Road Tips

Bâtiment B - Terrebonne, QC

I like going to Montreal for company meetings.  It's always great to get together with my colleagues from around the U.S. and Canada, and Montreal is such a great city.  The only time I don't like going to Montreal is when it's winter time and it's cold.  And this particular trip up there earlier this winter was exactly like that.  One extremely cold evening while we were there, a large group of us went to dinner in the far north suburb of Terrebonne to a restaurant housed in a building built just after the turn of the 19th Century - Bâtiment B.  

Downtown Terrebonne is a mixture of quaint little shops and restaurants.  The village can trace its roots back to the early 17th century when the first settlement in the area - Lachanaie - was founded along the Rivière des Mille Îles (the River of a Thousand Islands).  On one of the larger islands in the river, a flour mill was built in 1721 and a saw mill was built in 1725.  Along about that same time a dam was built in the river to help with powering the mills and to regulate ice flows on the river in the winter.   In 1803, a third building - a bakery - was built on what was then called Île des Moulins (Mills Island).  A new flour mill was built a couple years later with a new saw mill built in the mid-1840's.  

The dam had been fortified over the years, but on the early 1970's the owner of Île des Moulins decided to destroy the dam with dynamite to a flooding risk.  The village of Terrebonne stepped in and acquired the island from the owner, rebuilt the damaged dam, and was able to get the island designated as a historic site in 1973.  In 1979, the dam was rebuilt that included a pedestrian walking bridge from Île des Moulins to the larger Île Saint-Jean.  

Five original buildings remain on Île des Moulins including Bâtiment B (B-Building) which was turned into a gastropub by three chefs - Mathieu André-Lajoie, Dominique Gagnon and Gabriel Poirier - who joined forces in the summer of 2013 to open the restaurant using locally grown foods with an ever changing menu.  Many of the items they featured were locally-raised wild game, fresh seafood and farm-grown produce.  As I've grown to know and appreciate on my trips to Quebec, there's a number of very interesting and very good wild game restaurants in the area.  

Since Bâtiment B is located on an island (see map), there isn't any authorized vehicular traffic allowed on Île des Moulins.  And parking in Terrebonne can be, well, rather challenging.  We were let out of the van by one of my colleagues on the Terrebonne side of the island and walked across a short walkway to the restaurant.  There's little to no signage on the building telling us that it was a restaurant, so we walked past the place once.  That wasn't anything we wanted to do on a cold and windy evening - the weather was just brutal that night.  Some of our colleagues parked across the river on Île Saint-Jean and walked across the pedestrian walkway on top of the dam - a much longer walk than we had to make from being let out on the Terrebonne side. 

We met up in the bar area - I think there were 20 of us for dinner from our ever growing company.  We enjoyed a number of tapas plates along with wine, mixed drinks and local beers while they prepared our table upstairs. 

The bar area was located in front of the kitchen.  You could easily look into the window and see the flurry of activity going on in there.  The bar, itself, was rustic looking and had an old European look to it.  Behind the bar was a dining area that opened up onto a deck that overlooked the river.  One of my Montreal-area colleagues told me that the deck is one of the neatest places to be during the summer months as you are literally right above the water below the dam.

We were seated at a long table on the upper mezzanine level of Bâtiment B in sort of a narrow and cramped corner.  Getting 20 people along the table was a bit of a challenge, but we were all able to squeeze in.  Unfortunately, I was in the middle along the wall and my boss was seated next to me on one side.  We were smacking each other's elbows from time to time during the dinner.  But we get along very well, so much so that we sometimes share food off our plates when we dine together.  With the family-style prix fixe menu we had that evening, we wouldn't have to do that this time.  (Photo courtesy Walter Events)

The meal started out with a series of appetizers that were passed around the table.  We had smoked sturgeon that was - well - interesting.  It was smoky, but a little salty to my taste buds.  Something new for me was having duck pestles that were basically duck legs.  The legs were baked in sort of a sweet/sour sauce and were actually very good.  Another appetizer were some ground wild hog patties.  They were woefully dry and somewhat overcooked.  

The entrees were interesting, to say the least.  Even some of the Quebecois in the group were having trouble figuring out what some of the items on the menu were.  In a big pot - three of which were brought to the table - was braised deer in a brown gravy stock.   The meat was very tender and had an interesting, but good taste.   

 
The best thing that I had was the deer tartare that is on lower left hand corner of the plate in the picture above right.  It was simply fabulous in taste.  It's sort of tough to describe the taste - the deer meat was tender and lean with capers, chopped onions and herbs mixed it.  

We also had spaetzles with a tomato confit that was very good, as well.  And the one seafood that we had brought about a large discussion the next day about exactly what we had.  It was listed on the menu as "Loup de Mer" - basically Wolf of the Sea.  There's a rare fish by the name of Wolf of the Sea, but I surmised that we didn't have that the night before.  It turned out that "Loup de Mer" is also the same name as Mediterranean Sea Bass.  A couple of my colleagues still dispute that, but I did enough looking on the Internet that told me it was the same thing as Mediterranean Sea Bass (or Branzino in Italian).   

They also had braised barbecued deer ribs on the menu that night, too.  They were good sized and slow-cooked in a barbecue sauce.  I had a couple bites off of one rib and the sauce was sort of bland with a tomato base.  There was a lot of food on the table and we got to try just a little bit of everything.  But I kept going back for the deer tartare until it was completely gone.  

The desserts featured an apple crisp (I'm not big on apples) and a small fruit mousse.  But one of the things on the dessert tray was another thing I wasn't familiar with - ground cherries.  When it was translated from the menu for us, a couple of us had to look up what they were.  It's actually the flowering berry from a shrub that is indigenous to Europe, but was brought over to Eastern Canada by early French settlers.  It's from the same family of the gooseberry and tomatillo bushes, and it has the texture of a small cherry tomato.  It was faintly sweet and very juicy.  I had more than one.  

It seems like every time I got to Montreal, I expand my culinary horizons.  This trip was absolutely no exception as Bâtiment B featured a number of interesting foods that I was not familiar with and had never tried before.  The wild game, locally grown produce and fresh seafood they served that evening at Bâtiment B were all delicious and fascinating to me.  Usually, restaurants can't handle large groups very well, but the prix fixe family-style meal they served to our group of 20 that evening came off without a hitch and was very delicious.  I'm hoping that at some point I can get back to Bâtiment B in the summer months to have a beer or two on the deck and watch the river go by.  (Photo courtesy Walter Events) 

Zipp's Pizzaria - Adair, IA

In the over 10 years that I've been doing Road Tips, I've garnered a number of people who like to follow the blog over social media.  A handful of these people I've conversed with on an occasional basis, or even met during my travels.  A guy who has been following Road Tips for three or four years also happens to own a pizza place in Adair, IA - Zipp's Pizzeria.  I've been promising the owner that I'd stop by at some point, but most of the times I go by Adair is usually when he's not open (he opens at 5 p.m. through the week - closed on Monday). On a recent trip between Des Moines and Omaha, I made the point to stop in and try one of his pizzas.  

