Road Tips

Angelini's - Onalaska, WI

 

Up in LaCrosse earlier this summer, I was in the mood from some Italian food.  I did a quick search on my GPS for Italian restaurants in the area and I found a place called Angelini's in nearby Onalaska.  When I pulled up to the place where my GPS said it would be, well, it wasn't there.  I did a quick search to see if Angelini's was still in business and it turned out that they were, but they had moved up Highway 35.  After negotiating a somewhat tricky roundabout to get into their parking lot, I found my myself at Angelini's.  (see map)

Antonio (Tony) Angelini immigrated from Italy to the U.S. with his family when he was 11 years old.  Tony worked in a number of restaurants as he became familiar with America and he saw what was good and what was bad in the workings of a restaurant.  He knew he couldn't make suggestions to his employers - who would listen to a teenaged immigrant from Italy?  But he kept mental notes of what to do and what not to do if he were able to open his own restaurant at some point.  

Tony Angelini eventually worked his way up the ladder and was a manager for three different restaurants over the years as a young man.  But he eventually went to work for the streets department for the City of Chicago, meeting a young woman by the name of Kelly Arnold during his years working there.  Kelly and Tony eventually married and started a family.  Wanting to provide a better living for his small but growing family, the urge for Tony to run his own restaurant was too great and Kelly encouraged him to find a restaurant where he could serve authentic Italian food made from his mother's recipes.

The couple found a restaurant in Sparta, WI that was for sale and they took the plunge and moved from suburban Schiller Park, IL to western Wisconsin in 2003 to open Angelini's.  Their Italian food - and especially their pizza (Chicago deep-dish, thin crust or stuffed) - was a big hit in the small town of about 9500 people.  

Approached by city officials to possibly open a second restaurant in Onalaska, the Angelini's were shown a building in the city's downtown - the one I pulled up to courtesy of my GPS.  The Angelini family opened their second restaurant there in September of 2013.  Tony and Kelly soon found, however, that running two places 25 miles apart from one another was turning out to be too much for them, so they sold their Sparta location a few months after opening the Onalaska location.   

One of the problems with their downtown Onalaska location was the lack of parking in the immediate area around the restaurant.  But when Primos Southwestern Grill closed their doors in the Spring of 2015, the Angelini's saw an opportunity to expand the size of their restaurant while also gaining a large parking lot for their patrons to use.  Angelini's moved into its new location in June of 2015.  

As I said earlier, getting into Angelini's was a little difficult - I had to take a roundabout where Highway 35, Riders Club Road and Sunset Vista Road all come together.  A small sign off Sunset Vista pointed the way to Angelini's parking lot.  It was about a 1/3 full of cars when I pulled up.

When I went into Angelini's, I had a faint recollection that I had been in the place before.  All during dinner I was wracking my brain to remember if I'd been in there before, so much looked familiar to me.  Afterward, I went into the bar and I asked the bartender how long they'd been there.  "Just under two years," she replied.  I asked what it was before this and she said, "Well, it was a Primo's Southwestern Grill for a few years before they went out of business."  I said that, no, I hadn't been in here if it was that place.  Then she said, "Well, before that it was the Lakefront Supper Club."  That's was it!  I had been in the Lakefront Supper Club with my wife a number of years ago during a weekend trip up to LaCrosse.  There had been some extensive remodeling of the place since we were in, but once I got to looking around at the place I realized that I really had been in the place in the past.  

The main dining room was where I was shown to a table when I got in there.  Angelini's also has some smaller rooms that will sit 6 or 8 people for dinner.  But the main dining room was nice - but it was very dark.  The sun had just gone down and the scenery out onto Lake Onalaska, a back water area of the Mississippi River, was hardly discernible.  

The only lights in the room that really illuminated anything were strings of LED lights strung up with some faux greenery along the ceiling edges and corners.  Recessed lighting from the ceiling was dimmed excessively, so much that I had to read the menu with the flashlight on my smartphone.  

My server for the evening was a young lady by the name of Hallie.  I ordered up a beer to enjoy while I looked through the menu.  The food at Angelini's is traditional Italian from pasta and meat dishes, to sausage and peppers with pasta, to a clam linguine dish, to three different styles of pizza - a thin crust, a Chicago-style deep dish, and a Chicago-style stuffed pizza.  Because the pizzas can take so much time, Angelini's only offers pizza Monday through Thursday evening as I was told the kitchen used to get horribly backed up on weekends with all the pizza orders.  

I considered getting a thin crust pizza, but a few other things caught my eye on them menu.  The meat cannelloni featured three meat-filled pasta shells topped with their signature bolognese meat sauce.  The meat-ravioli was also calling my name, as was the cheese-stuffed tortellini in a creamy Alfredo sauce with ham chunks and peas.  But in the end, I ordered up the chicken parmigiana with the mostaccioli pasta topped with the bolognese meat sauce.  I also got a glass of the house cabernet to go along with the meal.  

This was a lot of food covering my plate.  The chicken parm was in the center of the plate with a healthy dose of mozzarella cheese on top, and it was surrounded by mostaccioli and the meat sauce.  A slice of garlic bread made from daily house-baked bread was on the side.  

The chicken parm was, well, it was all right.  It was a little overcooked and sort of dry - not what I was anticipating when I ordered up the dish.  However, the house bolognese meat sauce was, well, off-the-hook excellent.  Quite honestly, I quit focusing on the chicken parm and went exclusively for the mostaccioli and the thick and tasty bolognese sauce.  The taste sensations of the herbed tomato sauce with the chunky combinations of what I believed to be beef and Italian sausage mixed together was heavenly. I couldn't get enough of the thick meat sauce with the pasta.  I was embarrassing myself as I kept eating until all of the pasta was gone, then I took the garlic bread and started to sop up the meat sauce trying to clean the plate of every last speck of the sauce.  I had eaten - maybe - half of the chicken parmigiana.  

The chicken parmigiana at Angelini's was a little disappointing, but the slow-cooked housemade meat sauce that came on the side with some mostaccioli was absolutely out of this world.  Here I was in little Onalaksa, WI at an Italian restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River to experience some of the best bolognese sauce I've ever had.   The service I received that evening was prompt and friendly, and Hallie did her best to check with me from time to time to see if I needed anything during my dinner.  The dining room was nice, but the lighting in the place was too dim - too dim to even be able to read the menu.  Once again, I cursed the gods of Italian restaurants everywhere as I wished a place like Angelini's would be available in my hometown instead of a 3.5 hour drive away.  

Olde Brick House - St. Cloud, MN

St. Cloud, Minnesota has a number of good and quite interesting restaurants that I've found during my travels there over the years.  My dealer there was telling me about a new place - an authentic Irish pub - in downtown St. Cloud where he had installed the audio/video system.  As I left his place around 4:30 p.m., I decided to stop by the Olde Brick House for a late lunch/early dinner.   

The building at the corner of 1st Street South and 6th Ave. South (see map) that houses the Olde Brick House dates back to 1890 when it was opened as a saloon.  Over the first 10 years of its existence, the tavern had an unsavory reputation as the upstairs was a gambling hall and a house of ill-repute.  Local authorities raided the upstairs a couple times over the years and by 1900 the saloon had its liquor license revoked.  

Starting in 1903, the building had been a "tied" house - a tavern owned by a local brewery, then a Moose Lodge, and then a cafe.  By 1964, a new owner moved in and started a bar - the Corner Bar - that was famous locally for their hot beef sandwiches.  In the 70's, the bar turned into the Aspen Corner Bar, then a few years later it was renamed the Dick Titus Watering Hole.  But by the early 1990's with the country music/line-dancing/boot-scootin' craze full in gear, it became Charlie's Wild Wild West.  When that era ended with a thud, it was rechristened First Street Station to try and hold on to the country crowd.  When that didn't work, the owners renamed it Rum Runners.  Rum Runners had a reputation for bringing in a tough crowd and when the city didn't renew their liquor license in 2013, the place closed down.  It sat vacant for nearly 3 years.

Local restaurateur Steve Letnes - already somewhat of a restaurant mogul with regional chains Boulder Tap House (click here to read about the Road Tips visit to Boulder Tap House) and Grizzly's Wood Fired Grill - got together with restaurant industry veteran Pete Poepping to buy the empty space in September of 2015.  Not knowing exactly what they wanted to do with the old building, the two brainstormed over a missing niche of restaurants in St. Cloud.  They came up with the concept - an authentic Irish pub.  

Pictured right - Pete Poepping and Steve Letnes.  (Photo courtesy St. Cloud Times.)

The partners consulted Kieran Folliard who once owned four Irish pubs in the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area until he sold his shares in 2011.  Folliard came to look at the space and he said that the building would be a perfect space for an authentic Irish bar - it had a lot of space and it could accommodate multiple bars like many pubs have in Ireland.  From there, Letnes and Poepping took off to tour pubs in Ireland before coming back to St. Cloud to begin a complete transformation of the building, gutting the interior down to the brick walls.   60 full-sized roll-off dumpsters hauled off furnishings, old supplies, fixtures and woodwork by the time they were ready to transform the space into an Irish pub.   

To capture the authenticity of an Irish pub, Letnes and Poepping hired an Irish company - Ol' Irish Pubs, Ltd. - which specializes in building out authentic Irish pubs around the world - to design and build the fixtures for the restaurant.  The original bar in the building - which dated back to the early 1900's - was painstakingly restored and after four months of building the fixtures in Ireland, the company came over to install the rest of the woodwork, fixtures, and furnishings.  Olde Brick House opened in January of this year.  

I found parking on the street in front of the building and went inside.  Just inside the front door that sits on the corner was a small bar area.  I'm guessing that it was the original bar with an ornate back bar with a walk-thru to another bar behind it.  This is known as the Old Head Bar, a traditional greeting area for patrons at pubs in Ireland.

The bar behind the front bar was where I parked myself.  There were not many people in the place - given that it was 4:45 in the afternoon - and I was greeted by a woman by the name of Tess who had a cheery attitude and a friendly demeanor.  She gave me a menu to look over and I ordered up a Smithwick's - one of the many Irish beers they had on tap - to start out.  The Smithwick's was fresh and tasty.  Olde Brick House claims they have over 150 different types of Irish, Scotch and American whiskies to choose from and from the number of bottles along the wall on the back bar, I'd say that was a conservative number. 

The main downstairs dining area features a number of high top tables and booths with a soothing honey yellow color on some of the walls with exposed brick along one wall.  

The menu at Olde Brick House features a number of traditional Irish favorites including Guinness-battered fish and chips, corned beef and cabbage, bangers and mashed, and Shepherd's pie.  They had a Celtic meatloaf on the menu that featured a slice of grilled meat loaf on a bed of champ potatoes, then topped with creamed cabbage, fried onion straws and gravy.  I thought about that for a moment before I started to look for something else.  For more American tastes, the Olde Brick House featured steaks, seafood and pasta on the menu.

