Sometime last year, I was stuck in traffic on Dempster Ave. in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines. There was a wreck and traffic was backing up before the Tri-State Tollway. I decided to take a bit of a cross-country trip through some back streets where I ended up on Ballard Road. As I was driving along just before the Tri-State Tollway bridge on Ballard Road, I passed a roadhouse restaurant that I was unfamiliar with. I was like, "Huh! I've been coming here for years and never knew this place existed!" When I got around the traffic jam and back to the hotel a little later on, I looked the place up on the internet. Turns out the Countryside Saloon had been around since the days of Prohibition and they were a local favorite. Well, I like finding places the locals like to go to during my travels and I put the Countryside Saloon on my places to visit. On a recent visit back to Chicago I made it my goal to get back to the Countryside Saloon and check the place out.
It's rather ironic that a drinking establishment is owned by a guy named Bar. Cornell Bar had his own construction business in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and was helped in his business by his wife Janet. His sister Weslie was married to Joe Bellini whose family ran an Italian restaurant/pizzeria on N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago. In the mid-1980's, an old tavern along Ballard Road came up for sale. The place needed a lot of work, but with Cornell Bar's background in construction, they already had that taken care of. The Bars and Bellinis took possession of the place in 1986 and set about to give it a needed update.
The remodeling took some time as the group put in new floors, raised the ceiling inside the building, built an outdoor deck, removed paint that was on the original pine wood walls inside the tavern. New gables over the entrances, a new paint job on the outside and vines were planted that - word has it - were plucked from the outfield walls at Wrigley Field finished the exterior work. With Joe Bellini in charge of the kitchen, Countryside Saloon opened in 1987.
It was just after 5 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot at Countryside Saloon. (see map) Going into the bar I found an array of festive holiday lights strung around the bar. I was hoping to belly up to the bar, but all the seats around the square bar were filled with the after work crowd.
The bar had a number of televisions hung around the area. I figured this would have been a great place to watch sporting events given the number of large flatscreen televisions throughout the bar. The only problem is that they were a proud and unabashed Wisconsin bar and would showcase University of Wisconsin sports when they were on TV. For an Iowa Hawkeyes fan, that would have been a bit difficult to stomach.
Off to the side of the bar area was one of the two dining rooms in Countryside Saloon. This was a cozy little room with more flatscreens hung along the four walls offering diners a chance to watch a game from different angles.
I ended up sitting in the great room off the other side of the bar. This room looked like it had been added onto the original restaurant building with a nice patio area outside. There was a smaller room in the back of the great room that they were setting up for a group that evening.
I was handed a menu and started to look through it. I figured that I was going to get a pizza, but I wanted to check out what else they had to offer. Of course, they had a wide array of appetizers including wings, fried pickles and a house-made stuffed artichoke with garlic, cheese and breadcrumbs. There was a Italian restaurant in suburban Kansas City that I used to go to years ago that had a great stuffed artichoke and it brought back some good memories.
They also had salads, soups and wraps on the menu along with a number of sandwiches including a grilled tuna sandwich, a classic Italian beef sandwich, and a pulled pork sandwich. They had a full selection of burgers including turkey burgers, veggie burgers and Impossible burgers. Main entrees included baby back ribs, a fried chicken dinner, and a grilled tuna steak.
As the waitstaff's flurried activity of getting the back room ready, it was fully evident that they had forgotten about me. That's one of the bad things about dining alone - you can get looked over pretty easily if you're seated in a dining area. Finally, I caught the attention of one of the managers - who had passed me a number of times - to let her know that I would like to order up something to drink. She apologized profusely and directed a young lady to come over to take my order.
That young lady - Alexa - came over with a menu and saw that I already had one. She asked if I wanted something to drink and I ordered a Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA. I also told her that I was ready to order something to eat - I figured it was best to get that out of the way sooner than later given how disjointed the staff was trying to get the room in the back set up. She realized she didn't have her order pad with her. She scooted away for a moment to grab something to write on.
When she came back, well, of course, I ordered my usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza. I got a small 10-inch size (they also have 12", 14", 16" and 18" pizzas) and all their pizzas are thin crust pizzas. It was cut in the classic Chicago tavern-style way. The pizza was burnt on the edges - a trademark the Bellini family has had for over 30 years. And they had the holy trinity of oregano flakes, red pepper flakes and grated parmesan cheese on the table to go along with the pizza.
The pizza itself was just OK, however. The sauce was pretty bland, the Italian sausage was bland, as well. I got a bit of a fennel flavor from time to time, but it wasn't that robust Chicago-style fennel Italian sausage taste that I crave. The oregano flakes and the red pepper flakes helped the overall flavor of the pizza, but I was pretty disappointed in both the sauce and the Italian sausage.
I was a bit disappointed in Countryside Saloon. I thought that it could be a new hangout for me when I'm in the Des Plaines area, but the service was choppy and the pizza wasn't one of the best I've had. And, you know, it may be a good place to catch a game if I'm in the area as they did have a pretty good selection of craft beers to choose from. It seemed to be a popular place and they seemed to be carrying out a lot of pizzas to other tables, so maybe I need to give their pizza another try at some point. But I can think of three or four other Chicago tavern-style pizza places in the area that I would probably go to before I go back to Countryside Saloon.
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