Road Tips

D.L. Mack's - Dallas, TX

I've found that virtually any big city I've traveled to over the past couple of years has a Chicago-style pizza place where ex-pats or former visitors to the Windy City can enjoy either deep-dish or tavern-style pizza.  I prefer a good thin-crust tavern-style pizza to a wood-fired Neapolitan pizza, so I'm always on the lookout for the places that serve a good Chicago tavern-style pizza.  It turned out that there was a place not too far from where I was staying that offered a thin-crust tavern pizza.  I ended up going to D.L. Mack's in north Dallas.  

Hunter Pond grew up in the toney Highland Park neighborhood in Dallas.  At first glance, people who know the Dallas area would automatically surmise that Pond came from money, but his parents were far from wealthy, both working jobs to provide for the family and for Hunter's college education.  They were able to send Hunter off to Texas Tech University to study entrepreneurship and business.  He graduated from Texas Tech in 2009 and was planning on being a lawyer.  

However, Pond found that law school wasn't for him and he ended up dropping out and moving back home to Dallas.  His parents weren't too whippy about his decision to forego law school given the financial sacrifices they had endured to send him to college, and they told him he had to find a job to tide him over.  He became a dishwasher at Eno's Pizza Tavern and it looked like his life was going nowhere.  But what a lot of people didn't know was that Pond was working on a business plan for a sandwich deli that sold made-from-scratch foods.  

Even though his family wasn't as well-heeled as some of his classmate's families were while growing up in Highland Park, he had made a number of connections with people he knew while growing up in the neighborhood.  When it came time to raise money for his restaurant idea, Pond turned to those numerous connections to help him raise money for his venture.  It must have worked as he was able to raise the $400,000 needed to start his business.  In 2012 at the age of 24, Pond - along with his business partner Kyle Brooks - opened the first East Hampton Sandwich Co. in Snider Plaza in Dallas.  

From there, Pond and Brooks started a corporation - Vandelay Hospitality Group - to oversee the operations at his slowly growing chain of upscale deli's.  Not everything Pond did was right - he had to close a couple of underperforming East Hampton Sandwich Company locations, and he had a couple unfavorable leases that he had to try to renegotiate as time went on.  But by 2019, there were nine East Hampton Sandwich Co. locations in and around the great Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.  However, after the pandemic, Vandelay Hospitality Group pared the number of East Hampton Sandwich Co. down to just three locations.  

In 2017, the Vandelay Hospitality Group founded Hudson House billed as an East Coast comfort food restaurant that focused on burgers, sandwiches, and oysters on-the-half shell.  Hudson House now has three locations in Dallas, Houston and in Beverly Hills.  Other Vandelay Hospitality Group restaurants include Drake's Hollywood - an L.A.-inspired steakhouse that Pond was taken with some of the old SoCal steakhouses he visited on trips to Los Angeles; as well as Dallas area restaurants Brentwood, Anchor Sushi Bar, and Jack & Harry's. 

During the height of the pandemic, Pond and the Vandelay Hospitality Group came up with a new concept - bringing Chicago to Dallas in terms of Chicago-style pizza served in a space that sported reclaimed antique bricks from a Chicago building that had been built in the mid-19th century.  Reclaimed tin ceiling tiles along with reclaimed wall tiles that were originally in the Chicago Civic Center (now the Richard J. Daley Center) went along with reclaimed wooden floor planks that were first used in buildings built in the early 19th century.  Local Chicago touches such as archived photos of famous Chicago sports figures, along with benches on the outside patio that were inspired by the main terminal of the Chicago Transit Authority.  D.L. Mack's on Hillcrest Street in University Heights.  

A second D.L. Mack's opened in November of 2022 in the Preston Oaks shopping mall at the corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane on the north side of Dallas.  This was the location I went to as it was just about a 10 minute drive from my hotel in Addison down the Dallas North Tollway to Royal Lane.  (see map)  There turned out to be plenty of parking in the lot of the shopping mall lot - even for a Saturday night.  

Quite actually, I didn't really know what to expect before I walked into D.L. Mack's, but I have to say that I was somewhat taken aback at how elegant the place was.  I immediately thought, "Wow!  This is a pizza joint?  It looks more like an upscale steakhouse like you'd find in downtown Chicago!"  

Cream-colored slat walls with Chicago-centric pictures were on one end of the dining area, while the room was full of mahogany booths with leather-padded seating.  Dark wood-slat window coverings, brick columns and trim, along with off-white antique tin-ceiling tiles gave the room a cozy, yet elegant atmosphere.   The place was nearly full when I walked in and by the time I left there was a wait to get seats.   

The L-shaped bar was equally elegant with a dark wood top, wide padded stools and an ornate back bar.  Dark wood slatted ceiling with light fixtures hung over the bar.  The bar was also nearly full when I walked in to D.L. Mack's.

I was able to get a seat on the short side of the bar closest to the front door.  There were three bartenders working that night and the guy who took care of me for the evening was Joshua.  He handed me a menu and asked me what I'd like to drink.  I asked if they had any hazy IPA's and he said, "We have the Manhattan Project (Half-Life) hazy."  I gave him two thumbs up for that.  

The menu's main focus was the Chicago-style tavern pizza, but being that they call themselves a "true Chicago tavern", D.L. Mack's also features appetizers such as deviled eggs, mozzarella bites, and a spinach artichoke dip.  Salads included a Caesar and a Greek salad, and they had handhelds such as a cheeseburger, a tuna melt on sourdough bread, and a spicy Italian grinder with pistachio mortadella, pepperoni, genoa salami, smoked provolone, and a spicy giardiniera.  Entrees included cheese-filled tortellini in a marinara sauce, a chicken parm dish, Asian-glazed grilled salmon, and Greek chicken with peppers and mashed potatoes.  

But I was there for the pizza and I ordered my usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pie.  When I ordered, Joshua asked, "You want me to bring out some fries with that?"  I thought that was an odd question, given that I don't think I've EVER ordered fries with pizza.  I declined on the fries.  

However, a while later, a couple sat down next to me and ordered a pizza.  Joshua asked the same question, "You guys want me to bring some fries out for you?"  

The couple sort of looked at one another, and the man said, "Yeah!  We'll take some fries!"  I laughed and thought to myself, "Suggestive selling at its finest!"  But I have to say the fries - on their own - looked pretty good.  Maybe D.L. Mack's is known for their fries.  

Moments before the pizza came out, one of the other bartenders came over with a metal pizza stand, similar to ones that we see in pizza joints in Chicago.  Moments later, the pizza came out.  It was about 12 to 14 inches in size and featured large chunks of fennel sausage, ample amounts of spicy and salty pepperoni, and a fair amount of fresh mushrooms on the top.  The mushrooms were also sort of chunky in their size.  Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes were also provided along with the pizza.

After letting it cool down for a bit, I was able to take the first bite.  The crust was thin and crispy, and it didn't sag with all the toppings on each little square or triangle - the hallmark of a true Chicago tavern-style pizza.  The fennel sausage was bursting with flavor, the mushrooms were fresh and earthy, and the pepperoni was cupped from the cooking process.  It was a fabulous pizza.  Did it taste good with beer?  Oh, yeah - it certainly did!

Finding Chicago tavern-style pizza outside of Chicago is sometimes difficult to do.  But I'm starting to see more and more of these types of pizza places in my travels.  It's not that I don't like a good Neapolitan wood-fired pizza from time-to-time, it's just that I like that crunchy thin crust with ample toppings on my pizza.  And the one at D.L. Mack's was superb.  My only quibble was the price - it was $26 bucks for the pizza.  Just a base pizza with mozzarella and sauce at D.L. Mack's is $16, but you add Italian sausage ($5), pepperoni ($3), and mushrooms ($2), it adds up quick.  The sticker shock was the only drawback about D.L. Mack's.  Joshua did a good job of taking care of me even though he and his colleagues behind the bar were in constant motion the whole time I was there.  D.L. Mack's was a nice, upscale pizza joint, something that I wasn't expecting when I walked in.  And, unfortunately, the prices reflected that.  

Matchbox - Rockville, MD

I was at a trade show in the northern Washington D.C. suburb of Rockville, MD recently and the first day was sort of tiring.  I was told by a friend that the bar at the hotel where the trade show was held really needed to have their tap lines cleaned out as all the craft beers they had on tap tasted funky.  But he said there was a pizza place across the street that had good pizza and a good selection of craft beers.  I got out of the trade show around 5 p.m. and instead of heading back to my hotel and figuring out what I was going to have for dinner that evening, I just decided to head across the street and have pizza and some beer at Matchbox.  

From the sleek architecture on the outside of the building along Rockville Pike in Rockville, I should have guessed that Matchbox was a chain.  That's because it was - it started over 20 years in Washington D.C.  But the partnerships involved in the opening of Matchbox started years prior.  

In 1990, Ty Neal owned a restaurant in Huntington, West Virginia called Mycroft's.  It was near the campus of Marshall University and situated between the basketball arena and the football stadium.  Mycroft's could be described as a kitschy cross between Cheers and Hooters.  One day, a young man by the name of Drew Kim came in to apply for a job as a waiter.  Neal waved his hand around the restaurant to point out all the female servers at the place and bluntly told Kim that they only hired women as servers - something you could get away with nearly 35 years ago.  

But Kim was a persistent kind of guy and on his fourth time meeting with Neal to get a job, Neal hired him.  It turned out to be fortuitous for both men - Kim turned out to be a great server, then Neal moved him behind the bar to be the lead bartender.  He did so good running the bar that Neal named Kim as the overall manager of the restaurant.  Before long, Neal had made Kim a partner in the business.  Soon after, the duo opened an entertainment/cafe venue where up-and-coming bands would play.  

Neal and Kim ended up selling both ventures and then headed west to Chicago where they partnered up with Neal's brother Mark, and Ty Neal's longtime friend Perry Smith to open the Windy City's outpost of Polly Esther's - a 70's and 80's-themed bar/dance club chain that was a popular destination for bachelorette parties in the late 90's.  The group ran the place for five years before selling their interest in 2001 and heading back toward Washington, D.C.   

For their next endeavor, the group envisioned an upscale wood-fired pizza and craft beer bistro where families and couples could enjoy a meal.  The group found an abandoned warehouse in Washington's Chinatown district and started to work on the restaurant.  Because it was just them with no investors, they did everything by themselves and on the cheap.  The tables that were going to be used in the restaurant were made in Mark's basement, and the group did the full build-out of the restaurant.  

When it came time to open in mid-2003, Drew Kim was the bartender, Ty Neal worked the front of house, Perry Smith wore a number of different hats, and Mark Neal was the pizza chef.  They originally called the restaurant "Matchbooks" after the thousands of matchbooks the Neal brothers had collected from various restaurants over the years.  But they eventually changed the name to Matchbox and opened in July of 2003.

Pictured right - Drew Kim, Ty Neal and Mark Neal. Photo courtesy Washington Post.  (This photo was taken after Peter Green left the group in 2012.)  

At the time, Chinatown was not the trendy area of Washington D.C. as it is today and having a restaurant in an area that was years away from gentrification was a major risk.  But a positive review in the Washington Post not long after they opened caused the floodgates of people to open.  Within days, lines were stretched out the door and down the street.

The group formed the Matchbox Restaurant Group soon thereafter and planned to expand around Washington D.C. and beyond.  Approached by another restaurant from the West Coast, the group opened a second Matchbox location in Palm Springs, CA as a joint-venture.  It didn't end well and that Matchbox location closed less than two years later.  

Focusing on the Washington D.C. area, a second Matchbox opened in Washington D.C. in 2008 and their third location - the one I went to in Rockville - opened in 2010.  By this time, a number of investors including family, friends, banks and capital investment firms put money into the Matchbox Restaurant Group.  By 2015, there were six Matchbox restaurants around the Beltway, along with five Ted's Bulletin Bistro locations the group started in 2011.  Ted's Bulletin was more of an upscale diner focusing on farm-fresh American-style foods.  

As the group was gearing up for expansion, they hired Peter D'Amelio and industry veteran who oversaw the explosive growth of the Cheesecake Factory years before.  Hoping to branch out to put more Matchbox locations starting in Florida and expanding around the east coast with both company-owned and franchisee-owned restaurants, D'Amelio was brought in to forge a path of expansion for the group.  

But soon after D'Amelio was brought on board, a number of investors tried to oust the Neals and Kim citing a lack of direction in the expansion plans.  The group then sued a number of the investors to try to keep their positions within Matchbox Restaurant Group.  However, in 2017 the court ruled against the group finding that the lawsuit had no merit and threw out the suit.  

The Matchbox Restaurant Group was forced to raise money to pay off the investors and they sold controlling interest of Matchbox to Thompson Hospitality, a Washington D.C.-based restaurant holding group, and they sold off all assets of Ted's Bulletin to the Salis Holdings, another investment group whose Catalogue Co. arm oversaw the stewardship of restaurants such as Federalist Pig barbecue, Sidekick bakery, and Honeymoon, a upscale Southern-style fried chicken restaurant.  