The sandwich side of the menu featured a handful of burgers and sandwiches including a meat loaf sandwich (the meat loaf keep calling my name) that was topped with onion straws, cheddar cheese and gravy and served on a toasted baguette, as well as a cheese steak sandwich topped with a Guinness cheese sauce, onion straws and wine-sautéed mushrooms.  They also had fish tacos - your choice of broiled or battered Atlantic cod - and they had a burger that was topped with cheddar cheese and brown sugar bacon.  But I decided to go with the Olde Brick House's signature reuben sandwich.  

The reuben came on toasted dark rye topped with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut, and came with a creamy housemade sauce called Dublin sauce.  Plump pub chips - basically steak fries - and a small container of cole slaw came on the side.  

The corned beef was thick cut and piled high in between the dark rye bread.  There was a lot of meat in the sandwich and it was tender and flavorful.  It was a messy sandwich - I had to ask Tess for more napkins twice.  But it was wonderfully messy and the taste was very good.  It was one of the better reuben sandwiches I've encountered in my travels.  While I didn't try any of the cole slaw, I did have a few of the steak fries that were cooked perfectly with crispy shell on the outside and a soft flaky consistency inside.  The sandwich was more than filling and I was definitely full when I finished the last bite.    

After finishing my late lunch/early dinner, I took the time to run upstairs to take a look at the renovated second floor.  There were a couple of private reception/dining rooms - one larger than the other - up there, but the largest room on the second floor - the Music Room - featured a large rectangular old fashioned bar in the center of the room.  It featured large murals on the walls and a tin ceiling with antique style lighting around the room.  Large windows allowed for a lot of natural daylight to come into the room.  While I thought the downstairs dining area was quaint, I really liked the second floor bar area.  It was the kind of place where I could sit for a couple hours unwinding while enjoying a beer.   

 

The Olde Brick House is an exceptional Irish Pub.  From the intricate detail on the decor, to the large selection of whiskies, to the number of Irish beers on tap, to the traditional Irish food found on the menu, there's not many places like the Olde Brick House that I've come across in my travels across the Midwest.  The rueben sandwich was exceptional in quality and taste - the corned beef was thick, juicy and piled high on the dark rye bread.  And Tess' service was professional, friendly and prompt.  People who live in St. Cloud are fortunate to have an authentic Irish pub like the Olde Brick House in their community.  I wish we had one just like it where I live.  

 

 

Morrison Roadhouse - Niles, IL

I've driven by the Morrison Roadhouse countless times over the past 15 years that I've been traveling to Chicago for work.  It's always sort of intrigued me as it's been in business for 85 years and was probably a true country "road house" when it opened in 1932.  One night on my way back to my hotel, I decided to stop in to have something to eat and to check the place out.  

Morrison Roadhouse is located along Harlem Ave. in Niles, not far from where Harlem intersects with Milwaukee and Howard Avenues, and just north of the intersection of Harlem and Touhy.  (see map)  I was able to find a parking spot - the last one that was open in the lot next to the building and went in.  I would have to characterize Morrison Roadhouse as a sports bar more than anything, but it did have sort of a neighborhood tavern feeling to the place.  

Morrison Roadhouse features a large rectangular bar in the middle with a number of tables and booths around the bar area.  There was a game room toward the back of the place, as well.  

I ended up taking a seat at the bar and was greeted by Brittany, one of two young ladies working behind the bar that night.  (It turned out that both Brittany and the other bartender were also the servers for tables - more on that later on.)  I ordered up a Revolution Anti-Hero IPA to enjoy while I looked at the menu.  

There seemed to be a lot of regulars in the place, especially around the bar area.  Brittany and the other bartender were having conversations with a number of people on all sides of the bar.  The clientele was mostly male at the bar - many of them middle-aged to older men.  I fit in pretty well with that demographic.

Now, I couldn't find much historical information about the place other than its present day owner is a guy by the name of Robert Castle.  I asked the other bartender working at the bar if Morrison was the name of the small town that Niles possibly engulfed at some point.  "Hmmm...  I don't think so," she said.  "I think it's named after the guy who started it."  

A guy seated next to me said, "I remember my parents used to come into this place and it was sort of a fancy dress-up place that was more of a mixed-drink crowd than a beer bar.  But that was in the 60's."  

The menu at Morrison Roadhouse was extensive with a number of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, burgers and steak sandwiches.  They had a number of deep-fried appetizers on the menu, and there were nearly a dozen different types of salads to choose from, as well as a like number of burgers on the menu.  There was about 10 different chicken sandwiches and a number of wraps to choose from.  Sandwiches ranged from a Cuban sandwich, a beef sandwich that is slow roasted in Guinness beer, a classic reuben, and something called the St. Jarvis Beef sandwich that featured Italian-style beef served on ciabatta bread and topped with mozzarella cheese, giardiniera, and pepperoncini's.  I looked long and hard at that sandwich, but I ordered something else.

The burgers sounded good, but I was sort of burnt out on burgers for the time being.  I ended up ordering the toasted Italian sandwich with a side of tater tots.  Well, it took me a long time to be able to order it.  Remember, there were only two people behind the bar and they were also table servers, as well.  I was done with my first beer and no one was coming back to check on me.  I just couldn't believe for as busy a place that Morrison Roadhouse was that evening that they didn't have more wait staff.  I had to get Brittany's attention to order up the sandwich - a good 10 minutes after I was done with my first beer and ready to order something to eat.  

The sandwich was all right - it featured French bread with sliced ham, pepperoni and salami with mozzarella cheese over the top of it that was put under a broiler to melt the cheese.  Then it was topped with chopped lettuce, red onions and tomatoes and finished off with an Italian dressing.  It was nothing fancy, but I liked it.  I've always been partial to these type of Italian sandwiches since I first used to have the "hoagies" at Pizza Hut when I was a teenager.  I couldn't even begin to eat a Pizza Hut pizza these days, but if they ever brought back the hoagie on their menu I'd stop in to try one.  But I have to believe that the toasted Italian sandwich at Morrison Roadhouse would be even better than a Pizza Hut hoagie.  

The tater tots were good, too.  They had some hot sauce in a caddy on the bar and I was able to drizzle some Frank's Hot Sauce on the tater tots to give them a little zip in taste.  Tater tots are getting to be about the only potato I will eat at places like this.  That is, when they have them on the menu.  

Service continued to be slow as the two bartenders were obviously overwhelmed by having to work the bar and be the wait staff for tables the whole time I was there.  I was sort of peeved that they wouldn't have more people in there working as the place was more than half full.  And I'm sure other people were just as frustrated as I was.  But other than that, the toasted Italian sandwich was good, as were the tater tots I got on the side.  OK, so I was able to finally stop into Morrison Roadhouse.  And it was all right.  I think that if you're a regular there, you'd probably feel more comfortable in the place.  I'm just not certain that I'll be going back anytime soon. 

Fat Lorenzo's - Minneapolis

Up in the Twin Cities earlier this year, I was in the mood for pizza.  One place that I've had my eye on for awhile is a place called Fat Lorenzo's.  Not only are they known for their pizza, they also have quite the following for their selection of gelato.  On a beautiful Monday evening, I stopped into the original Fat Lorenzo's on S. Cedar Ave. just south of Lake Nokomis.  (see map) 

Fat Lorenzo's was the brainchild of Larry Neck, the owner of the 5-8 Club just down Cedar Ave. from Fat Lorenzo's.  (Click here to read the Road Tips entry on the 5-8 Club.)  Taking over the business in 1985, business was tough at the start of their venture.  Neck and his then-partner had one employee, Laura Siegel, his partner's sister.  She was out of work and needed a job.  But business still wasn't all that great and Neck's partner walked away from the business, but Laura Siegel stayed on.  The 5-8 Club eventually grew to be one of the iconic burger places in the Twin Cities.

Larry Neck grew up in New York City, and with the exception of one little Italian market in the Twin Cities he declared that there was no such thing as good pizza in the area.  After things started going with the 5-8 Club, he decided he was going to try his hand at making pizzas.  He knew the dough was the key to a good pizza so he spent a month working on making dough for pizza.  

The spot of a competitor restaurant down the block from the 5-8 Club became available in 1987.  Neck thought that he didn't want to have any more competition in the neighborhood, so he ended up leasing the place.  That's how Fat Lorenzo's got its start.  Larry - who was the "Lorenzo" in the name - teamed up with Doug Rix - the "Fat" in the name to start the pizza place.  With Larry Neck working primarily at the 5-8 Club, Doug Rix did everything at Fat Lorenzo's - he made the sauce, he sourced the ingredients, he made the pizza, he waited tables, he bussed tables, he washed dishes and pans.  In the early days, a busy night at Fat Lorenzo's was 20 to 25 people total.  

Doug Rix got sick and Larry Neck had to close down Fat Lorenzo's.  However, not long after he shut it down, Fat Lorenzo's garnered a "best pizza in the Twin Cities" award by a local publication.  Suddenly, people were clamoring for a Fat Lorenzo's pizza and Neck had to open the place back up again with new employees.  Once the buzz of the best pizza award wore off in a few months, Neck closed the place again.  

Guess what?  Not long after he closed it a second time, it won another best pizza award again!  He was forced to reopen with other employees and repeat the cycle.  This happened at least twice or maybe three times in the first four years Fat Lorenzo's was open.  

In 1995, Larry Neck had had enough of the restaurant/bar scene and was wanting to divest himself from the 5-8 Club, Fat Lorenzo's, Whitey's Tavern, and a place called BB Dixon's that eventually became the Groveland Tap in St. Paul.  Neck went to Laura Siegel's husband, Scott, and said that he was looking to sell everything he had.  He offered Siegel all of the places or just one of the bars or restaurants.  Siegel had just lost his job at the Ford Tractor division when it closed and was looking for something.  Scott Siegel decided on trying to get Fat Lorenzo's and he went home to talk it over with his wife.  

At first, Laura Siegel was dead set against owning a restaurant.  But Scott Siegel was 40 years old, out of work.  He went back to Larry Neck and made him an offer on Fat Lorenzo's.  A month later, Neck came back and accepted his offer, and in 1995 the Siegel's were the new owners of Fat Lorenzo's.  A few years ago, the Siegel's opened a second location in a VFW hall in Bloomington.  

I was able to find a parking spot in the small lot behind Fat Lorenzo's and I went in.  The open kitchen was very visible as you come in and it was a beehive of activity.  The original gas pizza ovens that had been there for 30 years were still being used today.

Also up front was the gelato counter.  In 2005, Scott Siegel went to the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas and he encountered an Italian company that was serving gelato.  Siegel knew that the building that housed Fat Lorenzo's was built in 1921 as an ice cream shop.  He thought it would be neat to have gelato at Fat Lorenzo's, sort of closing the circle of the original business in his building.  In an impetuous moment, Siegel agreed to buy the gelato machine for Fat Lorenzo's.  

