgers I've ever tried in a restaurant.  Now, I may have to go back there and try just a regular "Gritty burger" to see if it was an anomoly.  I'm hoping that it was, but there was just something sort of schlocky about the whole place.  It sort of reminded me of a harder-edged Happy Joe's with a horrible burger instead of a horrible pizza.  But I will say my first experience at Nitty Gritty was not very good.  But I'm willing to give them a second chance at some point. 

(Update - I've been back.  Got a Swiss cheese burger.  Thankfully, no hair in the burger this time and it still wasn't all that great.) 

Uncle Pete's - Moline, IL

One of the first people I met after I moved to the Quad Cities nearly 20 years ago turned me onto a little Greek gyro place in Moline called Uncle Pete's. He told me, "They have the best gyro's in the Quad City." Quite honestly, I haven't found another place that sells gyros that even comes close - even the Greek guys who come in for the annual street fest in downtown Davenport don't come close to Uncle Pete's. Over the years, Uncle Pete's has turned into a favorite dining spot of ours.

Uncle Pete's is named after Pete Panouses (below left), a big bear of a guy who was the original owner since 1982. Originally at South Park Mall, Pete and his wife, Kathy, operated a little 32-seat "hole-in-the-wall" location on the Avenue of the Cities in Moline. It could get crowded in Uncle Pete's with people waiting for in-house and to-go orders. But the food was always good. We always used Uncle Pete's as the measuring stick against any other gyros we'd encounter during our travels. And we've found time and time again that Uncle Pete's is hard to beat.

                                   
Just after Christmas in 2006, Pete Panouses passed away. His son, Chris (above right), had been working in the family business and had been in managing the place while Pete held court at a little table near the cash register talking to longtime friends and customers when they came in. Other than a large picture of Pete on the wall and his obituary hanging next to it, you couldn't tell if there were any changes going on with the restaurant. Uncle Pete's gyros continued to be the best in town.

Last year, ALDI grocery stores bought the little strip mall that Uncle Pete's was housed in. They were going to tear down the strip mall and put up a grocery store. Chris Panouses had to scramble and find a new place. He wanted to stay within a mile of the original Uncle Pete's location and found some land just up the road a bit (closer for us, actually, from our home in Davenport). It was there he built the new and improved Uncle Pete's restaurant, nearly tripling the seating to 80 in the process. He had hoped to be open by February 1 as they had to vacate the old place by the first of March. But delays in the building of the new restaurant forced him to shut down operations for seven weeks before he was finally able to re-open in the new location in late April.

Not only has the seating increased, but it allowed Panouses to increase the number of items on his menu. He's introduced Italian beef sandwiches, a reuben sandwich and a steak sandwich to the menu. The prices on the gyros have gone up modestly since the move, but they pack them with so much gyro meat it's still a great value.

Cindy and I were over in Moline one Saturday earlier this summer and we had passed the new location of Uncle Pete's (see map). It had been early February since I'd been in - Cindy had been over to the new location a couple of times when I would be on the road. While the old location was sort of recessed and off the street - it was tough to see if you didn't know it was there - the new building stands much closer to the street and the signage is large and easy to see. And Uncle Pete's has a large parking lot that they don't have to share as they had to with two or three other businesses in the old strip mall.

As we walked in, the first thing I noticed was how large the dining room was. There were a number of tables and booths throughout the place - a lot nicer tables and chairs, I might add, than what the Panouses family had at the old location. But that also helped with the ambiance of the old place. The new and improved Uncle Pete's was very nice.

And just like at the old place, you place your orders at Uncle Pete's at the counter - although the counter at the new location is just as you walk in the door from the parking lot. The counter of the old place was in the back of the restaurant and you had to walk through diners just to get your order place. Once again, it was one of those things you just did to get a good gyro from Uncle Pete's.

The menu is located behind the counter, even helping with the correct pronunciation of gyros (YEE-roes). They have two sizes of gyros at Uncle Pete's - the regular and the super. The super comes with an extra container of tzatziki sauce, which, I was told, comes from a family recipe handed down through Kathy Panouses' family. The super gyro is my usual order at Uncle Pete's. While they do have good french fries, a super gyro is usually the only thing I need when I'm there.

Cindy ordered up a regular gyro and an order of Uncle Pete's fries which are more like steak fries than thin French fries. Uncle Pete's slathers on the tzatziki sauce on the regular gyro and you usually don't need to get another container. But if you do want one, it's 50 cents extra.

