Road Tips

Portillo's - Davenport, IA

Over the past year, I have been able to maintain my significant weight loss - although I haven't hit my overall goal, yet.  But I'm keeping it in sight.  But the momentum to keep the weight off has been seriously challenged by the opening of the first Portillo's location in Iowa about a five minute drive from my house.  Now, I've joked (well, worried, more likely) that if they ever opened a Portillo's in the Quad Cities that I'd balloon to over 400 pounds because I love the Chicago-based chain so much for their jumbo hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches.  When they opened in June of this year, my wife and I purposely stayed away from the place as it was a zoo to get in and out of the parking lot for the first few months they were open.  However, on a recent Sunday night where I didn't feel like cooking, my wife and I made the short trek up to 53rd St. in Davenport to Portillo's.  (see map).  

I first wrote about Portillo's on Road Tips nearly 13 years ago.  (You can click here to see the post.)  It was long before I found a voice or a style-substance, or had a camera phone.  In my many trips to Chicago for business - and for pleasure - over the past 20 years, I've always had to stop at a Portillo's to satiate my jones for their food at least once during my visit.  It's far from healthy, but who said that great tasting food has to be healthy?  And while there may be other hot dog and/or Italian beef joints in Chicago that may be better in some eyes, I like the consistency and quality of the food at the Portillo's locations in Chicago. 

Dick Portillo grew up in poverty what would eventually become the Cabrini-Green projects of Chciago.  His father was an immigrant from Mexico, while his mother was an immigrant from Greece.  The family was so poor that his mother had to steal shoes from a nearby department store for one of her three children.  When young Richard Portillo was just five years old, the family was forced to sell his tricycle to help pay for food.  

Pictured right - Dick Portillo in front of a replica of the original "Dog House".  Photo courtesy Portillo's.

Although he was never tested as a child - probably because there wasn't such a test in the late 40's or early 50's - Portillo concluded later in life that he probably had ADHD.  He had trouble focusing in school, he preferred to get in fights rather than learn, and he was a very hyperactive child into his teens.  Barely graduating high school, a week later Portillo joined the U.S. Marines where he served a two-year stint.  

As a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, Portillo showed his entrepreneurial moxie by working with a friend to transport other Marines to and from Tijuana for a $20 fee.  One time, he ran a stop sign in Tijuana and hit another car.  Knowing that he was in trouble, Portillo high-tailed it to the border, but was stopped by Mexican border guards and arrested.  He tried to bribe the jailer with $50 bucks to release him and his impounded car, but eventually had to spend a day and a half in jail.  That probably wasn't a good feeling for a guy under the age of 21 to have to spend even 10 minutes in a Mexican jail.  

Upon getting out of the Marines, Portillo - who by then was married to his high school sweetheart, Sharon - went through a series of jobs - 14 of them over an 18-month period.  Not happy with any of the jobs he had taken, he saw a business opportunity to open his own hot dog stand.  He asked his wife if he could take the $1100 dollars they had in their savings that would go toward being a small wagon that he could turn into a hot dog stand.   But Sharon was not happy about it - the Portillo's were living in a cramped apartment and she had hoped the $1100 in savings would go toward the down payment on a house for their growing family of a baby boy and another on the way.  However, Sharon's mother encouraged her to let Dick follow his dreams and Sharon finally relented.

Pictured left - Sharon Portillo standing outside of the original "Dog House".  Photo courtesy Crain's Chicago Business

Dick turned to his older brother who was managing a handful of Brown's Chicken restaurants for an additional loan to help get his business off the ground.  With money from savings and a loan from his brother, Dick bought a small trailer - 6 foot by 12 foot - and outfitted it with a peaked roof, a small kitchen and signage.   It had no bathroom or running water.  He got permission to park the trailer in a parking lot of a discount store along North Ave. in the Chicago suburb of Villa Park.  He ran water via a hose from an outdoor water spigot attached to the building.   Knowing that he would literally be in the dog house with Sharon if this all-or-nothing venture didn't work out, it gave his new business "The Dog House" a significant double meaning.  

The only problem was that Portillo didn't know who to make hot dogs.  His hot dogs were overcooked and his steamed buns were dried out.  And he also nearly ran himself out of business on top of that because all the Coca-Cola's he served were coming out green.  It turned out that he had neglected to clean out the water holding tanks after they were installed in the trailer.  

He finally went to a well known hot dog shop nearby - the venerable Gene and Jude's which had been open for 17 years - where Portillo sort of hung out watching their cooking techniques and took note of how they steamed the buns.  (He even snuck into the back room to see what kind of condiments they were buying.)   After figuring out how to get the hang of things, the Dog House was up and running on full steam.  

By 1967, Portillo had decided that The Dog House needed an upgrade and he replaced the original trailer with a new one.  But by 1969, he felt it was time to step up to the plate.   Portillo had felt The Dog House pretty outlived its usefulness as a trailer and a name and he was ready to move to a permanent location.  The first Portillo's location opened later that year and they expanded the menu into burgers and Italian beef sandwiches.  A second location opened in a mall owned by a man who partnered with Portillo to help him expand his business.  

Other concepts followed - Barney's was a barbecue place that was developed by Portillo, and Barnelli's was an Italian-themed place that served pasta and salads.  Some of the Barney's and Barnelli's were stand alone places, but Portillo came up with the idea to combine the two in with Portillo's locations.  It turned out to be a hit with many families who liked the idea where Dad could get an Italian beef sandwich, Mom could get a salad, and the kids could get either a hot dog or a hamburger, all under one roof.  

Not all of Portillo's ideas were successes, however.  In the mid-1990's, he came up with the Key Wester Fish and Pasta House concept in Naples, Florida .  He tried to model it after the fast casual style of Portillo's, and he put a second location in Naperville, IL in 1996.  The restaurants had their ups and downs as patrons didn't like the concept as much as they liked Portillo's.  He closed the Key Wester in 2011.  

Over the years, Dick Portillo became a larger than life figure as the face of Portillo's.  He counted a number of local and national celebrities as friends including Chicago natives Joe Mantegna, Jim Belushi, and Vince Vaughn.  In fact, Mantegna was said to be the one who suggested Portillo put a restaurant in Southern California to answer the cravings former Chicagoans living there had by missing Portillo's.  The first Portillo's location outside of Illinois opened in Buena Park, CA in 2005.  It wasn't long after that Portillo's expanded to the Phoenix area, a second location in Southern California, into Milwaukee and into Northwest Indiana.  The most unique aspect of Portillo's business was that the company owned all the buildings and real estate that their restaurants stood on.  Dick Portillo was a modern day success story taking $1100 out of his family's savings and procuring a small loan from his brother to start his hot dog business in 1963 into one day becoming a multi-millionaire.  

In 2014, Portillo announced that he was interested in slowing down to enjoy life and that he would be selling his restaurants.  He wanted to expand more Portillo's across the nation, but at the age of 74, he just didn't feel like he had it in him to make the significant plunge with his plans.  A large number of suitors lined up for the chance to buy the now-over 40 Portillo's locations and Portillo weeded out many of them after interviewing their ideas for the future of his company.  Finally, he found a worthy buyer - Berkshire Partners of Boston - who he felt encompassed his vision of what he saw Portillo's being in 20 years as the company hoped to expand Portillo's at the rate of five to seven locations annually.  Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but industry analysts guesstimated that it may have been in the ballpark of $1 billion dollars.  

With Portillo stepping down after he sold the company to Berkshire Partners, the first CEO of the new Portillo's was a man by the name of Keith Kinsey.  Kinsey was a native of Moline, IL and attended the University of Illinois getting a degree in accounting.  Kinsey had previous executive experience with Chipotle and Noodles and Company before getting tabbed by Berkshire Partners as the new CEO of Portillo's in 2015.   Kinsey took a hands-on approach with Portillo's learning from the ground up working along side line workers at some of the Portillo's locations in the Chicagoland area.  And he seemed to work well with Portillo who would still show up at some of the grand openings of Portillo locations which were soon found in Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Florida.

Almost since Kinsey was hired, rumors abounded in the Quad Cities that a Portillo's would be coming soon to the area.  Kinsey did put a Portillo's in the Champaign-Urbana area near the University of Illinois campus, but it seemed like the plans of putting a Portillo's in the Quad Cities were taken off the table when Kinsey retired in 2018.  

Kinsey was replaced by Michael Osanloo, a Chicago area-native who remarked that probably the first place he drove to when he got his driver's license as a teen was to a Portillo's.  Osanloo had previously been at P.F. Chang's as their CEO after earlier stints working for Kraft Foods and Caesars Entertainment.  (My sister does some part-time work for P.F. Chang's corporate office and she said that Osanloo was a delightful man and she was sorry to see him leave the company.)

Well, it turned out that the Quad Cities had been on Portillo's expansion list for quite sometime and it wasn't long after Osanloo was named CEO that they officially announced in August of last year that a Portillo's would open in Davenport along the very busy 53rd Avenue corridor sometime in the Spring of 2019.  Actually, the news about Portillo's had come out a couple months earlier during a zoning board meeting for a plot of land across from the new Costco which had been bought by a developer which would be used for a number of businesses including a Portillo's.  

While a number of houses were demolished for the new Portillo's and other businesses, residents living near the new site complained that the area couldn't handle the traffic or rainwater run-off that was already evident from Costco opening earlier in 2018.  However, things got sorted out with the nearby neighborhood including a new drainage system with holding tanks that would gradually release rainwater into the storm sewers.  The Davenport Portillo's started a soft opening in late April and it officially opened for business with a grand opening on June 13th of this year.  

Each of the Chicago area Portillo's has a theme to them - some of them have a Prohibition-era theme with signage and pictures from the Roaring 20's.  Some of them have a 50's theme with the decor reminiscent of a 1950's era soda shop along with music from the early days of rock and roll playing in the background.  And you'll also find Portillo's with a 30's theme complete with gangster photos and memorabilia.  The one in Davenport is sort of theme-less.  Oh, it has some old signs that may have been in a car dealership or garage from the 1950's.  It features a painting that gives a nod to Iowa's Field of Dreams.  But most of the signage touts they type of food they sell at Portillo's.   

There's an outdoor seating area at the Davenport Portillo's.  It was a cool night and there weren't many people taking advantage of the patio.  There was also a smaller dining room off to the side of the main dining room that could probably be used as a party room, if needed.  

Just like the other Portillo's, it's counter service where you place your orders, get a number, then head down to a pick-up window where a person yells out whimsical rhymes with the number they're calling.  "Number 32, this one is for you!  Number 48, no more wait!"  The menu consists of, of course, hot dogs, Polish sausage, Italian beef sandwiches, Italian beef and Polish sausage combo sandwiches, grilled or breaded chicken sandwiches, burgers, salads, grilled tuna sandwiches, and a meatball sandwich.  

My wife wanted to try one of Portillo's salads and she got the grilled chicken Caesar's salad.  Served in a standard issue Portillo's plastic bowl (they don't have to wash many dishes at Portillo's), it consisted of five or six strips of grilled chicken on a bed of romaine lettuce topped with croutons, parmesan cheese and a Caesar's dressing.  Cucumber slices and a sliced hard-boiled egg was also mixed in with the salad.  My wife thought it was fine, nothing special.  But she's had the salad at Portillo's in the Chicago area before so she knew what she was getting into.

My standard order at Portillo's is this - "Jumbo hot dog with everything, yes to sport peppers.  An Italian beef with mozzarella with both kinds of peppers, dipped.  And a bottle of water."  I order it so often that I had no trouble sitting here and remembering my usual order.   A jumbo hot dog is just that - a 1/4 lob. Vienna Beef hot dog.  And everything is yellow mustard, chopped onions and tomatoes, with a fluorescent green relish.  A couple of spicy sport peppers and a dill pickle spear finishes off the hot dog which is served on a poppy-seed bun.  I usually take the pickle spear off when I eat the hot dog at Portillo's and nosh on it in between bites.  I didn't expect the hot dog at the Davenport Portillo's to be any different than the ones that are in Chicago.  It had that great "snap" with each bite with that wonderful beef flavor that comes out with all the toppings.  

On the Italian beef at Portillo's, the both kinds of peppers are mild marinated sweet pepper slices, while the other is good ol' Chicago-style giardiniera - sliced carrots, cauliflower, and celery with sliced sport peppers that are all pickled together.  It has a wonderful spicy kick to the taste.  Some native Chicagoans will say it's blasphemous to put cheese of any kind on an Italian beef sandwich, but I don't live in Chicago.  The meat is sliced thin and kept in a warm bath of broth until the sandwiches are made up.  The bread was the typical Portillo's soft Italian bread that is dipped in the meat broth making it more messy, but - oh! - so good.  Like the hot dog, the taste and quality of the Italian beef sandwich at the new Portillo's in Davenport was very similar - if not the same - as the ones I've had in the Chicago area for over 20 years.  It's always an eight napkin meal when I have a hot dog and an Italian beef sandwich at any Portillo's.  And this was no exception.

