The trade show I was attending in Southern California got over on a Sunday afternoon and I was hungry for a pizza. Most of the pizza places in the immediate area around Irvine I had found on-line were gourmet-style or to-go only places. I wanted a place where I could get a good pizza and unwind with a couple beers. I remembered that I had found a place last year that served tavern-style thin-crust pizza like I get in Chicago. (That place - Rance's Chicago Pizza - was excellent. Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Rance's.) But in searching "Chicago Tavern Pizza" another place came up - Selma's Chicago Pizzeria and Tap Room. It was in the town of Ladera Ranch about a 15 to 20 minute drive from where I was. Since I'd already had Rance's tavern-style pizza, I thought I'd drive down to Selma's to see how good their pizza was.
Michael Phillips grew up in Ohio and loved his mother Selma's cooking prowess. When he moved to Southern California in the 60's to become a Los Angeles cop, he missed his mother's cooking and looked forward to his trips back home to have some of his mother's home cooked meals.
By 1978 Phillips was tired of being a cop. Phillips partnered with another fellow Ohio native Bill Cunningham to open a pizza joint that served Chicago-style deep-dish or tavern-thin crust pizza along with pasta dishes made from recipes from Phillips' mother Selma. They initially named the business BJ Grunts, but were quickly hit with a federal trademark cease-and-desist letter by Rich Melman, the longtime restauranteur who owned the R.J. Grunts restaurants in Chicago. Phillips and Cunningham quickly pivoted and renamed the restaurant BJ's Chicago Pizzeria.
Over the next nine years, Phillips and Cunningham opened a number of locations from Los Angeles south to San Diego. But when the stock market crashed in the fall of 1987, much of their regular clientele quit going out for dinner. Contemplating bankruptcy, Phillips got a pep talk from his dad who told him that while bankruptcy would be the easy way out, he made commitments to the banks and his employees and he needed to stick it out. While it was tough for Phillips and Cunningham - they still had to close one of their locations - the recession began to wane in 1988 and more people started to come back to their restaurants.
By 1991, Phillips and Cunningham were wanting to do something else with their lives, the two partners ended up selling the local restaurant chain to their accountants. The new owners eventually changed the name to BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse. After the corporation went public in 1996, BJ's grew to a national chain.
Michael Phillips, Jr. grew up watching his father become a successful restauranteur and learned the art of cooking great food and customer service while working under his father's wing. When Michael Phillips, Sr. retired to Maui in 2003, Michael Jr. and a longtime buddy, Eric Miller, came up with a new Chicago-style pizza concept served with craft beers. They named it after Phillips' grandmother and Selma's Chicago Pizzeria & Tap Room in the fall of 2003 in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA.
Pictured right - Michael Phillips, Jr. and Eric Miller. Photo courtesy Orange County Register.
Catering to families and craft beer enthusiasts, in 2007 Selma's opened a second location in San Clemente, then the Ladera Ranch location opened in 2011. A fourth Selma's location opened in San Juan Capistrano in 2016. However, just about a month or so ago, Phillips and Miller closed the San Clemente location of Selma's which had been open for 17 years.
(By the way, Michael Phillips, Sr. "unretired" in 2009 and opened a fast casual seafood cafe by the name of Coconuts Fish Cafe. Today, there are two locations on Maui, with other locations in Scottsdale, AZ, a couple locations in the greater Dallas area, and one that is slated to open in the Sacramento, CA area in the coming months.)
The Ladera Ranch location for Selma's is located in the Bridgemark Plaza retail complex along Crown Valley Parkway, about a mile east of Interstate 5. (see map) There was parking available in the spacious lot that served the complex.
The main dining room was a mixture of brick walls, reclaimed barn boards and large windows looking out to the front of the restaurant. There were a number of large booths, banquette seating along one wall, and sturdy tables in the center of the room.
The beer list was posted on the reclaimed barn board wall. They had 30 beers on tap including the cult favorite Pliny the Elder from the Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa, CA. Well, let me back up - they had it on the wall, but I was informed they were out of it when I ordered it. Most of the beers were local, but they also had some nationally distributed craft beers, as well as Guinness.
The bar area was jam packed when I got into the place as many people were watching the end of the Los Angeles Rams game on the three televisions in the bar. There was no way that I was going to be able to get a place to sit, let alone get served properly in the bar area.
Off to the side of the bar was the large patio area. There were a number of people on the patio which was fenced in and topped with sail tarps. Topping it off, there were a number of loud kids out there and I didn't want to listen to that as I just wanted to get some food, get some beer and just chill out after the trade show. I continued to wander around the restaurant to find a comfortable area to sit.
One of the rooms off to the side of the dining room was the "Chicago" room - a room that paid homage to the city of Chicago in pictures that were hung on the wall. It featured banquette seating along one of the long walls and was probably used for small parties or group gatherings. A painting of Selma Phillips with what I was told her great-grandchildren hung at the back end of the room.