Jim Zimmerline is a pretty well-rounded guy.  He's had his own lawn-care/landscaping business for over 20 years, he's a photographer whose specialty is taking sports action and motor racing photos (click here to see some of his work), and he's somewhat of a pizza connoisseur who travels around the Midwest and beyond, stopping at pizza places along the way to try out different styles of pizza.  (That's sort of how he got hooked up with Road Tips - he found the blog and found that he had a kindred spirit in yours truly who was always looking for new and unique places to eat.)  

Jim had always wanted to run his own restaurant - he'd grown up working in restaurants around the Adair area, primarily at McDonald's, Casey's, and at Happy Chef which is now called the Chuckwagon and the winner of the Iowa Beef Industry Council's Best Burger in Iowa contest for 2016.  (Click here to read the Road Tips' visit to the Chuckwagon.)  While at Casey's, he and a buddy were experimenting in the kitchen while taking a break from making pizzas and they made bread sticks and cheese sticks long before Casey's - or a lot of other places - had those items available.  Jim knew that if he was going to do a restaurant he was going to concentrate on one thing and do it well - a philosophy that we both share.   Given his affinity for pizza, he knew that he could do a pizza place and do it well.

Pictured right - Jim Zimmerline.  Photo courtesy Zipp's Pizzaria Facebook page. 

He and his wife, Tammy, leased a building in downtown Adair and they refurbished the corner space into Zipp's Pizzaria (yeah, it's spelled wrong, but I've always thought pizzeria should be spelled "pizzaria", too) using Jim's nickname in the name of the business.   The Zimmerline's opened Zipp's Pizzaria in May of 2012.

The main road into the center of Adair has been out of commission for a long time due to the reconstruction of a bridge over the railroad on the town's south side.  I was able to take a detour around to the east and over the tracks before I turned left and found Zipp's on the corner of Audubon and 3rd St.  (see map)  It was difficult to miss with the big mural of Jim Zimmerline as a pizza chef on the side of the building.  

As I was walking from down the street toward Zipp's, a large man walked out of the restaurant and toward me.  "How you doin'," he asked in an easy and affable manner as he turned to go into a door in the building next door.   It turned out that they guy was Jim Zimmerline.  

I'll have to admit, I really didn't know what to expect when I walked in the place.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice little cozy space with brick walls and corrugated tin wainscoting along the walls.  A small bar area was up toward the front and the kitchen was in the back.  

There was an area off to the side behind a low wall that featured longer tables for larger groups.  Most of the people that were in there - and it was around 6 p.m. - were seated in the larger of the dining area that evening.  

I took a seat along the east wall of the restaurant and a lady came over a little while after that with a menu.  She asked if I wanted anything to drink and about the only thing they had to offer in terms of beer were Anheuser-Busch and Miller-Coors products - no craft beers, which was a bit of a disappointment. (But, then again, it IS small-town Iowa.)  However, they did have Triple XXX Root Beer available which sort of surprised me.  (More on that in a bit.)  

Zipp's Pizzaria prides itself on using only the freshest ingredients for their pizza.  In addition to making their own dough and pizza sauce, the Zimmerline's will chop fresh veggies daily and the meat is cooked directly on the pizza rather than beforehand like some pizza places will do.  And he uses fresh provolone instead of mozzarella on his pizza, a curious choice in my book, considering Zipp's is one of a very few places I've found that uses provolone instead of mozzarella.  (Which is probably why he does it that way.)  

And it must be working because Zipp's has garnered mentions on web sites such as Red Tricycle (a family web site geared to raising children), First We Feast and by PBS as having the best pizza in Iowa.  And last year the Iowa Tourism Office had a March Pizza Madness Award where people voted in three rounds for the best pizza in Iowa, and Zipp's taco pizza won the Best Pizza in Iowa award.  

Honestly, I didn't know any of that when I went into the place.  But I was intrigued by some of the pizzas they had to offer.  They had a chicken broccoli pizza they were featuring that evening, but the other one they were showing on the menu was a chili dog pizza.  Like me, it turns out that Jim Zimmerline is a chili dog aficionado and he came up with a chili dog pizza with sliced hot dogs, topped with cheddar cheese, chili and onions topped with yellow mustard.  I would have to be in the right frame of mind to have one of those.

On my initial visit to Zipp's, I went with my standard Italian sausage, mushroom and pepperoni.  They have 3 different sizes of thin-crust pizza - 10", 14" and 16" - and I went with the small 10".  (They also have a thicker crust 12" pizza available.)  They were pretty busy that evening, not only in the dining room, but with carry-out orders so it took a little over 20 minutes to get my pizza.  

Jim Zimmerline and I are cut from the same cloth - we both like a good thin-crust pizza and the Zipp's pizza was the perfect thickness for the crust.  It was misshapen, charred on the edges and cut into party cut (or tavern) squares.  The pepperoni slices were large, the provolone was slathered over the top and had some nice caramelization.  I let it set for awhile letting it cool down while all the flavors coagulated together.  

From the first bite, I knew it was a great pizza.  Not the best I've had in all my travels, but a great pizza for a small town in west central Iowa.  Actually, it was a great pizza for anywhere in Iowa.  The Italian sausage had a bit of a spicy bite and the mushrooms were fresh and earthy.  The saltiness and spicy flavor helped this pizza pass my "Does it Taste Good With a Beer?" test.  The sauce wasn't all that sweet - which is fine with me - and had a nice tomato sharpness on the tongue.  I was a little taken back by the creaminess of the provolone cheese as I sort of missed the stringy nature of mozzarella.  But the provolone was fine enough.   This was the perfect sized pizza for one person, but I have to say that it was so good that I was sort of crestfallen after I had my final piece.  I could have had a couple more squares and while I would have been stuffed, I would have been happy.  

I went up to the front counter to pay for the pizza and the beers I had that evening and Tammy Zimmerline was manning the cash register.  I asked if Jim was in and she said, "Do you know Jim?"

"No," I replied.  "But he may know who I am."  

She went to get him from the building next door and about three minutes later he came in.  I introduced myself and at first he had a blank look on his face.  When I went a little deeper into my explanation of my blog, his face lit up and he said, "Oh, sure!  Yeah, yeah!  You finally made it in!  Great!"  He asked me how I liked the pizza and I told him it was stellar.  

We stood and talked for nearly 20 minutes - or maybe more - as he told me of all the places he'd been to, some that I had been to that he tried from reading Road Tips, and his philosophy of his restaurant.  "We don't do anything half-assed," he told me in an enthusiastic, yet, matter-of-fact fashion.  "There's too many other places out there that do it half-assed."  

I had noticed that he sold Triple XXX root beer.  "This is the place out in West Lafayette, Indiana, right," I asked.  (Click here to read Road Tips' entry on the Triple XXX restaurant.)  