It was a rocky two year period from 2018 to 2020 to begin with for the Matchbox Restaurant Group after selling off the majority of their assets.  But they were doubly smacked when the pandemic broke in early 2020.  Never able to recover from the downturn in business, Matchbox Restaurant Group was forced into bankruptcy in August of 2020.  Thompson Hospitality came in and purchased the remaining assets of Matchbox Restaurant Group for $11.6 million.  Thompson Hospitality continues to run the 12 Washington D.C. locations along with a single Florida location near Fort Lauderdale that was actually the first of what were to be many more Matchbox locations started by the Matchbox Restaurant Group just before the investor upheaval began nearly 10 years ago.  

The Matchbox is part of the Congressional Plaza shopping complex on the west side of Rockville Pike.  (see map)  It's located in a stand-alone building near the street with plenty of parking on all four sides.  The brick facade building had a nice patio out front - one of two patios at Matchbox.  It was a somewhat cool late afternoon and they had the overhead heaters cranking out the heat for the sparse crowd dining on the patio.

Inside the restaurant was a great room for the main dining area with brick walls, a fire place, and a number of booths and tables throughout the room.  There was an upstairs dining space that was used for parties or overflow dining.  

In the corner of the dining room were two wood-fired ovens for cooking thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizza.  The main kitchen area was sort of back behind the large brick ovens.  Even though it was just past 5 p.m., the pizzaiolos were busy making up a number of pies.

The bar area was just past the wall separating the pizza ovens and a row of booths in the bar.  The bar was busy - happy hour is 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the week.  I didn't really want to sit by myself in a nearly deserted dining room, but I didn't really want to be seated by myself at a table or a booth in the busy bar.  I ended up taking a seat at the nearly full bar, sandwiched in between a large guy who was obviously drunk already, and another guy who was too busy talking on his phone to acknowledge me when I asked if the seat was taken.  

There were two bartenders who seemed to be overworked and not very friendly.  Their customer service skills were not the best and one was almost contemptuous behind the bar.  I overheard him complaining to another Matchbox employee that he hadn't had a break since he came in to work at 9:30 a.m.  Both bartenders were not on top of their games in terms of taking care of people at the bar.  It took them quite some time to even acknowledge I was sitting there.  

Once I did get the attention of one of the two guys, I asked for a food menu and a beer list.  He said they didn't really have a beer list, but asked what kind of beer I was looking for a hazy IPA.  He said they had the New Belgium Voodoo Ranger hazy IPA, but I'm not a big fan of New Belgium beers.  I asked about an IPA they had on tap - a house brew called Matchbox Pro IPA.  I decided to get one of those.  And it wasn't bad.  I asked him later on who made it for them and he said it was by a local brewery called DC Brau.  I had a DC Brau hazy IPA later that weekend and I ended up buying a six pack at a local liquor store to take back to Iowa.  

Even though I was thinking pizza, they had a number of other items to choose from at Matchbox.  Pasta dishes such as a chicken fettuccine alfredo, a fennel sausage rigatoni, and a crab & shrimp fettuccine alfredo were highlighted on the menu.  They also had pan-seared scallops, a jumbo crab cake, and baby back ribs.  They also had sandwiches, burgers and a number of salads on the menu.  Appetizers included calamari, crab dip with chips, chicken wings, and a tuna tartare with guacamole and spicy aioli.  

My friend told me that he thought the pizza was good, so I decided to go that direction.  While they have a number of specialty pizzas on the menu, I wanted to make my own.  I got the fennel sausage and pepperoni.  Somewhat surprisingly, they didn't have mushrooms available at Matchbox.  They have two sizes - a 10 inch and a 14 inch pizza.  I got the smaller of the two and when I ordered, the bartender cautioned me that the pepperoni was spicy.  I sort of waved him off knowing that it couldn't have been that spicy to me.

Since it's cooked in a wood-fired oven, the pizza didn't take long to get out to me.  It was loaded with pepperoni slices on top and an ample amount of ground fennel sausage under the cheese with a puffy crust.  I will say the pizza was good, and the spicy and salty pepperoni made it go well with the IPA.  It wasn't a fabulous pizza, but it was far from inedible.  Let's just say that it worked for me at that moment.   

The pizza I had at Matchbox was fine for what it was - a good wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizza with loads of pepperoni slices and a some savory fennel sausage.  I do have to say that the happy hour crowd at Matchbox was a bit overwhelming, and the bartenders were not on top of their game.  It seemed like a nice place overall, but there was just an overall negative vibe from the bartenders that didn't make it such a welcoming place.  Everyone has bad days and while the food was good, the service was a bit less than desirable. 

Burien Pizzeria (and 909 Coffee & Wine) - Burien, WA

As my trip to the Seattle area continued, I got to know the small suburban town of Burien pretty well.  Walking the streets in Olde Burien, I found a number of great little restaurants, bars and shops in the area.  The bartender at my hotel was telling me of a couple places that she thought had good pizza in Burien and one of the two she mentioned was a place I had scoped out after dinner a couple nights previously called Burien Pizzeria.  I decided to head there for dinner that evening.

Frank Ricci literally grew up in the restaurant business.  His father, Angelo, was a longtime engineer at Boeing who in 1957 opened a small deli in the blue collar village of Burien, about 13 miles south of downtown Seattle.  Along with Angelo's wife Armella, the couple expanded the deli in 1961 putting in seating.  Throughout the 60's, more expansion happened at the little restaurant including a new kitchen where Angelo and Armella would make Italian specialties passed down from their families in the old country.  

Angelo and Armella would eventually have eight children with Frank being the youngest.  Each of the Ricci children would work at the family's Italian restaurant with the two oldest brothers eventually taking over and expanding to a second location in the 1970's.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Angelo's of Burien.)

Frank Ricci started to work at Angelo's when he was 12 years old.  He did whatever he needed to do to fit - bus tables, sweep floors, wash dishes.  But what he liked to do the most was to work in the kitchen with his two oldest brothers who were the main chefs of the restaurant.  When his brothers Ron and Richard ran the family's second Angelo's location in Bellevue, WA, Frank would help out at both locations doing what he loved to do - cooking food.  

After 20 years of working in the family business - and it was truly a family business with his nieces and nephews also now working in the two Angelo's locations - he decided to do something on his own.

In May of 2007, Frank Ricci opened a little trattoria - Bistro 909 - in Olde Burien just a couple blocks away from his father's eponymous restaurant.  The restaurant evolved and it eventually became 909 Wine & Coffee that featured a short menu that featured some pasta dishes, steaks and seafood specialties.  

Danny House owned and operated the Tin Room Bar, Restaurant & Theater just a few doors down from 909 Wine & Coffee.  House was also locally famous for being Dan the Sausageman who originally sold summer sausage out of the trunk of his car starting in 1988 before opening a storefront a few years later.  Frank Ricci and House were good friends and they decided they wanted to do something together in a restaurant endeavor.

Pictured right - Danny House and Frank Ricci.  Photo courtesy Westside Seattle.  

(In 2013, Ricci opened 913 Spirits - The Place Next Door, a wine bar/short menu bistro located between 909 Wine & Coffee and Tin Room Bar.)  

In 2017, a space opened up next to 909 Coffee & Wine and the two partnered up to open a wood-fired gourmet pizza place.  The restaurant was designed to be family friendly, yet have a grown-up vibe with pasta dishes, signature cocktails, and craft beer.  In the fall of 2018, House and Ricci opened Burien Pizzeria at 907 SW 152nd Street.  (see map)  

It was a Saturday night when I headed to downtown Burien to eat at Burien Pizzeria.  There was an arts event going with a number of people walking the sidewalks of Olde Burien checking out some of the murals and artwork with lights on display.  I had to park in a small lot about two blocks away from Burien Pizzeria and walk over to the restaurant.  

The colorful facade of the restaurant came into view as I walked up SW 152nd Street.  There's a small patio out front with stools and a counter for people to eat on and watch the world go by.  It was a beautiful evening and there were a few people having pizza on the sidewalk patio.  

Inside Burrien Pizzeria, there was a bar off to one side, a handful of hightop tables with stool seats, and a few four-seater tables along the front window to the restaurant.  A display case of the wines they have at Burrien Pizzeria was along the brick wall opposite the bar.  Exposed ducts and crossbeams were found on the ceiling with industrial lighting hanging down.  It was a cozy place, but well-lit.  Classic 60's/70's rock and soul music from the likes of Dusty Springfield, the Rolling Stones, and Marvin Gaye played in the background.  

Out a back door to the restaurant, I found a canvas-covered patio with Edison lighting strung over the tables below.  There was a smoker out back, but I didn't see anything on their menu that had smoked meats.  That's where they stored the wood for their wood-fired oven.  


Back inside, behind a counter in the corner was the brick oven.  A copper plate facade with a brick trim around the opening.  The prep table was just beyond the small wall that separated the dining area.  They were certainly busy making pizzas while I was there as a seemingly never-ending line-up of people were coming in to pick up pizzas to-go.  

When I first came in, I was greeted by a lady by the name of Heather.  She said that I could sit anywhere, but at the time the bar was full.  I asked if I could sit at the table in the corner near the bar and front window.   Heather dropped off a menu and asked what I wanted to drink.  I got the Into the Haze hazy IPA from the Kulshan Brewing Company out of Bellingham, WA, the last city on the American side of the border between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.  (I have a former co-worker who lives in Bellingham and while I would have loved to have gone there to see him, it was just too far of a trip for me that weekend.)  

While I was there for the pizza, I took a look through the menu to see what else they offered at Burien Pizzeria.  They had a nine-layer lasagna, as well as a bucatini carbonara.  Small plates included beef and pork meatballs in a marinara sauce, and oven-roasted cauliflower.  They had a handful of salads on the short menu, as well.  

While they had a few specialty pizzas such as a margarita pizza and a butternut squash/prosciutto pizza, I went with the pepperoni pizza and asked Heather to add Italian sausage and fresh mushrooms to the pizza.   

The pizza had a fluffy crust and a bit of a saggy crust, but that was due to the big chunks of Italian sausage, the plentiful amount of fresh mushrooms, and the large number of salty and spicy pepperoni slices on the pizza.  The outer edges of the crust was blistered, but the cheese and sauce coagulated together for a wonderful combination in flavor.  It was a great pizza. 

And it should have been.  When I got the bill, I got a bit of sticker shock.  It was $19 for just the pepperoni pizza (about a 12" size), but it was an additional $8 bucks for the sausage and $7 for the mushrooms making it $34 dollar pizza!  Ouch!  I'm not certain it was worth $34 bucks, but it was still pretty damned good.  

The thin crust pizza didn't fully fill me up and I was wondering if Burien Pizzeria had any desserts.  Heather said, "We don't, but you can go next door to our sister restaurant 909 and they have desserts."  After paying up with Heather, I took the short walk next door to 909 Wine & Coffee to see what they had. 

It was getting close to closing time when I walked into 909 Wine & Coffee.  The restaurant featured a nice sleek decor with wood paneled walls and ceilings with recessed lighting.  A bar was toward the center back of the restaurant.  There were maybe two or three couples at tables finishing up dinner and Frank Ricci was talking with one of the couple at a table near the bar.  I took a seat at the bar and the bartender - a young lady by the name of Marina greeted me.  I said, "I understand that you have desserts."  She said that they did.  

"I know exactly what I want," I replied without looking at a menu.  Knowing they had coffee, they had to have espresso, and I guessed that they had vanilla gelato or ice cream.   "Can you make me an affogato," I asked Marina.  She said that it would be no problem.  And I asked for a shot of amaretto to go along with it.  

The serving size of the affogato was, well, it was huge!  It was a large coffee cup filled to the brim with espresso and a large scoop (or scoops) of vanilla ice cream.  I had to eat some of the ice cream and sip some of the espresso out just to add the amaretto.  Once the amaretto was added, the affogato was complete.  I promised Marina that I wouldn't be long, but she said to sit back and enjoy my affogato and amaretto.  It was a great end to the evening.  

While I thought the pizza I had at Burien Pizzeria was excellent, I also thought that it was pretty expensive.  $34 bucks for a 12" pizza was a bit steep in my book.  The toppings were fresh and plentiful, and the taste was outstanding.  It definitely went well with a beer.  And I can't say enough about Heather's service.  She was fun, helpful and made a single diner on a Saturday night feel at ease.  And the affogato with a shot of amaretto at their sister restaurant 909 Wine & Coffee next door was a nice finish to a fun night.  It's places like Burien Pizzeria and 909 Wine & Coffee that make for a memorable evening when I'm on the road.   