My wife was sort of proud of herself for ordering the chicken Caesar's salad and for not finishing it all so she could take some home and have it for lunch the next day.  And she said, "I think I'd like a piece of their chocolate cake."  I asked if I could have a bite - I really didn't need any more food after the Italian beef sandwich and hot dog - and she said I could.  That is, if I went up and ordered it for her.  

Portillo's is famous for their chocolate cake and, quite honestly, this was the first time I'd ever tried it.  It's a fluffy two-layered cake made with, reportedly, mayo in the mixture.  The frosting is a lovely thick and rich tasting chocolate spread that is as sinful as is it good.  I realized about half-way through eating the cake that I had forgotten to get a picture of the slice we were served, so I grabbed this one off of Portillo's web site.  It's a big slice of cake and even we had trouble finishing it between the two of us.  

Since they've opened in the Quad Cities, I've been able to hold off going to Portillo's only a couple times now.  Actually, I'm sort of happy and somewhat proud of myself that I haven't been tempted into going to Portillo's any more than I have, or I would probably be well on my way to gaining back all - if not more - of the weight I was able to lose previously.  The one thing that I like about Portillo's is that the food is exactly the same at every one I've been to.  I know some will say that's boring, and with over 50 locations in seven states they are probably classified as a chain - something that I try to steer clear of when I'm on the road.  But it's tough to beat the food at a Portillo's and the one in Davenport is definitely no exception.   

La Rosa de Michoacan - East Moline, IL

If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you've seen me say a number of times that the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois are blessed with the number of very good - and authentic - Mexican restaurants we have in the area.  50, 60 and over 70 years ago, Mexican migrant workers came to the Mississippi River valley to work in the melon fields.  Many stayed, raised families and became part of the community.   There's a large Hispanic community in the Quad Cities and East Moline is one of those areas where there's a sizable Mexican population.  My wife had heard about a place over there that supposedly had good Mexican food.  It was a place that I was not familiar with, but had probably driven by a handful of times in the past - La Rosa de Michoacan.  

Hugo and Rosa Hernandez had something in common before they were married 30 years ago in Mexico - they both could cook.  After exchanging vows, the couple immigrated to the U.S. with the hopes of starting their own Mexican restaurant.  They moved to the Quad Cities area and Hugo worked various jobs in and around the area until while Rosa stayed at home to raise her two children.  Rosa made some side money of her own making tamales and selling them to locals.  By 2006, they had saved up enough money to open their own little taqueria in East Moline.  The menu was limited with just tacos at the beginning, but if someone came in and said, "Boy, a burrito would be great," Rosa would whip one up.  

The couple soon found that more people were interested in their expertise of Michoacan-style foods - Michoacan is a Mexican state that hugs the Pacific Ocean, but also has a of streams and rivers that thread through hills and mountains further inland.  Michoacan has possibly the most diverse cultures in Mexico, and because of that many different styles of food are found in the area.  Michoacan cooking is seafood, chicken, pork and beef dishes, soups, tamales, and foods made with grains and foraged fruits.  It's often referred to as the "soul-food" of Mexico.  

We drove through Moline on 5th Ave./Illinois Highway 92 where it turns into 18th Ave. when you get into East Moline.  My GPS took us right to the corner of 18th Ave. and 19th St., but we were having trouble finding La Rosa de Michoacan.  Finally, my wife said, "Oh, there it is!"  She pointed to the bright orange building just south of the intersection. (see map)  Had it been a snake - as the old saying goes - it would have bit me.  (My wife often says that I'm not very observant.)

We went inside La Rosa de Michoacan and immediately faced the open kitchen behind the front counter.  The young lady behind the counter was doing something and she looked up and said with a smile on her face, "You guys can sit anywhere.  We'll be out in a moment, OK?"  

Walking into the dining room, we found a bright room with a number of tables, chairs and booths throughout.  Some Mexican artwork hung on the faux stone walls that had been painted a subtle blue hue.  A couple flat screen televisions were hung in the corners and tuned into a soccer match from Mexico. 

We took a seat in a booth next to a window.  She soon brought out a basket of chips with salsa and dropped off a couple menus.  She took our drink orders - they had a handful of Mexican beers, but the two I asked for - Sol and Dos Equis Ambar - they didn't stock.  They did have the Modelo Especial beer and I got one of those.  

They had margaritas at La Rosa de Michoacan and that's what my wife ordered.  (They also have soft drinks such as Mexican Coca-Cola and Jarritos available, as well.)   However, my wife thought the margarita was too sweet and syrupy.  "I'm sure they just use a commercial mix for their margaritas," said my wife who knows her margaritas and can be rather particular about them.    

As I said, the menu expanded tremendously since the place opened over 13 years ago.  Burritos, enchiladas, soups, salads and, of course, tacos were the main items on the menu.  La Rosa de Michoacan opens at 8 a.m. Tuesday thru Saturday and they have a number of Mexican-style breakfast items as well.  

One of the signature items is the La Rosa burrito.  It comes in three sizes - small, large and extra-large.  I got the large and it covered the whole plate.  (I could only imagine how large the EXTRA-large burrito was!)  It was filled with refried beans, rice, cilantro and onions.  I had a choice of sauce that I could put on top of the burrito and I got pork salsa verde - large chunks of pork in a green sauce.  Cheese was melted on top of the burrito which was covered with the sauce.  

My wife wanted to try a little bit of everything.  Her daughter is married to a Mexican native who knows his way around a kitchen very well.  He has told us that you can tell how good any Mexican restaurant is just by having a couple of their tacos.  My wife went with a carne asada taco, a Nopales (cactus) taco and a chile relleno.  She got them Mexican-style on soft corn tortillas with chopped onions and cilantro.  Our server also brought out a salsa verde sauce (without the pork) and a red salsa that was different from the one that she served us with our chips.  

The pork salsa verde had a wonderful taste and it mixed well with the contents of the burrito.  I found myself adding even more of the salsa verde she brought out with the meal, but the red sauce she brought out was ¡muy caliente!  I had to get another beer to help take the sting off my tongue.  

I thought my large burrito was delicious.  It was way too much food - a small burrito with a taco on the side would have probably sufficed.  But it was so good that I was having trouble stopping and I found myself staring at the last two bites and becoming immediately embarrassed that I nearly ate the whole thing.   My wife said, "Well, you may as well finish it off.  This will probably be your own meal of the day."  So, I did...

My wife was very happy with her Nopales taco, but she thought the steak on the carne asada taco was a little overcooked and crispy.  And she thought the chile relleno was good, but a little too spicy for her.  But I think she was happy with her food, although I caught her eyeing my burrito from time to time.  

You can tell when Mexican food is made from scratch with fresh ingredients, and that's exactly how the food at La Rosa de Michocan is.  I thoroughly enjoyed - and overate - the La Rosa burrito with the pork salsa verde sauce slathered on top.  My wife was happy enough with her two tacos (although she thought the steak was a bit overcooked) and her chile relleno (but she also thought it was a little too spicy for her).  The service was prompt and friendly, the place was bright and clean, and it was a pleasant experience all the way around.  We've been back since our initial visit and now, and we were more than happy with the food experience and the friendly atmosphere at La Rosa de Michoacan.    

The Old Place - Agoura Hills, CA

During a business trip to Southern California for meetings earlier this year, our company took us out to dinner on a Sunday night to a restaurant up in the Santa Monica mountains north of Malibu.  Pulling up in front of the place, I sort of thought, "What the hell kind of place is this?"  It was a small building, set back from the road a bit with a facade that looked like it was an old Western saloon from the 1880's, complete with a deer rack on the front. With a bit of trepidation, I got out of the car and wandered into this restaurant by the name of The Old Place.  

The man who founded The Old Place in 1970 - Tom Runyon - had a pretty colorful history behind him.  He was born in Washington D.C to Charles Runyon II, who was a lawyer at the State Department, and Cornelia Runyon, who was an artist and sculptor.  In 1923, Tom's father packed up his family, including Tom's older brother Charles III - who would later become the dean of law at Yale - and moved west to be closer to Tom's uncle who had moved to California a few years before.  

Tom's uncle, Carmen Runyon, was a coal baron in the days before coal went on the decline as a fuel source.  Carmen Runyon bought a plot of land in the hills above Hollywood in 1919 - the year before Tom was born - which included a canyon that was originally called "No Man's Canyon".  Tom's uncle put in a hunting lodge on the property and Tom would spend his early years exploring and hunting in the canyon. (Today, that canyon - Runyon Canyon - is a popular outdoor recreation area in the city of Los Angeles.)  

Charles Runyon II died in 1927 and Cornelia Runyon moved herself and her two boys to Brentwood on the west side of Los Angeles.  But young Tom's heart remained in the canyon that his uncle owned. He would trap for wild animals - mountain lions had a healthy bounty back in the 1930's - and he'd sell their pelts along with pelts from raccoons and bobcats that he'd trap.  

When he was in high school, Tom started to raise and train falcons.  The story goes that he would take a rifle to school and hide it in his locker so he could shoot pigeons on the way home to feed to his falcons.  (The 1930's were a much more simple time, weren't they?  Can you imagine bringing a rifle onto school grounds - even keeping one in a car - today?)  

Times were tough for the widow Runyon in the 1930's and the family was forced to rent out their house while they stayed in the chauffeur's quarters in the garage.  After his brother had gone off to college, Runyon's mother felt that Brentwood was becoming too expensive to live in and too crowded with people who had the same ideas about moving to Southern California that the Runyon family had earlier on.  She built a home on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean just west of Malibu and moved there in 1937.  

Thanks to his mother's charm and his brother's legacy, Tom got a scholarship to a boarding school up the coast in Carpinteria, CA to finish out his high school years.  But Tom didn't like to study.  He bought a car that could pull a horse trailer that he would drive up and down the coast to explore and hunt the hills and canyons on horseback.  

When he was 19, Runyon bought his first airplane and fell in love with flying.  Just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he signed up for the Army Air Corps and eventually saw action in World War II flying cargo missions in North Africa and Italy.  After the war was over, Runyan stayed in the Air Corps and rose to the rank of major.  

After being discharged from the Air Corps, Runyon went to New York City to study writing at Columbia University.  He wrote articles for magazines - primarily fiction stories - before heading back out to California in the late 1950's.  

Runyon immersed himself in the then-hot L.A. art community, living in a rented apartment above the carousel at the Santa Monica Pier in the late 50's and early 60's.  Tom loved the party life and he hosted a number of soirees with legendary food and liquor spreads for people who were deep into the art scene in Los Angeles.  One of those artists, Barbara "BoBo" Bell, caught the eye of Runyon and the couple eventually married in 1961.  Thinking that he needed to settle down a bit and start a family, the Runyon's moved to his mother's home in Malibu that year.  The couple were soon blessed with two children, a girl and a boy.

While living in Malibu, Runyon became friends with Dudley Murphy who owned a local restaurant/hotel on the Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the Pacific.  A child of the Great Depression, Runyon had saved his money and started to invest in land parcels with Murphy in the hills above Malibu.  The two donated a large parcel of land back to Los Angeles County in the mid-60's so a connecting road through the hills north of Malibu could be built.  

Pictured at right - Tom Runyon.  Picture courtesy the Runyon family and the Tompanga Messenger.  

Runyon also invested in properties on his own.  One of the places he bought was an old building along Mulholland Drive in an area known as Cornell.  The building dated back to 1914 when it was originally built as a general store, but later served as the post office for the small town of Cornell.  It had been abandoned a few years earlier and had become rather run down.  Runyon bought the place and buildings next to it in 1968 with the intention of restoring the central area of Cornell to the way it was when it was a ranching community.

Not really knowing what to do with the old buildings, an old friend suggested that Runyon open a restaurant because he was so good at hosting parties.  Having a taste of the restaurant lifestyle while hanging around Murphy's inn, Runyon thought a small steakhouse would be the perfect starting point.  Because the building was so dilapidated when he took it over, it took Runyon nearly two years of restoring and renovating the place into a very basic restaurant.  He always referred the building as "The Old Place" and the name stuck when it opened in 1970.  