The only problem is that he didn't know that it cost $45,000 dollars.  But he didn't care about that.  What he did care about was the time and cost that it took to install the machine, install the case coolers, install the electric, and install the ornate tiling around the counter.  That came to a cost of about another $150,000 on top of the price of the gelato machine.  But Siegel didn't care and in the long run he's made his money back and then some on the gelato machine and installation.  

There's a small black chalk board on the wall in the entry way to the dining room where people write their names and how many there are in their party.  I didn't know the drill and a couple came in and put his name up on the board with a "2" beside it.  As they were seated, I did the same thing for me.  But it turned out that I really didn't need to as a guy came up and said, "Just one?  Follow me."  

He took me to a high-backed booth in the center of the small and cozy dining area and gave me a menu to look over.  It wasn't long before my server, Raul, showed up to greet me.  They had a nice selection of craft beers available at Fat Lorenzo's and I went with a Bell's Two Hearted Ale after Raul told me that my first choice - the Ballast Point Sculpin - was sold out.  

The artwork on the exterior and interior walls of Fat Lorenzo's, as well as on the ceiling in the dining room were all done by a local Twin Cities artist by the name of Ed Charbonneau.  Charbonneau had actually worked as a cook at BB Dixon's when Laura Siegel was managing the place for Larry Neck.  When the Siegel's bought Fat Lorenzo's, they invited Charbonneau to come over and cook for them.  But Charbonneau declined, he said it was too far for him to travel on a daily basis from St. Paul, and he decided to go off to college instead.  

A year later Charbonneau came back in to see the Siegel's at Fat Lorenzo's.  At that time, the couple had put butcher block paper on the table tops and invited people to draw on them as they were waiting for their pizza.  The better ones, they would put up on the plain white wall of the dining room.  When Charbonneau saw that, he went to Scott Siegel and told him that he had been studying art - murals, more precisely - and said he'd like to try his hand at putting a mural on one of the walls.  Larry Siegel said, "Sure, what the hell?", fully figuring that if the mural sucked he could always paint over it.

Well, the mural didn't suck and Charbonneau continued to work on the walls off and on for six months.  His murals were whimsical and sort of like of a grand Italian style.  Charbonneau has since become well-known for his murals in the Twin Cities and he updated the artwork at Fat Lorenzo's over a 15 year period with the help of local artists Jeremy Szopinski and Neil Johnston.  (You can see more of Charbonneau's work and his resumé on his web site.)    

There's more than just pizza and gelato at Fat Lorenzo's.  They also have pasta dishes such as baked rigatoni, lasagna, fettuccine, and linguine with a clam sauce on the menu.  They have a number of hoagie sandwiches, as well as salads and appetizers.  But I was there for the pizza.  I ended up getting a small (10") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.

The pizza was thin in the middle, but more thick and spongy toward the outer rim.  It had a lot of big chunks of sausage along with plenty of pepperoni slices and chopped fresh mushrooms.  The grease coagulated toward the center of the pizza making it sort of mushy in the middle.  The thick cheese was a golden color on top of the pizza.

But that wasn't a bad thing.  Overall, the pizza was very good.  Not as good as I'd anticipated, but still very good.  The crust was a little too thick for me and I ended up tearing the crust from the edge and concentrated eating on the inner part of the pizza.   The sauce was good with a sweet tang to the taste.  The cheese was very good - they use whole milk cheese on the pizzas at Fat Lorenzo's - and that added to the rich taste of the pizza.  It was very good - not great - but very good. 

Fat Lorenzo's was worth the stop.  The pizza was very good, but from the reviews I'd read on-line over the past couple years I was expecting something more.  That's not to say the ingredients they use aren't good - they're very good with fresh Italian sausage, earthy mushrooms, salty pepperoni, whole milk cheese and a sweet and tangy housemade sauce for the pizza.  But there was just something missing in the overall finished product.  I'd probably go get one again, but I don't know if Fat Lorenzo's can still be called the best pizza in the Twin Cities.     

Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville, NC

Over the last 10 to 12 years when I travel for work, I've been staying almost exclusively in Hilton properties.  What that has gotten me is a Hilton Honors Lifetime Diamond Member status with the chain of hotels and a nice cache of points that my boss allows me to use for vacations.  While we were in North Carolina, we decided to stay in Asheville for a few days.  For an on-line search, I found the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown at the City Centre that appeared to be walking distance to the downtown area and I booked that hotel for our stay.  

The City Centre complex in Asheville is located on the east side of the downtown area and houses the BB&T Bank offices in Asheville, as well as the Roberts and Stevens law offices, along with other professional offices and the Hilton Garden Inn.  The 2.4 acre plot of land also has a car deck/garage for the facility and it appeared that there was some retail space openings at the street level across from the hotel.  There are also some condo's that can be rented monthly, weekly or daily in the complex.  The City Centre complex has been open for almost one year now.

Getting to the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown located at College and Charleston streets in Asheville (see map) was sort of an adventure.  Getting off Interstate 240 at Charleston and heading south, we could easily see the hotel sitting on the corner.  However, College Street westbound doesn't allow for left hand turns into the hotel's lot.  We went south on Charleston past the hotel and ended up taking some side streets - one of which emptied into the Buncombe County Jail and a lane that is used for prisoner pick-up and drop-off.  Once I finally got through that, I was able to take a left, then a right to come to the entrance off College for the hotel.  (I found out later on that there is a roundabout one block west on College Street that would have allowed us to do a quick turnaround to the eastbound lane and get us easily to the hotel.)  

The Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown consists of a main floor, four floors of rooms and a rooftop bar/restaurant on the sixth floor.   The lobby was very nice, comfy and decorated with a number of paintings from artists who had galleries in Asheville's River Arts District.  There was an outdoor pool off to the side of the lobby area in front of the building.  

As a Hilton Honors Lifetime Diamond member for Hilton, I have the option of being able to select my room on-line if reservations are made more than 24 hours in advance.  The day before we went to Asheville, a reminder came up for me to pick my room.  I took a high floor room and sort of guessed if it would have any type of a view.  When we came up to the counter to check in, we were greeted by a friendly young guy by the name of Michiah - he turned out to be stellar for us for our whole visit giving us directions, helping us with the hotel shuttle, and giving us restaurant and brewpub suggestions.  Michiah saw that I was a Lifetime Diamond member and he said, "We don't get many of you guys here!  But, then again, we've only been open for about 9 months."  

Michiah had told us that the hotel was owned by Quality Hospitality, a subsidiary of Quality Oil Company based out of Winston-Salem.  Quality Oil Company began in 1929 and has provided gasoline, diesel, propane and home heating oil to people from Virginia down to Florida.  Quality Oil operates a number of Shell full-service stations as well as a number of GOGAS, Quality Mart and Quality Plus gas station/convenience stores across North Carolina.  Michiah told me that Quality Hospitality - which owns seven other hotel properties in five states in the Southeast - sunk a lot of money into the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown.  "They put in something like $33 million dollars into this property," he said.  "It's a very nice place."  (It also turned out that the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown was the 700th Hilton Garden Inn property to open in the chain.)  

I told him that I had done an e-check in and he said, "Oh, we put you in one of our deluxe rooms since we had it open and you're a Lifetime Diamond member.  It's a southwest corner room on the 5th floor with a great view of both the mountains and the city."  When we went up to the room and opened the drapes, the south window had this somewhat nice view of the Blue Ridge Mountains with the highest peak - Mount Pisgah - easily discernible in the distance.  However, the west view windows toward downtown Asheville offered really nothing more than a great view of the City Centre building as well as a great view of the Buncombe County lock-up facility.  Still, the room was spacious with a king bed, some furniture and a lot of space to fan out during our stay. 

The first thing we had to do was to go up to the sixth floor and check out Pillar, the indoor/outdoor bar/restaurant.   The bar had just opened at 4 p.m. and there were already a few people in the bar when we got up there.  Even if it were on ground level, it would have been a great bar/restaurant.

The Pillar bar and outdoor patio is located on the north end of the hotel so the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains aren't quite as good as they were from our room a floor below and on the south side of the hotel.  And there was still the Buncombe County Jail prominently in front of us as we looked toward downtown Asheville to the west.  Still, it was a nice outdoor space with a number of metal tables and chairs on top of a rubberized indoor/outdoor flooring that my wife would love to have in our four-season porch back home.  While we wanted to go explore the downtown area and didn't get a drink on our first visit to Pillar, we did go up and have drinks on the deck later in our stay, both during the late afternoon and for a nightcap in the evening after we returned from a restaurant.  It was a great place to unwind and hang out.  

One of the things the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown's web site said was that it was a short walk to downtown stores, restaurants and bars.  Well, a short walk is about 10 minutes - and it's nearly all uphill as Asheville is a very hilly city.  However, the Hilton Garden Inn provides a free shuttle service to and from the downtown area for guests - and will even go pick up people who would like to come from the downtown area and go up to the Pillar bar for drinks or dinner.  We used the shuttle a handful of times to take us downtown, but the walk back to the hotel was rather easy as most of it was all downhill.  

When we were there, the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown partnered with a Greensboro restaurant - the Iron Hen Cafe - to provide breakfast and lunch on the premises to guests and others who were looking for a place to eat on the east end of downtown.  The Iron Hen Cafe is part of the Fresh.Local.Good restaurant group based in Greensboro that oversaw the ownership of nine restaurants mainly in the Greensboro area.  All of the restaurants had menus that focused on locally and sustainably-raised products for their foods.

The restaurant was very nice with high quality wood floors, a nice bar area with Edison lamps hanging from the ceiling, intricate stone pillars, and a full service menu.  It was a nice place to get something to eat.    

We ate there a couple three days while we stayed at the hotel and each day I had the same thing - the housemade corned beef hash covered with two sunny-side up eggs with whole wheat toast.  It also came with some grape jelly that was obviously homemade - it was actually closer to jam than jelly because it was sort of chunky, but had a very sweet taste to it - and it was absolutely outstanding.  It was some of the best I'd ever had.  But the corned beef hash was equally outstanding.  It featured big chunks of housemade corned beef with fried potatoes mixed in.  I tried to eat the corned beef separate from the eggs, but the mixture of the egg yolk with the corned beef was a great taste sensation, as well.  

However, we noticed some changes going on in the restaurant while we were staying there.  One morning, they were putting signs up that the restaurant would be closed after breakfast for the next couple of days.  I asked Michiah at the front desk what was up with that and he said, "Oh, we're breaking our affiliation with the Iron Hen Cafe after today." He said that things weren't working out with the parent companies and Quality Hospitality was going to run both the Pillar rooftop bar and restaurant and the new Pillar Cafe that took the place of the Iron Hen Cafe.  "The menu is going to be similar, if not the same," he told us.  "But there will be a few additions going on, as well."   