Zianos Italian Eatery - Fort Wayne, IN

During a trip back out to Fort Wayne to do a couple days of seminars for our largest account, my colleague from Montreal wanted to go out for some Italian food.  We had gone to Salvatori's, an Italian restaurant with six locations in and around Fort Wayne, on a previous visit.  (Click here to see the Road Tips review on Salvatori's.)  I suggested we take a look at some other Italian restaurants around the area.  I found a couple that weren't too far from our hotel and I did a mental coin-flip and settled on a place called Zianos Italian Eatery for dinner that evening.  

George Rongos grew up in the small village of Polykerasos, Greece and immigrated to the U.S. in 1954.  He ended up in Fort Wayne where relatives from Greece had moved to years before.  George was 18 when he got to the U.S. and couldn't speak English.  On top of that, George wasn't properly schooled in his home country and couldn't read or write in his native Greek language.  

Less than a year after George got to Fort Wayne, he got a job at a steel mill that was just west of the downtown area of the city.  George willed himself to learn how to speak, read and write the English language and turned out to be a quick learner.  In 1965, he married a Greek girl - Eleni - who had also immigrated to the U.S.

Just across from the steel plant was a small grocery store - Joe's Grocery.  George would go into Joe's Grocery on a regular basis and would half-jokingly say that he was going to own the place one day.  When Joe died in 1985, his widow wanted to sell the business.  By this time George Rongos had over 30 years in at the steel plant and was eligible for retirement.  George and Eleni bought the grocery store with an eye on changing a few things up.  

George and Eleni were frustrated that a grocery store in Fort Wayne didn't have some of the basics needed for traditional Greek cuisine.  They would go to Chicago to buy the foods and ingredients for the recipes Eleni had brought from Greece.  But they also realized that there wasn't a place that offered ingredients for Mexican food, for Middle Eastern food, for Eastern European food, and for Northern Africa cuisine - cultures that had settled in Fort Wayne in the 1950's, 60's, 70's and into the 80's.  

George would go to food purveyors in Chicago and buy all different types of international foods for his clientele.  If someone would come in and ask for something, George would do some investigating and would find a distributor who sold the item.  George's Grocery eventually turned into George's International Market.  

Pictured right - Eleni and George Rongos.  Photo courtesy Salsa Grille Facebook page.  

Eleni and George had five children - Judy, Mike, Jimmy, Chris and Jerry.  All five children worked in the grocery store growing up with the parents instilling an ethic of hard work and attention to detail into each of their kids.  When George and Eleni decided to retire from the business in 1997, Chris and Jerry Rongos took over the business from their parents.  That same year, George's International Market moved to its present day location just south of downtown Fort Wayne.  (Chris and Jerry Rongos eventually opened a fast casual Mexican restaurant - Salsa Grille - attached to the grocery store.  Using ingredients sourced from George's International Market and making their own line of various salsa, Salsa Grille became a popular destination.  There are now five Salsa Grille locations in the greater Fort Wayne area.)  

Jimmy Rongos got into the property investment business and became a partner in Liddell Investments, a Fort Wayne-based property management firm.  Some of the properties Liddell Investments owned were restaurants and night clubs.   In 2009, Jimmy took the plunge into the restaurant world opening Zianos Italian Eatery.  The restaurant became a local favorite for their family-friendly offerings at an affordable price.  Today there are three Zianos Italian Eateries around Fort Wayne.

The original one is on Covington Road on the city's southwest side.  This is the one that my colleague and I ended up when we went to Zianos for dinner.  (see map)  It's located on the corner of a strip mall just off Jefferson Ave, the main road into central Fort Wayne from that side of town.  It's not a big place on the inside and pretty generic looking in terms of the overall atmosphere.   We noticed a lot of people coming in to pick up "to-go" orders, including pizza.  The place seemed to be popular with families.  

We took a seat at a table on one side of the restaurant.  Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Abbi.  After leaving us a couple menus, she came out a big later with a plate of complementary bruschetta for the table.  We both ordered a couple Peroni beers they had on tap to start out.  The bruschetta was very good and a nice start to our experience at Zianos.  

Looking through the menu, I was sort of taken aback by the pricing.  Not that it was outrageous, just the opposite.  It appeared to be a great value up and down the menu.  Appetizers such as baked ravioli, meatballs with mozzarella and marinara sauce, and garlic cheese bread were all under $7.00.  A small house salad was $2.99, pizzas started out at $10.49 for a 10" size, entrees such as chicken marsala, tilapia Florentine, and fettuccine alfredo with shrimp were all priced under $15.00, and pasta dishes such as spaghetti & meatballs, Fontanini sausage and peppers with penne pasta, and lasagna were all under $11.00.  And each night during the week there's a special meal offered that comes with a meal for $9.49.  No wonder it was a popular place for families!  

My colleague is vegetarian and Zianos had a handful of options on the menu including the pasta primavera shown below.  It was served to him piping hot as you can easily see the steam rising from the plate.  It featured a mixture of fresh broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms with penne pasta in a white wine butter sauce.  My buddy said that the veggies were cooked perfectly with a bit of a crunch and weren't mushy at all.  He said his meal was a spot-hitter.  

I ended up getting the meat (ground pork/beef) filled ravioli topped with a marinara sauce.  Along with the meal, I got a glass of the Seaglass Pinot Noir.  Grated parmesan and fresh herbs were sprinkled on the top.  I didn't really expect much from the looks of the dish, but from the first bite all apprehension went out the window.  The marinara sauce was tangy and a bit sweet, the pillowy ravioli were easy to cut and the meat inside the ravioli had a great flavor.  I was more than impressed with what I ordered and how well it tasted.  

And on top of that, it was all a great value!  Two beers, a glass of wine and two pasta dinners set us back just under $60 bucks with taxes and a nice tip for Abbi who was on top of things for us during our visit.  It's no wonder families gravitate toward Zianos Italian Eatery because of the great value of the food they serve.  The place is a little generic in atmosphere, but the food more than makes up for the bland surroundings.  We were both more than happy with what we got and did I mention that Zianos was a great value?  That's something you don't exactly see in restaurants these days.  

Selma's Chicago Pizzeria and Tap Room - Ladera Ranch, CA

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.  

Beacon Tap - Des Plaines, IL

I've been staying in the Des Plaines area of the Chicago suburbs for a number of years and I've eaten at a bunch of area restaurants.  I'd been looking for a place to be able to hang out and watch sporting events on TV when I'm in the area and I was a little surprised that I had never had been to a place which is billed as the oldest bar in Des Plaines - the Beacon Tap.  I had a chance to go have lunch there on a recent visit to Chicago.  

Actually, the building that houses the Beacon Tap dates back over 100 years as it was originally built as a grocery store back in 1910.  During the height of prohibition, a number of "legitimate" businesses in the small towns near Chicago turned into speakeasy establishments allowing bootlegged alcohol and beer to be served.  In 1926, a man by the name of Joseph Scharringhausen bought the grocery store and turned it into a drinking establishment.  He named it the Beacon Tap Room and was able to stay in business due to friendly local law enforcement officials who turned the other cheek when it came to selling alcohol in the late 20's and up to the end of Prohibition in 1933.  

After Prohibition ended, the Beacon Tap Room was a popular destination for workers who worked at the nearby rail yards.  The original wooden bar was soon replaced by a marble topped bar, and the building was expanded to include a dining room.  After World War II ended, a man by the name of George Sontag bought the Beacon Tap Room and renamed it "Sontag's Beacon Tap".   Sontag expanded the food selection and made the place more accommodating for locals and tourists coming into Chicago to fly in and out of nearby O'Hare Airport.  

Sontag was also a big sports fan and he added televisions for sporting events that were shown on local and national broadcasts.  A big fan of boxing, Sontag was said to have a projection system brought in for big prize fights.  

Sontag sold the Beacon Tap in 1955 to a new owner.  That owner - and subsequent owners in the 60's into the 80's - did their own renovations and expansions to the original building.  A new kitchen and expanded dining room made the Beacon Tap more family friendly.  In 2014, the owner expanded the bar even more, added a large outdoor patio, and renovated the exterior of the building to give it more of a sleek, modern look while keeping the interior charm of the restaurant.  

But by early 2017, the owner ended up having problems paying for the renovations and much-needed electrical upgrades to the building.  The Beacon Tap closed its doors at the end of February and sat vacant for a number of months.  

In stepped local restaurateur Joe Calabrese into the picture.  Calabrese owned a handful of restaurants in the northwest suburb including the excellent Zia's Trattoria (now Zia's Social) and Cafe Touché in Chicago's Edison Park neighborhood.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Zia's Trattoria from nearly 10 years ago.)  Calabrese liked to unwind at the Beacon Tap and thought it would be a nice investment for his Calabrese & Sons restaurant group portfolio.  

Before they could reopen the restaurant, the building underwent some much needed upgrades to the interior decor and ecosystem.  A new wood floor, barn-board walls, and exposed brick walls from the original building were part of the interior upgrades to the building.  New flat-panel televisions were hung in strategic places around the inside of the building, as well as outside in an expanded patio.  A new and updated menu was also put into place.  In the fall of 2017, the Beacon Tap reopened to a welcoming community who immediately noticed the changes and embraced the updated restaurant and its new ownership group.  

I had a Zoom meeting that lasted for a couple hours and decided to head out for lunch to the Beacon Tap before I went to see a couple accounts in the afternoon.  I had probably driven past the Beacon Tap on Lee Street numerous times before, but had never really paid attention to the place.  It was right at noon when I pulled into the spacious parking lot on the south side of the restaurant.  (see map)  

Going into Beacon Tap, I found a large dining area with exposed beams with white holiday lights hanging from the beams.  Large flat-screen televisions hung from the barn-board walls, and a number of hardwood-topped tables were placed around the room.  Music from country artists such as Blake Shelton, Cole Swindell, Lainey Wilson and Jordan Davis was playing in the background.  

The large oval bar hasn't been touched during all the renovations, save for the steel bed kick-panels on the bottom.   Eight large screen televisions hung over the center of the bar and block-glassed windows along the back wall allowed light from the outside to come in.  

Outside, there was a large patio with umbrella-covered tables.  It was an unseasonably warm day in Chicago (we had a late summer in the Midwest) and there were a few people who were seated outside.  It was a bit too windy for me, so I was going to eat inside.

The outdoor bar - the Tap Room - is used for special events or overflow on game days in which the inside space is filled up.  There was a large slab off the patio for people to congregate.  Flat-screen televisions hung from the walls and space heaters hung from the ceiling of the outside bar to keep people warm on those chilly fall days or evenings when they're watching football.   

There were a number of tables open, but there were only a couple people seated at the bar when I got in there, so I took a seat there.  The bartender/server that day was a spunky young lady by the name of Amber.  She handed me a menu and I asked what they had available for beers.  "Oh," she exclaimed.  "Let me find a beer list."  She turned back around and rummaged around on the bar's island and came up with a beer menu for me to look over.  After a quick glance, I ended up getting a pint can of the Maplewood Brewery Son of Juice hazy IPA.  

The menu at the Beacon Tap is what I would call upscale bar food.  And that's what Joe Calabrese was going for when he took over the restaurant seven years ago.  They had a number of salads to choose from - all of which could have protein items added.  Appetizers such as smoked wings, pulled pork quesadilla, chicken & waffle bites, and blackened shrimp were available.  Sandwiches, wraps, burgers and tacos were also available.  And - most importantly, to me - they had a Chicago tavern-style thin-crust pizza on the menu.  I wasn't going to get the pizza that day, but it was close enough to the hotel that I stay at where I could come back in the future to give it a try.  

Three or four things jumped off the menu at me including the smoked corned beef reuben sandwich; the Sicilian brisket sandwich - Beacon Tap's take on the Italian beef sandwich; and the Texas rodeo which consisted of smoked house brisket, pulled pork, andouille sausage, and spicy Southern-style cole slaw all served on Texas toast.  All of them sounded great and I immediately wanted to come back to try one (or all) of them at some point in the future.  

But in the end, I ended up getting the Beacon Burger - two-4 ounce patties flat-grilled and topped with Merkts cheddar cheese, a spicy and creamy garlic sauce (think Guy Fieri's Donkey Sauce), lettuce, tomato, pickle and onion and served on a garlic-buttered grilled brioche bun.  Sriracha onion strings also came on the burger, but I asked Amber to put them on the side so I could savor them without all that was going on with the burger.  A choice of a handful of sides came with burger and they had tots.  That was a no-brainer.  But even better, they had Cholula available to put on the tots!  

The burger had a lot going on.  The oozing Merkts cheddar cheese made it a multi-napkin burger, and the brioche bun - while it was soft and spongy - held together very well with all the messiness of the cheese, sauce and the veggie toppings.  The two patties were perfectly cooked, still juicy and tender - not overcooked in the least.  This was an outstanding burger.