Even thought it was loud in the dining room with families having pizza, I ended up seated at one of the four-seater tables in the room. After a short bit I was greeted by a young woman by the name of Aliyah. She was balancing about five tables at once and apologized for not coming over sooner. She dropped off a menu for me and said that she'd be back. When she did come back she took a deep breath and said, "OK, what can I get you to drink?" When I asked for a Pliny the Elder, she gave this anguished look on her face and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. We ran out yesterday and won't get more until tomorrow at the earliest." I sort of grimaced and looked up at the beer menu. There was a Mortal Bloom hazy IPA from the Founders Brewery back in Michigan that I got. Even though it was good and I hadn't had it before, I was really looking for a Southern California hazy IPA as an alternative to not having a Pliny the Elder. Oh well.
Even though I was there for the pizza, I took a deep look through the menu to see what else they had. They had a number of appetizers that appealed to families or large groups including chicken tenders, fried cheese sticks, and garlic-parmesan fries. They had a number of salad choices on the menu - as in something like 12 or 14. Sandwiches included a classic meatball with marinara and mozzarella cheese; oven-roasted turkey with avocado; and three or four different types of wraps. Finally, they had a number of pasta selections including short rib-stuffed ravioli that came with a mushroom cream sauce. Now, THAT gave me pause and made me reconsider my mindset of having a pizza.
But in the end, I ordered a small pizza with my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom. When Aliyah brought out the pizza I was stunned to see the size. It said in the menu that small pizza's were 10" and this looked like it may have been an inch or two shy of 10". I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and dug in.
I'll have to say that it was a good pizza. I think I liked Rance's tavern-style pizza better, but this was still good. It had a nice crispy crunch, the Italian sausage was flavorful, and the pepperoni was salty and slight spicy. The mushrooms were fresh and plentiful. This pizza could have easily been served in a pizza place in Chicago. And it definitely passed my "Does it taste good with a beer" test that I gauge when I want to compare pizzas.
Earlier before I got to Selma's, I had a somewhat distressing call from a former neighbor of mine and with some somewhat upsetting news. My mind was sort of elsewhere for the whole meal and I knew I had a couple phone calls I had to make after I finished. I was a bit discombobulated when I left the restaurant. (Everything turned out fine...)
Later that evening, I was at the gas station near my hotel filling up my rental car to get ready to take back the next morning. As I pulled up to the pump and got my wallet out to put into the pump, I realized that I didn't have my American Express card. In a bit of a panic, I had to mentally retrace my movements earlier in the day. I thought, "Geez, did I leave it at Selma's?" I got back in the car and made a phone call to Selma's. I explained to the young lady that I think I left my card at the restaurant. She asked me who my server was and I did remember Aliyah's name.
She put me on hold and moments later Aliyah got on the phone. "I have your credit card here," she said. "I saw you get up and walk to the restroom and I checked the folder to see if you had signed the receipt. And you hadn't. I just figured that you would come back to sign it after you went to the restroom."
"So, I didn't even sign the receipt," I asked as I started out back toward Selma's. She said that I hadn't. "Geez, I'm an idiot. OK, I'm on my way."
20 minutes later, I got to Selma's. It was just before 9 p.m. and the place had cleared out substantially. I walked in and the young lady at the front hostess stand greeted me. "I think Aliyah has my credit card," I said. Seconds later, Aliyah came out from the back holding the folder which held my Amex card and the receipts I hadn't signed. I told her that I was a bit out of sorts when I was there, but everything was fine now. Except that I had to drive all the way back to get my card.
"I just thought it was sort of strange that you left your card and didn't sign the tab," she said.
"I know," I said in an exasperated tone as I signed the receipt. "I'm an idiot."
I then reached in my pocket and pulled out a $20 bill. Her tip would have about $8 or $9 bucks if I put it on the receipt, but I handed the folder back to her along with the $20 bill. "Here, this is yours, too. Thanks for holding on to this."
Her face lit up and said, "Thank you! It wasn't that big of deal. I was just more concerned that you might not come back and get your card before closing tonight." I told her that if I hadn't stopped to get gas before going back to my hotel about 30 minutes earlier, I would have probably gone back to Iowa without my credit card.
I probably should have given her double the tip for being trustworthy and holding on to my card for me. Aliyah's service the whole time I was there was efficient and she was such as sweetheart. I thought the Chicago tavern-style pizza was good - not great like some places I like in Chicago - but good. Good for Southern California, let's put it that way. The place was a little loud for me, but I got past all that. And even though they were out of Pliny the Elder, I was impressed with the beers they had on tap. I would have to say that if you're in the southern part of Orange County and have a hankering for Chicago pizza, Selma's Chicago Pizzeria and Tap Room is a good place to go.
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