I don't write about hotels all that much, but I felt it was necessary to write about the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown.  It may have been the finest Hilton Garden Inn I've stayed at in terms of accommodations, amenities and service.  And I stay in a lot of Hilton Garden Inns in my travels.  But the one near Asheville's downtown may have topped them all - and may have topped many other upscale places I've stayed at over the years.  We can't even begin to express how well we were treated in all aspects during our stay at the Hilton Garden Inn - Asheville Downtown.  

Lionstone Brewing Company - Geneseo, IL

My wife and I have had our eye on a brewpub over in Geneseo, IL since it opened up a little over two years ago - Lionstone Brewing Company.  We had been by it a couple three times on trips to The Cellar, one of our favorite steakhouses in the Quad Cities area (click here to read about The Cellar), but we've never stopped in.  On a beautiful Saturday earlier this year, we decided to take the trek to Geneseo and have lunch at the Lionstone Brewing Company.

Steve Fiers is the longtime owner of Imaging USA, a document scanning and processing company that saves important documents for governments, legal offices, health care providers and insurance companies located in Rock Island.  It turns out that one of Fiers hobbies - and one that turned into a passion - was home-brewing beers.  

It started out at Christmas time a few years ago when Fiers wife, Julie, bought Steve Fiers and their son, Hunter, a home brewing kit.  The "instructor" who showed the Fiers the basics of home-brewing beer was a teacher associate of Julie Fiers, Logan Hamilton, who was a high school art teacher by day but an avid home-brewer at night and on the weekends.  

The first beer that Steve and Hunter Fiers made was a basic American wheat beer, and after tasting the finished product the Fiers were hooked.  While Hunter was still in college, the Fiers experimented with many different varieties of beers getting help and advice along the way from Hamilton as well as from a family friend who worked for a large Midwestern brewery.   The home beers they made were very good and the Fiers began to think about doing a microbrewery in Geneseo.  

The Fiers family came up with a concept to do their own microbrewery with a restaurant and an on-site brewery.  They convinced the Geneseo city council to give them the first license to brew beer in the city in over 100 years.  Then they looked for a spot in Geneseo to put one in.  There was a small strip mall on Geneseo's south side that had mostly sat empty for nearly 7 years.  The Fiers leased the property in the spring of 2014 and set about putting a brewpub together.   Their first employee was the man who got Steve and Hunter Fiers hooked on brewing their own beers - Logan Hamilton.  Hamilton was named the head brewer at the brewpub and continued in that capacity until May of this year.  

The Fiers chose to name their brewpub Lionstone as a nod to the family's Belgian heritage - the lion is the symbolic protector of the Belgian coat of arms.  They finally opened Lionstone Brewing Company and Gastropub in the summer of 2015.   (It turns out that their brewpub sits less than a quarter mile away from the last brewery in Geneseo that had closed over 100 years before.) 

The Lionstone Brewing Company sits just north of Interstate 80 along Illinois Highway 82 as you drive north into Geneseo.  (see map)  It was about a 25 minute ride for us from our house out to Geneseo and we got there just moments before noon.  The interior of the place can be describe as contemporary industrial with a bar area, a number of high wooden-topped tables with high metal chairs were in the middle of the dining area.  There were a series of lower wooden topped tables with metal chairs - that weren't the most comfortable seats - along the glass-walled area up front.  The large vessel tanks for brewing the beers at Lionstone were behind a glass partition behind the bar. 

We had heard that they had wood-fired pizzas at Lionstone Brewing and the brick oven was located in the corner of the restaurant.  It was rather spartan looking sitting in the corner with an L-shaped prep counter in front of it.  But the smell emanating from the pizza oven was pretty tempting.   

We took a seat at one of the lower tables along the glass front wall of the brewpub.  Moments later, our server, a young guy with a great sense of humor by the name of Tyler, came over over to greet us and to drop off a couple of menus.  Their beer menu featured a handful of year-round "flagship" beers and a list of some seasonal offerings.  My wife got a pint of the Savage IPA that they offer year-round, while I went with one of their seasonal beers, the interesting named "Shotgun Jesus" that was an American pale ale brewed with both east coast and west coast hops.  Both beers were actually pretty good, so we were happy about that right off the bat.

They're also known for their "Mary Meal" bloody Mary's that feature one of their regular bloody Mary's and then they add everything but the kitchen sink to it.  It featured a burger slider along with a skewer of cheese and meat cubes, a crab stick, stuffed green olives, a dill pickle spear, a celery stalk and finished off with jalapeño poppers and tater tots on a skewer.  And these are $16 each.  A table of ladies seated next to us had ordered up the "Mary Meal" drinks and were given small mimosa to enjoy while the loaded bloody Mary's were prepared.  When they were brought to their table, the women erupted in astonishment.  We were laughing along with the ladies at the size and the ridiculous amount of food they piled on top of the bloody Mary and I was able to get a picture of one of the ladies' drink.  

The food menu consisted of a number of appetizers that would go great at a brewpub.  They had things such as beer-battered cheese curds and fried pickles, truffle fries, housemade pretzels, and something called "Nacho Tot-chos" which were tater tots topped with seasoned ground beef, white cheese and a beer cheese sauce, pico de gallo, pickled jalapeños, and a sriracha and chipotle cream sauce.  

They also had a number of salads on the menu including a Cobb salad, a Mediterranean salad, and a blueberry almond peach salad that my wife thought was pretty interesting.  She ended up ordering a small house salad to start out with.  Tyler sold her on the IPA vinaigrette dressing saying it was one of their most popular.  But the taste of it wasn't all that exquisite - it was really nothing more than some Boetje's mustard mixed in with some oil and vinegar with maybe a little India pale ale mixed in, as well.  It wasn't all that special in taste.  She ended up calling Tyler over and saying that she didn't really like the IPA vinaigrette dressing.  She ended up getting the cilantro/lime ranch dressing (which also had a hint of dill weed in it).  She liked that dressing much more than the former.  

The overall food menu at Lionstone is pretty short.  They have a couple of sandwiches, some fish tacos, four different burger selections, and, of course, their wood-fired pizza.  I was a little underwhelmed at the lack of choices, as was my wife.  We contemplated getting a pizza, but decided to come back out at night sometime to get one.  

My wife ended up getting the brisket sliders - two ground beef brisket sliders topped with smoked provolone cheese, onion straws, and a sweet and smoky barbecue sauce.  She got a side of the creamy cole slaw with her sliders.  My wife sort of shrugged her shoulders when I asked her how they were.  She thought the brisket sliders were just "all right", neither great, but certainly not bad.  The cole slaw she thought was just "meh!" 

I ended up with the Homestead burger  - a 1/2 pound prime Angus beef burger patty topped with pepperjack cheese, onion straws, a tomato/onion/bacon jam, and served on a jalapeño bun.  The burger was a little overcooked and dry in taste, but it was still edible.  I didn't get much of a taste of either the jalapeño bun, nor the tomato/onion/bacon jam - the flavors were sort of hiding from the rich taste of the beef patty.  

However, for my side I got the onion straws.  And they were very good.  I contemplated getting the tater tots, but I was more than happy with the onion straws.  They were thin cut, beer-battered and fried to a perfect golden color retaining the great beer-batter taste.  I asked Tyler how they made their onion straws and he said they cut the onions on a mandolin slicer.  My wife and I both started to chuckle and she said, "You've got to be careful with those things."  We were laughing because a neighbor friend of ours had just bought a mandolin slicer - because he always wanted one - but his wife told him that he had to be very careful with it.  Sure enough, he was playing around with it even BEFORE he sliced anything on it and sliced a portion of skin off his thumb. (He'll appreciate reading this, I'm sure.)  

Before we left, I had to go to the restroom and I went into the men's room.  There on the wall was a urinal made out of a stainless steel beer keg.  "Now, there's something you don't see every day," I said to myself.  I just thought it was clever and funny at the same time, and I was jealous that I hadn't thought about putting in a beer keg urinal in my home.  (Like my wife would approve of that, I'm sure...) 

We liked more about our visit to Lionstone Brewing Company than things we didn't.  The menu was a little sparse with not a lot of selections, but there were some interesting items on it.  We both were a little underwhelmed with our burgers - mine was a little overcooked and my wife thought the ground beef brisket sliders were just all right.  But, the beer we had was pretty good, and once my wife got the salad dressing that she liked, she was happy with her salad.  The onion straws were excellent and I can't say enough about Tyler's service that day.  He was prompt and courteous, and he took care of any request while showing a decent sense of humor that made my wife and me laugh more than once during our visit.  We'll go back to Lionstone to try one of their pizzas, but I don't think I'd go back for a burger.

Famous Toastery - Winston-Salem, NC

While we were in Winston-Salem, we decided against eating breakfast at the hotel for the time we were there because it was small, their selections were rather lame, and there were a lot of kids scurrying about.  One morning, we found a breakfast place during an on-line search that we thought looked pretty interesting - the Famous Toastery.  What we didn't know is that it was part of a small chain of popular breakfast spots found primarily in North Carolina that the original founders had started to franchise out the concept for about four years ago.

Brian Burchill and Robert Maynard grew up near one another in a neighborhood on Long Island outside of New York City.  Best friends since their grade school years, the two took different routes in life when they became young adults.  Burchill had worked in a number of restaurants in New York since he was in junior high starting out bussing tables and washing dishes, eventually working his way up to managing restaurants.  When a restaurant he managed was turned into a night club, Burchill stayed on to manage that place.  With actors and musicians frequenting the place, Burchill decided to try his hand at acting.  He moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and after graduating he spent a short time working as an actor and producer.  

But his first love of working in restaurants was too big of a pull for him and he moved back to New York City  working closely with famed restaurateur Eli Zabar for a number of years managing some of his restaurants.  But Burchill wanted to have his own restaurant - a restaurant where people could gather and enjoy themselves.  He had a concept of doing a breakfast cafe and did his homework as to where a good breakfast place was needed.  Burchill found that there was a void in the Charlotte, NC market and he decided to look for a place there.  But he knew he needed a partner and that's when he turned to his old friend Robert Maynard.  

Pictured right - Brian Burchill (Photo courtesy 1851 Franchise magazine.)

Robert Maynard had become a Wall Street stock broker and the stress and long hours were beginning to take a toll on him.  When Burchill called him and said that he had a ticket for Maynard to come to Charlotte to check things out, Maynard didn't hesitate to join his lifelong friend.

At first, Maynard suggested that they do a "hash diner" breakfast place, but Burchill was against that idea from the start.  Too many of those places like that served frozen and processed foods from food purveyors and the quality always suffered.  Wanting to stick out in the market place with a restaurant that served fresh, never-frozen and gourmet style breakfasts, the two agreed upon the concept for their restaurant.  

Pictured left - Robert Maynard.  (Photo courtesy 1851 Franchise magazine.)