Initially, the Old Place had just two employees - Tom, who cooked, washed dishes, and was the bartender; and Barbara, who waited on tables.  It had a very rustic appearance including swinging front doors like an old-time Western saloon.  And they only sold two things - steaks and clams.  (The clams were a nod to Runyon's youth when he would go back to the family's home on the New Jersey shore for visits.)  

The Old Place was the antithesis of the glitz and glamor in L.A. and it became a favorite place for movie stars and other industry heavyweights to hide out and let their hair down.  It wasn't out of the ordinary to see a movie star who was living in Malibu seated at the bar next to a local ranch hand or a guy who had been hunting in the hills.  

One of the regulars at The Old Place was actor Steve McQueen who lived nearby with his wife, Ali McGraw.  Director Sam Peckinpah was also a regular who hung out at The Old Place.  McQueen and Peckinpah collaborated in a movie called "The Getaway" in 1972 that starred McQueen and McGraw.  The three thought Runyon was such an interesting character in real life that he was cast as a bad guy in the movie.  It was the first of a handful of bit roles for Runyon who also was cast in other films such as "Convoy" and "Every Which Way But Loose."  

Bob Dylan would hang out at The Old Place on occasion, as well.  One weekend, Dylan was playing an old piano in the back of the place.  A guy sitting on the bar remarked to Runyon that the guy sort of looked like Bob Dylan.  And he sort of sounded like Bob Dylan when he sung.  "Probably because he is Bob Dylan," Runyon replied to the customer.  

Tom Runyon was able to renovate other buildings and recapture some of the old ranch town essence of Cornell, which was eventually absorbed into the nearby community of Agoura Hills.  He continued to run The Old Place - now with more employees - with Barbara deep into his 80's.  In July of 2009, Runyon passed away peacefully at his Malibu home at the age of 89.  The Old Place had been closed for a few weeks before and after Runyon's death, but his son, Morgan - who was a director of commercials and music videos, and who is somewhat famous for the Runman trilogy of underground cult surf movies - reopened The Old Place in late 2009 with partner Tim Skogstrom from the next door Cornell Winery and they continue to run the rustic steakhouse today.  

From our hotel to The Old Place was about a 15 minute drive up into the Saratoga Hills of the Santa Monica Mountains and through a number of twists and turns before we ended up on Mulholland Drive.  A quick left and around a curve brought us to the front of The Old Place.  (see map)  Upon entering the place, the bar is prominently the focus of the low-ceilinged dining area in The Old Place.  It featured a bench instead of bar stools with antique light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.  There were a series of heavy wood tables and booths in the small place.  It was a pretty funky place - the restrooms were outside, around the building and to the back of the building.  

We were a party of about 30 and there was no private area for us to all sit, so it was sort of catch-as-catch-can when it came to seating.  I settled in with five other people crammed into a booth on the wall opposite the bar area.   We immediately ordered a bottle of red wine for the table - a cabernet from the Opolo winery in Paso Robles, CA.  The wine glasses were little cocktail glass - no stemware could be found even with a nice wine list.  

I also wanted to start out with a beer and asked the server what kind of IPA's or pale ales they may have.  He said that they had an IPA from the HopSaint Brewing Company in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance.  It featured west coast hops that were very prevalent on the tongue, but had a nice smooth citrus finish to it.  It was a very good IPA.   

The menu at The Old Place has expanded since it's opening nearly 50 years ago, but not by much.  They still offered a sirloin or a ribeye steak, and the steamed clams were still part of the appetizer menu.  But items such as an organic grilled chicken breast in a white wine and sage marinade, beef stew and a chicken pot pie were part of the entrees listed on the menu.  Appetizers included a New England-style clam chowder, a noodle & cheese bake that was The Old Place's variation on a mac & cheese dish, and a mushroom skillet that featured button, porcini and portobello mushrooms sautéed in a white wine, butter, cream, garlic, onion and thyme reduction sauce.  It was topped with parmesan cheese and served with sour dough bread.  

Personally, I wanted to try that, but I was outvoted at our table for the cheese and meat board.  It featured soppressata and prosciutto for the meats, and the cheese was a gouda rubbed in espresso, a lavender-flavored goat cheese, and a parmigiana-reggiano cheese.  Olives, toasted bread points, and smoked almonds came with the meat and cheese.  It was all right, but I think I would have preferred the mushroom skillet a little more.  

One of the items they did not have on the menu that evening was a bone-in filet.  And that's what I got.  I had them cook it medium-rare rather than the normal rare that I usually order for filets.  But with the bone-in, it's a little more tough to cut around the bone if the meat is too rare.  It came with a loaded baked potato the had real bacon bits, butter and sour cream on top.  The bone-in filet was magnificent.  All their steaks are grilled over oak wood and the taste of the wood-fired steak was outstanding.  

My colleague, Todd, got the seafood "catch-of-the-day" - the halibut.  It was sort of ironic that he got the halibut as we all went deep sea fishing earlier in the day as a company "team-building" exercise.  (It was fun for about two hours, but unfortunately, we were out on the boat for seven hours.)  Todd caught the biggest fish of a the day which was, of course, a halibut.  But one of the crew members described it as a "small one".  I'm guessing it was around 15 pounds, but the guy told me that it was a California halibut which grow to be about 35 to 40 pounds.  He said that Pacific halibut can grow to 350 pounds or more.  Nonetheless, my colleague, Todd, thought the grilled halibut - which was served on a bed of rice and topped with scallions - was very good.    

One of my other colleagues got the sirloin salad - a small sliced sirloin that is placed on top of a bed of lettuce with avocado slices and sliced hearts of palm.  It looked pretty good and he said that he was happy with his choice.   

Any bit of doubt that I had when entering The Old Place went out the window with the delicious bone-in filet that I had for my meal that evening.  The place was indeed funky and unique, and after learning the history of the place - and for it being known as a popular "hideout" for some of the more famous people in the Malibu area - I decided that I really liked it.   We were a little cramped with six people seated in the heavy wood booth, but we made the best of it.  Service was pretty good as we were tag teamed by a handful of servers to take care of any request we may have had.  It's nothing fancy and it isn't fine dining, but my steak - I thought - was very good.  And that's saying something about California steaks from a Midwestern boy.  As I'm sitting here writing, I'm nodding my head as I remember the meal and the atmosphere at The Old Place and happy that we had the chance to go there.  

Goat Ridge Brewing Co./Model Citizen - New London, MN

During our vacation in the Glacier Lakes region of West Central Minnesota earlier this summer, we found out that there was a brew pub in the small town of New London, the sister city to Spicer which were about five miles apart.  And upon visiting the brew pub, we found out that they had a farm-to-fork restaurant with locally sourced foods attached to the place.  The restaurant happened to be closed the first time we went to the brew pub, but we went back the next day to give it a try.   Here are two of the more memorable places we went to during our vacation - Goat Ridge Brewing Company and Model Citizen - the Restaurant.

Josh Reed grew up on his family's farm outside of Brooten, MN.  Learning about helping and maintaining the environment while working on the farm led Reed to study natural resource management at Western Washington University.  After college, he landed an environmental resource gig with the federal government that kept him the Pacific Northwest.  Reed loved the areas craft beers and in the mid-90's he started to brew his own beer at home, even raising some of the hops he would eventually use in his beers.

Reed married a young lady from Brooten by the name of Christa Otteson and the couple lived in the Seattle area for a handful of years, but had a hankering to move back to Minnesota at some point to raise a family.  After much conversation and planning, Reed and Otteson moved back to the Brooten area in 2010 and lived on a homestead that had been in Otteson's family for years.  The acreage sat on a glacial ridge they nicknamed Goat Ridge and it was there where Reed - who was working for a non-profit organization upon his return to Minnesota - started to grow hops that he would sell to various brewpubs around Minnesota.  But his dream was to one day have his own brewpub where he could share his beers with the public.  

Reed started working on a business plan and found that it was sort of difficult to come up with the proper paperwork for the plan.  Then fate intervened where at a gathering in Brooten, Reed met Kelly Asche, a community and economic development director whose wife also grew up in Brooten.  Reed and Asche found that they both had a love for homebrewing and when Reed told Asche that he was trying to come up with a business plan to one day present to the bank for a business loan, but he was having some difficulty with it.  Asche agreed to look at the business plan and after some tweaks here and there, he told Reed he could help with the financing in the venture with his community development contacts.  The two formed a partnership with Reed as the head brewer in the new project with Asche as his assistant brewer. 

After quitting his job at the non-profit in October of 2014, Reed found a building along the bank of the Middle Fork of the Crow River that ran through New London, MN.  It was an 1800 square foot building that had been a variety of businesses in the past including a car repair shop.   Reed, Asche and Otteson renovated the building using reclaimed barn boards and using repurposed furniture for tables and chairs.  With the brew tanks up and running in early 2015, Goat Ridge Brewing Co. opened their doors in April of that year.

The nano-brewery is located on Central Ave. W. in New London, just west of State Highway 9 that is the main north-south road through New London.  (see map)  Head-in parking is available on the street next to Goat Ridge, but a municipal lot is just across the street.  The bar is to the left as you come into the place.   We took a seat at the bar and a young lady greeted us.  We took a look at the beers they had to offer that day - Goat Ridge changes beers pretty regularly - and I ended up getting their Kolsch, a great summertime beer.  (Actually, I think a Kolsch is a good beer at any time of the year.)  My wife tried a couple of their beers in a sampler size - a New England IPA that was a little too fruity for her taste, but she ended up liking the Smash Mosaic, a forward hopped flavored IPA that was actually pretty good.  In fact, for my second beer I went with the Smash Mosaic.  And I thought it was a pretty good deal, too, as a 20 ounce pour of Goat Ridge's beers were $6 bucks.

Out back is a pretty good sized beer garden that featured picnic tables and Adirondack chairs that looked out onto the Middle Fork of the Crow River.  The water rushes past the beer garden coming from the Mill Pond Dam which holds water from the Middle Crow for some nice little connected lakes and ponds around the very picturesque town of New London.  At one end of the beer garden was a small stage for live music at Goat's Ridge.  I was somewhat amazed to see that they were going to have Chris Duarte - a very good blues guitarist who I've seen a handful of times in the past, primarily at Summerfest in Milwaukee - playing there.  Unfortunately, it was going to be on that Saturday night and we would be making our way back home when he was there.  But I was impressed that they could get talent like Chris Duarte to play there.  

There's an addition off to the side of the tap room and just behind the outdoor stage.   A small local political group was having a meeting in there when we were there that evening.  Later on, after they left, we saw a family in there playing one of the  board games that Goat Ridge keeps in or near the room.  It was kind of a whimsical space with mismatched chairs, old drapes and even an old church pew on which to sit.  

Directly behind the bar is the brew room.  Glistening brew tanks stood tall in the very clean facility.  The room had that sort of malty and hoppy fragrance to it.  

Seated at the bar, we were befriended by a young couple who had a lake home on Green Lake in Spicer, but their primary home was in Willmar, about 15 miles away.  They had sent their kids off to church camp and were having their own vacation at their lake home.  My wife recognized them from the night before when we were sitting out by the dock at Zorbaz in Spicer and they pulled up in their pontoon boat.  My wife made small talk with them as they were leaving later on - I don't remember because I was on my 4th mai tai at that point.  But the woman told us, "We had just pulled out of the dock at Zorbaz and I told him (her husband), 'You know, those people look like they would be fun on a boat ride.'  We came back to see if you wanted a boat ride, but you were already walking away."  I told her that it was probably a good idea that we didn't go on the boat ride as I was pretty popped from all the mai tais I had.  They were really fun to talk to and gave us some good recommendations on places to go and do and see - as well as some other bars and restaurants - in the area

They had actually come in to have dinner that night at Model Citizen, the farm-to-fork restaurant attached to Goat Ridge Brewing Co.  We had looked the place up on line before we got up there and the web site said they would be closed that evening as they were extending some days off after the Fourth of July holiday.  But Model Citizen was open the next day and we went there for a late lunch/early dinner.

Josh Reed wanted to expand his taproom and possibly put in a restaurant.  But he didn't have any experience running a restaurant, nor did his wife.  At the same time, it turned out that a couple of young chefs in the Twin Cities, Mateo Mackbee and Erin Lucas, were looking for a change of scenery, a more simpler way of making food rather than the high-end cuisine they had been involved with for years.  Once again, it was divine intervention - this time helped out by a man of the cloth from the New London area - that brought Reed and Otteson together with Mackbee and Lucas.  