I started to stay in the Des Plaines area over 15 years ago as it seemed to be centrally located to the accounts I had in the greater Chicagoland area and with easy access to the express ways/toll ways in the area.  I really thought I had found most of the good places to have food and hang out over that time, so I have to say that I'm kicking myself for not finding the Beacon Tap earlier than this.  With my current position, I don't get into Chicago as often as I used to, but the next time I am in there, I'm heading back to the Beacon Tap.  The place had a wonderful neighborhood-friendly vibe, the service was very good, they had a great selection of craft beers to choose from, and the burger was outstanding.  I definitely want to try their tavern-style pizza at some point, and some of their sandwiches sound delicious from the description on the menu.  I really wish I would have discovered the Beacon Tap sooner than this.   

 

Angelo's of Burien - Burien, WA

I was hanging out in the hotel bar one evening when I was out in the Seattle area recently (shocker, huh?) talking with the bartender Stephanie.  I told her that while I'm sure her hotel had great food, I was the kind of guy who liked to explore when I get to a city.  She gave me a list of a number of restaurants in the area that she was familiar with.  One was an old-school Italian restaurant that she said she remembered was better in previous years than the last time she was there. "But it's been a few years since I was last there, so who knows," she said to me.  I was willing to give an old-school Italian restaurant a try, so I headed over to Angelo's of Burien in the nearby Seattle suburb of Burien.   

Michele Ricci immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily in 1911.  He ended up in a small Kansas town where he opened a grocery store.  Michele's son Angelo grew up in the grocery business, but learned a lot about cooking from his father who made family feasts with recipes he brought over from Sicily.

Angelo eventually ended up in the Seattle area working as an engineer at Boeing.  In 1957 with his wife Armella they opened an Italian delicatessen in the blue collar community of Burien about 13 miles to the south of downtown Seattle.  Angelo and Armello served up meats, cheese, and sandwiches from behind their meat counter, while selling soda pop and mixers to people who would buy liquor at a store next door.  Armella also sold wicker baskets - which were big at the time - hanging the baskets from strings from the ceiling because they didn't have the shelf space for them.  

As Angelo and Armella's family expanded - eventually up to 8 children - so did Angelo's delicatessen.  They put in a full kitchen in the 1960's and offered a plate of spaghetti with a side salad for $1.95.  Angelo would make his homemade marinara and put them in jars to take to his co-workers at Boeing.  The menu at Angelo's expanded to include more Italian items along with steaks, chicken and chops.

When nearby Southcenter Mall opened in 1968, a number of the small shops around Angelo's began to close up.  When a shop would close up, Angelo's would expand into that space.  Within 15 years of opening, Angelo's was 10 times the size of the original delicatessen.  The liquor store next door?  The Ricci family took  that over and made it a banquet space.  

Angelo eventually quit his job at Boeing to work at the restaurant full time.  By all accounts, Angelo was a larger than life character who would sing as he delivered food to the tables.  He would never allow a customer to order a steak well done and he never allowed a customer to put ketchup on a steak.  

Pictured right - Angelo and Armella Ricci on their honeymoon.  Photo courtesy Angelo's of Burien web site.  

All 8 of the Ricci children - Mike, Mark, Ron, Richard, Phil, Kathy, Lisa, Larry and Frank - worked in Angelo's either in the kitchen or in the front of house.  In 1976, Angelo Ricci opened a second location in suburban Bellevue, east of Seattle.  His sons Ron and Richard eventually ran that location.  Mark took over Angelo's of Burien when Angelo fell ill in the early 1990's eventually passing in 1993.  In 2007, the youngest son Frank opened 909 Coffee & Wine, and later opened Burien Pizza next door.  Today, the two Angelo's locations are run by various grandchildren of Angelo and Armella Ricci.  

It was about 7:30 when I made the trek over to Angelo's located at the corner of SW 153rd St. and 6th Ave. SW in Burien.  (see map)  Parking in parts of Burien is not allowed in the street, but there are parking areas between buildings and the street.  I was able to get a parking spot right in front of Angelo's.  

I was greeted by a hostess who asked if I would like to sit in the lounge or in the dining room.  She took me down a hallway toward the back of the restaurant and showed me the lounge.  It was a dark and cozy room with a low-slug ceiling and televisions in the corner.  

The bar was pretty small - it only sat six or seven people - and all the chairs were filled when I was looking around.  I didn't exactly feel too comfortable as a single diner eating at a table in the lounge, so I asked the hostess to show me the dining room.  

The dining room was a bit more inviting than the lounge and was better lit.  Decorative sconce lighting on the walls helped brighten up the room.  There are two windows in the dining room and I understand those were put in just recently.  For years, Angelo's had no windows and it turned out that long time patrons were upset when the windows were put in.  They weren't large windows, but it riled up some of their customers to no end.  

The kitchen had open windows that looked out into the dining room.  There was a small little alcove off to the side of the main dining room with some booths and tables.  I looked in there and asked if I could sit at one of those tables.  The hostess said it would be no problem and she gave me a menu when I sat down. 

My server that evening was a lady by the name of Margie.  And she looked like a Margie - outgoing, pleasant, and friendly.  From interactions she had with other people seated near me, it appeared that she had been off-work for some time due to some health problems.  She seemed happy to be back to work and to chat with some of the regulars who were glad to see her.  

Margie came over to greet me and asked what I wanted to drink.  I saw that they had the Space Dust IPA from the Elysian Brewing Company located in Seattle.  Space Dust IPA is available in the Midwest and I've had it a few times in the past.  Later on with dinner, I got a glass of the house Malbec wine to go with my dinner. 

There were a number of off-the-menu specials that evening including a bucatini with ground sausage, mushrooms and red peppers in a light tomato sauce.  That sounded pretty good to me as did the Seafood Angel Hair pasta dish with prawns and halibut with cherry tomatoes, spinach and corn topped with a white wine butter sauce.  On the regular menu, they had a number of pasta dishes, as well as steaks, veal and chicken entrees.  I almost went with the veal piccata, but I was looking for something along the line of pasta.

The pasta dishes were many and there were a lot of options for me to choose from.  There was a penne bolognese dish on the menu, as well as cannelloni stuffed with ground beef, ground sausage and spinach.  There was also a seafood cannelloni stuffed with crab meat, shrimp, mushrooms and spinach and topped with a cream sauce.  I was having trouble figuring out what I wanted.

After I ordered my dinner from Margie, I got a small Italian salad that came with cubed parmesan cheese, slices of salami and a side of toasted house-made bread.  The salad featured fresh lettuce greens and was topped with an oil and vinegar dressing.  Nothing special, but it was still good.

I couldn't make up my mind between two items on the menu - the beef ravioli with a marinara sauce, or the beef tortellini in a cream sauce.  I really like ravioli, but it had been a long time since I'd had beef tortellini.  Margie said, "I can split it half-and-half for you."  I was sort of amazed that she would do that.  She said, "Sure, I can do anything.  We'll make it work for you."  

And that's how it came out - beef ravioli with a marinara on one side, and the beef tortellini on the other.  The marinara sauce was a rich and hearty gravy that covered the ravioli pillows filled with beef.  The tortellini didn't quite have as much of an alfredo cream sauce as I would have liked, but it still looked pretty good.

But it turned out that it wasn't.  The tortellini was sort of "meh!"  It was dry and the tortellini was a bit overcooked.  It wasn't all that great.   The beef ravioli was fine, I thought the sauce was a bit drab, but it was better than the tortellini.  I was glad I was able to try both, but the ravioli was much better than the tortellini.  And the ravioli was just all right.  

For an old-school Italian restaurant, Angelo's certainly fits the profile.  Margie was a great server - accommodating, friendly and a bit sassy.  The atmosphere was cozy and warm, but the food fell a bit short of expectations.  They must be doing something right if they have been in business for over 65 years and seem to have a devoted clientele.  But I wasn't all that enamored with the food I had at Angelo's of Burien.  

 

Eatery A - Des Moines, IA

My wife and I took a couple days out of our busy work schedules to get away to Des Moines for a long weekend and the Iowa State Fair.  We stayed with a friend of ours out in the northwest suburb of Johnston and we were trying to figure out a fun place with good food, good drinks and a good craft beer selection on a Sunday evening.  Our friend was no help.  "I don't go out and eat all that much," she explained.  "The only time I try new places is when you guys come to town!"  I did some searches on line and found a number of places were closed.  But of those that were open that evening, a Mediterranean restaurant by the name of Eatery A kept coming up.  I knew I had either been to Eatery A or had heard of the place, but I couldn't quite figure it out.  I made the executive decision to head to Eatery A for dinner that evening.  

Now, what our friend said about her not knowing much about restaurants isn't quite true because she turned us on to one of our favorite breakfast/brunch places in Des Moines - Motley School Tavern.  (Click here to see the Road Tips write-up on Motley School Tavern.)  And there is a connection between MST (what the locals refer to the place as) and Eatery A.  And that's where I had heard of Eatery A before.  

Jason Simon is the longtime owner of the upscale American restaurant Alba located in the East Village of Des Moines.  When he opened in 2008, a young sous chef by the name of Nic Gonwa was working with him in the kitchen.  It wasn't long before Alba was one of the more popular culinary destinations in the greater Des Moines area.

In 2013, Simon started to seek out locations for a no-frills/straight-forward Mediterranean-style restaurant that Gonwa and he had been talking about doing.  On Ingersoll Ave. along a stretch of the street known for restaurants and bars there was a former Blockbuster video rental store location.  Due to bankruptcy by the parent company, Blockbuster shut down over 900 stores in 2010 including the one along Ingersoll Ave.  In 2011 into late 2012, the building was used as the Iowa headquarters for the re-election of Barack Obama.  After the election was over, the building sat vacant until early 2014 when Simon took over the location for his new restaurant.  

Simon installed Gonwa as the head chef of the new venture - Eatery A - which opened in late summer of 2014.  Gonwa's take on Mediterranean cuisine along with wood-fired pizzas made Eatery A a popular destination right from the start.  In 2015, Nic Gonwa was nominated as a James Beard Award recipient as a Rising Star Chef.   

In 2018, Simon and Gonwa had come up with a new concept for a restaurant, sort of an adult "after-school" place that had comfort food and a laid-back vibe.  After taking over the Chef's Kitchen location in the Beaverdale neighborhood at the end of 2018, Simon and Gonwa opened Motley School Tavern in early 2019.  They named the restaurant after the "motley" bunch of characters Gonwa and Simon had come across in their restaurant careers. 

Gonwa moved over to Motley School Tavern and Simon had to reach out in the chef ranks around the area to replace Gonwa as chef at Eatery A.  He found such a person in Andy Sayre, a veteran of restaurants such as (the now-closed) Baru 66, Echo Valley Country Club, and the acclaimed Mirabelle at Beaver Creek outside of Vail, CO.  A native of Jefferson, IA, Sayre was a graduate of the culinary arts program at Des Moines Area Community College.  Sayre continued Eatery A's unique stylings on Mediterranean cuisine under Simon's leadership and with help from Gonwa.  

I had made reservations for us through Open Table at 7 p.m.  I underestimated the time it took to get from our friends place in Johnston into Des Moines to get to Eatery A and we showed up about 25 minutes early.  Ingersoll Ave. was torn up in front of Eatery A, but we were able to get into the parking lot through a temporary opening.  (see map)  Even for a Sunday night, the restaurant was packed and we were lucky to get the last parking spot in the lot.  

We walked inside and went to the host stand at the very front just inside the door.  I explained to him that we had reservations for three at 7 p.m., but we were early.  As he took a look as to where he could put us, I looked over to my right at the three-sided bar with the large wood-fired oven behind the bar area.  

The bar was actually pretty cool.  It featured reclaimed barn wood and the corners were curved.  The bar top was thick block wood and very elegant looking.  I would have been happy just to belly up to the bar to have dinner.  

There was a dining area in the back of the restaurant area. It also featured reclaimed barn board walls with a series of tables and booths.  Upscale Edison light fixtures hung from the ceiling giving the room a warm glow.

Out front looking through the large windows, there was the patio area.  It was elevated from the street so there wasn't the constant noise from vehicles going by.  It was a beautiful evening and the patio was packed.  The host said that he couldn't sit us out there, but he had a booth next to the bar that was available.  We were more than fine with that.  

After we were seated, our server for the evening came over to greet us.  Her name was Destiny and everyone at our table went, "Ohhhh!  What a great name!"  She thanked us for that and dropped off menus for us to go through.  

Destiny asked if we wanted to start off with something to drink and my wife ordered a Tito's dirty martini.  I got an Easy Eddy hazy IPA from Big Grove Brewery, and our friend got an old fashioned.  "I don't know why I ordered a bourbon drink," she said.  "It just sounded good!"  Eatery A also has an extensive collection of wines from Italy, Spain, Argentina and California.  