We found a table and waited for our number to be called. When the girl called out our number, I went up and got our gyros and a ton of napkins as you'll usually need them when you eat an Uncle Pete's gyro. Wrapped in wax paper and served on a paper plate, Uncle Pete's gyros haven't changed since my first visit in 1991. Look at the amount of gyro meat they put on their super gyro. You have to use a fork and knife - plastic, naturally, at Uncle Pete's - to eat some of the gyro meat before you can pick up the pita shell and eat it.

The gyro meat at Uncle Pete's is always cooked just right - not too overdone or undercooked. Too many times at other gyro places they slice off the gyro meat from the spit and let it sit on a tray under a heat lamp, over cooking the strips. Uncle Pete's sort of does the same thing, but as quick as they go through gyros, the meat doesn't stay in the tray all that long. The onions on the gyros at Uncle Pete's are always fresh and strong, and while the tomatoes are of the common salad bar variety that you find in most restaurants, they still put a lot of slices on their gyros.

Since I didn't have any breakfast that day, I made short work of my super gyro. Thank God the taste and quality didn't change with the move to the new location. I helped Cindy with a few of her fries and they were the same as the old location. Many times when a restaurant has moved to a new location, there's something that changes in the quality of the food. Other than a lot more seating and a new building, I can't see much of anything that changed at the new Uncle Pete's.

Chris Panouses was quoted in a couple of the local papers as saying that it was a shock for him to have to leave the old location. They'd gotten into a comfort zone at the old place and leaving the old location was "really emotional." But as good as business has been for him at his new location, I'm sure he's not missing the old place one bit. Uncle Pete's is still closed on Sunday's, but the rest of the time you can find some of the best gyros you'll ever eat anywhere over in Moline. And even though I haven't had one yet, I understand Uncle Pete's has a good burger, too. I'll have to give that a try at some point, but it's certainly tough to go to Uncle Pete's and not order a gyro.

 

Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe - Prairie City, IA

Since 2003, the Iowa Pork Producers Association has staged a contest where they invite people to nominate restaurants who they believe has the best breaded pork tenderloin sandwich in the state.  I tried the 2008 winner - Augusta in Oxford, IA, just outside of Iowa City and not far from Cedar Rapids.  And I was plenty impressed with their pork tenderloin sandwich.  In 2009, the winner of the best pork tenderloin sandwich in Iowa was a small sandwich/ice cream shop in Prairie City - Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe - not far from where I grew up in the Newton/Kellogg area, and a 20 minute drive from Des Moines thanks to a four-lane highway that now connects SE Iowa with the greater Des Moines area. On a trip back home from Kansas earlier this past summer, I stopped into Goldie's to see if their tenderloin sandwich stacked up. 

I found out that there is somewhat of a personal connection between the owner of Goldie's - Brad Magg (pictured at right) - and myself.  It turns out that Magg's mother, Marilee, and I graduated together from Newton High School back in the 1970's and we were pretty good friends during that time.  Time and circumstances have caused Marilee and I to not connect for over 30 years, so it was sort of interesting that I found out her son was the one behind Goldie's.

Brad Magg started out cooking when he was an early teenager, baking cookies and pies and selling them to people in and around the NW Jasper County area.  He turned that into a catering business by the time he was 15, then after graduating from high school he earned a degree from the Iowa Culinary Institute at Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny.

A month before he got his degree, Magg, along with his mother and his father, Gary, bought the ice cream shop in Prairie City from Golda Ingram - the "Goldie" of Goldie's.  Before the Magg's bought the place, Goldie's was nothing more than a seasonal ice cream shop.  When Brad Magg came in, he expanded the building, added food to the menu and kept the place open year round.  The young Magg kept Goldie Ingram on board where she continues to work four days a week. 

While the ingredients for the breading that Magg uses on his tenderloins is a secret, he fully acknowledges that he buys all of his pork cutlets at the Fareway store in nearby Altoona.  Fairway usually has some top quality meat to choose from.  The Altoona Fareway cuts and tenderizes each of the loins for Goldie's. 

In addition to the pork tenderloins that have suddenly given them a measure of fame, Goldie's also has a grilled pork tenderloin sandwich, a marinated pork loin sandwich, a hot ham and Swiss cheese sandwich and an Italian sausage sandwich.  In fact, the pork used for the Italian sausage sandwich and the beef for the hamburgers at Goldie's come from the Magg family farm and are processed at a small butcher shop in Magg's hometown of Mingo, IA. 