Mateo Mackbee had a long resume of working as a chef for some of the finest restaurants in the Twin Cities.  Erin Lucas was a Culinary Institute of America-trained pastry chef who met Mackbee when they were both working at Mozza Mia, an upscale wood-fired pizza place in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina.  Lucas and Mackbee both liked to prepare and eat naturally-raised foods and they harbored a dream of one day owning their own small place that made and served locally grown foods to patrons, while also teaching young teens the ins-and-outs of a farm-to-fork restaurant.   A chef with Mackbee's background usually finds someone who likes what he does and backs him in a restaurant.  But that wasn't happening with him - Mackbee was a black man in the culinary world of predominantly white males.  

It was one evening when Mackbee was sitting at a bar in the Twin Cities when a man came in and sat down next to him.  It turned out that the man was a Lutheran minister - Pastor Mark Kopka from the Nordland Lutheran Church which is located between Paynesville, MN and Spicer, MN, not far from New London.  Mackbee and Kopka talked at length that evening about their hopes and dreams.  Kopka and Mackbee kept in touch with one another over the next four years and it was Pastor Kopka who became the intermediary in getting Mackbee and Lucas in touch with Josh Reed.  

Pictured at right - Josh Reed, Erin Lucas and Mateo Mackbee.  Photo courtesy West Central Tribune.

Pastor Kopka knew that Reed wanted to expand and add a space for a restaurant, but he didn't have anyone available to run it.  But he also knew that Mackbee and Lucas were looking for an opportunity.  Finally, Kopka went to the couple and told them that he had an offer - he was able to procure some land near New London that the two of them could use to raise their own organic produce, and that there was a chance to run the restaurant of their dreams in New London, as well.

Mackbee and Lucas drove out to New London to meet with Josh Reed and Christa Otteson.  The couples hit it off immediately, and after subsequent visits it was determined that Mackbee and Lucas would be the perfect fit to run the restaurant space they wanted to build.  Work on an 1800-square foot expansion of Goat Ridge began in late 2017 with Reed and Otteson financing the build-out of the restaurant space and kitchen.  In the meantime, Mackbee and Lucas began to network with a number of local farmers who could supply them with the organic produce, meats and dairy products.  Mackbee would be the main chef while Lucas would be the kitchen supervisor/coordinator and also bake bread and pies.  Once everything was in place, Mackbee and Lucas opened Model Citizen in June of 2018.  

Model Citizen is counter service only with no wait staff.  Patrons are asked to bus their dishes after they've finished.  The restaurant furniture is similar to what we saw in the small area off to the side of the tap room at Goat Ridge including a church pew that is used for banquette seating along one wall.  The chairs and tables can be easily moved to make the expanded room a dance floor if needed.  

The food counter is opposite the bar area in the expanded tap room at Goat Ridge.  They have a chalkboard above and to the right of the window that shows daily specials, as well as a list of farms they're working with - all within a 100-mile radius of New London - and what food or produce that farm provided.  Sometimes local people with backyard gardens will come in with vegetables that they just give to Model Citizen because they would go to waste because they had too many tomatoes, peppers or beans.  

They have printed menus at the counter, but many of the items are subject to availability since they source all the food at Model Citizen locally.  For example, my wife saw that they had an asparagus salad on the menu, but it was crossed off that day as they were out of asparagus.  (As we were having our lunch, a lady came in with tubs of asparagus to drop off.  "I guess the asparagus salad is back on the menu," my wife quipped.)  It's not an extensive menu at Model Citizen, but they had entrees such as a baked mac & cheese with blue cheese, muenster, and cheddar cheese, as well as a ratatouille pasta dish.   Sandwiches such as chicken parm, a roast beef sandwich, and a BLT (that I almost got considering they sourced everything locally) were available as was a grass-fed burger.  Shared plates such as a meat and cheese board, tempura battered veggies, and a sautéed kale with a garlic pesto on toasted rye bread were also available.  After 4:30 p.m., Modern Citizen fires up their wood-fired grill for beef, pork or chicken specials of the evening.  

We stepped up to the counter to order our food and Mateo Mackbee took our order directly.  My wife went with the steak salad - a heaping helping of arugula mixed with roasted red potatoes and onions all mixed in with chunks of steak, topped with fresh shaved parmesan cheese and a house dressing.  It was a huge salad and my wife couldn't help but remark how fresh the arugula tasted.  "This is definitely farm fresh," she said between bites.  "I've never gotten arugula like this in a store."  

Since everything at Modern Citizen is made from scratch, it takes awhile for some orders to make it to the table.  That was no problem as I we were enjoying the Smash Mosaic from the bar at Goat Ridge while we waited for our food to show up.  It turned out the hold-up was my fault - I ordered the jambalaya.  Mateo Mackbee's family on his mother's side hails from New Orleans and this was obviously one of the recipes he has taken from the family.  This was true jambalaya with big chunks of andouille sausage, shrimp, chicken, the "holy trinity" of onions, bell peppers and celery, with a rich and fresh tomato broth on a bed of jasmine rice.   A lot of times if I'm having jambalaya in a restaurant, I'll get some Tabasco to help give it a kick.  This jambalaya didn't need any help as it had a kick of its own.  It was simply outstanding, some of the best and most authentic jambalaya I've ever had.

My wife and I loved everything about both Goat Ridge Brewing Company and Model Citizen - The Restaurant.  The beer was very good, the food we had was excellent, the vibe of the place was laid-back and the staff and patrons were extremely friendly, and we felt that it was one of the better brew pub experiences we've ever had.  Having something like Goat Ridge and Model Citizen in a small town like New London was very unique.  We were there no less than three times because we liked the place so very much.  It's an hour drive down from St. Cloud and I may have to go back to New London at some point when I get back up that way when the weather gets better in the Spring of 2020.  

Update Spring 2021 - Mateo Mackbee and Erin Lucas gave up their lease to the kitchen and moved on to open a new New Orleans-inspired restaurant in St. Joseph, MN by the name of Krewe.  Look for an upcoming Road Tips entry on Krewe.  The owners of Goat Ridge now run the kitchen and primarily make pizzas in the kitchen.

 

County Road Ice House - Kansas City

During a stay in the downtown area of Kansas City earlier this summer, I ventured up to the Power & Light District to find a place to eat.  After eating at an Irish pub across from the Sprint Center and walking back to my hotel, I passed a place that had a sign on a pillar out front which said "Award Winning BBQ by Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Cue".   But the sign above the door said "County Road Ice House".  I went in to take a quick look around the place it turns out that it was a beer bar that just happened to have barbecue from Joe's Kansas City in the place.  After a few moments of lingering looking around the place decided that I'd come back the next night for dinner.

Joe's Kansas City Barbecue - which was formerly known as Oklahoma Joe's BBQ - is a Kansas City institution in a city that has a number of world class barbecue joints.  I first went to Oklahoma Joe's in Kansas City, KS over 9 years ago (click here to see that Road Tips entry, as well as this entry for their Olathe, KS location) and at the time I thought it may have been the best barbecue I've ever had.  I don't know if I can call it the best I've had now, but it would definitely make my Top 5 along with Q39 in Kansas City, Central BBQ in Memphis, and Bogart's and Pappy's, both in St. Louis.  The original Oklahoma Joe's was named after the brand of smokers designed and owned by Roger Davidson, a resident of Stillwater, OK.  Davidson was a regular on the barbecue contest circuit along with his brother Joe Don Davidson, and the brothers struck up a friendship with Jeff Stehney whose Slaughterhouse Five competition team won many awards for their smoked meats at contests around the Midwest and beyond.  

Stehney and the Davidson's opened the first Oklahoma Joe's BBQ in Stillwater in January of 1996.  Stehney, who lived in the Kansas City area, wanted to open second location in Kansas City.   Stehney found an old gas station at 47th and Mission on the Kansas side of the state line and converted it into a barbecue joint.  The K.C. location for Oklahoma Joe's opened in August of 1996 with Stehney and his wife, Joy, as managing partners.  

Roger Davidson sold his interest in Oklahoma Joe's smokers the following year and moved to Texas and his brother soon followed.  With no one overseeing the management of the Oklahoma Joe's in Stillwater, it closed up in 1998.  However, the Stehney's forged ahead with their barbecue joint in Kansas City.  They bought out the Davidson's interest in the Kansas City Oklahoma Joe's and it quickly became one of the top places for barbecue in the area. 

The name Oklahoma Joe was confusing to a number of people who would travel to Kansas City to try barbecue.  The Stehney's had been thinking about changing the name for a number of years before slowly incorporating the Joe's Kansas City Barbecue name into the business.  They came out with a barbecue sauce in 2011 replacing Oklahoma Joe's with Joe's Kansas City in the brand name, and the next year they introduced a French fry/fried potato seasoning with the Joe's Kansas City Barbecue name.  In the summer of 2014, the Stehney's officially changed the name to the present day moniker, but most of the locals refer to it as just "Joe's" or "Joe's KC".  

The Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City has had its ups and downs over the years since the initial residential and entertainment concept was hatched just after the turn of the millennium.  After the Sprint Center was opened in 2007, the first restaurants and bars began to open the following year.  But the recession of 2008 slowed the building and development of apartments and condos in the downtown area adjacent to the Power & Light District.  Restaurants and bars came and went, many of them forced into bankruptcy protection due to high rents and spotty business.  Because the housing downtown wasn't coming up as quickly as planned, about the only time most of the bars were doing well was when there was an event at the Sprint Center.  And those events were sometimes few and far between.

One of the national chains that came into the Power & Light District was Gordon Biersch, the California-based brew pub that had over 30 locations in high traffic areas in larger cities around the U.S.   The Gordon Biersch in the Power & Light District was one of the original tenants of the Kansas City Live block area, opening in March of 2008.   But in a cost saving move by their parent company, a number of Gordon Biersch locations started to close in 2017 and continued into early this year.  The Kansas City Gordon Biersch closed in August of 2017.  However, a back-up plan was already in place for a new restaurant to come into the spot they were giving up.

Zach Marten and Bret Springs were friends who were living in Dallas in the late-00's.  They loved to go to a little pizza place called Coal Vines and they both talked about eventually getting back to Kansas City at some point.  Marten grew up near Kansas City and went to school at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, while Springs grew up in the KC suburb of Leawood.  The two became friendly with the owner of Coal Vines and talked him into letting them open a location in the Plaza area of Kansas City.  Marten and Springs moved back to Kansas City in 2009 and opened their version of Coal Vines in 2010.  

From there, the two came up with the Westport Ale House sports bar concept, as well as The Rockhill Grille, an upscale American bistro located on the south end of downtown Kansas City, MO.  The two eventually closed Coal Vines and rebranded the restaurant as Parkway Social Kitchen.  In 2016, Marten and Springs formed Back Napkin Restaurant Group to oversee their growing concept brands.

Stehney, Marten and Springs - along with Stehney's wife and Ryan Barrows, who was Joe's KC Barbecue's director of operations for their three locations - all collaborated in coming up with the concept for the barbecue/beer joint, similar to the old ice houses that were central meeting points for people in Texas long before there was widespread electricity or freezers.  Less than a week after Gordon Biersch closed their doors, the group announced that a place called County Line Ice House would open in its place.  

It took six months of reconstruction - over $1.3 million worth of renovations - before the new concept was ready to go.   Brew tanks were removed and outside patio dining was constructed.  Smokers had to be craned and lowered into the building.  But by the time the place was ready to open in early March of last year, the group had already changed the name to County Road Ice House.   

It was about a five minute walk from my hotel to County Road Ice House at the corner of 14th and Walnut on the southeast side of the Power & Light District.  (see map)  It was around 6 p.m. that evening and the place had a few people inside.  It was a big open space with the bar area in the middle.  A number of flat screen televisions hung around the bar area and along the walls in the dining area.  An open kitchen was located just behind the bar. 

I decided to sit at the bar and I pulled up a chair.  I was greeted by a young lady who was one of the bartenders.  She gave me a food menu and a beer list to look over.   They didn't have a lot of beers to choose from - at least compared to other places in the area - and they were pretty proud of the prices of the beers they had.  Bud Light drafts were $5.00 and Deschute Fresh Squeezed IPA was $6.00.  Also on the menu were cans of Kona Big Wave Golden Ale - but they were $6.00 each, also. I swallowed hard and ordered a can of the Big Wave.  

The food menu at County Road Ice House is similar to what you'll find at a Joe's KC - but, then again, it's not.  While they did have regular Joe's items such as ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket and smoked chicken, they also had appetizers such as smoked chicken wings and smoked brisket nachos.  Burgers were also on the menu along with tacos that featured barbecue pork or beef.  Salads such as a smoked chicken Caesar and a Southwest pork carnitas salad were available, as well.  