The dinner menu featured pasta dishes such as cavatelli with a duck ragu, bucatini with meat balls, and fettuccine with shredded cheese and black pepper.  They had items such as a hanger steak, a duck breast with seared polenta, and skewers of seafood, beef or chicken.  Salads, soups, and appetizers such as calamari, bacon-wrapped dates, and beef kibbeh - basically raw beef carpaccio - were also available.  A charcuterie selection of meats and cheese was also on the menu for an appetizer.  And their wood-fired pizzas featured all the regular toppings, but they also had gyro meat, Italian capicola, Genoa salami, and Moroccan beef kofta available as toppings.   

We started out getting some house-made hummus.  It came with warm pieces of sumac flatbread and featured chickpeas and chermoula blended together with tahina yogurt drizzled on top with fresh parsley flakes.  The hummus was excellent - some of the best I've had and I haven't been eating hummus all that much until, well, just within the last couple of years.  But my wife - who has been eating hummus much longer than that - also said that the hummus was some of the best she ever had.  

We also got three of the oven-baked sides to go along with our meal as either an appetizer or as a side as they came out first.  I ordered the roasted mushrooms - button mushrooms topped with fine bread crumbs and a mixture of herbs.  They were sensational in flavor.  My wife ordered up the warm olives with chopped artichoke hearts.  They were served with marinated tomatoes and thyme with a hint of orange added in.  They were also fabulous in taste.  And our friend ordered the Brussels sprouts.  They were drizzled with a pomegranate syrup and fine breadcrumbs, then roasted in the oven.  All three of the side/appetizer dishes were outstanding.  

For our main course that evening, our guest ended up getting the chicken shawarma.  It was grilled with marinated cucumbers and served with hummus, yogurt and flat bread.  It was finished with some cilantro leaves.  Our friend declared it to be "wonderful".  "The chicken is crispy on the outside, and tender and juicy on the inside.  This is awesome!" 

My wife went with the sirloin tips skewer.  It featured four chunks of beef cooked to a medium rare to medium and served with a peach and almond tabbouleh salad, herbed lebnah yogurt, all topped with a roasted tomato vinaigrette.  The presentation in the bowl was spectacular.  "I hope it tastes as good as it looks," she said admiring the food before she ate it.  Spoiler alert: She said it was as good as it looked.  

As soon as we started to look at the menu, my wife saw something that jumped out at her.  "Oh, look, honey," she exclaimed.  "They have grilled octopus!"  I thought momentarily about the lasagna with the beef and pork bolognese, but I kept going back to the octopus.  It was a no brainer.  It was Spanish octopus with ground chorizo, Yukon gold potatoes, and a parsley/anchovy bagnetto verde sauce.  The octopus was cooked perfectly and I shared a bite with my wife and our friend.  My wife remarked that some octopus she had with me in the past had been too rubbery.  Our friend said that she never cared for octopus for the same reason.  "I never liked the texture of octopus," she said.  "But this is actually very good!"  And it certainly was.     

We had shared the hummus, the sides and bites of each of our dinners with one another that evening, sort of a Mediterranean-style family-style experience.  Destiny came out with a dessert menu and I sort of groaned as I was already pretty full.  They had affogoto - espresso with vanilla gelato, but for some reason I didn't get that.  My wife eyed the Meyer lemon cheesecake made with a red wine and blueberry glaze and powdered chocolate.  She ordered that with three forks.  It was also remarkably delicious.  But I was stuffed after all of that.  

We really didn't know what to expect when we went into Eatery A, but it turned out to be one of the more memorable dining experiences we'd had in a long time.  Weeks after our visit there, my wife and I were still talking about how good it was.  The food was fabulous, the decor and ambiance with remarkable, and Destiny's service was top-notch.  Our friend - who had also never been to Eatery A before - said, "You know, I could just come back here, sit at the bar, get a drink and order up the hummus and pita bread and I'd be set!"  There's a number of interesting items on the menu at Eatery A that I would have no problem heading back there in the future to try something else.  

Rusciano's - North Liberty, IA

My wife's daughter recently celebrated a significant birthday and we wanted to get the family together to celebrate.  Since her daughter lives in North Liberty, my wife and I drove over to meet her daughter, her daughter's son and daughter, and my wife's son for dinner.  Their choice that evening was an Italian pizza restaurant I've been to before, but hadn't written about - Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli.  We got there just as they opened up at 5 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening.  

Gennaro Rusciano was born and raised in Naples, Italy.  You could say that working in kitchens was in his blood - he used to tell people he was born under a wood-fired oven.  His grandparents and uncles ran restaurants and bakeries in Naples.  Gennaro learned how to make food in a wood-fired oven from them making his first pizza at the age of 8.  As a young adult, his goal in life was to immigrate to the United States and run his own restaurant there.  But the process to move to the U.S. was an arduous task, at best.  It took a chance encounter with an American tourist to set those wheels in motion for Rusciano to move to the U.S.

Carol Gorney was a native of the Quad Cities and a licensed physician's assistant in Iowa City.  During a trip to Italy in 2016, she was introduced to Gennaro Rusciano by a fellow tourist on the trip who happened to be Rusciano's mother's cousin.  Rusciano told Gorney that his dream was to move to America and open his own restaurant.  At first Gorney and Rusciano were sort of joking about it, but the more they talked, the more they realized they could get it to work out.  

To be eligible for a visa, Rusciano had to present United States immigration officials with a solid business plan on opening and working in a restaurant.  Less than two months after they met, and with Gorney as a partner, Rusciano was able to get a work visa that allowed him and his family to move to the states in March of 2016.  It took some time for Rusciano and Gorney to get everything together and in June 2017 they signed a lease in a space in a strip mall on North Liberty's north side of town.  In November of 2017, Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli opened to the public.  Helping Rusciano out with the day-to-day operations was Gorney's son Taylor who stepped in as the restaurant's manager.  

Pictured right - Gennaro Rusciano.  Photo courtesy Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli Facebook page.  

And the authentic taste of Naples is far from just word salad.  The large brick oven Rusciano's uses to cook pizzas and breads was made in Naples and imported over in 2017.  He gets his flour and olive oil sent over from Italy.  San Marzano tomatoes and Calabrian peppers are also imported from his home country as are some of the wines he offers at the restaurant.  Craft beers from Iowa breweries are available at Rusciano's, local baker Adam Kopfman from Tip Top Cakes in Iowa City made the desserts exclusively for Rusciano's.  Other ingredients Rusciano uses are locally sourced from farms and other food outlets.   

We had six people in our party for dinner that evening and my wife and I showed up early, just after 5 p.m. to make sure they had the reservation for our party correct.  They had a table in the corner in the front of the restaurant for us all ready to go.  The restaurant space, itself, was what I would call modern industrial with an open ceiling with ductwork and light fixtures hanging above the dining area.  The large brick oven that was imported from Naples sits in the back corner behind the counter.  

Along the other side wall was more artwork - photos and paintings of Naples.  A large wood carving of the silouette of Mount Vesuvius with neon lighting behind the carving giving it a bit of a red hue on the outline.  Booths were along the wall underneath the pictures and the wood carving.  

My wife's showed up not too long after we got into Rusciano's, then her daughter and her daughter's son and daughter showed up about 5:20.  A young lady by the name of Sierra was our server that evening and after she dropped off menus for everyone, she took drink orders.  My wife ordered a glass of the house chianti - a Castello di Querceto from the Florence region in Italy, while I got a Pseudo Sue pale ale from the Toppling Goliath brewery in Decorah, IA.  

Rusciano's menu has a lot more to offer than just pizza.  They offer some authentic Napoli street bites as part of their appetizer menu including balls of risotto and ground Italian sausage; mini-pizza dough balls topped with marinara and fresh mozzarella; and bucatini pasta balls with sausage, San Marzano tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella.  They had a caprese salad and creamy burrata, as well as focaccia bread and bruschetta.  We started out getting a charcuterie board with a selection of cured meats and cheese.  My wife also wanted to get the olive appetizer with a mixture of black and green olives on the plate.  

My wife and her daughter decided to get a couple things to share.  They started out with a salsaccia and cheese pizza with San Marzano pizza sauce, real mozzarella cheese and fresh basil leaves on top.  Rusciano's grinds all their sausage in house.  The pizza had puffy edges from the OO flour that is imported from Italy.  

The granddaughter and grandson both got their own personal pizzas.  The grandson got a pepperoni pizza while the granddaughter - who was seated next to me - got her own personal cheese pizza.  I kept acting like I was going to steal a piece of her pizza while she was eating and she kept smacking my hand away.  "You should have got your own," she said in her own sassy way.   

My wife and her daughter also got pasta - it was truly a family-style atmosphere at our table as there was sharing going on.  They got the rigatoni pasta with a mixture of San Marzano marinara and an alfredo sauce.  I guess you could call it a creamy marinara, but my stepdaughter had it at Rusciano's before and my wife thought it was awesome in flavor.   

My stepson got the fettuccine alfredo with shrimp.  Two large pieces of toasted bread came with the fettuccine alfredo.  It wasn't that large of a portion, but he was helping eat off his mom's and sister's pizza and pasta.  

I had gotten a pizza on my previous visit to Rusciano's before COVID hit, and I contemplated getting a calzone - the Zi Totonno with sausage and Genoa salami stuffed inside with San Marzano sauce, mozzarella and pecorino romano cheese.  But this time I went with the fettuccine in a hearty bolognese sauce.  Rusciano's uses slow-cooked braised beef along with San Marzano tomatoes in their bolognese sauce.  If you're a regular Road Tips reader and have been paying attention over the past few months, I've really been on a bolognese with pasta kick as of late.  I've made my own at home with ground beef, ground pork, San Marzano tomatoes, some cream, and Italian herbs.  The bolognese at Rusciano's was surprisingly good.  As in very good.  I would have put it up against some of the bolognese and pasta dishes I've had a some nice Italian restaurants over the past year.  

Since it was a significant birthday for my wife's daughter, we decided to all get something from Rusicano's dessert menu.  They had tiramisu and that's what my wife ordered for her daughter and her.  It was a big fluffy piece of tiramisu with ladyfingers encased in the spongy mascarpone.  Espresso beans with powered chocolate covered the piece of tiramisu.  I had a bite and it was excellent.   

My choice was the limoncello cheese cake that was topped with a strawberry drizzle.  Compared to the tiramisu, this was pretty "meh!"  It didn't have much of a lemon flavor to it, at least not enough to put a citrus "zing" on my tongue.  

My stepson got a couple cannoli.  He gave me half of one and it was also very good.  It was loaded with a batch of sweet ricotta cheese and sprinkled with a generous portion of powered sugar.  It was delicious. 

The grandkids went with the Nutella pizza.  I about fainted when I saw it because it was basically a pizza topped with powdered sugar, Nutella, slices of strawberries and dollops of whipped cream.  I said, "There is no way these little t**ds are going to be able to eat this."  Guess what?  They DID!!  (I think they had some help along the way.)  Thinking about how much sugar that dessert pizza had to have, I told my stepdaughter, "I'm glad they're going home with you and not with us!"  

Gennaro Rusciano came over to check in on us as we were enjoying the desserts.  I mentioned that it would have been nice to get an affogato as a dessert choice.  He said he didn't have espresso there, but there was a coffee shop next door.  "I've got some gelato," he said as it got me thinking.  Unfortunately, the coffee shop closed down at 5 p.m.  Oh, well.  

Rusciano's is my stepdaughter's favorite place to get food in North Liberty and it was no wonder that we ended up there for her birthday dinner.  I found that it's much more than just a pizza restaurant as the fettuccine bolognese I had there was outstanding.  About the only thing I can think of that wasn't very good to excellent was the limoncello cheese cake that was pretty bland to me.  Everyone was more than happy with what they got.  And I have to give a shoutout to Sierra who was on top of every request and was quick to respond.  Rusciano's really is an authentic taste of old Naples.  

Black Dog Pub - Fort Wayne, IN

My colleague from Montreal and I were out in Fort Wayne earlier this year to do some training sessions and we had spent a good portion of the day setting up for the trainings.  We had some running around to do to pick up some items that we would need for the presentations and to ship the products back to our warehouse in Montreal after we finished the next evening.  My colleague is a vegetarian and I have to be cognoscente of his dietary needs when we're together.  But it turns out that he can pretty much find something on the menu at any place we go to.  After our last stop, it turned out there was an Irish pub not too far away from us.  A beer and a bite of food sounded good for the both of us, so we drove a short way to the Black Dog Pub.

Brothers and restaurant veterans Jeff and Dave Hamilton established the Black Dog Pub in 2002 and it quickly became a neighborhood favorite for people living on Fort Wayne's west side.  The restaurant is located in a strip mall near the corner of W. Covington Rd. and Getz Rd., not far from where Getz and W. Jefferson Rd meets up.  (see map)  

We were able to find a parking spot just down from the Black Dog Pub in the lot for the strip mall.  There was a shaded patio area in front of the brick facade building, but it was a very hot day and there was no way that we'd want to be seated outside.