It was a lazy summer afternoon when I pulled into Prairie City.  Highway 163 now by-passes the small rural town, but Goldie's is on what used to be the main route through the city when 163 was a two-lane road (see map).  Goldie's is not unlike any other small restaurant/ice cream shop in any small Iowa town.  The outside is tidy and neat, the parking lots are on either side of the building and there's not much as far as signage along the road to alert you that you've arrived. 

 

I walked into Goldie's and there were a couple farmers in there having mid-afternoon coffee, clearly eying the out-of-towner walking through the door.  While there were tables and booths in the place, I took a seat at the old fashioned soda bar counter and took a quick look at the menu that was placed behind the napkin holder.   An older woman - who happened to be Goldie Ingram - and a couple of the girls working in the place were having a mid-afternoon snack at a table along the west wall.  Another young lady asked me if I knew what I wanted and I didn't hesitate - "You guys won the best pork tenderloin award this past year.  I'm here to give it a shot." 

She said, "Well, all righty, then!"  She asked if I wanted anything on it and I told her yellow mustard, pickles and onions.  I never use any tomato-based products on a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, not even barbecue sauce. 

While I waited, a lady came in to get some soft-serve ice cream.  I also noticed they had a number of homemade pie slices in a couple holders on the counter.  The "special" board above the back soda bar touted the different types of pie and ice cream Goldie's had available that day.  It was a slice of small town living that I certainly remembered when I was growing up. 

Since I was the only one in there getting food at that point (the farmers had long gone, figuring the stranger wasn't anyone to trifle with), my breaded pork tenderloin showed up in just a bit over five minutes.  The sandwich came out open-faced with a ton of pickles and a sliced red onion with a kosher dill spear on the side.   I put a little mustard on the sandwich and I took a bite. 

Now, I've had a number of breaded pork tenderloins over the year - I live in Iowa, for God's sake.  Some are just thin and huge, hanging well over the bun and impossible to eat without a knife and fork.  Those, I've found, are usually not that good.  The ones that are just a bit bigger than the bun are usually the best.  And that was the size of the Goldie's breaded pork tenderloin.  The only problem was that their pork tenderloin sandwich was average, at best.  I mean, it was good, but it certainly didn't open my eyes like the tenderloin at Augusta did when I tried it after they won the 2008 award.  It was OK, but far from the best breaded pork tenderloin I've ever had. 

When I got up to pay my bill, Goldie Ingram asked me, "So, what do you think about our pork tenderloin?"

I had to be honest.  "It was good," I said.  "But, I really can't say it was the best I ever had." 

While I'm happy for Marilee and her son, I walked away from Goldie's thinking that if this was the best tenderloin in the state of Iowa for the year 2009 there had to be some pretty average places that were nominated.   Still, Goldie's is a slice of small-town life where you can go and get a good sandwich at a reasonable price and know that it just isn't going to suck.  But at the same time, it's not going to be "knock-your-socks-off" great.  If you find yourself going by Prairie City during the middle part of the day, it won't hurt to stop in to Goldie's and get something to eat.

The Captain's Table - Moline

At one point in time, The Captain's Table in Moline was THE place to eat in the Quad Cities when it came to special occasions, impressing a date, or hosting a high profile business meal. Unfortunately, that was many years - and a few owners - ago. However, the current incarnation of The Captain's Table has been creating a little buzz, locally. For my birthday dinner a while back, my wife and I decided to head over there to give the place a try.

It had been a long time since I was last in The Captain's Table.  My wife had been in more recently when she was there with a group of ladies for a dinner.  She told me it was "OK to pretty good, but still nothing special." I'd read a couple of different things in the local papers about the place since it had been bought by a group of investors who re-opened the restaurant last summer putting Peter Harman, aka "The Food Guru", in charge of the restaurant.  Harman owns - or has owned and managed - restaurants in Iowa City, Davenport, Burlington, IA and Macomb, IL. Harman said his goal would be to bring back the classic menu that made The Captain's Table a stalwart in the Quad City restaurant scene for years.

The Captain's Table started in 1974 as a small steakhouse/supper club next to the Marquis Harbor on River Drive in Moline (see map). Local businessman Jim Sweet ran the marina and restaurant for years before selling the place in late 1990's to American Marine out of La Crosse, WI. The time between 1974 and 1998 were the golden years for the restaurant. Their steaks, chops, fresh seafood and especially their homemade clam chowder were part of the finest in upscale dining the area had to offer. The Captain's Table looked out over the marina and the Mississippi River and was a popular place for locals to dine in the summer, as well as in the winter.  My wife and I had many memorable meals at The Captain's Table during the years Jim Sweet was the owner.