"Yep," he replied.  "In fact, I'm heading out there to get some more root beer tomorrow.  And I'm going to stop at a couple pizza places on the way out and some more on the way back."  Here's a guy who will drive nearly 500 miles to get root beer for his restaurant because he thinks it's the best in the world.  And it is very good root beer.  That, to me, showed the passion Jim has for his business and bringing only the best to his customers.  Plus, he's testing out other pizza places to get ideas and to see how his pizza stacks up against others out there.  

I wanted to visit more with Jim, but I had another hour plus drive to get to Omaha and I didn't want to take up any more of his time.  But I told him that I'd let him know when I was coming through again so we could sit down and talk some more.  

Jim Zimmerline told me that he has people regularly come from up to 75 miles away to eat pizza at Zipp's Pizzaria.  And I can easily see why.  The pizza I had at Zipp's was very, very good - one of the better pizza places I have encountered in Iowa.  It's difficult for me to say which pizza I've had in my travels is better, but the pizza at Zipp's easily rivals the top and more established places I've found in the Midwest.  Take it from me, Zipp's is worth the side trip off Interstate 80 to experience a very good pizza in a cozy and friendly small-town atmosphere. 

Daddy Ray Burgers - Dardenne Prairie, MO

I was in Indianapolis earlier this year and I was talking with one of my dealers telling him I was going from there to St. Louis.  "Oh, man," he exclaimed.  "We delivered some stuff to a customer over on the far west side of St. Louis a couple years ago and there's a place out there that has the best burgers in the world!"  He couldn't remember the name of the place, so he called to one of his colleagues in the back and asked what the name was of the great burger place over in St. Louis they had eaten at weeks before.  "Daddy Ray Burgers," is what I heard from the backroom.  Immediately putting that on my "Restaurants to Visit" list on Google Maps, it turned out that I wasn't far from Daddy Ray Burgers when I finished a recent Friday morning meeting with a dealer on the far west side of St. Louis.  

The "Daddy Ray" behind Daddy Ray Burgers was the fun-loving Ray Morris who came up with a secret blend of beef and spices to make his burgers for family and friends starting back in the early 1960's.  Ray Morris had grown up in St. Louis, the son of a factory watchman who didn't make a lot of money during the height of the Great Depression.  Ray eventually made it through a technical high school and graduated from Washington University before joining the armed forces as a radio operator during World War II.  

After the war, Morris answered an ad for a company who was looking for someone who was "good with numbers" and he joined the Pet Milk Company in St. Louis and in a few short weeks was named the company's advertising product manager.  Morris rose through the ranks at Pet eventually becoming President of Pet's Grocery Group.  In 1984, Morris was named the CEO of Pet following a hostile takeover by the conglomerate ICI Corporation (whose name later was changed to the Whitman Corp. which later became PepsiCo) and was in charge of some selling off some of Pet's properties and making acquisitions such as Progresso soups.  Pet expanded internationally under Morris' watch until he retired in 1989.    

When Ray Morris passed away in 2010, he passed along his burger recipe to his family to use however they wished.  His grandson, Jason Boergadine, had restaurant experience as his mother and step-father owned an upscale restaurant in the Lake of the Ozarks region while he was growing up, then the family owned a dueling piano bar/restaurant in California about 10 to 12 years ago.  With his grandfather's secret burger recipe in hand, Boergadine opened Daddy Ray Burgers in what was a former custard stand along Veterans Memorial Parkway in O'Fallon, MO in September 2012.  

The original Daddy Ray Burgers was a carry-out only establishment with a drive-up window and a couple three picnic tables in front of the building.  Boergadine did a delivery business for Daddy Ray's during this time period.  But business suffered when the cold months came around and Boergadine went looking for a new spot for Daddy Ray Burgers that had indoor seating.  He found a spot next to a Mobil gas station in Dardenne Prairie on the far western side of St. Louis in the summer of 2015.  He opened his new location along the South Outer Road along Missouri Highway 364 at the Bryan Road exit in September 2015.  (see map) 

Daddy Ray Burgers was a nice little space, well-lit and bright with red and yellow accents.  The whimsical logo of Ray Morris was prominent on the east wall of the place.  The chairs and tables gave the place a 50's diner feeling.  The kitchen is in the far back with plexiglas windows between the grill and the dining area.  There's a pick-up lane for phone-ahead orders on the side of the building and it seemed to getting a lot of use going unto the noon hour.  Walking from my car to the front door, I could easily smell the smoky beef aroma of burgers getting grilled.

The menu at Daddy Ray Burgers hangs from a corner above the order counter.  It's a basic menu consisting of burgers, chicken sandwiches, a BLT, hot dogs, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a turkey burger for the health conscious.  Sides include fries, onion straws, chili cheese nachos, sweet potato waffle fries and a family recipe cole slaw.  

The burgers all start out with 5 ounce patties - with the exception of the "Classic" burger which features a thicker 9 ounce beef patty - and you can add a second or third patty to make it a nearly 1 pound burger.  For the adventuresome, Daddy Ray's will make you a burger consisting of four - 9 ounce patties with all the toppings.  Seven different types of cheese are available as well as a number of free toppings including lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mayo or ranch dressing.  For an upcharge, items such as bacon, sautéed mushrooms, fried jalapeños, and onion straws can be added.

I ended up a double Daddy Ray burger topped with Swiss cheese, sautéed mushrooms, onion slices, pickles, ketchup and yellow mustard.  Daddy Ray Burgers get their fresh-baked buns from Fazio's Bakery, one of the oldest in St. Louis.  All burgers are made to order and it took about 10 to 15 minutes to have my burger made. 

The burger was served on a piece of wax paper in a basket.  It stood tall and majestic in the basket with a split-top bun on top.  The burger patties were char-grilled over a gas-grill and crispy on the outside.  The burger turned out to be good, juicy and flavorful.  I prefer a flat-grilled burger over a char-grilled burger, mainly because most char-grilled burgers are over-cooked.  But the burger patties had a bit of pink in the middle and the only thing charred on the burger were the outer shells of the patties.  About the only quibble I had was that the bun wasn't toasted.  It held together all right, but it seemed a little dry and lifeless.  

The burger at Daddy Ray Burgers was good, as in above-average good.  I can't call it the best burger I ever had, but it was good enough.  I can see where some people really like the burgers at Daddy Ray Burgers, but it didn't really trip my trigger like it did the guys who told me - and raved - about the place.  It's much better than fast food burgers, but Daddy Ray's is just a step or two above average in my book.

Maharaja Indian Cuisine - Omaha, NE

I had been the road a lot and I was starting to get into that food funk where nothing sounded good to me even though I was hungry for something.  Usually, I can break that food funk with sushi or Indian food.  The weather was cold and blustery and I got into Omaha late in the day after a long drive down from up north.   I decided on Indian food and found a place about a 10 minute drive from my hotel called Maharaja Indian Cuisine.  