There appeared to be two doors into the Black Dog Pub and we took the one on the right.  That took us into the lounge area.  It featured a bar on one side of a well lit room with green and white checkerboard tile on the floor.  The opposite side of the bar featured some booths and high-top tables.  The bar area was an interesting mix of blue collar workers, duffers just off the golf course, older people enjoying an early evening drink and young ladies who looked like they just came from the office.

We found the last booth that was open in the dining room next to the bar.  The dining room was also well lit and had a faux brick wall on one side with flatscreen televisions on the walls.  My colleague was keen to watch some of the replay of the Euro 2024 soccer match from earlier in the day that they had up on one of the screens in the bar.   He was able to get someone to turn the channel to the game on one of the televisions near where we were seated.

Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Ciera.  She dropped off a couple food menus for us to look over and there was a beer menu on the wall.  They had about 20 different beers and ciders on tap at Black Dog Pub.  I wanted to get one of the hazy IPA's they had listed from a brewery in Indianapolis.  Ciera went and checked on that and she said that they were out of that beer.  I then asked about the IPA that GnomeTown Brewery in downtown Fort Wayne makes for them.  Well, they were out of that!  I ended up cutting my losses and got a pint of the Two Hearted India pale ale from Bell's Brewery out of Kalamazoo, MI.  My buddy ended up getting the same thing.  

The menu at Black Dog Pub isn't all that dissimilar to other pub-style restaurants.  Appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches, burgers, wraps and entrees such as ribs and an 8 ounce beef tenderloin filet were prevalent on the menu.  They also had pizza and calzones on the menu, as well as submarine sandwiches.  

My colleague went with the Beyond Burger with a plant-based patty that I've actually wanted to try at some point (but have been too chicken to order).  He said that the Beyond Burger's are pretty good, but he doesn't get them all the time because of how highly processed they are.  "Even though they are vegetarian, they aren't all that good for you if you have one more than once a week," he said.  The things I learn from a vegetarian.  

I had seen a pizza going out to another table and that's what I ended up getting - a small (10") thin-crust with sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms. I'd had a big salad for lunch earlier in the day and this was really all I needed to eat.  It was a tad overcooked and there was a dearth of sauce on the pizza, but other than that it was fine.  Not the best I've had, but it was still good.   

The Black Dog Pub was fine for what it was.  My old neighbor would have probably hated the place because he's the kind of guy (full Irish) who rails against restaurants or bars who go into a strip mall, put up an Irish flag in the corner, and call themselves and Irish pub.  And in this case, he's probably right.  About the only authentic - or near authentic - thing they had on the food menu was fish and chips.  No shepard's pie, no bangers & mash, no corned beef & cabbage - none of that was found on the menu at Black Dog Pub.  But what they did have to offer was fine for pub fare.  It worked for us that evening.  

The Original Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana - New Haven, CT

When I started to plan my trip to New England, I decided to fly into Hartford, CT and start from there.  My first meeting was going to be a breakfast meeting with an account that I had just outside of New Haven, CT.  One of the places that I've always heard about and really wanted to try was a famous pizza place in New Haven that many people think is one of the best - if not the best - pizza place in all the United States.  I drove from Hartford to New Haven in a driving rain storm to experience the Original Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana - or simply known as Frank Pepe's.  

Frank Pepe was born in Maiori, Italy in April of 1893.  The foothills around Maiori - located along the Amalfi Coast - featured some of the best land for growing grapes, tomatoes and other produce.  Pepe's family eventually moved to nearby Naples and lived by modest means.

In 1909, Frank Pepe immigrated to America entering through Ellis Island with no money and no understanding of the English language.  The young Pepe was sent to New Haven, CT to work in factories alongside other Italian immigrants in New Haven's Wooster Square neighborhood which eventually became the city's "Little Italy" section.  

When Italy entered World War I against Austria-Hungary in 1915, Frank Pepe went back home to Italy to fight in the war.  When the war ended in 1918, Pepe went back to Maiori and met a young lady by the name of Filomena Volpi.  The two married in September of 1919 and it wasn't long after that when the young married couple made their way back to America to work and raise a family.   

Back in New Haven at the start of 1920, Frank started to work in a pasta factory before moving on to work at a bakery on Wooster Street in Wooster Square.  It was during his time at the bakery that he started to make his version of a homeland staple of baked thin-crust bread topped with tomato sauce, grated pecorino romano cheese, garlic, oregano and olive oil, and - at times - anchovies that was baked in a large coal oven at the bakery.  Known as "apizza", but pronounced "Ah-Beets", Frank began to sell the baked tomato pies at the nearby Wooster Market walking among the vendors and crowd with a special headdress that held several pizzas on his head.  He eventually bought a wagon where he could walk the streets of New Haven selling his pizzas.  

Pictured right - Frank Pepe.  Photo courtesy Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana website.  

By 1925, Frank had saved enough money to buy the bakery from the Boccamiello family and established "Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana" selling his tomato pies. Frank still didn't know how to read or speak English, but Filomena did.  She stepped in to do most of the administrative work at the pizza place while Frank started the coal oven every morning like clockwork.  

And it was truly a family business as Frank hired a number of relatives who had come over from Italy to work in the bakery including his half-brother Alessio and Alessio's son, Mac.  Also working in the bakery was his cousin Tommy, and two nephews, Salvatore and Tony Consiglio.  In 1938, Salvatore Consiglio left Frank Pepe's and started his own apizza place just down the street - Sally's Apizza.  To this day, there are people who have their favorite between the two family competitors.

In 1936, the Boccamiello family came back and said they wanted the building back from Frank.  Frank only bought the bakery business from the Boccamiello's, but the Boccamiello's still owned the building.  Undeterred, Frank bought the building next door, a two-story building where he put his pizzeria on the ground floor and the Pepe family lived on the second floor.  The Boocamiello's then opened their own pizza place and named it "The Spot".   

Frank Pepe's new location was huge.  It was said that the seating capacity of his pizzeria made it the largest restaurant in the United States.  Eventually his daughters, Elizabeth and Serafina, his younger sister Rachel, and Elizabeth's husband Ralph Rosselli joined the family business.  The word of Frank's pizza reached far and wide with famous faces showing up to have a Frank Pepe's pizza when they were in New Haven.  Frank's famous White Clam Pizza - made with fresh clams that were shucked at Frank Pepe's, along with olive oil, garlic, oregano and grated Pecorino Romano cheese - quickly became the go-to for pizza aficionados who came from near and far to try Frank Pepe's signature pizza.   

Frank was known as a giving person, helping out the neighborhood when needed with monetary donations or free pizzas.  He continued to work in his pizza place daily up until he passed away in 1969.  His daughters took over the business and they brought in their children to help out at the restaurant.  In 1977, Elizabeth and Serafina bought the Spot next door from the Boccamiello family and decided to renovate the place.  In 1981, the original Frank Pepe's location was opened as "Frank Pepe's - The Spot", basically an annex to Frank Pepe's pizzeria that had the same menu as the main restaurant next door.  

Frank's daughters retired in the early 1990's and passed the business along to their sons and daughters.  The seven Frank and Filomena Pepe grandchildren continued with the pizza place with an eye on expansion.  In 2006, the first Frank Pepe's location outside of New Haven opened in Fairfield, CT and a second one opened in Manchester, CT - a suburb of Hartford - a year later.  Expansion continued into the 2010's and early 2020's.  Today, there are 16 Frank Pepe's locations - mainly in Connecticut with two locations in the Washington D.C area, two in Florida and three in Massachusetts.  

Each of the Frank Pepe's locations has a 14' X 14' custom made brick oven that is similar to the original bread oven Frank Pepe used in the small bakery back over 100 years ago.  The mold for the original cast iron doors on the ovens is used to forge the large doors for the front of the oven and the coal chambers.  The pizzaiolos who man the ovens at each Frank Pepe's location are extensively trained to cook the pizzas properly to make sure that the pizza you may be eating at the Frank Pepe's in Yonkers, NY is the same as the one you're having in New Haven.  

After getting my rental car at the airport in Hartford, I took off south out of the city to head to New Haven.  It was raining hard at times with the car hydroplaning on Interstate 91 on a couple occasions.  By the time I got to New Haven, the rain had let up to a light shower, but it was cold with a temperature in the upper 50's.  I pulled up to Frank Pepe's on Wooster Street and saw that there was a line - even around 3 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. (see map)  Parking is definitely tight in the neighborhood as there are a number of restaurants up and down Wooster Street.  However, I was extremely lucky as there was a car pulling out of the first spot in the parking lot just to the west of Frank Pepe's.  I quickly took a left turn and pulled into the open spot.  

I didn't pack a coat with me on my trip out to New England because the weather forecast was to be sunny and warm most of the week.  Well, with the exception of Sunday when I flew in and drove down to New Haven.  In a short-sleeved polo shirt standing in line at Frank Pepe's, I was a bit chilled.  And I was getting a little wet from the light rain.  Luckily, the line moved quick enough after a few minutes where I found myself under an awning in front of Frank Pepe's.  

A young lady was canvassing the crowd standing in front of the pizzeria checking to see how many were in their respective groups.  When she came to me and I told her that it was just me, she said, "I may have a solution for you.  Hang on."  

She went inside and came back out to call for a group of 4.  Then she came up to me and said, "I have a table in the building next door that you can have.  It's a table for two."  She told me to go around the corner of the building and through the parking lot next door to the building in the back.  I lucked out again as I was going to be dining in the original building where Frank Pepe started his pizzeria almost 100 years ago.  

Just inside the door, I was directed to a small table in a small room near the kitchen.  A larger dining room had been added off to the side of the restaurant a number of years ago.  It featured white-washed brick walls with historical pictures on the wall, a sky-light and about a dozen tables in the dining room.  The small area between the big dining room and the kitchen where I was seated had - if I remember correctly - five or six tables.  

A cute young lady by the name of Ashley was my server that day.  I have to say right off the bat, she was great.  She was patient with a first timer at Frank Pepe's, she had a good sense of humor and she gave me some good recommendations.  The first good recommendation she gave me was the Fuzzy Baby Ducks New England IPA from the New England Brewing Company from the New Haven suburb of Woodbridge.  

The menu was printed on a laminated sheet that was on the table when I sat down.   All they do at Frank Pepe's is pizza. And the pizzas are all 12" in diameter.  They do have salads available, but that's it.  Now, my former co-worker who traveled New England for our company for a number of years told me a long time ago that Frank Pepe's signature pizza - the white clam pizza - was just to die for.  I was texting him while I was at Frank Pepe's and told him that I was here.  "The clam pizza is legendary," he texted back.  

I was apprehensive about getting the white clam pizza on my first visit, so I turned to Ashley's expertise in the matter.  "We do sell a lot of the white clam pizzas," she told me after bringing me back another beer.  "But I'm sort of partial to our tomato pie pizzas."  After she left me to continue to go back and forth as to what pizza I would get, I began to notice that a lot of pizzas coming out of the kitchen were with tomato sauce.  I'm not certain I saw a white clam pizza come out of the kitchen while I was there.

And because of that, I went with my standard sausage, pepperoni and mushroom with mozzarella cheese.  It was presented resting on wax paper on a cookie sheet - not a fancy presentation, but it worked fine.  The outer crust had char marks and the pizza had that great charred taste to it.  The mozzarella was sort of runny - like Provel cheese on St. Louis-style pizza - and not stringy.  But the pizza was very good.  Was it the best pizza I've ever had?  No, I don't know if I can say that.  But it would have been in my Top 10.  

And because the pizza crust was so thin, I had no problem finishing the whole 12" pizza.  Ashley came over to check on me when I had one piece left to eat and asked if I wanted a box.  "No, I think I'm going to finish it off," I said.  "This will be my lunch and dinner in one meal."  

As I was getting ready to leave to head out to my hotel, I went toward the front of the original Frank Pepe's building to see if I could get a look at the big brick oven.  A lady standing up at the front said, "Sure, if you want to get a picture of the oven, come on in!"  She escorted me into the kitchen on the far side and I was able to snap some photos of the original brick oven that has been working for over 100 years.  It was pretty cool to see.

Walking back to my car, I was walking past the main building at Frank Pepe's.  I decided to take a couple steps back and walk in.  The lady at the pick-up counter asked if she could help me and I said I wanted to take a couple shots of the inside of the restaurant.  She was more than happy to allow me to do so.  I didn't go back and around the corner into the main dining area at the restaurant, but I got a shot of the original dining room from the second "main" location for Frank Pepe's.

I detest the notion of a "Bucket List".  But Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana has long been on my list of places to visit since I started a list on my Google Maps a number of years ago.  The history - alone - is worth the visit to Frank Pepe's, but the pizza was excellent.  It was not disappointing in the least.  I had great service from Ashley and they had a nice list of craft beers to go along with their famous pizza.  I'll probably head back to New Haven at some point as I have an account in the area.  I don't know if I'll try Frank Pepe's again, or maybe I'll head down the street to Sally's is see which of the two are better.  Given the history and the length both have been in business, I have a feeling that you couldn't go wrong with either one.      