After Jim Sweet sold the restaurant and marina, American Marine leased out the restaurant to a handful of people since then. I do know that the Heart of America group leased the restaurant for a while - the same people that own the popular Machine Shed restaurants that are found throughout the Midwest (and based in Moline). And that's about the time The Captain's Table began to go downhill. Service got bad, the menu changed drastically, the food was not very good, and the homey, welcoming feel the Sweet's had given to the place sort of dissipated. It was just another corporate-run restaurant with no soul.

Heart of America got out of their lease in 2003, but it was taken over by the chef of the restaurant, Mark Luciani. But by that time, any momentum the original Captain's Table had was pretty much gone. Luciani tried tinkering with the menu, but nothing seemed to bring the magic back. With a surge of finer restaurants in the area and the economic downturn in 2008, Luciani closed the restaurant in February of 2009.

American Marine then got into talks with a group of local businessmen - Rod Teel, Jeff Delf and Casey Dolbin - who agreed to buy the Captain's Table and separate it from the marina.  The group contracted with Peter Harman to come over and revive the restaurant. Harman re-opened the Captain's Table in July of 2009, not long after he had closed his Graze location in Davenport. Many of the employees from Graze went over to The Captain's Table. American Marine remains the owner of the place, and we were told Harman is more of a consultant who comes to the restaurant once or twice a week to meet with G.M. William Black who runs the day-to-day operations.

It was a beautiful evening, cool, yet clear, when we got to The Captain's Table. Since it was the middle of the week, we had no problem getting in. One thing that I'd noticed since my last visit, oh, maybe three years ago, was that they had put in a nice little outdoor patio with heavy metal chairs and tables that overlooks the harbor and the river. It was too cool to eat outdoors that evening, but there were a couple tables occupied with people having drinks, but dressed in heavier coats.

The original Captain's Table was a long, narrow dining room with huge booths that featured large windows that looked out toward the river. Before Sweet sold the place in the late 90's, he expanded the restaurant to include a large bar area that had a nautical theme to the place. There was also a little watchtower added to the place that allowed people to go up and get a better view of the upstream bend in the Mississippi River.

The original dining room has changed a little from the first time I visited the place nearly 19 years ago after I moved to the Quad Cities. It's more light in the place with white walls and ceilings versus the dark walls and ceilings of the original Captain's Table. The host that evening took us to one of the large window booths and gave us our menus to look over. There wasn't a lot of people in the restaurant and we noticed there was only one waitress working - Nancy, a pleasant 40-something lady who was working her butt off trying to keep up with the orders and requests.

I was still on a Hawaii hang-over and saw they had mai-tai's on their cocktail and wine menu. Nancy came to ask us what we wanted to drink and I told her that we were probably going to get a bottle of wine, but in the meantime I wanted a mai-tai. She went to get my mai-tai and I looked over the limited wine list The Captain's Table had to offer. I decided to get a bottle of the Frei Brothers merlot, a little over-priced at $36 bucks. I've seen the same wine at restaurants in larger cities at lower prices.

Nancy brought out the mai-tai and it was more fruity than boozy. Definitely not like what we had out in Hawaii. But as my wife reminded me, "We're not in Hawaii. We're in Illinois!"

The host who seated us brought out the bottle of wine and opened it for us. I was actually looking for a hearty cabernet that evening, but they only had two on the menu. I sort of expressed my astonishment that they only had two cabs on the wine list. He said, "Our wine list is evolving. We feel we have about the best values in wine right now. The Louis Martini cabernet is very good." I had to disagree with him. I find the Louis Martini cab to be over-priced and over-rated. There's a number of better cabs at lower prices that they could choose from.

In fact, the original Captain's Table was where we were turned on to one of our favorite California wines, Judd's Hill.  My wife and I were treated to dinner at The Captain's Table about 14 years ago by the former owner of SpeakerCraft. That was back when The Captain's Table had a very extensive wine list. Our guest, Jeremy, was blown away when he saw Judd's Hill on the wine list and we had two bottles of their cabernet that evening.  My wife still talks about the night Jeremy took us to dinner at The Captain's Table because she got a little tipsy on all the wine and Jeremy and I ended up closing down the new bar that evening drinking top shelf Scotch.