Burnt ends are available when they have them and I asked the bartender/server if they had burnt ends that evening.  She said she did, so  I ended up getting the two meat combo of brisket and burnt ends.  Basically the same thing, I know, but I really like the brisket and burnt ends that I've had in my earlier visits to other Joe's locations around Kansas City.  But it is a $2.50 upcharge for the burnt ends in the combo.

And these didn't disappoint, either.  The burnt ends were large chunks of point cut brisket that were tender and delicious.  The slices of flat brisket were equally tender and flavorful.  The brisket and burnt ends were served with toasted bread and they had both Joe's regular sweet sauce and one of my all-time favorite Kansas City area barbecue sauces - Night of the Living Cow, a sweet and spicy sauce that just pops in your mouth.  

Speaking of popping in your mouth, for my side I got the spicy cole slaw.  I took that option over Joe's classic barbecue beans and Joe's spicy mac & cheese - both of which are very good.  I've grown found of Joe's spicy cole slaw over the years and this was as good as what I've had at the other Joe's locations.  

Now, I have to say that the bartender who was waiting on me was completely inattentive nearly the whole time I was there.  It did take awhile for her to acknowledge I was seated at the bar.  And she didn't get the universal cue that when a person seated at the bar needs another beer or drink that they place the empty in the crease closest to the bartender.  I had to literally hail her on three different occasions to either order food or order beer.  It was pretty bad service if you ask me.  

I'm mixed on my visit to County Road Ice House.  It was nice that they had Joe's Kansas City Barbecue available in the place, but their beer selection was pretty slim.  And everything was pretty expensive.  My bill with a nominal tip for the bartender who didn't want to wait on me while I was there came to over $40 bucks.  Three Kona Big Wave Golden Ales at $6 each ended up more than my food tally.  I suppose someone has to pay for the expensive renovation and the high rents found in the Power & Light District.  But I was happy with the brisket and burnt ends that I had and it's tough to beat the spicy cole slaw that Joe's KC has.  My wallet took a beating for what I got at County Road Ice House.  It was a nice place with good food, but be prepared to pay premium prices when you're there.    

The Port on Lake Panorama - Panora, IA

During our late summer vacation in West Central Iowa, we were staying at my sister's fiancé's lake home on Lake Panorama about an hour's drive west of Des Moines.  Being the adventurous people that we can be, my wife and took off one cloudy and cool day and drove around to the east side of the lake to see what was over there.  We found a large hotel and on one end of the property we saw a sign that said "Tiki Bar".  We parked our car and went down a walkway to what was a closed up outdoor tiki bar and patio.  I looked up to a level above the deck and saw what looked like a bar.  We walked up to the door and it was locked.  However, a gentleman wearing a chef's jacket popped off one of the stools at the bar and came over to open the door for us.  I explained that we had seen the "Tiki Bar" sign and we wanted to check it out.  The chef - a boisterous man with a commanding voice - apologized and said that the Tiki Bar wasn't open that day due to the weather.  "But we're open in here," he said.  When we found out that it was a combination hotel/restaurant/bar called The Port at Lake Panorama, we instantly put this place in line for a meal during our stay in the area.  

The convivial gentleman in the chef's coat was Mike McGuigan, the head chef and proprietor of the restaurant at the Port at Lake Panorama.  He was enjoying a glass of wine at 4 p.m. in the afternoon.  As my wife and I sat at the bar and ordered a couple drinks - a mai tai for me and a vodka cranberry for my wife - I said in a half joking manner, "I like restaurants where the chef has a wine before he goes in and cooks."

"Oh, no," Chef Mike replied quickly.  "I'm off tonight.  But we have a very talented sous chef manning the kitchen tonight and our grill chef is one of the best around."  We were the only ones in the bar and Chef Mike was barking out orders and directing his crew in the bar area.  The girl behind the bar said, "I can vouch for the grill chef.  He's my brother!"  Chef Mike was demanding, yet he wasn't doing it in a mean or forceful tone.  Once he got his troops in line, he sat down at the far end of the square bar and we asked him his story.  

Mike McGuigan grew up in Philadelphia, but his first real kitchen job was at a high end restaurant at a posh hotel in New York City.  McGuigan said in an interview one time that he thought he was the smartest guy in the kitchen when it turned out that he really didn't know what the hell he was doing.  But the head chef at the restaurant saw some potential in him and the company that owned the restaurant ended up sending him off for a two-year course at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.  In exchange for a free ride at the C.I.A., McGuigan signed a five-year personal services contract with the company that sent him to school.

After graduation, McGuigan was sent to a number of places where he would work for six months before going on to another place.  One of the places he was sent to was Des Moines to work in the venerable Johnny and Kay's Hyatt House restaurant, one of the top restaurants in the area during its day.  It was in Des Moines at Johnny and Kay's where McGuigan met his future wife, Peggy.  The two married before he was transferred back to New York for a two-year stint.  When Peggy became pregnant with their first child in the late 70's, she gave McGuigan an ultimatum - she was moving back to Iowa with or without him.  McGuigan remembered the old adage - Happy wife, happy life - and he moved back to Des Moines to start a family.  He was hired as a chef at the old Savery Hotel in 1979 and remained there until the hotel was shut down due to the epic Flood of 1993. 

McGuigan bounced around at a handful of restaurants in the Des Moines area in the subsequent years - places such as 801  Chophouse, Guido's and Fratello's to name a few -  before opening his own place, The Radish in the Des Moines suburb of Grimes in 2007.  It was located in an old house and was a destination restaurant for many people from the Des Moines and Ames areas in Central Iowa.  

When the dam on the Raccoon River was finally finished in 1969, it created Lake Panorama, a private association of land owners who began purchasing lots around what would be the lake's perimeter starting in 1967.  By April of 1971, the lake was completely full and the gates were raised for the first time.  A year later, a group of investors who called themselves Lake Enterprises, Inc. (LEI) purchased a five acre tract of land on the east side of the lake with the plan to put in a restaurant/lounge with the possibility of building a hotel at some point in time.   

The restaurant and lounge was eventually built in 1975 and opened in 1976.  However, the draw for the restaurant wasn't that good and in the first year of business it lost $200,000.  By the time investors started to pull out of the project, the losses amounted to about $500,000.  The investment group declared bankruptcy and became insolvent.  However, one of the early investors, David Garst - who would eventually become president of his family seed company, Garst Seed - took over the assets of the property.  He owned The Port until 1982 when he sold it to Paul and Linda Wendl who owned a small restaurant in Panora.

The hotel was eventually built and the Wendl's ran the operation until selling it in 1994.  A series of owners had stakes in the property before Menadue Development, an Ankeny, IA property management company owned by local doctor David Menadue, bought the property in 2004.  Menadue also owns a hotel and restaurant in Ankeny.  (The restaurant - Ankeny Diner - was profiled here on Road Tips nearly two years ago to the day.)  

The Port went through a series of starts and stops with a series of different chefs and manager before Menadue Development went to Mike McGuigan in 2017 to see if he would be interested in running the place.  Wanting a challenge of helping turn around a restaurant, McGuigan jumped at the chance and he became the chef/manager of both the restaurant and the hotel - also known as the Lakeside Inn - in February of 2018.  

In mid-October of last year on a Sunday, a fire that originated in a dumpster outside the kitchen area raced through the kitchen and caused several thousand dollars in damage.  The restaurant was closed and the fire was discovered by an employee who just happened to stop by the restaurant that day.  The kitchen was destroyed and the dining room was extensively damaged, although there was little to no damage to the attached hotel.  The fire was a double-edge sword for McGuigan - he knew the place would be closed for repairs for a long time, but it also gave him the opportunity to put in the kitchen and reconfigure the lay-out of the restaurant, something that McGuigan felt The Port needed.  

At first, they thought they would have to just demolish the restaurant and start over.  However, it soon became evident that they could use the shell of the structure and work with that.  The bar was moved out away from the wall and made into a four-sided configuration.  What used to be two doors that went out to the patio deck became just one door with a window where the second door once was.  The kitchen got all new appliances and equipment - including a new ventilation system that improved temperature conditions in the kitchen where it could get well over 100 degrees (F) at times.  Bathrooms were updated and all new electrical wiring replaced the original 70's era "out-of-code" wiring.  New fixtures and lighting in the dining room rounded out the extensive updates that totaled an estimated $1.3 to $1.5 million dollars.  In June of this year - a little over two months before we were there - the Port at Lake Panorama reopened.  

After our initial visit, we went back over to the east side of the lake for dinner a couple three evenings later.  The Port at Lake Panorama is located just off of Iowa Highway 4, about a mile north of Panora.  (see map) The parking lot was much more full when were there this time and the Tiki Bar was definitely open as it was a much nicer evening than on our first visit.  

The view from the deck at The Port looked west on the main cove at Lake Panorama.  The main marina on the lake - Coulter's Panorama Marine - sits off to the side of the cove from The Port.  The Lake Panorama lighthouse sits on a point out from the marina in front of the view of the cove from The Port.  It was a beautiful late summer evening when we were there.   

The Tiki Bar was open that evening, but being that it was the middle of the week there weren't a lot of people around it.  On some weekends in the summer months, they'll have a live band performing on a small stage in a courtyard in front of the lake.  We went back there on a Friday night with my sister and her fiancé to watch a local band that was playing.  They had a much larger crowd that evening than when we were there for dinner. 

We went inside to go to the restaurant and hung out around the bar for a bit while they figured out where they were going to seat us.  We had no idea that they had just reopened about 8 weeks prior from a devastating fire.  Everything in the restaurant with the open bar area was clean and pristine. 

The young hostess led us to a table in an area off the main dining area near the bar.  It was a long and narrow part of the restaurant with a nice view of the lake.  After dropping off a couple of menus for us, we ordered some pre-dinner drinks from our waitress, a young lady by the name of Tasheena.  I got a Big Grove Easy Eddy IPA while my wife got a glass of the house pinot grigio.  

It was a concise menu at The Port with a mixture of steaks, seafood, pork chops, and chicken dishes available.  I was sort of surprised to see the number of Italian dishes on the menu including chicken parmesan, sun-dried tomato pasta, and a broccoli alfredo with a choice of chicken, shrimp or salmon added for an upcharge.  Appetizers included blackened sautéed mushrooms, calamari, and breaded provolone cheese sticks that are deep fried and served with a house-made marinara.  

We both got salads to start out.  I got the blue cheese vinaigrette that turned out to be somewhat mystifying to me.  Instead of chunks of blue cheese, the salad featured fine crumbles of blue cheese mixed in with the dressing and the greens.  And there weren't many of the small crumbles of blue cheese on the salad.  I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and ate it.  It was pretty underwhelming.  

My wife was in the mood for something along the lines of fettuccine, but she was also interested in the chicken piccata.  Turns out that she could have both by ordering the chicken piccata.   The veggie of the day was Brussels sprouts and she got that as a side.  There were a lot of capers on her chicken piccata, but she didn't seem to mind that.  She thought her choice was a solid one and was very happy with what she ordered.   

I thought seriously about getting the chicken parm, but I ended up going the pasta route and I got the cavatelli.  It was a pasta bake with cavatelli pasta, Graziano Brothers sausage with The Port's housemade marinara.  It was mixed with ricotta cheese, then topped with a liberal helping of mozzarella and baked in the oven until the cheese caramelized.  It looked good and I was eager to dig in.  However, the first bite yielded a very salty taste.  In fact, each bite after that was pretty salty in taste.  I don't eat a lot of salt and this was very pronounced in the flavor.  It was sort of disappointing as I don't know if it was the sausage (it probably wasn't - I've had Graziano Brothers sausage before) or in the cheese (probably not either).  I determined that it was probably added in the kitchen as it was a very forward salty flavor.  

What was also interesting to me was that my pasta bake came with a choice of a side - either the Brussels sprouts veggie of the day, or a choice of potato.  I didn't want a potato dish to come with my pasta.  I thought it was rather strange that it was offered to me by our waitress.  Brussels sprouts would have been more reasonable, but I didn't want that either.  I just told our server to just bring me the pasta and forget about the sides.  

When we told my sister and her fiancé that we went to The Port for dinner, they were impressed that we went there.  However, when I told my sister's fiancé that my cavatelli was too salty, he said, "Did you say something to Mike?  He always wants to know if you're not happy."  I didn't and I'm wasn't going to make a big deal of it.  It was somewhat disappointing to me, but I'm sure others who use salt liberally in their meals would probably like it. 