Countryside Saloon - Des Plaines, IL

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.   

Saggio's - Albuquerque, NM

During our vacation in New Mexico, we were sort of burned out on green chile sauce, fried potatoes and sopapillas (although I don't know if you could EVER get burned out on sopapillas).  We were talking with a waiter at a restaurant in Albuquerque one evening and I casually asked him where the best place to get a pizza in the city.  He didn't even flinch.  "Saggio's," he enthusiastically replied.  I told him that we had been seeing Saggio's when we would pass by it on Central Avenue.  "It's a little kitschy," he told us.  "But if you can get past that, they have the best pizza in town."  One night during our stay in Albuquerque, we ended up at Saggio's for dinner.  

Michel "Michael" Casale and his wife Francesca were Italian immigrants who landed in New York and lived in the Bronx.  Over time, Francesca gave birth to 3 boys - Frank, Nick and Tony - and the family had a small pizza place in the Bronx.  Looking to get to a warmer part of the country, the family settled in Albuquerque in the mid-70's and it wasn't long afterward when they opened Saggio's, a pizza-by-the-slice establishment near the University of New Mexico.  

Frank, Nick and Tony were the main players in Saggio's and it wasn't long before they had outgrown their little pizza shop.  They found a building near the corner of Cornell and Central Ave. just across from the University of New Mexico.  Over the years, the brothers added decorations, murals, statues and anything sort of off-kilter and funky to their restaurant making it a favorite of students and locals alike.  Today, Tony's son Gian is the managing partner in the restaurant which opened a 2nd location in the fall of 2021 in the Coronado Center shopping mall on the city's northeast side.

We actually went to the Saggio's on the northeast side first because I'm not big on restaurants with a lot of noisy kitsch.  But when we found that place was packed (it was a Saturday night), we decided to suck it up and go to the Cornell Dr. location back toward the center of Albuquerque. (see map) 

After finding a parking spot just down Cornell Dr. SE, we walked up the street to the colorful building that housed Saggio's.  Just inside the door was a life-sized statue of Babe Ruth, across the walkway was a life-sized statue of Muhammed Ali, and sort of tucked back into the corner was a life-sized statue of former Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr.  That one sort of puzzled me because while Babe Ruth and Muhammed Ali were thought of to be the best in their sports, Starr was a fine quarterback, but there were others - even in his day - who were better quarterbacks.  

Among the first thing kitschy thing we encountered - other than the statues - was a red Mercedes with its top sheared off.  It was a serving counter for desserts - named after the Saggio matriarch Francesca - with a glass case that held a few items.  While most people might think it was ingenious, novel or cute, I just sort of shrugged my shoulders.  

The dining area was a busy mix of plants including white columns with royal blue urns at the top filled with tropical plants.  Large spider plants, a banana plant, and other plants were hanging or in pots throughout the dining area.  Colorful lights, more kitschy items, and a ceiling mural hovered above the slat bench seats in the dining room.  

The center piece of the dining area is a pop art mural which depicts celebrities and historical figures in a colorful mélange.  The Beatles, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe playing a guitar, The Three Stooges, John Wayne and The Supremes were all portrayed in the mural.  It gave us something to look at while we passed the time after ordering our pizza.  

Saggio's is counter service - counter ordering and counter pick-up - with the menu on the wall behind the front wall.  In addition to pizza, Saggio's tag line says "Italian Scratch Kitchen" and they had a number of pasta dishes on the menu, as well as salads, sandwiches and calzones.  

The thing I didn't like about Saggio's was that after we placed our order for food at the front counter, we had to go over to another counter in their bar area to order drinks.  That's two separate charges that I had to deal with rather than being able to order everything at one place.  My wife got a glass of chianti while I got a pint of the La Cumbre Elevated IPA.  

My wife needed some greens and she ordered a side Caesar salad to start out.  It was a basic romaine lettuce salad with croutons, shaved parmesan and some Italian seasoning sprinkled on top with a creamy Caesar dressing drizzled over the greens.  My wife thought it was fine for what it was.  

It was about 15 minutes after we ordered that our number was called for our pizza.  We went with our usual Italian sausage, mushroom and pepperoni.  We had a pretty big lunch earlier in the day and we weren't terribly hungry for dinner that night so we got a small thin crust.  It wasn't as thin as we like, but it was hand-tossed and the crust held up well with all the toppings.  Curiously, the sausage was shaved like they had shaved it off a spit like you would shave lamb meat for a gyro.  But we could tell the sausage had a spicy kick.  The mushrooms were fresh and earthy, and the pepperoni slices had a nice salty and spicy flavor.  

Was it a good pizza?  Sure, it was good.  The tangy tomato sauce and the mozzarella cheese coagulated well together with the toppings.  It was a filling pizza and we were glad we only got a small.  

While Saggio's came highly recommended by locals we talked with, it's evident that it was another instance of local bias where you like the pizza that you grew up with.  While Saggio's pizza was good, it didn't give us a jolt like we get with some of our favorite tavern-style pizzas in Chicago.  Everything about the pizza was fresh and it had good flavor.  I wouldn't call it a Top Ten pizza, but for Albuquerque I'm sure it was fine.  When we travel, we like to go where the locals go and it's wholly evident the locals go to Saggio's for their pizza.  Just remember - I warned you about the kitsch.  

Rance's Chicago Pizza - Costa Mesa, CA

Spending a few days in Southern California last fall, I was sort of hankering for a pizza.  Most of the pizza places I found on line seemed to be Neapolitan, wood-fired, artisan pizzas with vegetarian toppings and blistered crust.  No, I wanted a PIZZA - Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms with a tangy sauce and a thin, crisp crust.  Lo and behold, a pizza place jumped out at me when I saw a place on-line that featured the 3 different styles of Chicago pizza - deep-dish, stuffed and thin-crust/ tavern-style.  And it wasn't far away from my hotel.  I ended up heading over to Rance's Chicago Pizza in Costa Mesa.

In 1991, Rance Ruiz and Aaron Tofani met for the first time at a Little League practice in Long Beach and became fast friends.  As they grew up, Tofani took the pragmatic route in life studying business and finance at Cal State Fullerton.  He continued his post-graduate education in real estate and construction finance and analysis at University of California-Irvine, then got his Master's in real estate development from the University of Southern California.  

While Tofani toiled away at school, Ruiz was trying to figure out what he wanted to do in life.  He visited his sister who was going to college up in Berkeley at California and one evening they visited Zachary's, a Chicago-style pizza joint that was a favorite of people living in the East Bay.  It was at Zachary's that Ruiz had his epiphany in life - he needed to find the best of the best Chicago-style deep dish/stuffed pizza and figure out how to do it on his own.  The only problem - there weren't any true Chicago-style deep dish pizza places in Orange County. 

For the next few years, Ruiz traveled the country to find different styles of pizza.  He got to the point where he would get a pizza and try to dissect the ingredients, even going back to the pizza parlor to ask the owner or head cook exactly what was in the sauce or the dough.  It was basically trail and error for Ruiz at that point trying to come up with the perfect pan-stuffed pizza.

By 2011, Ruiz figured that he had it down and opened up his first pizza joint in Yorba Linda, CA - P.H.A.T., an acronym for "Pretty Hot and Tasty."  The problem was that Ruiz knew how to make pizza, but he didn't know the business side of things.  P.H.A.T. was open for about a year before Ruiz closed the business.

That's when his childhood friend Aaron Tofani came to Ruiz to offer his assistance.  Tofani knew everything that had to come together to get a business of the ground, a good location, the correct procedures, the right name for the business, and having a cash flow to keep the doors open.  With Tofani on board as a partner, Ruiz didn't have to worry about the day-to-day operations of the business allowing him to make his Chicago-style pizzas in the kitchen.  

Pictured right - Aaron Tofani and Rance Ruiz accepting their Golden Foodie award for the best pizza in Orange County in 2016.  Picture courtesy Rance's Chicago Pizza - Costa Mesa Facebook page.  

The business partners settled upon finding a place in Costa Mesa based upon demographic studies of age groups in the area.  They found a small space in the Costa Mesa Square shopping center and in early December of 2012 Rance's Pizza had a soft-opening before opening full bore in January of 2013.  

Rance's Chicago Pizza was an instant hit.  They offered the holy trinity of Chicago-style pizzas - pan, stuffed and thin crust tavern-style pizza.  There was nothing like Rance's pizza in Southern California.  Chicago ex-pats, patrons who had visited pizza places in Chicago, and those who were wanting to see what the hubbub was all about streamed into Rance's small 67-seat restaurant from the first day.  

By 2016, the business partners were looking to expand.  They set their sight on their old neighborhood of Long Beach, the Belmont Shore area.  In February of 2017, the Long Beach location for Rance's opened their doors.  

In 2018, Tofani had a chance to put in a Rance's in the USC Village dining hall at Southern Cal.  A third Rance's opened there and things weren't right from the start.  School administrators had promised that Rance's would be part of the network of USC student credit cards that could be used to pay for food on campus.  However, that turned out not to be true and Rance's (along with one other restaurant) closed their doors and filed suit against USC for fraud and deception.  It was probably a good thing as it allowed Ruiz and Tofani to focus on the two successful locations for Rances.  

Rance's Pizza in Costa Mesa was about a 15 minute drive from my hotel.  It was somewhat difficult to find as it was tucked in the back of one of the buildings between a sushi place and a ramen noodle joint in the complex at Baker St. and Harbor Blvd.  (see map)  The small narrow space had bench seating along the long wall with tables and chairs.  It was well lit and sort of busy with both people dining in and people picking up pizzas to go.  They closed at 8 p.m. and I was there after 8 p.m. when a large group of people including small children came into the place and appeared to be having a party.  (I understand that the Rance's Chicago Pizza in Long Beach has a bit more character than the bland interior of the Costa Mesa location.)  

I took a table along the wall toward the back of the restaurant.  It was a Thursday night and I was sort of surprised to see that they had Amazon Prime's Thursday night football game up on all the flat-screen televisions hung on the wall throughout the restaurant.  Having a friend who owns a sports bar and knowing how expensive it is for small bars and restaurants to show Amazon Prime NFL games games in an establishment, I was sort of surprised to see the game on the TV's.  

My server for the evening was a nice guy by the name of Derek.  He brought over a menu for me to look over and asked me what I would like to drink.  They had a number of craft beers on tap and they rotate the selection on a regular basis.  That evening they an Offshoot Relax hazy IPA on tap from The Bruery, a microbrewery from Placentia, CA.  

Before Derek left to get my beer, he asked if I had ever been to Rance's before.  "Nope!  First time here," I said to him.  Then he started to tell me about the different styles of Chicago pizza.  As he started to describe the different pizzas, I waved him off.  "I live about two-and-a-half hours from Chicago," I told him.  "I'm there all the time and I know the difference between the pizzas."  

"Oh!  Perfect," he exclaimed.  "So, you already know that it takes about 45 minutes for our deep pan pizzas."  I told him that I certainly did.  "That saves me time, then!"  He went off to grab my beer.  

I'm partial to a good thin-crust pizza and most people from Chicago will tell you that the thin-crust pizza cut into tavern-style squares is the REAL Chicago-style pizza and that deep-dish or stuffed pizza is for tourists only.  But I have friends in Chicago who turned me onto Burt's, Lou Malnati's and Pequod's for the deep-dish style.  It's just that I can't usually finish even a small deep-dish pizza on my own and usually only get a deep-dish when I'm hosting people who don't get into Chicago all that often.  

A couple who were seated a couple tables down from me got the deep-dish pizza.  I have to say that it looked great - big chunks of tomatoes in the sauce, large chunks of sausage and loads of stringy mozzarella that oozed off the slices Derek was putting on the plate for the couple - similar to how servers serve a deep-dish pizza in Chicago.  The pizza looked very good and very Chicago-like.  

They had a number of specialty pizzas on the menu.  The "House Special" pizza had sausage, green peppers, onions and mushrooms; the "Best Seller" featured spinach and mushrooms (I thought of my wife who loves spinach and my vegetarian colleague when I saw that pizza); and "Rance's Favorite" - Rance Ruiz's signature pizza with meatballs, diced bacon and jalapeños.  All the specialty pizzas were available in either deep-dish, stuffed or tavern-style.  

Well, if you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you know what I'm always going to order - the sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  That's my gold standard and a lot of people like that combination if I'm with a group of people in a pizza joint.  When Derek set the small (10") pizza in front of me, it looked promising.  Big chunks of sausage, fresh mushrooms, pepperoni slices with a tinge of burnt edges and loads of mozzarella.  