The menu was an interesting mix of beef, chicken, seafood and pork chops. Prime rib was available only on Friday and Saturday nights - the same as the original Captain's Table. The steaks were limited to a couple different sizes of tenderloin filets, a rib-eye and a strip steak dubbed "The El Cheapo". A strip steak sounded pretty good, but the name of it completely turned me off. It was the cheapest steak on the menu - $17.99, if you can call that cheap. But I was leery of how good of cut the "El Cheapo" would be. Plus, I couldn't bring myself to order the "El Cheapo" by name.  My wife said, "Just order it as the strip steak!"

"Yeah," I said. "But she'll probably come back and say, 'Oh, the El Cheapo?' And say it loud enough that the restaurant will know I'm a cheapskate!"

My wife just laughed.

There were a number of seafood entrees on the menu.  My wife was definitely getting seafood that evening and the choices ranged from grilled shrimp, sauteed scallops, broiled salmon, baked haddock in a cheese sauce, herb encrusted sea bass, sesame seed seared ahi tuna, and their famous brown sugar salmon where they top the salmon with brown sugar and Boetje's mustard and bake it in the oven. However, the special that evening was sea bass bruschetta - their house-made bruschetta topped with grilled sea bass, then baked and finished with a garlic sauce.  My wife couldn't pass that up.

I went with the 9 oz. filet with a side of bearnaise sauce. We also decided to get a side of The Captain's Table's own macaroni and cheese. We also got a Captain's Salad that featured mixed greens, tomatoes, onions, provolone cheese, parmesan and topped with their house vinaigrette that is served family style at the table. In addition to all that, we also decided to give a couple of their soups a try. I ordered the gumbo and my wife got the clam chowder.

There was a point in time when the Quad Cities would rival New England for the quality of their clam chowder. about four or five restaurants in the area had some world-class clam chowder. I had a guy I used to work for back in the 80's who visited the Boston area many times (and ended up moving there) and who used to travel to the Quad Cities for business before I joined his firm. He once told me, "I don't know what it is, but the clam chowder in the Quad Cities is on par with some of the chowder that I've had in New England." It was very good. And "was" is the operative term, here.

Since the original Captain's Table was sold by Jim Sweet, a few other fine dining restaurants in the area went out of business. All of them had great clam chowder. Jim Sweet and his son eventually bought a place on the Davenport riverfront called The Boat House, not far from where we live (and a place we occasionally go to, but the prices are high and the value is not that great), and their clam chowder was revived there. Sweet has since sold The Boat House and the clam chowder is definitely not the same as it was when the Sweet's were involved.

And the present day clam chowder at The Captain's Table is just OK.  My wife had it the time she was there with a group of ladies and she said it was better than what the previous incarnation of The Captain's Table had to offer. But it still wasn't like the clam chowder in the hey-day of Jim Sweet's ownership.

My gumbo, too, was just OK. It really wasn't anything special and I had to put a bunch of Tabasco into it to kick it up a notch in the heat scale. While it was thick and there were large chunks of andouille sausage, tomatoes, okra and other stuff, I've made better gumbo at home.

Nancy brought out our salad in a large bowl that looked more like a center piece presentation than something you'd want to eat. There were four cherry tomatoes that were equally spaced on top with shaved provolone and parmesan sprinkled on top. And for a weird effect, they placed cheese-flavored Goldfish crackers on top. I don't like Goldfish cheese crackers on their own, why would I like them on a salad? I had a couple bites of the salad with them on top, but knocked them off after I found the taste to be distracting. The house-made vinaigrette was also OK, nothing special at all.

Our main entrees soon arrived. My 9 oz filet was a generous 9 ounces, I'll tell you that. It was a thick cut of tenderloin and quick possibly more toward 12 to 14 ounces in size. It was cooked a perfect rare for me.

(Here is a back story with rare steak at The Captain's Table just after Heart of America took over the restaurant. About 12 years ago, I was traveling with a guy who was the VP for Sales at Niles Audio, a prestigious custom audio/video company based out of Miami. It was my first trip with him and I was trying to impress him. So, I took him to The Captain's Table and he ordered a New York strip, rare. The waitress brought it out and it was cooked medium-well.  My guest asked to send the steak back and the waitress left with his steak. She came back out and said, "We're all out of New York strips." He asked for a filet. She said, "We're out of filets, too." She said they had rib-eyes, but he wanted something lean. I was embarrassed to no end that evening. I had never had any problem with The Captain's Table at anytime and the night was a disaster.)