For a number of years, the New India Gardens was a staple for people looking for Indian food in Omaha.  They had two locations on the west side of Omaha, one on S. 125th St. and a second location on N. 114th, just north of Dodge.  In May of 2013, Kusum Bhalla bought the N. 114th St. location and turned it into Maharaja Indian Cuisine.  He kept many of the same things on the menu including the popular wraps and dosas (crepes) that New India Gardens customers liked so much, as well as the lunch buffet that is served daily between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  Their dinner offerings begin each evening at 5 p.m.  

Maharaja Indian Cuisine is located on the far south side of a strip mall known as Miracle Hills Square just north of Dodge at N. 114th St.  (see map)  It's located next to the Namaste Plaza international grocery store.  There was plentiful parking out front when I got there around 6:30 that evening.  

The decor at Maharaja Indian Cuisine is pretty spartan and basic.  The chairs were made of lime green plastic seats.  A wood floor and high ceilings in the long narrow space made it rather loud in there even though the place was about half full of patrons.

One of the guys from the back came over to greet me, dropped off a menu and asked me what I would like to drink.  They had Kingfisher on tap and I said I'd take one of those.  "A large one," he asked.  Sure - I didn't know what a large one was, but it turned out to be a 25 ounce glass.

Not long after he brought out my beer, another young guy brought out some leavened bread with chutney dipping sauces.  The two different types of chutney were mild and spicy.  I like the leavened bread with the chutney sauces to start out at Indian restaurants.

For dinner that night, I considered the shrimp biryani and the lamb vindaloo before settling on the lamb curry dish - boneless lamb cubes cooked in a curry sauce and served with rice.  The lamb was tender and the curry sauce was a bit spicy, but nothing bad.  It was a hearty meal for a cold winters night.  I also got some garlic naan bed to go along with the meal.  Dipping the garlic naan in the curry sauce was a great taste combination.  

Needing to get out of a food funk that I was in, Maharaja Indian Cuisine was a "spot-hitter" for me that evening.  The lamb curry was very good as was the garlic naan.  Maharaja Indian Cuisine wasn't anything fancy, the service seemed to be fine, and the food was above average for Indian food.  For comfort food on a cold winter evening, Maharaja more than fit the bill for me.  

Nighthawks - Minneapolis

The Twin Cities has so many interesting places to eat that my "Restaurants to Visit" page on Google Maps has over 30 different pins plastered over the area map.  One of the places that I've wanted to try for quite sometime is a place called Nighthawks, an upscale diner and bar on S. Nicollet Ave.  After a morning visit to a dealer in Minneapolis, I headed over to Nighthawks for an early lunch before I headed out of town on a cold and blustery day.  

Landon Schoenefeld grew up in South Dakota where he once said in an interview with the great Twin Cities on-line restaurant magazine Heavy Table, "Food in general just isn't very good".  His mother was not a good cook and Schoenefeld said that her best dish was a tater-tot/ground beef/green bean/cream of mushroom soup casserole that was her go-to meal for all big occasions.  As a teenager, he started working in a restaurant that had a menu where they had everything from Italian to Mexican to American - and probably didn't do any of them very well.  But he seemed to like the camaraderie that came from working with people in a kitchen.

Not exactly knowing what he wanted to do with his life after high school, someone suggested he go to cooking school.  While he wasn't certain that he wanted to pursue a career in the restaurant business, Schoenefeld enrolled in the culinary program at the International Culinary Schools at the Art Institute in Minneapolis.  From there, he went to work for a handful of upscale restaurants in the Twin Cities - Restaurant Alma, 112 Eatery and Barbette to name three - before settling at the Bulldog Northeast in Minneapolis.

It was at the Bulldog Northeast where Schoenefeld became famous for re-constructing their burger menu into one of the best in the Twin Cities - and also became infamous for the "Colonel Mustard Incident" where he sprayed mustard from a bottle on a bartender who had asked for a salad with dressing on the side.  Schoenefeld was in the midst of a series of 20-hour work binges and evidently had had enough.  He was relieved of his duties at the Bulldog Northeast, but he had already created quite a culinary stir in the area that he was soon hired at Trattoria Tosca, an upscale Italian bistro located on Minneapolis' west side, then at its sister restaurant Cafe Levain (both of which closed last year).  

Schoenefeld - who wasn't big on dressing up and never owned a tie - wanted to do his own concept restaurant where he offered upscale food in a casual atmosphere.  He didn't mind if you wore a three-piece suit or a pair of blue jeans to his idea for a restaurant, he just wanted you to enjoy the food.  He enlisted the help of three other partners and they opened Haute Dish in early 2010.  

Pictured right - Landon Schoenefeld.  Photo courtesy Minnesota Monthly magazine.

Haute Dish was an immediate hit on the restaurant landscape in the Twin Cities with their upscale Midwestern-themed comfort food.  With Schoenefeld as the head chef, he had help in the kitchen from four former co-workers he had worked with in his previous stops.  Their "nouveau-Midwestern comfort food" drew raves from critics and customers alike.  One of the things he had on the menu at Haute Dish was a tater tot casserole based upon the ingredients his mother used in the casserole she made when Schoenefeld was a youngster - only with much better ingredients.  

For his next concept, Schoenefeld came up with Nighthawks which is called a "postmodern take on the urban American diner".  Schoenefeld gave his new restaurant the Nighthawks name after Edward Hopper's iconic 1942 painting of a late night diner in New York's Greenwich Village.  Opening in May of 2015, Schoenefeld also had a restaurant within a restaurant - Birdie - on the premises.  Birdie is a chef's table restaurant where customers can watch an 8 to 12 course meal be prepared before their very eyes.  Offering four seatings a week, the prix fixe menu comes in at $100 and I understand that there is a waiting list that stretches out to months.  

Landon Schoenefeld has been known for years as a hard-charging, tireless visionary who has worked hard at every position he's had.  It is probably one of the reasons why he has worked at so many different restaurants since he graduated from culinary school.  And late last year, Schoenefeld felt the stress of being burned-out as he was going through some tough negotiations with one of the partners at Haute Dish, as well as keeping Nighthawks and Birdie on the upper tier of restaurants in the Twin Cities.  He stepped away from the three restaurants taking a sabbatical to get his head cleared.  However, his able staff and chefs have carried on with all three restaurants showing no signs of a degradation in either food or service.  

Nighthawks is located at the corner of S. Nicollet and E. 38th Street in south Minneapolis.  (see map)  S. Nicollet between W. 24th and W. 28th streets to the north is known as "Eat Street" for the number of various cuisines that can be found in that four block area.  6 to 12 blocks south of there are a number of other interesting restaurants that I've found over the years.  I was able to find a parking space up Nicollet to the north of Nighthawks and went in around 11:30 a.m. that day.  

The main entrance of Nighthawks opens to a long bar area with padded high-backed booths along the wall.  I was greeted by a hostess who took me past the bar and around a corner to another room and put me at a small table.  My server that day - Mitch - came over to greet me.  

The room behind the bar featured a diner counter with an open kitchen on the other side.  With the big windows up front, there was a lot of natural light filtering through the place.  