The two found a house in Huntersville, NC, a suburb just north of Charlotte and turned it into the Toast Cafe, a small breakfast place that opened in 2005.  The Toast Cafe immediately was a hit with the locals who loved the taste of the fresh foods Maynard and Burchill were serving each day.  Within a short time, two more Toast Cafe's opened in the area.  Maynard - the businessman of the two - was the C.E.O. of the small group of restaurants, while Burchill - the restaurant operations guy - was the C.O.O.

Maynard began to look at expansion of the concept and talked to Burchill about franchising the Toast Cafe concept.  Burchill initially pushed back at the idea saying that he didn't want to lose control of the day-to-day decisions for each restaurant.  But Maynard convinced him that if they worked with franchisees who had a background in the restaurant business, they could make franchising work.

That's when David Lutton came into their lives.  One morning while Lutton was enjoying his breakfast at a Toast Cafe restaurant in the Charlotte area, he saw a small card on the table advertising an opportunity to franchise the breakfast restaurant.  Lutton immediately contacted Maynard to discuss the possibility of franchising Toast Cafe's around Charlotte.  

Lutton had spent nearly 20 years as a franchisee for Ruby Tuesday and Panera Bread restaurants in the Charlotte area.  Lutton and his business partner, Bill Bingham, saw the potential for growth not only in the Charlotte market, but elsewhere around North Carolina and South Carolina.  Before signing their first franchise agreement, Maynard and Burchill changed the name of the restaurants to the Famous Toastery in 2013.  Today, there are 20 locations of the Famous Toastery in five states.  Burchill and Maynard have been in talks with franchisees looking to put Famous Toastery locations near their boyhood homes on Long Island, as well as locations in New Jersey and Connecticut.  

The Winston-Salem location for the Famous Toastery opened in the fall of 2015 under the franchise ownership of Lutton and Bingham.  The two opened the breakfast spot in the former District Roof Top Bar & Grille that had closed in June of that year.  Like the other Famous Toastery locations, the one in Winston-Salem serves breakfast and lunch, closing in the mid-afternoon daily.  

Actually, the Famous Toastery in Winston-Salem was sort of tough to find.  It's located on Liberty View Court on the north end of Winston-Salem's downtown area. (see map)  We drove by it a couple of times on N. Liberty St. before my wife looked over and saw the sign for the place.  We were able to drive around the back side of the building and park in a lot in the back.  

We went inside the Famous Toastery and we found a quaint little dining room with exposed brick walls, hardwood floors and antique light fixtures.  The large windows were allowing a lot of the early morning sunshine inside to light up the place.  

A young lady came to us and wanted to know if we wanted to sit inside or outside on the patio.  It was a beautiful North Carolina morning so it was a no-brainer to sit outside that day.  She told us that we could sit anywhere and someone would be there to greet us in a moment.  

After taking a table underneath an overhang on the patio, a young man came over to greet us and to give us a couple breakfast menus.  "Have you folks dined with us before," he asked.  When we told him we hadn't, he explained to us that the food at the Famous Toastery was served fresh each day, and that they had a multiple server concept so that the person who takes your order may not be the one who delivers your food to the table, or checks up on you during the meal, or gives you your check.

"Sort of a tag-team concept," I said.  

"Precisely," he said before he asked what we'd like to start out with to drink.  (It turns out that it must be a requirement in North Carolina as servers at nearly every restaurant we dined at during our trip to the state asked us the same question, followed by an explanation of the restaurant and their concept after telling them that it was our first time there.)   

The breakfast menu was interesting enough.  They had a number of egg dishes including eggs Benedict and eggs Florentine.  They also had a "Country Benedict" that featured two eggs on a split biscuit covered in sausage gravy.  The Famous Toastery also featured some breakfast sandwiches and a couple of egg/veggie and cheese burritos.  Pancakes - or "flap jacks" as they had them on the menu - with different toppings were available, as were a dozen different types of omelets.  

One of the specials they had that morning was a mushroom/spinach quiche and that's what my wife ended up ordering.  It came with a side bowl of fruit and she got a fresh-squeezed orange juice with her breakfast.  She was never big on mushrooms, but she is certainly coming around more and more, especially if the mushrooms are fresh - like the ones that were in the quiche that day.  She was more than happy with what she ordered.

For me, I was in a quandary.  I saw that they had corned beef hash with two eggs and a hollandaise sauce on top.  I also looked long and hard at the MBS omelet - mushroom/bacon/Swiss cheese.  But my eyes kept wandering back to the stuffed French toast.  It was French toast stuffed with a choice of fruit (blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries); or you could get it with chocolate chips, or peanut butter and banana slices.  I had to try the blueberry stuffed French toast, mainly because the concept intrigued me and I wanted to see how they did it.

When the breakfast was brought out to me, I was sort of taken aback.  This wasn't exactly what I thought I had ordered.  First of all, it was basically four pieces of thick bread that were battered, fried and cut diagonally.  I was thinking that "stuffed" meant, well, stuffed - like into pockets of the bread.  

The blueberry "stuffing" was nothing more than a thin layer of blueberry compote in between the slices of the bread.  There were no other blueberries with the French toast and that disappointed me.  The flavor of the French toast was fine, and there was a lot of it.  (I think I had five of the 8 half slices of the French toast before I called it quits.)   But the more I ate the French toast, the more I was kicking myself for not getting the corned beef hash along with a side of grits.  Oh well...

While I was disappointed with the presentation of the Famous Toastery's blueberry "stuffed" French toast, I thought it was fine enough for what it was.  I really should have gone with the corned beef hash, but I just shrugged my shoulders and ate what I had.  My wife, however, was thoroughly happy with her mushroom and spinach quiche they had a special that morning.  The seating on the patio under the awning was comfortable and it was such a beautiful morning that we couldn't pass up eating outside.  And the tag team service we received from the three or four servers who were working the patio area was attentive, prompt and cordial.  If I would have known going into the place that their French toast wasn't exactly "stuffed", I may have ended up ordering something else and liking it more than what I did order.  

The Assembly American Bar and Cafe - Hoffman Estates, IL

I have a dealer out in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago and he and I were talking one day about our favorite burgers in the Chicago area.  He then told me about a place that wasn't too far away from his store that he thought had a great burger, a place called The Assembly.  "You haven't had a burger an Assembly burger," he asked me incredulously.  Right then and there, I put The Assembly on my "Restaurants to Visit" list on Google Maps.  Earlier this year, I finally had a chance to stop in and try one of their burgers.  

The story behind The Assembly starts with Glenn Taylor, a long time CPA.  However, his off-hours hobby was home-brewing beer.  Along with his sons, Gary and Steve, and his wife, Amy, the Taylors were having fun with coming up with different types of beers in their basement.  

Glenn Taylor was getting burned out on his accountant job and he certainly enjoyed brewing beers with his sons. He ended up chucking his CPA career in the early 90's and in 1994 the Taylor family opened up a brewpub - Taylor Brewing Company - in an old furniture factory in Naperville.  By 1999, the Taylors had moved the brew pub to a new location along Butterfield Road in Lombard.  

The man who Glenn Taylor worked for as a CPA had a side business that he had opened in 1978 - The Assembly American Bar and Cafe.  If he wasn't enjoying brewing beer at home, Taylor liked to hang out at The Assembly with its fun atmosphere and regular clientele.  In 1995, Taylor's old boss informed him that he was looking to retire and sell The Assembly.  Glenn Taylor jumped at the chance and bought The Assembly later that year.  After Taylor Brewing Company shut down in late 2011, Gary Taylor came over to The Assembly to run the day-to-day operations.  

It was a cold and rainy spring day when I made it out to The Assembly which is located between W. Higgins Road and Interstate 90 along Barrington Road in Hoffman Estates.  (see map)   I pulled in just before noon and I took pause for a moment when I saw "Awesome Food Here" spelled out underneath The Assembly sign on the front of the building.  I sort of cringed when I saw that thinking that they were trying too hard to lure in customers.

The inside of The Assembly was dimly lit, cozy and looked a little dated.  There was a large rectangular bar in the middle of place with step-up booths on the outer side of the floor plan.  There were a number of flat panel televisions that were hung throughout the restaurant.  There was an appreciable number of people in the place when I got there and more came in through the noon hour.  Many of the patrons seemed to be older men.

I took a seat at the bar and was greeted by Brenda who doubled as a bartender and grill cook.  She gave me a menu and I ordered up a Sweetwater 420 extra pale ale that they had in cans.  Her co-bartender that day was a spunky lady by the name of Denise. She was wearing a t-shirt that said on the back "I Hate Kale - I Like Burgers - Have a Burger".  

The grill area for burgers was in between the bar counters.  It featured a gas char-grill cooking surface and a flat cooking surface next to it.  Opposite of the grill area was a condiment area where burgers were dressed.  There was a kitchen for other items on the menu in the back of the restaurant.  

The Assembly's gourmet burgers are their signature item on the menu.  The burgers are all 10 ounce, never frozen beef patties that are blended with different cuts of beef to The Assembly's specification.  Gary Taylor once said in on an on-line video that they serve over 1600 burgers a week and that loosely translated out to a total of over 2.5 million burgers in the 39 years The Assembly has been in business.  Their Bionic Burger - topped with bacon, sautéed onions and a choice of Swiss, mozzarella or cheddar cheese - is also known as the Hulk Hogan Burger as the Hulkster himself named it "a bionic burger" after eating at The Assembly in the late 70's.  It continues to be one of The Assembly's most popular burgers.  

In addition to the Bionic Burger, The Assembly also has a Parmesan burger topped with garlic butter and Parmesan cheese, The Grand Champion that is topped with bacon, sautéed onions, grilled peppers, sautéed mushrooms and a choice of Swiss, mozzarella or cheddar cheese, and a Bloody Mary burger topped with bloody mary seasonings, tomatoes, pickles and finished with a green olive.  They also had a burger that was topped with macaroni and cheese.  

Their selection of gourmet burgers are the most prominent feature on the menu, but they also had a number of other items to choose from.  The menu consisted of a number of pub-style appetizers, many of them deep-fried such as onion strings, mozzarella cheese triangles, fried pickles and mushrooms stuffed with a bread crumb mix of chopped bacon, celery, onion, and red and green peppers.   They had five grilled chicken sandwiches, as well as entrees such as pork ribs, ribeye steaks, beef tenderloin filet medallions, and grilled tilapia.  Corned beef reubens, as well as turkey reubens and turkey club sandwiches were also featured on the menu along with a variety of salads.  

I ended up getting the mushroom and Swiss cheese burger.  I asked Denise if I could get some bacon on the burger and she said it would be no problem.  Creamy cole slaw came with the burger along with The Assembly's signature mushroom/onion sherry wine sauce.  And I also got a choice of a potato side and it was a no-brainer for me to pick the tater tots.  In fact, the tater tots come out about three or four minutes before the burger was placed in front of me.  