The bearnaise sauce they served on the side (you better ask for it that way or they'll serve it over the filet) was pedestrian and bland. It didn't do anything to enhance the taste of the meat. The steak, on its own, was juicy, tender and tasty. You really don't need the bearnaise sauce on it.

My wife's sea bass bruschetta was very, very good. She gave me a bite of it and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the taste. It had a wonderful garlic finish to the taste and the brushetta was also very good. While I was happy with my steak alone, she was very happy with her sea bass.

The mac and cheese side that we got was sort of like the bearnaise sauce - bland and lifeless. The dish was very cheesy, but there was no taste sensation to the cheese. I think we both had a couple bites and decided to just concentrate on our main entrees.

After we finished our dinners, Nancy tried to tempt us with The Captain's Table's desserts including a coconut key lime pie, their homemade cheesecake with triple berry sauce, an angel food cake parfait with the same triple berry sauce, and a chocolate brownie sundae. The cheesecake was tempting, but between the gumbo, salad, steak and a couple bites of the mac and cheese, I was done. We asked for our bill and lingered a bit to finish our wine and savor our meal.

There were some things very good about The Captain's Table - our entrees were very good and Nancy's service was also very efficient, considering she was the only one working the dining room that evening. The salad was OK, as was the gumbo and clam chowder. The mac and cheese was bland and disappointing. And the wine list was also very disappointing. But with the great view of the river, the over-sized booths with large wooden tables, and a history of providing good food - most of the time - since the 70's, The Captain's Table rated as slightly above average in my book. While I do give Harman some points in trying to capture the former allure of the original Captain's Table during Jim Sweet's era, he'll still have a long way to go to achieve just that.

(UPDATE - Jan. 16, 2018 - The Captain's Table was destroyed by an overnight fire.  They were in the midst of remodeling the bar and dining area of the restaurant when fire broke out before midnight on Jan. 15.  The building was a total loss and the building was razed after the fire was put out due to structural damage from the weight of the ice that had formed on the building.  No immediate word if the restaurant will be rebuilt.)

Target Field - Minneapolis

 
As summer winds down and fall settles in, this is the last weekend of Major League Baseball for the 2010 season.  Oh, I know that there's the divisional play-offs, the league championships and The World Series coming up, but I usually quit watching baseball about this time of year because the innocence of the game is usually lost by blathering talking heads who report the games on TV like their viewers were from Afghanistan and had never seen a baseball game before in their lives.  The end of the baseball season is always melancholy for me since it really does signify the end of summer.

With that said, I was able to take in a few ball games this summer while traveling around to see dealers.  One place I really wanted to go to was the brand new Target Field in downtown Minneapolis, home of the 2010 American League Central Division Champions Minnesota Twins.  I was able to make it to a game back in June between the Twins and the Colorado Rockies.  Each game, the Twins offer up to 1500 $22.00 "standing-room-only" tickets.  Considering that I really wanted to wander around the park - and I truly like to wander rather than stay put in a seat for a baseball game - this worked tremendously well for me.  

Since 1982, the Twins played in the Metrodome, an indoor hanger of a building on the south side of the downtown area, about a mile from Target Field.   Although the field was more set up for football, the Metrodome had a number of quirks and character flaws that allowed great home field advantage for the Twins over the years.  And that's not mentioning the fact that Twins games were never rained out, snowed out, froze out - whatever can happen in Minnesota between April 1 and October 1. 

 

When the Twins announced about 15 years ago that they were looking into the feasibility of an outdoor stadium to play in, critics and fans scoffed at the notion that outdoor baseball would work in Minnesota.  Having a stadium with a retractable roof - such as Miller Park in Milwaukee - seemed to be the most popular concept.  But given that the taxpayers of Minnesota were going to have to cough up about 67% of the price of the new stadium, suddenly an expensive retractable roof stadium was out of the question. 

 

After legislation was passed in 2006 to by-pass a referendum on raising the sales tax in Hennepin County by .15 of a cent to help fund the new stadium, the County Board of Supervisors voted 5-2 to approve the design of the new stadium, located just north of Target Center on the north side of downtown Minneapolis (see map).  Construction on the new stadium began in 2007 and it was finished well before the first pitch was thrown earlier this year. 

 

One of the unique features of Target Field is the use of public transportation and facilities to move people to and from the area.  Minneapolis' Metro Transit light rail system - the Hiawatha Line - begins at the Mall of America and ends literally feet from the east side of Target Field.  An estimated 8,000 people use the Hiawatha Line to get to Twins games.  For vehicular traffic, Interstate 394 ends and empties into three large parking lots - Ramps A, B, and C.  There's a skyway between the Target Center and Target Field and it's easy walking distance from many of the bars and restaurants in the downtown Minneapolis area. 