I was given a lunch menu to look over.  The dinner menu at Nighthawks has many of the same lunch items, but they also feature nightly blue plate specials through the week including fried chicken and mashed potatoes (Monday); a ham chop with cheddar cheese grits (Wednesday); and a ketchup-glazed meat loaf with mashed potatoes and gravy (Thursday.)

The Nighthawk also has breakfast items that are served throughout the day.  Only these breakfast items aren't your typical breakfast fare - it's not everyday you see a foie gras omelet on the menu.  The Nighthawks Hashbrown platter is topped with chili, smoked cheddar cheese and cole slaw.  And they have 8 different types of pancakes to choose from such as plain ol' buttermilk pancakes to a bacon kimchi scallion pancake platter to chorizo/cheddar/corn pancakes.  

Sandwiches included a tuna melt topped with a lemon caper dressing and Prairie Breeze cheddar from the Milton Creamery in the southeast Iowa town of Milton; the French Dip topped with Gruyère cheese, beef fat mayo and a shallot jam; and two different sizes of pastrami sandwiches - the Minneapolis which is smaller and the NYC which is probably the size of sandwiches sold at the famous Jewish deli's in New York City.  

Interestingly, they also had a number of hot dogs on the menu.  They start out with 12" all-beef hot dogs from the Kramarczuk Deli in Minneapolis and then they add individual toppings for signature hot dogs.  The Huevo Rancheros hot dog was topped with a fried egg, frito chips, black beans and guacamole (among other things); the JapaDog featured toppings such as pickled ginger, seaweed salad and sliced daikon radish; and the Galaxy Dog was topped with chili, cole slaw, cheddar cheese and frito chips.  I damned near pulled the trigger on that when I initially saw it.

But something really jumped out at me on the menu - the lemon blueberry pancakes.  Lemons and blueberries are two of my most favorite taste flavors and I about melted when I saw them as a combination in the pancakes.  

I was hoping that they would be great and I have to say that they exceeded my expectations.  They were absolutely fabulous.  The pancake batter had a faint lemon taste - nothing overpowering - but the blueberries were fresh and tart offering a wonderful taste sensation on both ends of the scale.  The pancakes were a little too thick and doughy for my liking, but the taste of the lemon and blueberries together made me forget that I liked my pancakes more thin.  

For a side, I got some of Nighthawks in-house smoked and cured pepper bacon.  The bacon was smoked almost too much for my taste, it was almost too salty and it wasn't all that lean.  While it tasted good enough while I was having it, it sort of upset my stomach immediately after I had eaten it.  I found myself burping the bacon back up later in the day.  

I'm hesitant to categorize Nighthawks as a breakfast place because they don't open until 11 a.m.  (They do feature brunch on the weekends.)  But they serve breakfast all day long and have an interesting menu throughout the day.  The lemon/blueberry pancakes were just outstanding.  Service was personable and competent.  The atmosphere was laid-back, but somewhat elegant at the same time.  While Landon Schoenefeld may now be gone, it appears that he prepped his staff well enough to continue on with the eclectic offerings that make Nighthawks an interesting and impressive place to dine.    

Los Agaves - Davenport, IA (Utica Ridge)

We have a number of good Mexican restaurants in the Quad Cities area thanks to the number of Mexican immigrants who made their way to the Mississippi River valley years ago to work in the melon fields or to get work at any one of the farm equipment factories that were centered in and around the Quad Cities.  Many of those immigrants stayed in the area and their second and third generations have opened some good to outstanding Mexican restaurants in the area.  Because we have so many Mexican restaurants in the area, if you aren't very good, you aren't going to stick around for long.  On any given night we have our choice of a dozen Mexican restaurants that we have not gotten burned out on over the years.  One of the places that we like to visit around the Quad Cities are one of the four Los Agaves restaurants in the area.  On this particular evening, we visited the one in northeast Davenport along Utica Ridge Road.    

The Leon family owned a handful of Mexican restaurants with most of them located in Central Iowa, but other family members owned restaurants in Tennessee and North Carolina.  In 2004, they acquired the old Tin Pan Alley restaurant located at the corner of Brady and E. Kimberly Road in Davenport and opened the first Los Agaves in the Quad Cities run by Ernesto Leon and Emilio Duran.  It was similar to many of the other family-style Mexican restaurants that had popped up around the area, but we seemed to like going there more than some of the other ones.  

In 2006, the family opened the second Los Agaves location in Moline in what was the former Tortilla Flats location and was run by Leon's sister Veronica Santanilla.  About five years ago, the Leon family opened a third location opened in northeast Davenport and last year a fourth location was opened on the far eastern end of Moline.  

The Utica Ridge Los Agaves is located in a strip mall along a stretch of road that is home to a number of restaurants in northeast Davenport.  (see map)  It was a weeknight when we ventured out to this Los Agaves.  We were sort of surprised to see that the restaurant was nearly deserted on an unseasonably warm evening - one of many we had this past winter.  Usually, the place is packed.  And when it's packed, it's very loud in there.  We've purposely passed by this place on some nights when it was busy because it gets so loud in there that you have trouble having a conversation just across the table.  

The decor is elegant and upscale for a Mexican restaurant, and it's very comfortable in both atmosphere and seating.  The open ceiling, however, has an echo effect that bounces throughout the place and amplifying the noise levels.  (My company imports Vicoustic acoustic panels in North America.  Maybe I need to go in and talk to these guys about putting some on the ceiling to help deaden the sound in the place.)  In the warmer months, there's a patio in front of the place where people can dine outdoors.  

The bar area at Los Agaves is very nice.  With a half dozen flat panel televisions hanging in the immediate area, it has the atmosphere of a sports bar.  I remarked to my wife that I keep forgetting about this bar and how it would be a good place to come to on a Saturday afternoon to watch college football or basketball.  But knowing my penchant for margaritas, I'd probably get too hammered to focus on sports.  

We were seated in a booth just past the pillars and archs that line the north wall of the restaurant and given a couple of menus to look over.  A bowl of fresh tortilla chips along with Los Agaves' very good sweet and somewhat spicy salsa was provided.  They had a special that night - $2.95 for a 24 ounce Dos Equis Ambar.  I couldn't pass that up.  My wife had a small gold margarita.  Unfortunately, they didn't have a special on gold margaritas that night - or any night.   But Los Agaves' idea of a small margarita is much larger than most other places small margarita.  

The menu at Los Agaves is pretty much the same that you'd find at most other Mexican restaurants - enchiladas, tacos, quesadillas, fajitas, burritos, etc., etc.  They had a number of combination plates to choose from, as well as a number of ala carte items that you can pick and choose to combine.  There's also about a dozen seafood items to choose from including fish tacos and shrimp dishes.  They also have a number of selections on the menu for vegetarians.   

That evening, my wife got the chicken enchilada and chile relleno combination (she had to ask to substitute the beef for the chicken which was no problem).  She likes chicken enchiladas and she thought the one at Los Agaves was fine.  The cheese-filled chile relleno was also to her liking.  I prefer beef in my chile rellenos, but she likes the cheese-filled ones.  