The burger was thick, juicy and cooked to a perfect medium with a bit of pink in the middle.  And when I mean it was juicy, well, it was a multi-napkin burger.  The sautéed mushrooms were fresh and earthy, the bacon crisp and smoky, and the Swiss cheese was slathered on top of everything.  The bun was soft, yet it held together very well with all the good gooeyness going on with the burger.  The mushroom/onion sherry sauce was interesting - it was sort of thick and I suppose that you were supposed to put it on the burger.  But I ended up dipping some of the tater tots into the sauce.  And while the tater tots tasted good on their own, the mushroom/onion sherry wine sauce helped give them a savory taste.  

I thought the burger at The Assembly was very good.  It was thick, juicy and full of great flavor even without the sautéed mushrooms, bacon and Swiss cheese.  The tater tots were a nice change of pace - especially outside of the states of Minnesota and North Dakota where tater tots are a potato staple.  The cole slaw - honestly, I don't know if I even tried the cole slaw, I concentrated on the burger and the tater tots because they were so good.  The interior of The Assembly appears to be a little dated, but it was still homey and comfortable in its feel.  And the service I received sitting at the bar was very good.  Overall, this was a very good place to get a very good burger.  

The Smoke Pit - Concord, NC

On our recent trip to North Carolina, we had flown into Charlotte arriving in the late afternoon after a delay in Detroit.  After picking up our rental car, we took off toward Winston-Salem, our destination for the first weekend we were there.  However, my wife was famished from having little to eat since breakfast and we decided to stop somewhere along the way to get some Carolina barbecue.  I brought my personal GPS with me and east of Charlotte near the city of Concord I did a quick look for barbecue places in the area.  The first name that popped up was a place called The Smoke Pit.  We took a chance on it, pulled off the interstate and a few moments later we pulled up in front of The Smoke Pit.  

With Concord also being the home of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, we were in the heart of NASCAR country.  And The Smoke Pit has a NASCAR connection with co-owner Devin Barbee.  

Devin Barbee started out in motor sports in the mid-80's after graduating from high school.  His uncle, Ray Fox, Jr., was building engines for NASCAR teams and he took in his young nephew to have him learn the family secrets of engine building.  (Fox's father, Ray, Sr., was the longtime engine builder for NASCAR legend Junior Johnson, and also built engines for NASCAR pioneer Fireball Roberts before becoming a NASCAR race car owner in the 60's.)  Ray Fox, Jr. was the primary engine builder for car owner Robert Yates whose main driver at the time was Davey Allison.  Young Devin Barbee was a jack man in the pits for Allison during races. 

After Ray Fox, Jr's untimely passing in 1990, Devin Barbee went on to work for car owner Jack Roush as an engine tuner before going to work for the Hendrick Motorsports team in 1996, eventually becoming the primary engine builder for racers Terry Labonte and then Kyle Busch.  But long hours and incessant travel made it tough on Barbee and his young family back in Concord.   

Knowing that he needed a change and a new challenge in life, Barbee sat down with his sister to sort out what he may want to do.  His sister said that people need to eat, so why not do something to do with food?  When they were growing up, there was a grocery store in the Concord area - Dover's Supermarket - that had fresh cut meats, seafood and a reputation as being the best butcher department in the area.  But there was no place like that any more in Concord and Barbee decided to open a butcher shop in the former Faggart's Hardware Store on Concord Parkway North.  Renovating the space and putting in a butcher shop in one side of the building, Barbee opened The Stock Market in the spring of 2009.  The other side of the building was left vacant because Barbee had a plan for that side at some point down the road.  

About four years after Barbee opened The Stock Market, business was going very well when he was approached by Joey Graham, a barbecue aficionado who had worked in restaurants to pay his way through college and eventually managed a number of restaurants over the years.  Graham had been to barbecue places in Kansas City and Memphis, as well as all across Texas and his native South Carolina to come up with his own style of barbecue.  It turned out that Devin Barbee's plan in the back of his head was to open a restaurant in that space.  In 2014, Barbee and Graham opened The Smoke Pit next door to The Stock Market.  In early 2017, the two - along with partner Jeremy Beaver - opened a second Smoke Pit location in Salisbury, NC.  And possibly by the time this post is published, the trio will have opened a third Smoke Pit in Monroe, NC.  

We pulled into The Smoke Pit just before 6 p.m.  (see map)  It looked nice from the outside and there seemed to be a lot of cars in the parking lot.  There was an outside dining patio, but no one was seated outside.  Sharing a front door with The Stock Market, we went inside The Smoke Pit.  I took a quick look into The Stock Market and decided that I'd like to go in there to look around after we finished dinner, but unfortunately the meat shop closed moments after we went into The Smoke Pit.   

It's counter service at The Smoke Pit with a big menu board on the wall near the cash register.  There was a sign that asked patrons to order first and then pick out a table.  But we didn't have to worry about that as the restaurant was about 3/4's full and we were the second people in line.  The Smoke Pit's menu was what I would call Texas-style barbecue with brisket, ribs (wet or dry), pulled pork, barbecued chicken, and burnt ends on the menu.  Unfortunately - for me - there wasn't any beer available.  I do like a cold beer with good barbecue, but I was not going to get that at The Smoke Pit.

The restaurant, itself, was nice and open, but the tables were a little close together.  There were a number of colorful paintings of longhorn cattle, bison, horses and other livestock on the walls above the booths.  After we ordered our food, we ended up getting a table in the center of the restaurant.  As we waited for our food, the line to the front counter to order had grown to more than a dozen deep with people standing out in the joint entry way between the barbecue joint and the butcher shop.  We realized that we had gotten there right before the rush and people were now waiting on tables to open up.  The Smoke Pit was a very popular place.  

My wife ended up getting the burnt ends - a healthy portion of burnt end parts of a beef brisket slathered in a sweet and smoky barbecue sauce.  The burnt ends were thick cut and tender with a bit of a burnt bark to the outer side.  She thought they were absolutely delicious, but there was way more than she could eat.  I had to try a couple of them and I thought they were moist and flavorful - better than some burnt ends I've had in Kansas City, the home of good burnt end brisket.   

For her sides she got a piece of corn bread and something they called "red" cole slaw.  They had two different types of cole slaw for sides and the girl explained that the "white" cole slaw was just regular creamy cole slaw, while the red cole slaw was a vinegar base with a spicy taste to it.   She liked the spicy cole slaw a lot and offered me a bite.  It was very good.  

I went with the brisket and pulled pork combo with a side of mac 'n cheese and some baked beans.  Cut slices of Texas toast came on my platter that was served on butchers paper on a tray.  They had three sauces on the table - the same sweet and smoky sauce they had on my wife's burnt ends, a sweet and smoky sauce that had a little spicy kick to it, and a Carolina-style peppery vinegar sauce that I have to say was not too bad on the pulled pork.  

The portions they served at The Smoke Pit were huge.  I had five or six thick strips of brisket that were all tender, most and full of a great barbecue flavor.  The outer bark of the brisket gave the beef a nice smoky taste.  The chopped pulled pork was also moist and smoky in flavor.  Adding some of the spicier sauce with the beef was a nice palate pleaser, but you really didn't need any sauce for the brisket.  And, as I said, adding some of the Carolina-style peppery vinegar sauce to the pork made the taste even more enjoyable.  

My baked beans were all right - nothing great, but certainly not bad.  I added some of the spicy sweet sauce to them to zip up the taste and it helped them out.  The mac 'n cheese side was also just all right, but I would have liked to have gotten the red cole slaw instead of the mac 'n cheese.   

We were about halfway through the meal when I remembered that we were going to have barbecue the next evening as part of the rehearsal dinner/family gathering that was taking place the night before the wedding.  "Oh, well," my wife said.  "If it's half as good as this barbecue, we'll be all right."   (Side note - the catered barbecue we had the next night may not have been as half as good as the barbecue at The Smoke Pit.) 

Our GPS search for a nearby barbecue joint didn't steer us wrong - The Smoke Pit was top notch.  The brisket, pulled pork and burnt ends that we had were all fabulous.  The best side of all that we tried was the spicy "red" cole slaw that had a vinegar taste.  I enjoyed trying all three of the sauces they had on the table and I surprisingly liked the vinegar/pepper-based sauce on the pulled pork the best.  About the only quibble I had was that they didn't sell beer to go along with the barbecue - a minor inconvenience, though, for a guy who likes a cold beer with his barbecue.  Nonetheless, the barbecue at The Smoke Pit was very, very good and the portions were huge.  I felt bad leaving some of the meat behind since we were traveling, but I'd put their barbecue up against many of the very good to excellent barbecue places I've been to in my travels.

Lola's Diner - Park Ridge, IL

There's nothing worse than being sick on the road.  I contracted a bad cold earlier this year during a trip to Chicago and one day I just couldn't function very well.  I needed some comfort food including some soup and I needed it quick.  I did a quick search in the area to see if there was any place close to my hotel and found a little restaurant named Lola's Diner that sounded exactly like what I was looking for.  

Lola's Diner is run by longtime restaurateurs Herman and Lola Rivera.  The Rivera's also had a restaurant by the name of the Sunrise Diner in nearby Mount Prospect that they ran until they shut it down in the summer of 2013 to fully focus on running Lola's Diner.  The Rivera's make many of their foods from scratch, soups are made in-house, and they use only fresh, locally-sourced items for many of their foods.  

Lola's Diner is located along Busse Highway in Park Ridge, just east of the intersection of N. Dee Road.  (see map)  I was able to find some parking behind the place and went inside.  It was an unseasonably cold early spring day and had snowed off and on as winter was still trying to hold on in the Chicagoland area.  I was greeted by a hostess who took me to a booth in the corner of the restaurant.  The diner was nice and clean with a parquet tile floor, light blue accents on the chairs and booth backs, a small 3-sided counter toward the back of the place, and a series of plexiglass columns that featured various model cars or trucks.  This place just screamed, "We have comfort food!"  

Since Lola's is open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. through the week (7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the weekends), they do both breakfast and lunch.  And both menus are extensive with omelets, waffles, skillets, Swedish pancakes and crepes available for breakfast, while lunch features sandwiches, burgers, salads, wraps and panini melts.   But the thing that jumped out at me on the menu were the hot plates they had listed.  

They had a meatloaf plate, a hot turkey sandwich plate, a breaded pork tenderloin plate and a good ol' fashioned country fried steak.  But I went with the hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy.  A cup of soup came with the hot beef sandwich for just a dollar more.  I asked my waitress if I could get a bowl of soup and she said, "That would be a couple dollars for an upcharge."  That would be no problem, I said. 

One of the soups they had that day was just what the doctor ordered - lemon chicken rice soup.  And it was excellent.  It had a nice chicken broth with a hint of a lemony taste.  The chicken chunks in the soup were teddy and tasty.  And there was a lot of rice in the soup, as well.  I could have just had the soup and I would have been happy.  For a brief moment, I suddenly felt better.