One other thing that was rather mystifying to my wife and me - we were never offered a choice of dessert after our meal.  We saw other people get offered and ordering dessert by other waitresses, but our waitress didn't give us the option.  While we weren't certain we would have ordered dessert, we just thought it was sort of strange that it was never offered.  

While my wife thought her chicken piccata on a bed of fettuccine alfredo was good - even with a load of capers on it - I was sort of disappointed with my cavatelli.  It was just too salty for my taste buds.  But you can't go wrong with the updated facilities after the fire The Port went through last year.  It was a nice open space and was very nice inside.  It was tough to beat the view of Lake Panorama - especially at sunset - from the inside of the restaurant or out on the patio overlooking their Tiki hut.  The service we experienced was sort of choppy - we didn't get offered dessert, even though we weren't certain we would have ordered dessert IF offered.  Given the background of the chef/manager, I guess I expected something a little better than what we experienced at The Port at Lake Panorama.  

The Oaks at Eagle Creek - Willmar, MN

During our vacation to the Glacier Lakes region in west central Minnesota earlier this summer, we were sort of struck with the lack of places to eat in the immediate area around Spicer and New London - especially the lack of good ol' upper Midwest supper club-style places.  We actually checked out some places in nearby Willmar, but found that the choices were pretty slim, as well.  We met a young couple at a brew pub in New London one evening and we were lamenting the restaurant choices in the immediate area.  The couple at the brew pub were from Willmar and the guy was telling me about a restaurant at Eagle Creek, a combination public and member-driven golf club on the north side of that city.  He made a good case for the place, and on our last night in the area we ended up going to The Oaks at Eagle Creek for dinner.

Eagle Creek Golf Course is a very mature course located between Swan Lake and Willmar Lake.  It first opened in 1931 - 88 years ago - and the fairways are nestled between large oak trees that line the course.  Like many golf courses of its kind in the Midwest, it features a nice place to eat that is opened to the public.  The Oaks at Eagle Creek has had a number of owners over the years but it was falling on hard times in the mid-00's.  That's when the board at Eagle Creek sought out Dave Baker to see if he was interested in taking over the restaurant.  

Dave Baker, along with his wife, Mary, had been involved in restaurants and hotels in the Willmar/Spicer area since they moved there in 1994 when Dave took a job at a hotel/conference center in the area.  The Baker's owned Melvin's on the Lake in Spicer, a long time supper club in the area, from 2003 until 2011, before selling the business to Zorbaz, a small chain of pizza and Mexican food places that are situated on lakes throughout northern and western Minnesota.   (Click here to read the recent Road Tips entry on Zorbaz-Green Lake.)   They also owned a Super 8 hotel in Willmar, as well as a commercial building in the area.  The Baker's also own the popular Green Lake Cruises which feature public and private cruises on Green Lake in Spicer.  

Pictured right - Mary and Dave Baker.  Photo courtesy Home Town Source.  

The Baker's were approached in 2007 by shareholder members at Eagle Creek to see if they would be interested in taking over the restaurant.  They agreed and took over ownership of The Oaks in 2008.  A few years later, Bakers did an extensive remodel to the place to take some of the tiredness out of the restaurant.  

(In addition to owning restaurants, a hotel and a commercial building - as well as promoting civic interests in the Willmar/Spicer area - Dave Baker is also a state representative in the Minnesota House of Representatives.  First elected in 2014, Baker is on his third term at the Minnesota statehouse and focuses on helping small businesses grow and on the growing opioid crisis which tragically took the life of his son in 2011 at the age of 25.)  

The weather during our stay in Spicer had been sort of back and forth between rainy days and nice warm sunny ones.  It was the latter when we drove the 10 miles down to Willmar to go to The Oaks for dinner.  (See map)  We pulled into the parking lot around 7 p.m. and it was packed from the league golfers who were on the course that evening, but we were able to find a spot a bit further out away from the clubhouse/restaurant.   We walked up the steps to the second story entrance just off a patio that looked out onto the tree-lined golf course.  

Inside The Oaks, we found a nice dining room that featured a number of linen-topped tables with windows that looked out onto the patio and the golf course beyond.   The Oaks was hosting a function in the dining room that evening, so we were going to have to sit in the bar area of the place.  

The lively bar area was pretty full with golfers who had finished their rounds and locals who were in having dinner that evening.  We ended up sitting at a table with a window view of one of the tee boxes off to the side of the restaurant/club house.  We were given menus when we sat down and a young lady came over a little later to take our drink orders.  My wife started out with a Tito's and cranberry juice - light on the cranberry juice, please - and I got a Surly Furious India pale ale.  

The menu at The Oaks was about as close to a supper club experience we had during our trip to the area.  They had steaks, seafood and fresh water fish, pasta dishes, burgers and sandwiches.  Flat breads, tacos and a number of appetizers were also available.  We placed our choices for food that evening and then we were invited to visit The Oaks salad bar to start out.

They had a nice little salad bar in the main dining room at The Oaks.  A hot buffet table was nearby, but that was closed up after the end of the function they had in the dining room that evening.  Fresh greens and vegetables were part of the salad bar and a caldron of soup was off to the side.  We loaded up on the salad bar, especially the wonderful pickled red beets they had.  I never liked pickled beets until my wife fed me some of the ones her late grandmother would can years ago.  The combination of the sweetness and the earthiness of the beets at The Oaks were heavenly and reminded me so much of my wife's grandmother's pickled beets.  

The other thing that stood out at the salad bar at The Oaks were their house-made flower pot dinner rolls.  Light, flaky and fluffy, these rolls were simply outstanding in taste and quality.  It was all I could do from going back to pilfer a couple more rolls between the time we finished our salads and before our main meals were brought out.  

For dinner that night, my wife went with the Canadian walleye.  It featured a large walleye fillet that was available battered and fried, pan-fried or broiled.  My wife went with the pan-seared option.  It came with a side of fresh green beans and a quinoa wild rice with a house-made tartar sauce to go with the fish.  The walleye was light and easy to cut with a fork with flakes of the fish coming off easily.  My wife loaded it up with lemon juice and she said it didn't have much - at all - of a fishy taste to it.  She thought it was wonderful.  

I got the ribeye and I asked for it medium-rare, but it was more medium-plus.  I got sautéed mushrooms to go along with the steak and green beans also came with it.  For a $2.00 up-charge, I was able to get some of their beer-battered onion rings instead of a potato choice.  Actually, the ribeye looked more like a slice of grilled prime rib - which, of course, the ribeye comes from.  Actually, not all of the cut was overcooked - there were some parts of the ribeye where the meat did look more like a medium-rare temperature, but other parts were overcooked.  It was like the flame was hotter on one end of the cut than the other.  I wasn't going to complain or send it back.  It was actually fine enough for what it was.  

The onion rings were pretty good, as well.  They had a light and fluffy batter that had a nice beer-battered taste.  I probably wouldn't have eaten much - if any - of a potato choice, so the onion rings were a much better option for me.  (I was sort of surprised that they didn't have the official side of the State of Minnesota - tater tots.  I would have gotten those if they were available.)

We didn't have a many options for dining during our trip to the Glacier Lakes area for our vacation this summer - especially looking for an authentic supper club in the area.  But The Oaks at Eagle Creek came about the closest to it for us on this trip.   Situated at a venerable country club on the outskirts of Willmar, The Oaks gave us probably our best meal while we were in the area.  Even though my steak was overcooked, it was still good enough to eat.  My wife was more than happy with her choice of the pan-seared Canadian walleye that evening.  The dining area in the lively bar was not as nice as the main dining area in the back, but it was still a nice place to dine.  We thought the service that was tag-teamed between two or three young ladies was fine and efficient.  I don't know if there's any places in the Willmar area that are any better.  But if there is, it would be tough to beat the meal we had at The Oaks.  

OB's Pub & Grill - Manhattan Beach, CA

During a business trip to Southern California earlier this year, I spent a night near Los Angeles International Airport as I had an early flight back to Iowa the next morning.  I have a friend who moved from Atlanta to Manhattan Beach, located just south of LAX, a few years back and I got hold of him in advance of my trip to let him know that I'd be in the area and wondered if he wanted to get together that particular evening.  He was excited to hear that I was coming and he quickly cleared his calendar so we could get together.  After picking me up at the hotel, he took me down to Manhattan Beach.  After a little driving tour of the area - I had never really spent any time in Manhattan Beach or Hermosa Beach during previous trips to SoCal, and after the 30 minute tour I'm sorry that I hadn't - we ended up in downtown Manhattan Beach so he could take me to one of his favorite little haunts, a little sports bar/pub called OB's Pub & Grill.  

My buddy explained to me that he lived a few blocks away and he has spent many weekends in the place watching games on one of the many flatscreen televisions found throughout the place.  OB's has been around since 1985 and about 7 years ago owner Steve Delk gave the place an updated cosmetic change.  My friend says that he loves to come up to OB's with his computer, sit in one of the booths with the open window facing the street and do some work over lunch and a couple of beers.

We parked just down the street from OB's along Highland Ave. just south of Rosecrans Ave., the two main streets into Manhattan Beach.  (see map)  The front of OB's had wood siding and large paned windows that were open on a beautiful summer's evening not far from the Pacific Ocean.  Inside the place, I found a cozy little joint with some booths and high-top tables.  Capacity in OB's probably wasn't more than 60 or 70 people giving it a nice little homey feeling.  I immediately told my buddy how I could see why he liked coming to the place.  

The bar wasn't all that big at OB's, but they had a number of California craft beers on tap and a well-stocked back bar.  We took a seat near the bar at a bench seat with a fixed table.  It was sort of in the corner by the bar and we were able to hang out and catch up on things in our lives.  The young lady behind the bar came out with a couple of food menus and a beer list that featured a number of domestics and imports alike.  My buddy got a pint of the 805 blonde ale from the Firestone Walker brewery up in Paso Robles.  I asked what they had for India pale ales's on tap and the bartender said she had a San Luis Obispo Brewery IPA.  I took one of those.  Actually, it was a very good beer and I had a couple that evening.  However, when I asked for a third one, the keg blew and she didn't have a replacement.  I ended up getting a Space Dust IPA from the Elysian Brewing Company out of Seattle for my last beer which was good, but not as good as the SLO Brewery IPA.  

The menu at OB's was pretty extensive for a place that size and featured a number of interesting appetizers such as jalapeño bottle caps which were battered and deep-fried jalapeño slices, calamari, cream-cheese filled jalapeños that they called Armadillo eggs, and fiery chicken fingers that came drenched in Louisiana Hot Sauce.  My buddy said that his son especially loved the deep-friend mac & cheese bites.  "He'll just order them instead of a sandwich or a meal," he said.  

I think our bartender/server came over to the table a minimum of four times asking if we were ready to order.  But we were catching up on things and really didn't look at the menu.  Finally, we decided after ordering our second beers from her that we probably needed to nose into the menu.  My buddy said that he's had a number of different things at OB's over the years and he assured me that while it wasn't fine dining, it was well-above average pub food.  

OB's offered over a dozen different types of sandwiches, a dozen variations of burgers, and main entree items such as a 12 ounce New York strip steak, bangers and mash, fish and chips, and their own meatloaf that had me sort of intrigued.  Soups and salads for the lighter fare were also available on the menu at OB's.  

I thought about getting one of their burgers - each of their burgers are 1/2 pound fresh ground chuck.  The Andrew burger featured grilled pastrami with Swiss cheese on top of the burger patty.  The mushroom/Swiss burger also caught my eye.  But their sandwiches also sounded pretty good.  The tuna melt topped with cheddar jack cheese on sourdough bread was tempting, as was the grilled pastrami sandwich with Swiss cheese on rye bread.  There were a lot of choices on the menu at OB's.  

The funny thing was that what my buddy ordered was exactly what I decided to order - the Julie's sandwich with tater tots as a side.  When he said what he wanted along with the tater tots, she came to me and I said, "Pffft...  Yeah, me too!"  My friend and I sort of chuckled over that.  "It's my favorite sandwich on the menu," he said.  

And it was very good.  Julie's Sandwich consisted of grilled roast beef slices with melted cheddar jack cheese served on toasted sour dough bread.  A cup of au jus came on the side with the sandwich.  The beef was tender and rich in flavor.  The cheese gave it a nice contrasting taste quality and it was tough to beat the flavor of the toasted fresh sourdough bread.  "I'm sort of surprised you didn't get a burger," my buddy said.  Me, too, I told him.  But I was far from unhappy with my selection of the Julie's Sandwich.  The tots with loads of Cholula hot sauce were a nice complement to the sandwich.  