I went basic with an order of shredded beef tacos.  The tacos featured some shredded lettuce and some chihuahua cheese.  The beef was tender and flavorful - I tasted a hint of all-spice in the seasoning of the beef.  The tacos were pretty basic and they were really all I needed that night.  

The food at the Los Agaves restaurants is always dependable.  While it's never been outstanding, it's always been consistently above average.  While we like the Utica Ridge location because of the elegant Mexican decor in the place, it turns us off when the place is packed and it's uncomfortably loud.  Service at Los Agaves always seems to be quick and efficient.  Los Agaves has good and serviceable Mexican food, but there's other places around the Quad Cities that do it better.  

The Flippin' Cow - Elkhart, IN

I was staying at a hotel off Interstate 80 in the Elkhart area one night as I was going to be seeing a local dealer in the morning.  I really didn't want to eat at the hotel, and there was a restaurant that was walking distance from the hotel that didn't really appeal to me.  I started to do some on-line searches for places in the immediate area and I found a place with an interesting name just up the road from the hotel - the Flippin' Cow.  It sounded fun and I thought I go give it a shot.  

Cam Snyder is a local restaurateur who bought the Lakeshore Grill in 2002.  From there, he opened the Chubby Trout, a steak and seafood joint, in February of 2006.  In March of 2011, Snyder took over what was the second location of a restaurant by the name of Michael's Italian Restaurant and renamed it Fat Tomato.  Snyder ran Fat Tomato for a year and a half before he sold it to his chef Bill O'Brien.  (Fat Tomato closed in November of 2014 after business suffered due to road construction in front of the building.)  

Meanwhile, Snyder and his son, Ryan, came up with a new concept for the Lakeshore Grill - a hand-crafted burger place.  They closed the Lakeshore Grill after Thanksgiving weekend in 2012, then reopened the Flippin' Cow in December of that year.  

(Last summer, Snyder closed the original Chubby Trout restaurant and moved it to what was an old barn on the north side of Elkhart that originally housed D'Antini Italian Restaurant, then it was a breakfast place by the name of Golden Egg Pancake House.  It turned out the Chubby Trout was the restaurant within walking distance from my hotel that I wasn't interested in trying that evening.)  

The Flippin' Cow is located on the west end of Simonton Lake on State Road 19 about a half-mile south of the Indiana/Michigan state line.  (see map)  The parking lot was not that large and there were a lot of cars in the lot.  Thanks to someone who was leaving when I pulled in I was able to find a single spot.  (I'm guessing that in the summer time they have a large dock that accommodates boaters on the lake.)

In front of the door going into the building is a life-size statue of a Holstein cow.  I rubbed its nose, then I walked into a place that seemed sort of cozy, but had a summertime vibe to it.  A mural of a blue sky, a beach, palm trees and water was painted across the ceiling.  It had a sort of a cabin-type decor along the walls. I first found a high metal table, but it was wobbly.  The people who had just left were seated in a booth and once they cleaned off the tabletop, I moved over there.  

There's a four-seasons room between the main dining area and the lake just off the building.  It featured picnic table-type seating in a room that was surrounded by windows.  A small deck for outside seating was off to the side of this dining room.  I took a mental note to come back sometime when the weather was nicer to see what this place looked like.

The place was packed with people playing "Opinion".  From listening to the M.C., from what I gathered is that groups of people were polled and their answers were the basis of questions like "What's the all-time Best Movie Sequel?" or "What's the Most Recognized Hotel Chain?"  And then teams of players would submit their answers to match up against the top 3 answers of the opinion groups.  I believe the top answer would get the players 5 points, the second top opinion answer would get 3 points if you picked that one, and the third one would get a team 1 point.  (For the record, the top movie sequel was Godfather II, a no-brainer in my book.  But the most recognized hotel chain?  I guessed Holiday Inn, but the M.C. told the crowd that the opinion group said it was Hilton.  Now, I almost exclusively stay in Hilton properties, but I probably would have even picked Super 8 over Hilton.)  

While all this was going one, my server had come over to greet me and to drop off a menu.  Her name was Kristen, a friendly young lady who was effervescent and outgoing.  She was telling me of a couple house beers they had on tap - Cam Snyder is also somewhat of a brewer who has his beers brewed at the Mountain Town Brewing Co. in Mt. Pleasant, MI.  I ended up getting a Bell's Two Hearted Ale in a 25 ounce glass.  

The menu at the Flippin' Cow is, of course, burger-centric with a number of signature burgers including the Stella Moo - a double-patties burger topped with smoked brisket, jalapeño bacon, onion straws, pepper jack cheese and BBQ sauce on a toasted wheat brioche bun.  They also had the Maui Wowie - two steak patties cooked in teriyaki glaze, then topped with Swiss cheese and a grilled pineapple slice and served on a toasted sweet pretzel bun.  The one that I immediately said "NO!" to was the Hunka Hunka Love burger - two patties topped with peanut butter, jalapeño jelly, melted pepper jack cheese and smoked bacon, served on a toasted pretzel bun.  Actually, that burger sounded good without the peanut butter.

In addition to burgers, the Flippin' Cow featured a number of sandwiches including a smoked brisket sandwich; a "grown-up" grilled cheese sandwich with three different types of cheese, bacon and a tomato slice; and an open-faced strip steak sandwich smothered in grilled onions and sautéed mushrooms.  Appetizers included pretzel sticks, deep-fried pickles, and mojos - sliced deep-fried potatoes with a dusting of some spices.  Evidently mojos were big in Elkhart back when Shakey's Pizza Parlors were proliferating the restaurant landscape across America.  

And for the people who can't handle burgers or deep-fried foods, the Flippin' Cow also has salads and wraps.  But the most sinful thing on the menu was the "Not yo Mama's" Mac & Cheese.  It featured a mixture of three cheeses baked with macaroni noodles and topped with cheddar cheese.  You could add Buffalo chicken and a blue cheese topping or get the Bacon-Cheeseburger mac & cheese that was topped with crumbled bacon and ground steak beef.  

Most of the crowd had filtered out by the time Kristen brought my burger out to me - which was fine with me.  I ordered up the "Build-Your-Own" burger with two ground steak patties and had it topped with pepper jack cheese, sautéed mushrooms and a couple slices of bacon on a potato bun.  The presentation wasn't fancy - the burger was served in a basket with wax paper underneath.  But I wasn't thinking anything was going to be too fancy at the Flippin' Cow.  

I'm glad I got the double burger as the patties start out as 5 ounce ground steak and are cooked on a flat-top grill.  The patties were thin, but still juicy.  The pepper jack cheese was slathered on the burger patties and it gave the burger a bit of a spicy taste.  The sliced mushrooms appeared to be fresh and along with the bacon gave the overall taste of the burger a very enjoyable flavor. 