The hot beef sandwich was served open faced with the mashed potatoes - made from real potatoes, not that boxed crap - off to the side.  Some grilled asparagus came on the side.  The beef was thinly cut, but it was a little tough and overcooked.  The gravy was very good and helped out with the semi-toughness of the beef. There was a seasoning in the gravy - a spice - that I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.  But I liked the gravy with the potatoes and the roast beef.  The asparagus was basically a throw away side.  The asparagus was limp and lifeless.  But that was all right - between the excellent soup and the very good gravy helping the taste of the beef and potatoes, I had more than enough food that day.  

Unfortunately, my cold only intensified from there on out and I ended up spending the rest of the day and evening in bed at the hotel.  But the comfort food I had from Lola's Diner helped ease the discomfort of my cold.  While the beef was a little overcooked, the mashed potatoes - made from real potatoes - with the very good gravy was a spot-hitter.  But I could have probably gotten a quart of the excellent lemon chicken rice soup to go and had that for some subsequent meals as I was trying to get over my cold.  I was glad that I found Lola's Diner and I've already made a mental note to go there for breakfast some morning in the near future.

The Lost Cuban - Cedar Rapids, IA

My continued quest for finding a "true" Cuban sandwich in the Midwest has not been very fruitful so far.  Most of the places that offer a Cuban sandwich on their menu usually just use a pressed-ciabatta bread with pork, ham, cheese, mustard and pickles.  The key to a great Cuban sandwich is the sweet Cuban bread they use in Tampa or Miami at the authentic Cuban restaurants.  However, almost five years ago a Cuban restaurant - which I believe to be the only Cuban restaurant in the state of Iowa - opened in Cedar Rapids.  I finally got a chance to stop there on a recent trip through the City of Five Seasons to see if The Lost Cuban had a good Cuban sandwich.  

Jess Streit grew up in Central Florida around the Orlando area.  Coming from a big family, they used to hold large cook-outs that would regularly feed upwards of 75 to 80 people.  With his grandparents moving to the U.S. in 1960 after escaping Cuba via Venezuela a year before, most of the foods that Streit and his family served at the cook-outs were authentic Cuban foods made from recipes handed down in his family.  Everybody helped cook at the gatherings and Streit knew his way around a kitchen very well.

When his girlfriend took a job with General Mills in Cedar Rapids, Streit moved with her to the area.  He decided to open a restaurant to keep him occupied in his new environment, but he couldn't do anything but feel somewhat lost among the flat cornfields of Iowa.  Coming up with the name Lost Cuban and focusing on finding a place in the Cedar Rapids area thrust Streit in a full-time pursuit of opening his restaurant.  When he found that a Mexican place in downtown Cedar Rapids was looking to close its doors, he approached the owner about taking over the space for his venture.  He helped the owner of Salsa del Rio in his final days of business, then took over the space for a quick renovation.  Streit opened The Lost Cuban in October of 2012.

The Lost Cuban is located on 3rd St. SE in downtown Cedar Rapids (see map) and I was able to find a parking space down the street from the place.  The place is pretty small with a bar area up front and an open kitchen off to the side.  But it was clean, well-lit and welcoming.  The Lost Cuban has an extensive cocktail menu and is open until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.  And through the week, they also have nightly food specials.  

I ended up taking a high-topped table in a small alcove underneath a painting of a vintage car that are still found on the streets of Havana.  A young lady brought me over a menu, and even though I knew what I wanted I took a quick look through it to see that they had a short menu of authentic Cuban foods including ropa vieja (stewed beef and vegetables), arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), and pollo en fricase (braised chicken with potatoes and carrots).  But I got the Cuban sandwich.

I had high hopes for the sandwich being good.  It was pressed with Swiss cheese oozing out of the bread with ham, pork, pickles and mustard packed inside.  But from the first bite, I knew that it was not the great Cuban bread that I've been searching for in the Midwest for the past 20 years.  Oh, don't get me wrong - it was a very good sandwich.  The outer shell of the bread was crunchy and flaky, while the pork inside was tender and tasty.  It was much better than many of the Cuban sandwiches I've tried at other restaurants.  But it didn't seem to be the same as the ones I'd had in Florida years ago.  Then again, maybe my memory is failing me and this is what a true Cuban sandwich is supposed to be like.  To me, I remember the bread being similar in taste to a King's Hawaiian bun or bread.  But this just sort of seemed like a basic baked Italian or French bread that you'd find at most bakeries.   

Even though the Cuban sandwich at the Lost Cuban was good, it still wasn't what I remembered having years ago during my trips to Miami.  It was better than many other renditions of Cuban sandwiches I've had in the Midwest over the past few years, but it was not what I was expecting.  However, the Lost Cuban is a unique and interesting restaurant - one that seems to have found a good home in Cedar Rapids.  (The Lost Cuban is closed on Sunday.)  

Obed and Isaac's Microbrewery and Eatery - Springfield, IL

There's a brewpub in Springfield, IL that I've wanted to try since I read they had opened a second location in Peoria, IL last year. The original Obed & Isaacs Microbrewery and Eatery opened five years and I finally got around to being able to try the place a few weeks ago.  Housed in a mid-1800's-era mansion near Springfield's downtown area, I stopped in for lunch on a recent trip home from St. Louis.  

Obed & Isaacs is owned by the Conn Hospitality Group which also oversees a historic bed and breakfast in Springfield - Inn at 835 - and a coffee shop.  Owners Court and Karen Conn are the heads of the Conn Hospitality Group.  Court Conn's father, Roy Conn, started his first restaurant - Roy's Cafe - in Springfield in the 1940's.  At one point in time, there were 4 Roy's Cafe locations around the Springfield area.  The restaurant business slowed in the 1970's and Roy Conn changed his focus to catering.  Court Conn joined his father in the business and that's where he met his wife-to-be who also worked in the catering company.  Court and Karen Conn's two sons, Casey and Adam, work with their parents in the hospitality group.   

It turned out that Court Conn was a brewing enthusiast who made five gallon batches of beer at his home.  Springfield didn't have a brewpub and he thought that maybe a property that was in his family for over 150 years had the potential to be part of his dream.  But at first he had a few hoops he had to jump through to pull it off. 

What the Conn's hoped would be the building for their brew pub was built in the 1850's by Obed and Cordelia Lewis - the great-great grandfather of Court Conn.  The house had passed through generations of the family before it became office space in the 1930's.  In 2007, Court and Karen Conn bought the home hoping to be able to restore it to its original state.  But too many renovations to the place over the years pretty much nixed any chance of them being able to fully restore the building.   

Pictured at right - Karen and Court Conn.  Photo courtesy Illinois Policy.org

The Conn's were forced to demolish the home, but at the same time they looked at preserving another mid-1800-era home that was located about six blocks away.  With the help of various local agencies, the Conn's were able to move the former Issac Lindsey mansion - also known as the Maisenbacher house - to the spot where the former Lewis home once stood at Jackson and Seventh Streets near downtown Springfield.  

It soon became obvious to the Conn family that the Lindsey/Maisenbacher house would be too small for their dream of operating a brew pub - even with the original Lewis carriage house off to the side of the property.  They ended up buying the old Booth-Grunendike mansion on the same block at the corner of Jackson and Sixth and began work to renovate that space for the main part of the brew pub.  

Still, more hoops had to be jumped through and the Conn's were finally able to build an annex between the two houses for their brewing equipment.  They were finally able to open Obed & Isaac's in February of 2012.  Their success was evident right off the bat and it wasn't long before the Conn's were thinking of expanding the Obed and Isaac name to other cities.

They scouted around other smaller Midwestern cities looking for an old house or building to renovate into a brewpub.  They found a building in Peoria, an hour to the north, that was built in the late 1880's and used as a church over the years before being used as a reception hall in later years.  After a series of renovations and leasing of land next to the building for a beer garden and bocci court, the Conn's opened the Peoria Obed & Isaac's Microbrewery and Eatery in September of last year.  

There's a parking lot just to the south side of Obed and Isaac's and I was able to park there when I pulled up to the old stately house just after noon that particular day.  (see map)  The door to the place was around to the side through the beer garden full of wrought iron tables and chairs and into the tap room of the bar.  

I ended up sitting at the bar in the tap room and it soon became a popular place with a number of workers from nearby state office buildings coming in for lunch.  I was greeted by the bartender, a pleasant young lady by the name of Darcy who gave me a menu to look over.  I ordered up an Isaac's IPA, a west-coast style double-hopped beer that had a bit of a bitter start with a smooth finish.  

The menu was somewhat lengthy and rather interesting.   It was definitely a step-up from most brewpubs I've visited in terms of food choices and featured a number of unique appetizers including onion rings dredged in a black & tan beer batter, rib tips, and pierogies filled with mashed potatoes and cheese and topped with sour cream, cheese, green onions and real bacon bits.  

Sandwiches were a large part of the menu with a reuben, a oven-baked chicken parm sandwich, a house-smoked pulled pork barbecue sandwich, and a goat cheese/bacon/lettuce and tomato sandwich.  They also had burgers, fish and chips, and the Springfield staple - the Horseshoe Sandwich - on the menu.  

As I perused the menu, I made my way down to the entrees part of the menu and found exactly what I wanted - the open-faced roast beef sandwich.  It was served on a bed of Texas toast with mashed potatoes and green beans on top of the bread.  The roast beef was thinly sliced and laid on the potatoes and green beans.  It was all topped off with a hearty mushroom and onion gravy.  (I almost got the bacon wrapped meat loaf that was made with ground lamb and sirloin beef.  Next time...)

I'd been needing a good stick-to-your-ribs meal after a long week on the road and the open-faced roast beef sandwich at Obed and Isaac's was a definite spot-hitter.   It was a generous portion that was served to me and I knew that I wouldn't be able to eat the whole thing.  But it was very good - the roast beef was lean and tender, the green beans weren't mushy or overcooked, the gravy was thick and savory with a great mushroom and onion flavor to it.  I was more than happy with what I ordered for lunch, even if I couldn't finish the whole plate.  

After settling up with Darcy, I walked around the main floor of the place.  It featured four or five small to mid-sized rooms set up for dining.  Most of the rooms were full of diners during the lunch hour.  I took a couple pictures of two of the rooms, but they didn't turn out very well from the bright outside light coming in through the windows making everything in the foreground of the room turn out dark.  

I'm certainly glad I finally made it to Obed and Isaac's a couple three years after first reading about the place.  The 1800's era house is a perfect place for a unique brew pub, and I have to say the open-faced roast beef sandwich was very good and very filling.  The Isaac's IPA I was also impressed with and the service I received while seated in the tap room was prompt and friendly.  I'm going back for the lamb/sirloin meat loaf at some point, but there's other things on the menu that I wouldn't mind trying, as well.   