I was staying on the south side of Minneapolis and decided to take the Hiawatha Line in for the game.  I parked at a Metro Transit lot between the Mall of America and the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.  Already before 5 p.m. a large number of Twins fans were waiting for the Hiawatha Line to show up.  It was a $4.00 round trip ticket for Twins games and within minutes I was on the train heading downtown.

A half-hour and many stops later - with many people getting on at each stop - we pulled up to Target Field.  Instead of going into the nearest gate on the east side, I wandered around the outside of the stadium.  Along a fence that bordered the north and west concourse outside the stadium, there were a number of silk screened images of baseball cards depicting old time Twins players.  Many of these cards I had as a little kid growing up and rooting for the Twins.  Unfortunately, those cards are long gone, but the images certainly brought back a number of great memories. 

Around to the south side of the stadium, there's a large plaza where people congregated waiting to get into the parking lot.  It was there that I had my first beer of the evening - a Summit Extra Pale Ale.  A 16 oz. glass was $7.50.  Compared to many other ballparks, $7.50 for a 16 oz. cup of premium beer was a pretty good price.   A guy and a gal were pouring beer on the plaza before the game.  I told the guy that I was going to be just walking around since I had a standing-room-only ticket.  He told me they'd be just off the right field line on the main concourse for the game.  And there they were! (below left)  They just wheeled the cart inside and were selling beer like they had been before the game. 

  
The first thing I noticed when I got into the stadium was how wide the main concourse was compared to the old Metrodome (above right).  When crowds got huge at the Metrodome it was almost impossible to walk through the main concourse.  Even with a reduced seating capacity of about 39,500 vs. 55,000 for the Metrodome, the concourses at Target Field were still pretty packed with people getting to their seats.  Of course, I picked the night when 40,814 people showed up that evening - the largest crowd to date to see a Twins game at the new ball park.  A little over 1300 SRO tickets were sold for that game - most ever for a Twins game at Target Field.

And it was a beautiful night, to say the least.  It was a warm summer evening with fluffy clouds and a bright milky-blue sky overhead.  Actually, the Twins only had a couple rain outs in the spring and the weather cooperated for the first full season at the new ballpark.  However, with the play-offs lasting through the end of October, if the Twins ever make it back to the World Series it could get a little interesting with night games on the 28th of October. 

Before the game, three Indy Series/NASCAR race car drivers who all drive for the Target/Ganassi racing team - Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Dixon and the 2007 and 2010 Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti - came out to throw out the first pitch.  (Below left)  Since Franchitti grew up in Scotland and Montoya grew up in Columbia, I'm guessing neither had much exposure to baseball as a little kid.  Dixon actually threw out the first pitch - a perfect strike to the Twins' Scott Baker, the starting pitcher that night. 

 
I settled into a one of two small bar areas high above the home plate area on the upper level of Target Field for the first pitch. (Above right)  It was kind of a nice area - it had a large window looking out onto the field and they had a bar in each of these little "tap" areas where you could get a mixed drink, a premium beer and be able to stand along a counter ledge or at a high table to either watch the game live or on the TV.  Here's the first pitch of the evening from the Twins' Baker to the Rockies lead-off hitter Carlos Gonzales.

Once again, satisfying my scoreboard fetish, here is the main scoreboard over the left field stands.  It was average, at best, but efficient with enough information to let you know what was going on with the batter and the game.  I still think the scoreboard at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland is the best in the major leagues. 

 
In dead center field, the longtime Twins logo of the two mascot ball players "Minnie" and "Paul" lurk over the field (above right).  When the Twins hit a home run, the outline of the state of Minnesota lights up, strobe flashes go off and the two guys "shake hands".  Given that Target Field was a literal death valley for home runs this past season, "Minnie" and "Paul" didn't get to do their little light show very often.

After a couple innings, it was off to try the food at the ball park.  I was hoping beyond hope that the food would be a marked improvement over the offerings at the Metrodome - home of some of the worst food in the major leagues.  I was heartened to find that Delaware North Sportservice was providing most of the concessions at Target Field as they replaced the company that ran the horrible concessions at the Metrodome. 