My buddy probably could have taken me to any number of places in Manhattan Beach the one evening we were together.   He pointed out a number of nice restaurants up and down Highland Ave., but he knows that I especially like places like OB's Pub & Grill.  I was more than happy with the food, beer selection, the service, and the overall friendly and cozy ambience at OB's.  The Julie's Sandwich consisting of grilled roast beef and cheese on toasted sour dough was a very good pub-style sandwich.  The tater tots were also a nice little surprise for a side offering.  And they had a good selection of craft beers on tap, even though I literally drank them out of the beer that I really enjoyed.  I'm sort of jealous that my buddy can walk there to hang out for beers, watch games and to have some pretty good food for a little pub like OB's.  It's a great little neighborhood place.  

Toppling Goliath - Decorah, IA

Earlier this year when my wife and I spent a long weekend up in the Decorah area of NE Iowa, one of the places we wanted to go to was the Toppling Goliath brewery.  Toppling Goliath has become a destination for beer aficionados, not only from around the Midwest, but across the nation, as well.  I especially like their Pseudo Sue American pale ale that has a hint of a citrus flavor to cut into the bitterness of the hops they use in the beer.  One afternoon while we were in Decorah, we headed out to Toppling Goliath to check the place out and maybe have something to eat.  

You might say that Clark Lewey has been working around beer for most of his adult life.  Not actually brewing it, but working for his family's company that made items such as beer coolers with taps, movable beverage carts, and beverage kiosks that you would see on concourses of arenas and stadiums across the nation.  He traveled the nation to visit breweries and venues selling his company's products.  Lewey grew fond of some of the craft beers he was encountering in his travels, but living in NE Iowa proved to be a wasteland for finding upscale brews.  He would travel over an hour's drive one-way to Rochester, MN or La Crosse, WI to find some of the craft beers he craved.  But that got tiresome after a few trips.

One Christmas about 11 or 12 years ago, Lewey's wife, Barbara, got him a home-brew kit figuring it would be cheaper to brew his own beer rather than face long drives to pick up the beers that he really loved.  Lewey liked the hoppy, forward tasting beers and he started to brew some pale ale beers.  While his family didn't really like the beers he was brewing, he was happy enough with them to convince his wife that maybe he needed to open a brew pub in Decorah.  

Lewey started brewing his beers in a backroom with a half-barrel system and had to come up with a name.  He had founded a consulting firm a few years before calling it TG Inc. that was designed to help small start-up businesses with accumulating the proper applications for grants, as well as helping with business plans.  The "TG" stood for "Toppling Goliath" which was a metaphor for the little guys having to deal with big business.  However, he never really got the consulting business off the ground, but he did file the proper paperwork for trademarking the Toppling Goliath name for his business.  When he started his small brewery, he filed a trademark amendment to change the business from a consultancy to a brewery.  

One of Lewey's first beers was the Dorothy's New World Lager, a California common lager that was named after his grandmother who Lewey said introduced he and his brothers to beers at a very early age.  His grandmother died shortly before he started his small brewery, and naming the common after her was a tribute to her memory.  But it was probably Lewey's hoppy American pale ale - the Pseudo Sue - that garnered the attention of beer lovers in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  

Pictured right - Barbara and Clark Lewey.  Photo courtesy of Travel Iowa.  

Lewey connections to breweries both big and small through the family business steered him in the right direction for getting the word out on his beers.  He initially self-distributed his beers and focused on college towns such as Iowa City and Madison, WI.  (I remember having a Pseudo Sue with a friend at a bar/restaurant in Iowa City about 8 years ago and thinking that it was a fine beer.)  As demand for his beers grew, he had to find another spot in the area for a larger brewing system.  

Just outside of the downtown area, Lewey found a building that had been everything from a pizza place to a record store to a flower shop.  He put in a larger 10-barrel system and was soon approached by a young guy by the name of Mike Saboe who said he wanted a job at the brewery.  Saboe had dabbled with brewing beers and he soon convinced Clark Lewey to take a chance on him.  It worked out pretty well as Saboe helped concoct many of the signature beers Toppling Goliath has become famous for both nationally and internationally.  

The 10-barrel system soon became too small for the demand for Toppling Goliath beers, and Lewey had to find another place locally that could house a bigger system.  They found a building outside of Decorah and put in a four-vessel, 30 barrel system.  They continued to self-distribute to places in Eastern Iowa, Southeastern Minnesota and Central and Western Wisconsin, and by 2015 they were having trouble keeping up with the masses who loved the beers.  It was then that Lewey contracted with Brew Hub, a Florida-based contract brewery headed by a former Anheuser-Busch executive, to brew many of the Toppling Goliath beers and to distribute them in other states.  (Mike Saboe temporarily left Toppling Goliath over the decision to contract out to Brew Hub, but he was back in the fold with Lewey months later.)  That contract ended in 2017, and in the meantime Lewey contracted with Wisconsin Brewing Company in Verona, WI to brew many of their beers for distribution in Wisconsin and other upper Midwestern states.

But Lewey was looking at doing something even bigger in Decorah.  In 2016, Toppling Goliath broke ground for a brewing facility/tap room/brew pub just east of Decorah that would boost production ten-fold.  In February of 2018, the new Toppling Goliath facility opened allowing for the increased production and distribution of their beers which are now found in 20 states.  The building is 52,000 square feet that sits on 15 acres of land.  Special releases of Toppling Goliath beers such as Kentucky Brunch and SR-71 will attract hundreds, if not thousands of beer aficionados to Decorah.  And earlier this year, Toppling Goliath announced that they were going to get into distilling their own whiskey at some point.  

After getting into Decorah and checking into our hotel, we took off to the eastern outskirts of town just past the Decorah Municipal Airport to Toppling Goliath's location.  (see map)  It was a massive structure with a grey and red fabricated metal facade with a stone wall accent.    The large parking lot was full on that Saturday afternoon and we were forced to park near the loading dock on the side of the building.  We saw cars with license plates from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Kentucky and North Carolina in the lot that day.  A number of Iowa plates from other counties were also parked in the lot.  

Entering Toppling Goliath we found a massive open area with a number of tables throughout the tap room.  A large stone hearth with matching gas burning fireplaces enclosed in glass was the centerpiece of the room.  Three large deer heads hung from the stone hearth.  The place was very bright from large windows letting in natural light from the outside.  Even for a cloudy day, it was rather bright in the place.  

The brewing facility was located in the back of the large building.  Windows on the second floor offered glimpses into the brewing area.  The 100 barrel brewing system at Toppling Goliath is a long way from the half-barrel system Clark Lewey started out with just 10 years ago.  

The main bar area is to your right as you walk into the tap room.  They featured 25 beers on tap the day we were there.  Nearly every seat at the main bar was taken at around 1:30 when we got there.   On the opposite end of the tap room from the bar area was a large gift shop that we had to stop at to grab some stickers - a tradition we started a few years ago to mark our visits to various brew pubs.  

Upstairs was a second bar area that is used primarily for overflow and functions.  In addition to tables and chairs, there were couches for people to relax in while enjoying a beer.   

We took a seat in a booth along the wall that separates the tap room from the brewing facility.  A young lady brought over a beer list along with a food menu.  Of course, I had to get the Pseudo Sue APA while my wife got another one of Toppling Goliath's more popular beers, the Golden Nugget IPA after trying that as well as the Pompei IPA and another pale ale they had on rotation.  

The food menu at Toppling Goliath isn't all that extensive.  They have pizzas, sandwiches, a burger, tacos, salads and appetizers available in the tap room.  We weren't really all that hungry, but my wife - who needs to have three square meals a day or she gets "hangry" - said she really needed to have something.  We thought we'd share a couple of things.  

What she picked wasn't what I really wanted, but I went along with her on that.  She got the roasted tomato and rosemary hummus plate that was served with carrot and celery sticks, sliced cucumbers, and sliced bread.  I tried a bit of the hummus on a celery stick and, quite actually, it was pretty good.  It had a bit of a spicy bite on the backside of the taste.  My wife was very happy with the rather healthy food choice she made.  

I thought about getting either the burger or the pork bahn mi sandwich that featured sliced slow-roasted pork with a daikon radish slaw and a Thai chili aioli on a hoagie bun.  But that was all trumped when I saw that they had blackened mahi mahi tacos on the menu.  Three small flour tacos with chunks of grilled and blackened mahi mahi along with cilantro and a chipotle mayo sauce were on the plate along with a side of a ginger cabbage slaw.  (Cojita cheese is available with the mahi mahi tacos at Toppling Goliath, but I don't care for cheese on fish tacos.)  The tacos were pretty good.  The mahi mahi had a nice spicy taste quality and the chipotle mayo had both a cooling and spicy flavor.  I did add some of the very good ginger cabbage slaw to the two tacos I had.  I shared the third taco with my wife and she was impressed with the flavor of the taco.  

You have to say that it's rather remarkable that in less than 10 years Toppling Goliath went from a half-barrel nano-brewery in a small backroom to a large 100 barrel facility cranking out over 20,000 barrels of their variety of world renown beers in the small town of Decorah, IA.  Their brew pub/tap room/brewing facility on the east side of town is a must stop if you make it to Decorah at some point.  It was a pretty impressive facility that was lively, yet comfortable.  The service we had - which turned into a tag team effort between about three or four young men and women - was fine.  And the food we had was fine for a brew pub.  But the beer at Toppling Goliath is the draw and they have some very good ones to choose from.  This will definitely be a destination drive for us in the future.  

And while you're in Decorah...

...and you're looking to try more brew pubs in the area, here are a couple more.

Pulpit Rock Brewing Company -

Pulpit Rock - named after a geological glacier formation outside of Decorah - was founded by Pete Espinosa, Kristi Wolf, Jon Tollefson, and Mark Bjerke.  All four are actually family members - Espinosa is married to Kristi (Tollefson) Wolf's twin sister, Kari, and is Jon Tollefson's brother-in-law.  Bjerke is married to the Tollefson's sister, Jodi.  The group was able to wrangle away a couple of Toppling Goliath's assistant brewers - Robert Slack and Justin Teff - to be the co-head brewers at Pulpit Rock.  

Pete and Kari Espinosa had bought the building at the corner of 5th St. and College Ave. that used to house a car repair facility on one side and a laundromat on the other.  Wondering what to do with the space, they brainstormed with other family members and came up with a nano-brewery that would have limited - as in only in Decorah - distribution.  They opened Pulpit Rock Brewing Company in August of 2015.  

In one of the former garage bays is the bar area.  It's not very big, but there is a front room that was in use for a graduation party the day we were there. My wife and I grabbed a couple of their delicious IPA's - a Foggy Notion for her and a Saftig for me.  The Saftig was more forward in the hoppy taste than the Foggy Notion.  

There's a couple of outside beer patios that feature tables, chairs and picnic tables.  The weather that day had been iffy, sort of all over the place in terms of sun, no sun, cool, warm, rainy, not rainy.  When we were there it was warm enough for us to enjoy our beers on the side patio by the bar.  Pulpit Rock is not a large place, but we did hear earlier this summer that they had purchased the building just to the north of their brewery that used to house a furniture store for an expansion that is planned for next year.

PIVO Brewery - Calmar, IA

I have to give credit to my wife on this one.  She's actually becoming a pretty good brew pub hunter on our trips and she was reading about a place in the small town of Calmar, IA, about 10 miles south of Decorah, called PIVO Brewery.   On a cold and somewhat rainy Sunday, we made our way down to Calmar and found Pivo just on the outskirts of the north side of town.  (see map)

Craig Neuzil was a native of the Calmar/Spillville area of NE Iowa and he traveled the world as a communications officer for the United States Air Force.  He and his wife, Sara - who also grew up in the area - lived in a lot of different places during his 20+ year career for the military.  One place where they lived was Colorado Springs where Craig worked at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).  During his off-hours, Craig's hobby was home-brewing.  And when he wasn't doing that, he was working at any one of three brew pubs in the greater Colorado Springs area learning the trade from the ground up.  As long ago as 2005, Craig and Sara began to plan for life after the Air Force and Craig thought that his home area of Decorah/Calmar needed a brew pub.  This was four years before Toppling Goliath opened up and a full 10 years before Pulpit Rock opened their doors!  

When Craig retired in 2015, the couple moved back to Calmar to start their second life.  Sara was already an artist whose specialties included decorating eggs - goose eggs, ostrich eggs, chicken eggs, etc. - and the art of Azulejo, which are blue and white ceramic tiles that she learned about when the Neuzil's were stationed in Portugal.  The couple decided to pair their passion for art and craft beers by building a two-story structure in Calmar that would house both an art studio/gallery and a brewery.  