North Carolina

I am an ordained minister through the Universal Life Church and am able to officiate at wedding ceremonies most everywhere.  I think I've done six or seven weddings now over the past four or five years.  Now, for my friends who know me, this is a pretty radical departure from my normal views on organized religion.  Add the fact that just about anytime I walk into a church I first look for the nearest fire extinguisher in case I suddenly catch on fire.  Late last year, my cousin - who is like a sister to me (we're 11 days apart in age) - called me up and told me that her daughter was getting married on a horse farm-turned-wedding venue in North Carolina and she asked if I would officiate the wedding.  "She doesn't want just anyone to do the ceremony," she told me of her daughter's wishes.  "She think you'd be perfect to do it."  How could I say no to that?  So at the end of last month, my wife and I flew into Charlotte and drove up to Winston-Salem for the wedding.  After the wedding was over, we drove out to the western mountains of North Carolina up to Asheville for a few days.  You'll be reading about some of the places we ate at, drank at, hung out at, and stopped at off and on over the next few weeks.  But here's a quick overview of where we went and what we did.  

First of all - a quick observation regarding traffic lights in major North Carolina cities.  If you roll up to a major intersection in one of the larger cities in the state and the light is turning from yellow to red, well, you're gonna be sitting there for a long time.  More than once, we sat at a stop light for a minimum of two minutes.  The first instance happened moments after we left Charlotte Douglas International Airport where we sat at a light for what seemed to be an eternity.  And if you're in a left turn lane at a stop light, you may see a dozen cars make it through the intersection once the left turn signal turned green.  Or you could be on the unlucky cycle and the timer only allows four cars through.  We had that happen to us a couple of times.  At first it was maddening, but since we were there for over a week we sort of were resigned to the fact that we'd be sitting at a light for a longer time than we're used to back home.

We stayed in downtown Winston-Salem where the wedding party was set up for the weekend.  Winston-Salem was basically built on tobacco as R.J. Reynolds was the major tobacco manufacturer in America for well over a century.  Wake Forest University is also located in Winston-Salem and we took some time to drive through the campus and I'll have to say it was one of the more pretty college campuses that I've been to.  And not far from Wake Forest was the former estate of R.J. Reynolds - Reynolda - that now houses a conservatory, a rose garden, a number of small shops and restaurants, and the main house that features some of the finest American art shown in the Southeast, Reynolda House Museum of American Art.   

We spent some time at Reynolda one day just to walk the gardens and take a look at the flowers.  My wife and I do a lot of gardening and we have around two dozen rose bushes in our yard.  It's always nice to see large rose gardens to get ideas of what we may want to have for more roses in our yard.  Unfortunately, we were probably 10 days too late as many of the rose bushes in the garden had lost their color from the first bloom.  Nonetheless, it was a pretty and relaxing walk through the gardens at Reynolda. 

We took a drive north of Winston-Salem to go up to Pilot Mountain State Park.  The views of the valley back down to Winston-Salem were spectacular from the observation areas near the big pinnacle of Pilot Mountain that was used as a navigation guide for Native Americans living in the area centuries ago.  

Just north of Pilot Mountain was the town of Mt. Airy - which is the home to actor Andy Griffith.  Since I am a huge fan of the Andy Griffith Show, we drove up to Mt. Airy to visit the Andy Griffith Museum.  However, we got there about 45 minutes after the museum opened that Saturday morning and the line was, well, I categorized it to my cousin later in the day as being "from here to Denver" in length.  We still had places to go and we were on sort of a time constraint so we didn't stop.  

Mt. Airy was the place where the fictional town of Mayberry was based after.  (Mount Pilot, the city near Mayberry on the show?  Pilot Mountain?  Get it?  There is a Pilot Mountain town near Mt. Airy.)  One of the things that stood out to us as we drove through Mt. Airy were the number of houses that had expansive front porches on the front.  As in, nearly every house that we saw.  We even saw trailer homes that had front porches built onto the front of them.  One of the focal points of the Andy Griffith Show were the scenes shot on the front porch of the Taylor home.  It makes a lot of sense now that we saw all the homes with large front porches in the town.  We did miss some other things there in Mt. Airy that pertained to the Andy Griffith show, but we needed to move on as my wife wanted to go to one more place before heading back to Winston-Salem.

From there, we drove to Hanging Rock State Park (we drove through the town of Pilot Mountain, NC to get there).  Here's a tip from Road Tips - unless you're interested in doing some hiking or camping, there's not much to see at Hanging Rock.  We got out of the car, went to an observation area, and off in the distance - about a half mile away - was a rocky ledge that was supposedly the Hanging Rock.  I said, "That's it?"  I didn't even take a picture of it, it was so underwhelming.  However, I was told that the hiking trails at Hanging Rock State Park are some of the better ones in North Carolina.    

The wedding was held at Adaumont Farm, an event and entertainment venue outside of Trinity, NC.  (see map)  The farm was owned by over 40 years by the Petty family - yes, that Petty family which includes the King of Nascar racing Richard Petty and his son, Kyle Petty.  Kyle Petty and his first wife, Pattie, lived on the property and raised their three boys - Adam, Austin and Montgomery - on the farm.  The farm name is a combination of the first few letters in the three boys names.   (Adam Petty was tragically killed during practice at a race track in New Hampshire in 2000.)

The Kyle and Pattie Petty split in 2012 with Patty getting the farm.  She ended up selling the farm to a company who specializes in events such as weddings, receptions, corporate events and private functions in 2016.  We were told the house that the Petty's used to live in is basically empty, but for some reason a number of video games were left behind when the sale was made.  

The nearly 400 acre farm features a 50 acre pond with a ceremonial platform next to it for wedding ceremonies.  There is a small lodge that has a covered picnic area with a large barbecue pit next to it.  The horse barn is over 25,000 square feet in size and the original riding ring is now a large room where receptions and shows are held.  I had to go out there on the day before the wedding for the rehearsal and I took a closer look around the horse barn.  It was definitely set up for large receptions and parties with indoor and outdoor bar areas, huge refrigerators that could hold cases of bottled beer, a large kitchen prep area, and a backstage area for performers to use before and after their gig.    After the wedding, my wife and I were given a private tour by an employee of Adaumont Farm who talked about the history of the place, some of the interesting tidbits of the Petty family owning the place (there was evidently a Petty family private car museum on the property at one point), and what has to go in to the day-to-day operations, part of which are still a working farm.  

After leaving Winston-Salem, we drove west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.  My wife had been hoping that we would be able to go to the coast and hang at the ocean for a few days.  But when I showed her how far we were from the ocean (about 4.5 hours to the Outer Banks) and how close we were to the mountains (less than two hours), she decided going to the mountains would be better on this trip.  

Our first stop was in Blowing Rock, a small arts community just outside of Boone, NC.  We had lunch there and walked around the crowded streets of the small community full of shops and galleries.  If you've ever been to Galena, IL - well, it's North Carolina's answer to Galena.  After about an hour of walking around we had had enough.  

Outside of the town of Blowing Rock is an attraction called The Blowing Rock.  Supposedly, during windy conditions you can throw light objects off the rock and the wind will pick them up and blow them back up to the person.  It's a small ledge and offers a nice view of the valley below.  There's also a couple three vista porches where people - like me, who are too scared to climb the rock - can look out to see the view. 

Now, here's another tip from Road Tips - Blowing Rock blows.  It cost us $7 each to go out to see not only the views, but the Blowing Rock.  There was a pathway that took you under the Blowing Rock - big deal!  And they were touting this garden at the end of the pathway outside of the gift shop that was supposed to be beautiful.  We were incredulous because of how small it was.  "Our backyard at home is more colorful and interesting than this," I exclaimed to my wife.  I felt Blowing Rock was a rip-off, but my wife tried to rationalize the visit saying that I've spent $14 bucks on bad beer before.  We were there just about 20 minutes, tops.  

From there, we went on to Asheville, NC, our base for the next four days.  On our trip to the Great Smoky Mountains a couple of years ago, we spent a night in far western North Carolina after visiting a friend.  It turned out that we were probably less than an hour from Asheville and we should have gone there at that time.  This time, we decided to hang in Asheville and get to know the town.  We spent our time there at a newish-Hilton Garden Inn near downtown Asheville that was one of the best of its kind that I've stayed in.  (I'll have a write-up about the Hilton Garden Inn in Asheville at a later date - it was that good of a place.)  We found a number of great places to eat, did some shopping and just sort of relaxed in the mountain air.  

Asheville is also known for its large community of microbreweries and brewpubs.  There are over 40 microbreweries located within an area that encompasses the city of Asheville and down to Hendersonville, NC about 25 miles away.   We went to a handful of them and I'll have some reports on the ones we visited at a later date.  

One of the things my wife wanted to do was to visit Biltmore, the "vacation" estate of the Vanderbilt family that was built at toward the end of the 19th century.  When the young scion of Cornelius Vanderbilt - grandson George Washington Vanderbilt II - visited his mother who was spending the summer in the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1888, he decided that he would build a grand vacation home in the mountains.  Work on the mansion began in 1889 and finished in 1895 in time for George Vanderbilt to host Christmas for friends and family.  The Vanderbilt family opened the mansion for tours in 1930 and today tens of thousands of people visit Biltmore annually.

It costs $75 per person to visit Biltmore - a little steep in my book to visit the house.  But the vast garden and conservatory were part of the tour, as well.  We were able to find specially priced tickets of $55 each on-line if we bought them more than 7 days in advance.  While the gardens were very cool, I still wasn't certain that the Biltmore tour was worth the $55 each we paid.  I'll have more about our visit to the Biltmore estate at a later date.  

Asheville also has a thriving arts community.  The River Arts District encompasses roughly a six block area south of downtown Asheville with over 20 former industrial buildings along the French Broad River housing galleries and working art studios.  

We stopped into a number of places in the River Arts District including a glass factory where they were blowing glass, a working pottery studio, a studio where the artist made some very cool artwork out of old highway signs, and a place that re-caned chairs.  In the place that caned chairs, they also had what they called the only caned chair museum in the United States.  Not only was it somewhat amusing, but it was also kind of neat.  

My wife - always the smart one - had me drive to the Asheville Visitors Center to see if there was anything that we needed to go see.  The one lady volunteer we talked with said, "Have you guys driven up to Mt. Pisgah on the Blue Ridge Parkway?"  She showed us how to get out to the Parkway - one of the entrances was not far from our hotel - and she told us to drive south on the Parkway up to a lodge near Mt. Pisgah, one of the more recognizable landmarks around Asheville.  The drive was easy and the multiple drive-out views we encountered were spectacular.  And the views were FREE (bite me, Blowing Rock!).  I'll have a more in-depth report on our drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the coming days.

North Carolina is a beautiful state and I'm glad we got some time to spend in the mountains.   I'll have some write-ups of some of the restaurants and brewpubs we went to, as well as a closer look at our trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and to the Biltmore mansion in the coming days.  There really wasn't any part of the state that we went to that I could say wasn't pleasant to look at.