There was a multitude of things to try - from Frankie V's Italian (named after former Twin Frank Viola), to Halsey's Sausage Haus (named after longtime Twins writer and broadcaster - and he was about the worst sportscaster/color man in baseball history - Halsey Hall), to Senor Smoke's - a Mexican food concession named after former Twin Juan Berenguer (although I thought the original "Senor Smoke" was one-time Twin Luis Tiant).  Below and to the left is a Cuban food concession named for former Twins great Tony Oliva.  They had Cuban sandwiches there and I told myself to stay away as there was NO chance they'd even be close to an original Cuban sandwich that I've had in South Florida. 

I did try a brat from Kramarczuk's, a local sausage maker/restaurant/deli/market that's a favorite of Twin Cities residents.  While the brat was OK, the sauerkraut was wimpy and there was too much bun.  I stood near the garbage can pulling bits of the stale bun off from around the brat, using the bread on the bun as a holder.  It was disappointing. 

Later on, I tried a grilled hot dog from one of the kiosk grilles throughout the concourses at Target Field.  I thought the hot dogs at Jacobs Field (Progressive Field) in Cleveland and Candlestick Park in San Francisco (when the Giants were playing there) were the worst I've ever had with the ones at the Metrodome coming in right behind them on my "suck" scale.  But I may have to amend that now to the ones at Target Field as being the worst in Major League Baseball.  The hot dogs were salty, the buns were even more stale and thick than the Kramarczuk brat buns, and while I like a good grilled brat from time to time, this was just absolutely horrible.  It was very disappointing to say the least.

However, Target Field features two sit down restaurants where fans can go during the game and order food from a menu with a full waitstaff.  Hrbek's (below left), named after former Twins great Kent Hrbek; and the Town Ball Tavern, a neat little place that was named after and pays homage to dozens of small towns across Minnesota (and the Midwest, for that matter) that had "town ball teams" made up of local players or college kids who would play for the fun of the game from the 1940's thru the 1980's - long before slow-pitch softball leagues and other summertime activities took precedence.    

 

While Hrbek's featured a lot of memorabilia from Kent Hrbek's playing days with the Twins, the Town Ball Tavern was even more interesting in that they had dozens of pictures of real old time town ball teams with little stories about those teams along side the pics.  Also, the floor at Town Ball Tavern came from the Minneapolis Armory, the place where the Minneapolis Lakers used to play professional basketball before they moved to Los Angeles. 

I took a look at menus at both places and the food was a little high-priced, but looked better than what you could get on the concourse.  There was full bar service at both places and, of course, multitudes of televisions turned on to the Twins game being played down below, or other games that were shown on ESPN.  I'm not certain why people would really want to go and sit down in a place like either Hrbek's or Town Ball Tavern.  I mean, it's - AT LEAST - a $22 buck cover charge per person (the price of a standing-room-only ticket to get into the stadium, which is the cheapest ticket one can buy) just to get into Hrbek's or Town Ball Tavern.  Then the food ain't that cheap. 

Wandering along the concourses both on the main level and in the second and upper deck, I found a lot of great vantage points to watch the game.  There really wasn't a bad area to stand and watch the game on any level.  There's a place just beyond the center field wall on the main concourse that has a nice ledge to set your drinks or food and to get a great view of the action just above the batter's black-walled backdrop.  A lot of younger people were at the game that night taking advantage of the standing-room-only tickets and what I think are reasonably priced beers at the stadium ($7.00 for 16 oz. cups of domestic beers).   On the right, I had to take a picture of the calf of a young man who is a obviously a die-hard Twins fan who had the "TC" logo inked into his leg. 

It was getting late and I had enough beer and definitely enough of the horrid hot dogs and brats at Target Field.  Plus I knew that as it got later in the game, the Hiawatha Line light rail system would begin to get crowded.  After being squashed like a sardine on the trip up to the stadium, I decided to cut my losses and head out after the top half of the 7th inning with the Twins leading 2-0 on the strength of Baker's 12 strike-out performance, giving up only two hits in 7 innings pitched.  The Twins ended up winning 2-1 that evening.  

 

Twilight had begun to creep in and with the sun setting around 9 p.m. in the Twin Cities at the start of summer, it was a wonderful evening to see a baseball game at the new park.  I remember going to the Metrodome on many occasions in the past when the weather was just gorgeous.  Then you had to go inside to see a game.  I'm sure there's going to be some upcoming days in April and, hopefully, for Twins fans, in late October where the weather is going to hamper the game.  But nights like the one where I attended my first game at the new Target Field will more than be a positive in the decision to bring baseball back to the outdoors in the Twin Cities.  Target Field is simply a great place to watch a game.