For my side that evening, Kristen sold me on the loaded tater tots.  The tots were topped with a cheddar cheese sauce, chopped jalapeños and real bacon bits.  The loaded tots were just outstanding.  I usually don't eat potatoes all that much when I'm out at restaurants, but these were simply wonderful.  I complemented Kristen for her recommendation.  

It was a very good burger at the Flippin' Cow.  The double ground steak patty topped with the pepper jack cheese, sautéed mushrooms and bacon on a potato bun was definitely well above average for a burger.  But the loaded tater tots were simply outstanding.  It was a nice, laid-back atmosphere that probably only gets better during the summer months when boaters are hooked up to the docks for burgers and brews at the Flippin' Cow.  Winter or summer, the Flippin' Cow is a good place to stop for a good burger and a good choice of beers.  (Photo courtesy Flippin' Cow Facebook page.)

 

QC Coffee and Pancake House - Rock Island, IL

"Wait a minute," a friend said into his phone during a recent chat we were having.  "You've never been to the QC Pancake House in Rock Island?"  I told him, once again, that, no, I had not been there.  "And you have a food blog," he admonished me in return.  "Best breakfast in the Quad Cities," he said.  "Hands down."  Another friend also told me that he was a big fan of what is officially named the QC Coffee and Pancake House in Rock Island, so much so that he would routinely drive 25 minutes from his home north of Davenport to go have breakfast there.  On a recent Saturday morning, I had my wife grab her coat so we could make the trek to downtown Rock Island to have breakfast at the QC Coffee and Pancake House.  

As a teenager, Jose Zepeda started out as a dishwasher at the Windmill Restaurant in East Moline.  Jose - who spoke very little English growing up - started to work his way up the ladder at the Windmill Restaurant eventually working in the kitchen doing prep work.  Wishing to better his skills in the kitchen, Jose graduated from the culinary program at Scott Community College in 2000 and soon became the executive chef at the Windmill.  It was also at the Windmill where he met his now-wife Sarah.  The two continued to work at the Windmill before eventually becoming co-owners of the restaurant along with long-time owners Miltos and Cathy Diakogeorgiou.  

In 2013, the Zepeda's sold their shares of the Windmill back to the Diakogeorgiou's and took on a new venture in what was the former Koffee Korner restaurant in downtown Rock Island.  Bringing many of the recipes that he used at the Windmill, Jose and Sarah opened the QC Coffee and Pancake House in July of 2013.    

The Zepeda's continued to serve food items that not only included standard American breakfast and lunch foods, but Mexican and Greek-style plates at their restaurant.  But they may be most famous for their Cinnamon Roll pancakes.

Pictured at right - Jose Zepeda and a plate of his famous Cinnamon Roll pancakes.  Picture courtesy Quad City Times.  

What started out as a weekend special for the Zepeda's, they soon found a following for their Cinnamon Roll pancakes that feature four pancakes topped with cinnamon sticks and a creme cheese frosting.  (We were told by a friend who just happened to be dining in the QC Coffee and Pancake House the day we were there that they were heavenly decadent.)  Zepeda said that on average they still have at least one or two orders for the Cinnamon Roll pancakes each day.  

The QC Coffee and Pancake House is located at the corner of 18th St. and 3rd Ave. in downtown Rock Island.  (see map)   The building - which dates back to the late 30's when it was originally a pharmacy - housed Gus' Koffee Break restaurant for a number of years before the Zepeda's bought it in 2013.  In fact, the original "Koffee Break" sign is still on the outside of the building above the front door.  

We got into the restaurant around 8 a.m. and it was already packed.  We had to park on 18th St. about a half block away from the restaurant so we knew going in that we would probably have a wait.  We were told that it would be a 20 minute wait, but there was only one couple in front of us and people were already getting up from their tables.  While we waited to get seated, a guy came in and was greeted by his first name and given a cup of coffee while he waited for a spot to open.  Right after he entered, another couple came in and walked up to the hostess counter.  The hostess didn't have to ask as she immediately wrote down their names with "2" next to it.  This place has a loyal following of regulars it appears.  

The dining area was sort of cozy, but well lit.  A number of booths and tables were interspersed throughout the dining area.  There was a small breakfast bar that seated five or six people that was full, as well.  After less than a 10 minute wait, we were finally seated in a tight booth along a low wall and given menus to look over.

Each weekend, the QC Coffee and Pancake House has a number of specials that they feature.  This particular Saturday morning, they had prime rib and hash browns for $13.95; they also had a three-berry (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries) waffle on the specials list, as well as a Boston creme French Toast special.  

The menu reflects mostly breakfast and lunch items as the restaurant is open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.  As I said, while most of the menu features traditional American breakfast items, they do have Mexican and Greek-influenced items on the menu.  For lunch, they feature soups and salads, burgers and sandwiches.  Most - if not all - of the menu items are made from scratch daily.  

My wife had been suffering from a cold and thought that maybe the Mexican skillet would be good for her.  Our server said that it was a little spicy which gave my wife pause.  "Hmm...," she said.  "I may have to rethink my choice."  When I told her that it wouldn't be "burn-your-face-off" spicy, she said that the Mexican skillet would be fine.  She had a choice of toast or a couple small pancakes and she really wanted to try their pancakes.  

Our server brought her Mexican skillet out to her first.  She got it with scrambled egg whites (for a slight upcharge) and the food was piled on her plate.  Now, my friends had both told me that the portions at the QC Coffee and Pancake House were more than generous and I'd have to say that was an understatement with the amount of food on her plate.  It was a combination of scrambled egg whites on top of seasoned potato fries, sliced jalapeños, tomatoes, sautéed green and yellow peppers, fried onions and ground chorizo.  Guacamole - as in REAL guacamole - came on the side of the plate with tubs of salsa and sour cream.  

She proclaimed her breakfast as "delicious".  There was a lot going on as far as different tastes on her skillet and she said that the chorizo wasn't greasy like you'd find most chorizo dishes.  She said it was a little spicy, but nothing she couldn't handle.  I tried a bite of the chorizo and I found that she was spot on with her description.  It was very good ground chorizo without a hint of a greasy taste.  

My wife made a dent into her skillet before she proclaimed that she was full.  There was probably still another full meal left on her plate when she was done.  She got a to-go box and had the rest of it the next morning for breakfast.  

I ended up getting the corned beef hash and two eggs over easy with whole wheat toast.   Now, this was REAL corned beef hash, not the crap that most restaurants get out of a can.  It featured large chunks of corned beef mixed in with cubed potatoes that tasted like they were possibly baked for awhile, then finished in a skillet with the corned beef.  It was a lot of food for $7.95.  But I was able to pretty much finish up everything on my plate.

Since they have "pancakes" in their name, we really wanted to try the pancakes at the QC Coffee and Pancake House.  Now, my wife is a pancake snob - and she should be.  She makes some of the best pancakes in the world at home.  She can tell from the first bite if she doesn't like pancakes at a restaurant, but from the first bite she had of the pancakes at the QC Coffee and Pancake House she said they were "wonderful".  I tried a couple three bites of the pancakes and while I didn't think they were as good as hers, they were still very good for restaurant-style pancakes.  They were light and a little fluffy, but they weren't thick and full of that batter taste.  