Pictured right - Sara and Craig Neuzil.  Photo courtesy The Decorah Newspapers.  

The Neuzil's decorated the building with a number of reclaimed and repurposed window frames, doors, and barn boards.  Craig installed a 15 barrel steam heated system in the brewery, while Sara put her studio on the second floor.  And to help with the brewing process, Craig recruited Richard Mar, an assistant brewer at one of the Colorado Springs microbreweries that he befriended during his days in the Air Force, to come to Iowa to be the head brewer.  Mar's wife, Laresche, was hired to be the tap room manager.

In a nod to their Czech heritage, Craig called the brewery Pivo - which means beer in Czech.  Sara's grandmother used to call her "Blepta", which meant "chatterbox" in Czech, when Sara was a little girl.  She decided that would be the name of her art studio/gallery.  The couple opened the building on November 22, 2017.  

At first, the Neuzil's focused on the beer, but in early 2018 they added a small menu of food that included sandwiches, charcuterie plates, cheese curds, and chips and salsa.  And to keep the locals happy in case they didn't quite care much for the beers that Neuzil and Mar were brewing, PIVO also features Grain Belt, Hamm's and Old Style beers on tap.  

When we pulled up to the place, we were sort of confused.  It looked like a big two-story farmhouse with a pole barn attached to the rear.  But once we went inside and saw what was going on, it became clear to us what Pivo was all about.  

The tap room was a large open area with a bar whose front was paneled with seven or eight different types of wood.  A number of tables were placed throughout the room (more on those in a bit), with old feed sacks hanging from the wall.  Burlap sacks were also part of the drop ceiling in the tap room giving it sort of an industrial/rustic feeling to the place. 

We sat at the bar and found that the bar top was a collection of medals, patches, coins, and foreign currency under an epoxy shield.  Many of the items were from the Neuzil's travels and their immediate families collections from when the Neuzil's were young kids.  

They have about 25 beers, sours and ciders on tap at PIVO and many are made with locally-grown, naturally-raised grains, fruits and nuts.  Many of the beers are named after communities in the area - Cresco Cream Ale, Festina Farmhouse Rye, Protivin Czech Pilsner, Jackson Junction Pear Cider - not only as a nod to the surrounding communities, but to cut down the chances that Neuzil accidentally named one of his beers the same as another brewery in some other part of the country.  (Trademark lawsuits between microbreweries have escalated over the past few years as more breweries come on line.)

My wife and I tried a couple beers and my wife settled on the Ossian IPA, a hop-forward beer that was actually pretty smooth, and I got the Lawler Irish Ale, a nice sipping beer that also had a pretty smooth finish.  After I finished my Irish Ale, I got an Ossian IPA for my second beer.

We walked around the tap room looking at the tables they had.  Nearly all of them had a decorative theme with an epoxy top over the items.  One table featured a number of political campaign buttons, another had beer coasters from other breweries.  A table made with shiny new pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters was featured, as well as a table made out of flattened bottle caps with "PIVO" spelled out in red bottle caps in the middle.  

As we were taking pictures of the table tops, we were stopped by a couple who asked why we were taking pictures.  I told them that I thought the table tops were pretty cool.  It turned out they were close relatives of Craig Neuzil.  They asked us where we were from and we said the Quad Cities.  They wondered what we were doing in Calmar and we told them we were spending a long weekend in the area, visiting brew pubs and other things.  The lady said, "They get a lot of people who come up for Toppling Goliath that end up down here."  We told them that we thought PIVO was possibly the most interesting of the ones that we visited in the area.  

And with that, our visits to the three area microbreweries was complete.  If you're into good craft beers and are looking for a great weekend getaway, I can't recommend more highly a trip to the Winneshiek county area of NE Iowa for stops at Toppling Goliath and Pulpit Rock in Decorah, and a side trip to Calmar for the PIVO Brewery.  I don't think you'll be disappointed. 

Zorbaz - Spicer, MN

During our summer vacation in the Glacier Lakes region of West Central Minnesota, we stayed in the small town of Spicer located on Green Lake, a 5400 acre lake that was clear and pristine.  There weren't a lot of food options in the area for us, but there was one place that I was somewhat familiar with.  They had a Zorbaz in Spicer on the lakefront that was walking distance from our hotel.  One evening, my wife and I walked over there for drinks and dinner.  

I had been to the original Zorbaz in Detroit Lakes, MN a number of years ago with one of my accounts from Fargo.  (Click here to see that Road Tips entry.  It's from over 11 years ago before I had a camera on my phone to take pictures of the place.  Plus it's sort of a cheesy post as I replaced all the "s" letters in the text to "z's" as Zorbaz does pretty much the same in all of their literature and menus.)  The one in Detroit Lakes was the first one of what ended up to eventually be 11 Zorbaz locations around Minnesota.  

Tom Hanson grew up in Detroit Lakes and graduated from high school there in 1963.  After graduating with honors from the University of Minnesota-Moorhead, he ended up back in Detroit Lakes as  a drama teacher and debate coach.  During the summers, he played a lot of golf, but decided that he needed a little side income, too.  Newly married in 1969, Hanson bought a little candy shop on the shore of Detroit Lake and turned it into Zorbaz at the Beach, named after one of Hanson's favorite movies Zorba the Greek.  

Pictured right - Tom Hanson.  Picture courtesy Forum News Service.

At first, Hanson and his wife, Terri Jo, had Zorbaz open only in the summer months selling frozen pizzas with Grain Belt beer on tap.  But Zorbaz at the Beach caught on enough that he quit his teaching and coaching jobs in 1973 to concentrate on Zorbaz in the summer, while going out to Southern California to work in restaurants there in the winter months.

It was in California where he met Rick Jansen who was a cook at one of the seasonal restaurants Hanson had in the mid-70's.  Jansen showed Hanson how to properly make pizzas from scratch using only fresh ingredients.  And Jansen learned how to cook some Mexican foods from some of the Hispanic cooks who worked with him in the kitchen.  It also turned out that Jansen and Hanson had a mutual interest in cars, especially antique and performance vehicles.  Hanson was so impressed with Jansen that he made him a partner in Zorbaz back in Detroit Lakes. 

It was in the late 70's when Zorbaz started with the whimsical "z" replacing the "s" in everything they published.  Now a year round venture, Zorbaz at the Beach became a popular place.  Hanson and Jansen knew they had to expand and that opportunity came up in 1983 when they bought the former Babe's Resort on Little Pine Lake in Perham, MN and opened the second Zorbaz.  As Zorbaz added more locations, they focused on areas that were in smaller towns that had a high tourist count in Northern Minnesota, mainly on or near lakefronts.  The number of Zorbaz eventually grew to 14, but not all of them were successful.  Actually, three of the Zorbaz locations - each of which were not on lake shores - closed down due to the lack of business.  

The Zorbaz in Spicer came on line in the spring of 2012.  It was housed in the former Melvin's on the Lake, a supper club owned by Dave and Mary Baker who ran the place for nine years.  Melvin's had a sort of up and down existence with the Baker's who were having problems making a profit with the restaurant before they instituted a series of measures - including cutting down on winter hours and coming up with a series of operation efficiencies - that brought the restaurant back into the black.  However, they were looking to sell Melvin's so they could concentrate on their other properties that included a hotel, an office building and other restaurants.  Zorbaz made them an offer and the deal was struck in late 2011.  The Zorbaz-Green Lake would be the 10th one with the 11th Zorbaz opening in Alexandria, MN in 2014.

Tom Hanson continued to be the center of all the Zorbaz locations, affectionately known as "Jumbo" to his friends and employees, not only because he was 6'6" in height, but because of the large fun times he always had.  Unfortunately, Tom Hanson - a man who never smoked in his life - was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2006.  He fought the battle for nine years before finally passing in 2015 at the age of 70.  Once he was diagnosed with cancer, Hanson gave up the day-to-day operations of the Zorbaz locations - along with four other lakeside restaurant/supper clubs his Lake Life Hospitality Group had purchased over the years - to his son Cole who continues to run Zorbaz which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.  

It was a short walk from our hotel to Zorbaz on Green Lake in Spicer.  (see map)  The large parking lot in front was, maybe, 25% full when we walked up to the place around 6:30 p.m.  Since it was the middle of the week - and Spicer isn't really a tourist destination until the weekend - there were a handful of locals in the place and at least two vacationers.  The dining room was an open area with a number of tables that would seat as many as 12 or as few as 4.  

The bar area featured some flat screen televisions behind the bar.  We were greeted by one of the bartenders, a young lady whose attitude was about as neutral as can be - no outgoing effervescence, nor was she surly.   I would have to say she was pretty impersonal.  I asked her if she could make a mai tai and she sort of said, "Yeah, sure.  OK."  My wife got a margarita made with top shelf tequila.  Even though she had the personality of a wet rag, the young lady could sure make a good mai tai and margarita.   They also had a pretty extensive beer list that featured craft beers, domestics and imports.   They had Kona Big Wave on the beer menu, but as long as she kept making the mai tais the same way as the first one I had, I knew I wouldn't be ordering a beer that evening.  

The menu at Zorbaz featured the two things they're famous for - pizza and Mexican food.  They also had wings and salads on the menu, but that was about it.  They had a number of different varieties of pizzas and Mexican food items including enchiladas, tacos and burritos.  We weren't exactly certain what we wanted to eat - we sort of went in there with pizza on our minds, but my wife decided that she wanted some chips and salsa with a side of guacamole.  The chips were pretty basic and the guac and salsa came in small plastic cups.  It wasn't outstanding, but it wasn't all that bad, either.

One thing that I noticed they had on the menu was Southwestern-style green pork chili.  I thought I wanted to give that a try along with getting a small pizza.  Food orders are taken at the bar and the same emotionless and disinterested young lady who was making the killer mai tais and margaritas for us took our order.  Well, our pizza made it out to us, but the green pork chili did not.  I went up to the girl at the bar and told her that I didn't get the chili.  "You've got to be kidding me," she replied in a caustic manner.  She went over to the order screen and said, "I put it in!"  I said, well, I never got it.  I went back to sit down and it was about three minutes later when a young guy from back in the kitchen brought the chili out to me.  

It was sort of worth the wait as the green pork chili was very good.  It featured melted shredded cheese on top with chunks of pork and green chiles in a nice peppery base.  It was as good as any green pork chili that I've had in my travels to Colorado.  

We got a small sausage, pepperoni, mushroom and jalapeño pizza.  (My wife likes a little bit of a spicy bite on her pizza.)  The pizzas at Zorbaz are thin crust with a sturdy crust.  The pizza sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste, but it was still a pretty good pizza.  I remembered the pizza as being pretty good from my first visit to the Zorbaz in Detroit Lakes over 10 years prior.

After dinner, we both grabbed a couple more drinks and headed out to the patio area that overlooks Green Lake.   The patio area featured a number of picnic tables, as well as a like number of regular tables and chairs.  It was a beautiful evening and we headed out to a bench near the dock area next to Zorbaz to enjoy the scenery and laid back atmosphere on the patio.

Zorbaz is also known for their merchandise and they had a large area off the dining area that featured t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, coozies, and other different types of tchotchkes that were available. My wife was interested in getting one of the t-shirts, but there wasn't anyone in the merchandise area.  She went up to the disinterested bartender and asked her if anyone was available to sell her a shirt.  The girl just sort of sneered and said, "I can take care of you up here.  Just go get what you want and bring it up to me."  

She was very cold in her tone toward my wife, so much so that my wife turned back to me and said, "Forget it.  I don't need a shirt that bad."  I offered to take her back a day or two later during the day to get a shirt and she declined.  "I just have a bad taste in my mouth the way that bartender acted toward us when we were there," she said.  My wife usually tries to see the best in people, but she didn't see anything good with our bartender that day.  

The somewhat indifferent and impersonal bartender notwithstanding, I think we enjoyed most of our visit to Zorbaz.  The food is fine - we thought the pizza was good, but the chips with salsa and guacamole were pretty basic.  The green pork chili was actually very good - as good as some of the ones I've had out in Colorado.  And even though she didn't have much of a personality, our bartender made some very good mai tais and margaritas.  I had four mai tais that evening, but since all I had to do was stumble and zig-zag back to our hotel, that was fine with my wife.  Don't expect fine dining at any one of the 11 Zorbaz in Northern Minnesota.   But do expect to have some fun - even if your bartender isn't having any fun.