If you're a regular reader of Road Tips you'll know that our gold standard for breakfast places around the Quad Cities is Jimmy's Pancake House in Bettendorf.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Jimmy's.)  But I'll have to say that if Jimmy's is Number 1 in our book, the QC Coffee and Pancake House would be 1A.  This was a superb breakfast all the way around.  The service was very good, quick and friendly.  The food was outstanding and we didn't wait long for our meals after we ordered.  You could easily tell that what we had was made from scratch and that the level of ingredients they use is very high.  My friends were absolutely right about the QC Coffee and Pancake House.  It is one of the best places we've found for breakfast around the Quad Cities.    

Candlelite - Chicago

On the recommendation of a buddy of mine at one of my dealers in the Chicago area, he told me to head over to the Candlelite, a long-time neighborhood bar/restaurant located on N. Western Ave. in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the city's far north side.  "They have surprisingly good pizza there," he told me a couple three years ago.  Over a year ago, I went there one evening to try their food and the place was packed with no parking in the immediate area.  But I was still determined to try the place at some point.  It was just after I finished up at one of my dealers in Chicago one recent early evening that I stopped at - and was able to get into - the Candlelite.  

The Candlelite has been around since 1950 when the Dileo family opened the supper club/roadhouse-style restaurant just a couple blocks south of Evanston's border with Chicago.  Even before Prohibition took effect in 1919, Evanston was a dry town for alcohol as an agreement with Northwestern University said that alcohol could not be served within 4 miles of campus.  Because of this law, many Evanstonians and students at Northwestern had to go outside the city limits to get a drink.  The Candlelite thrived in the 50's and 60's thanks to Evanston's city laws on no liquor sales.  Even after Evanston's prohibition on alcohol ended in 1972, the Candlelite had already built a healthy and loyal clientele who kept coming back for their pizza, homemade French onion soup, and chicken wings.   

The Dileo family - who had interests in other restaurants and banquet facilities around the city - continued to run the Candlelite with sister Jean Dileo taking over the business in 1979.  After running it for 15 years, she decided it was time to sell.  Her cousin, John Enright, had graduated in the mid-80's from the University of Iowa with a degree in film and was making commercials in the Chicago area while working part time at the Candlelite.  Enright decided that working in a restaurant was much more fun than making commercials, so he bought the place in 1994.  

Trying to raise a family and run a bar that was slowly deteriorating due to neglect was weighing heavily on Enright.  After six years of running the place on his own, Enright enlisted the help of Tom O'Malley, a former financial advisor who found that his true calling was running bars.  O'Malley joined Enright at the Candlelite in 2000, but the two soon discovered that they both had the same dream - to open a restaurant in downtown Evanston.  In 2002, O'Malley, Enright and another partner opened Bluestone, an American-style known for their upscale pub fare, comfort food, and pizza.

Rather than putting money into the decaying infrastructure at the Candlelite, Enright decided to shutter the place in 2002.  It sat empty, much to the dismay of loyal Candlelite customers who missed the place, for a couple years.  Then in 2004, a group of four investors including Pete Vernon and Chicago Athletic Clubs owner Pat Cunningham bought the Candlelite and put in tens of thousands of dollars sprucing up the place and reopening the restaurant resurrecting much of the food on the original menu.  Today, Pete Vernon is still an owner along with co-owner Pat Fowler.  

It's tough to miss the Candlelite while driving along N. Western Avenue south of Howard with its large 50's style neon sign sticking out from the building.  (see map) I was able to find parking on a side street just around the corner from the Candlelite on this visit.  It was early, around 5:20 or so when I walked into the place.  A handful of early diners were already there.   

You would have to classify the Candlelite a sports bar as there are a number of flat screen televisions hanging from the wall along with a lot of local sports memorabilia.  The L-shaped establishment was open and roomy.

The Candlelite is also an official Chicago Blackhawks bar with all the televisions turned to the hockey match each time the team plays.  One of the waitresses told me that the place can get pretty crazy in there when the Blackhawks are playing.  I guessed that the night I had shown up to the place a year or so before was probably a night the Hawks were on TV.  

I ended up seated at the bar in the center of the place and ordered up a Revolution Brewing Co. Anti-Hero IPA that they had on tap.  The bartender asked if I was going to eat and he put a menu on the top of the bar for me to look through.  I pretty much knew that I was going to order a pizza, but I wanted to see what else they had to offer.  

It was pretty much what you would expect from a sports bar - but a sports bar that offered some upscale items on the menu.  Their signature appetizers seemed to be either loaded French fries and tater tots with a choice of a red wine-garlic sauce; or fries and tots with a buffalo sauce and blue cheese; or loaded fries and tots with a melted cheddar cheese, chopped green onions, real bacon bits, and sour cream.  They also a parmesan herb topping with a side of marinara sauce for their French fries and tater tots.  All four of the toppings along with the fried potatoes sounded sinfully great.

They also had veggie or chicken quesadillas, barbecued brisket nachos, fried calamari, fried pickles and, of course, wings on the appetizer menu.  And they also had poutine - fries topped with gravy, cheese curds, chopped bacon bits and scallions.  I love good poutine when I can find it.  

They had a couple three burgers and five or so sandwiches on the menu, but you could tell that their focus was on pizza.  Thin crust pizza is their specialty, but last year Vernon and Fowler decided to offer something new - a rectangular pan pizza that originated in Detroit.  While not calling it "Detroit-style" pizza on the menu, 10" X 14" pan pizza was offered with a choice of fresh toppings, as well as with a red or a white pizza sauce.  

I was easy to work with that evening - I got my usual Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza, the 10" size.  Cut into party (or also called tavern) squares, it was loaded with fresh mushroom slices, pepperoni, and chunks of sausage.  The cheese had somewhat caramelized on the top of the pizza while the edge had a burnt crispiness.  The bartender had brought over a triumvirate of shaker jars containing grated parmesan cheese, ground oregano and crushed red peppers.  

And the pizza was wonderful - the crust was crisp, but it wasn't overcooked.  The toppings were fresh - especially the mushroom slices - and the sausage had a bit of a spicy taste.  The pepperoni slices were spicy and salty giving the pizza a rousing affirmation from my "does it taste good with a beer?" test.  The cheese was creamy - I guessed that they used a provolone cheese instead of mozzarella - and the pizza sauce was sweet and tangy.  It was a perfect size for one person and I was pretty full when I finished the "honey pot" center piece of the pizza.  

My friend couldn't have been more spot on about how good the pizza was at the Candlelite.  What a great little neighborhood spot, too!  Keep in mind that parking can be somewhat of a bear at times, and if there's a Blackhawks game on TV the place is likely to be packed.  They have a good beer list, some interesting appetizers and their pizza is outstanding, as well.  Even if you're not into sports, the Candlelite is a good place to go get a good thin-crust Chicago pizza.