And from the first bite it was like I was transported back to Chicago.  The sausage had a spicy taste balanced out by the great flavor of fennel mixed in the meat.  The pepperoni was salty and spicy, and the fresh mushrooms had that earthy tang.  The pizza sauce was a perfect mix of sweet and savory.  And the crust was buttery in taste and definitely thin, but the sag factor was minimal even with all the toppings on each slice.  This pizza rivaled some of the better tavern-style pizzas I've had in Chicago over the years. 

For me, Rance's Chicago Pizza was a spot-hitter.  For anyone in Southern California who is craving a Chicago-style pizza - whether it be a deep-dish, stuffed, or tavern-style pizza - Rance's would be the holy grail.  While the decor and atmosphere at the Costa Mesa location is a little sterile, I understand that the Long Beach location has a bit more warmth and pizazz.  Derek's service was very good - he came over to tell me that he would be indisposed for 10 to 15 minutes working on another project for the restaurant and brought me another beer because he saw that they were going down pretty easily.  For a midwesterner looking for a familiar taste and style of pizza, Rance's Chicago Pizza checked all the boxes.    

Crust Brewing - Rosemont, IL

I was in Chicago on a recent trip staying out in the Des Plaines/Rosemont area as I like to do when I go to Chicago for business.  One afternoon, I was looking for some place to get something to eat near the hotel and I found that there was a new brew pub that specialized in Neapolitan pizzas in a spot where the Hofbrauhaus used to be.  I decided to head over to Crust Brewing to check the place out.  

The father/son duo of Joe and Mike Matuschka were the ones behind the Hofbrauhaus, a franchise of the world famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany.  They opened their Hofbrauhaus in 2013 in Rosemont's entertainment district and followed it up with a St. Petersburg, FL location in 2015.  They ended up selling the St. Petersburg Hofbrauhaus in 2017 to focus solely on the Rosemont location. 

The Matuschka's were no strangers to the hospitality business in Chicago as they owned the famous Crobar dance club before closing it in 2010.  In 2011, Mike Matuschka opened Leader Bar, a popular eatery on W. Irving Park Road and soon opened a German tavern Uberstein in the Wrigleyville area.  They were also involved in the Max Bar, a dance club in the Lincoln Park neighborhood that opened in 2006.  While Mike Matuschka still owns Leader Bar, he closed Max Bar and Uberstein to focus on Hofbrauhaus soon after it opened in 2013.  

At 20,000 square feet, Hofbrauhaus was a giant beer hall with German music and large enough to handle the big crowds that would visit the restaurant during their annual Oktoberfest celebrations.  For six weeks in the fall, Hofbrauhaus was the place to be for all things German.  (Note - I visited Hofbrauhaus in 2015 to try their food and beers.  Click here to see Road Tips write up on the Hofbrauhaus.)   

But, like everything, things change.  The public trend of getting away from heavy German food was weighing heavily on the Hofbrauhaus.  And it became apparent that the beer hall couldn't sustain its overall business just on Oktoberfest revenues.  There were proposals put forth to cut down on the size of the Hofbrauhaus to possibly half the original size.  The pandemic was the death knell for Hofbrauhaus as the Matuschka's were forced to close the restaurant in February 2021.  

However, the Matuschka's still held the lease on the space and went to the city of Rosemont - who owns the property - with a proposal to change Hofbrauhaus into a brewery/pizza restaurant.  They still had the brewing facilities that they had purchased from Germany on site, and changing out the layout of the space to put in a new kitchen and a large bar in the center of the restaurant had to be approved by the Rosemont village government.  

After the approval was made, work started on the new venture in the spring of 2021 with hopes to be open in the summer of 2021.  However, like many construction projects started during the pandemic, it was plagued by delays due to supply chain issues.  The new Crust Brewery opened in February of 2022 in the south side of the building.  In the other half, Pete's Dueling Piano Bar - which originally had opened in the Rosemont entertainment district years ago before closing - took up about 5,000 square feet of the former Hofbrauhaus, while Pete's Tiki Tiki, a tiki bar, took the remaining 1,000 or so square feet of the building.  

I pulled up to Crust Brewing around 1:30 p.m. on a weekday.  (see map)  I was lucky to get a parking spot in front of the restaurant as there is a large (paid) parking garage that's a bit of a walk from Crust.   

The center piece of the restaurant was a large rectangular bar that featured a number of flat panel televisions on the sides.  I had my choice of sitting somewhere in the restaurant, but I decided to belly up to the bar. 

Directly behind the bar was part of the main room dining area. On the brick walls was the Crust logo with more flatscreen televisions.  Thick wooden-topped tables under direct LED lighting were waiting for customers to fill them up.  This was dubbed the cocktail bar area and could be cordoned off for private events.  

To the far right side was a modern and sleek open kitchen including a large pizza oven and a grill area.  Long tables for larger groups or communal dining were in front of the kitchen.  In all, Crust had a number different spots that could accommodate large and small groups.  

Opposite from the kitchen toward the front end of the restaurant, just over a half wall with glass partitions was another dining space that featured booths and tables.  Near the front door was a small bar area that could be used for private parties for drinks and hors d' oeuvres.  In all, the inside dining areas at Crust can seat 350 people with another 100 seats available on the patio during warmer months.  

In a room just steps from the bar were the large vats for brewing the beer on the premises.  Rob Hunter was the brewmaster during the Hofbrauhaus days and was sort of forced to follow the beer recipes handed down from the original Hofbrauhaus in Munich.  With the shackles off, Hunter has explored other style of beers including 8 regular varieties along with occasional seasonal beers. 

It wasn't all that busy that afternoon and the diverse music selections they had playing over the sound system from the likes of Loren Gray, Clayton Anderson, Mark Ronson, and the English rock band James were a nice background distraction from the sports and news talking heads shown on the televisions around the restaurant.  

Sitting at the bar, I was handed a food menu by one of the two bartenders working that day.  A young man and a young lady, the two tag-teamed on the service duties for me.   The young lady gave me a beer menu to look over and I immediately saw that they had a hazy IPA - the Hazed & Confused - on the beer list.  I ordered a pint of that beer to enjoy while I looked over the food menu.  

The first thing on the menu were the shareable appetizers that included a spinach dip with focaccia bread, spicy cheese curds, beer-steamed mussels, and crostini bread slices served with a creamy burrata cheese.  They also had a handful of salads on the menu in which protein items such as grilled shrimp, marinated skirt steak, and lemon garlic salmon could be added to the greens.  Crust also featured a few sandwiches and burgers on the menu with sides such as truffle fries, onion rings, and mac & cheese available.  

But their big pull are their wood-fired pizzas.  All the pizzas at Crust are 12" in size and cut into sixths.  And they feature a choice of either a red or white sauce on the pizza.  There were a dozen specialty pizzas on the menu with the red sauce and 10 different types of specialty pizzas with the white sauce.  Pizzas with individual choices of toppings were available as well.

I certainly didn't want a pizza for lunch - I was going out for dinner with a client later that evening.  But I felt that I needed something to tide me over for the meanwhile.  I ended up getting the basic cheeseburger with American cheese, grilled onions, and something called a "fat boy" sauce.  It was served on some wax paper on a small baking sheet.  For an extra $2 bucks I got a side of their parmesan truffle fries.  

The burger was good - the bun was a little stiff, but it didn't detract from the overall taste of the burger.  The burger was juicy and flavorful, cooked to a perfect medium with a hint of pink in the middle.  The cheese oozed off the sides of the burger patty and the onions didn't overpower the flavor.  The fries were fine - and there were plenty of them.  Overall, I'd call it above average all the way around.  

Possibly in the future I'll head back to Crust Brewery for a pizza at some point, but for now the burger I had for lunch gave me an introduction to the place.  Even though the place is big, I didn't feel like I was eating in a cavernous establishment.  The service I had from the two bartenders - especially from the very attentive female bartender - was superb.  I enjoyed the burger and the hazy IPA beer they had on tap was also very good.  I'm sure it can get pretty busy at times at Crust - the entertainment district can get sort of crowded, especially at night.  But for a leisurely lunch with a burger and a couple beers, I sort of liked going to Crust Brewery.  

Portofino's Italian Restaurant & Pizza - Ankeny, IA

During a trip back to Central Iowa last year, we tried to go to a pizza place in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny because we were told it was a good place to get a pizza.  However, it was a Sunday and when we pulled up in front of the place we found that they don't open on Sunday.  With my stomach still itching for a pizza, we did some more looking on Google and found a restaurant toward the center of Ankeny by the name of Portofino's Italian Restaurant & Pizza.  We decided to give that place a try.  

Portofino's is set back from Ankeny Blvd. - the main north-south road through Ankeny - at the corner of SE 8th St. (see map) It's in a stand alone building with plenty of parking in front of the building.  Liridon "Doni" and Silvije "Silvi" Zeqaj are Kosovo natives who had planned to open Portofino's in the spring of 2020, but were forced to delay the opening to August of that year due to the pandemic.   The restaurant has turned into a popular dining option for people in the fast growing community just north of Des Moines.  

We pulled into the spacious parking lot in front of Portofino's around 2:00 p.m.  The bright green-white-red awning - the colors on the Italian flag - over the stone-front facade was easy to see from the street.  We went inside and were shown to a booth along the side of the main dining room.  There was a small room to left of the front entrance that could be used for larger groups or for receptions.  A bar with wood awnings over it was the main focus of the dining room.  It would have been the kind of bar I would have sat at if I was there by myself to eat.  

In the middle of the dining area was a half-wall with a fire place in the middle.  The dining room had a variety of booths and tables with chairs.  The floor was a combination of tiles and hardwood flooring.  We were amazed that the flooring didn't amplify the chatter going on at the various tables in the dining area.  It was a very comfortable setting.  

Our server that day was a young lady by the name of Hannah.  She was cheerful and friendly who asked if we had any questions with the menu.  She took our drink order and I got a Lagunitas IPA while my wife got a glass of white wine.  

Moments after Hannah left to put our drink order in at the bar, she came back with a basket of what appeared to be some house-made challah bread with herbs.  It was definitely more bread than the two of us were going to consume, but we were both hungry and dove in.  It was warm, spongy and had a great house-baked flavor.  I had to admit I was impressed by that.  

My wife was going to get an entree for her lunch - we figured that we probably wouldn't eat the rest of the day - and she had a choice between a salad or soup for her starter.  She ended up getting the minestrone that they had that day.  I believe it was a vegetable minestrone as I didn't see any chunks of meat in her bowl.  The thick chunks of veggies in a light broth was something she needed since she nearly overdosed on beef the previous evening.  

The menu featured a number of Italian specialties - pasta dishes, chicken, Italian sausage and veal entrees, steaks, seafood and appetizers such as fried calamari, bruschetta, and a mozzarella caprese salad.  The fettuccine alfredo and the linguini with mushrooms sounded pretty good to me, as did the chicken parm.  

My wife ended up getting the veal piccata.  It featured two pieces of veal cutlets sitting on a large bed of spaghetti noodles with capers and a lemon piccata sauce mixed in.  While my wife liked the taste and tenderness of the veal, she didn't care for the piccata sauce.  She felt the piccata sauce was too bland and there wasn't enough of a lemon flavor to it.  (I may have spoiled her with my white wine/butter/lemon piccata sauce that I've made with chicken or veal cutlets of the years.)   Still, she ate the veal that she had on her plate and made a large dent in the generous portion of the pasta.  

I was jonesin' for a pizza, so I ordered up a sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  I got the 12" size and I should have gotten the 7" personal size pizza.  It featured a puffy Neapolitan-type crust and had spicy pepperoni slices, fresh sliced mushrooms, and chunks of zippy Italian sausage.  But it was a pretty doughy pizza and I really like to taste more of the toppings than I do the crust.  

My wife and I were both sort of "meh!" about Portofino's.  Oh, we couldn't deny we had great service from Hannah in a clean and comfortable setting.  And they did have an extensive menu of Italian specialties and pizza, but I wasn't impressed with the pizza I had, and my wife thought that her veal piccata was just "OK".   We're certain that there are people who feel more highly about the food at Portofino's, but we thought the food was sort of pedestrian for an Italian restaurant.  But for people who don't want to drive the 15 miles from Ankeny to Des Moines for some really good Italian food, Portofino's is a nice local alternative. 

505 Central Food Hall - Albuquerque, NM

During our trip to New Mexico last year, we found an interesting place not far from our hotel that was an urban food hall that housed 6 different restaurants, two bars/breweries, and a craft coffee shop.  For lunch one day, we decided to go check out 505 Central Food Hall and see what it was all about.   

Mark Baker didn't start out as a food hall owner or a coffee shop owner, but as an architect with an undergraduate degree from Oklahoma.  After working for a few years as a project architect, Baker moved to Los Angeles to work on his masters at UCLA.  While going to school at UCLA, Baker continued to work as a project architect in the greater Los Angeles area.  After graduating with his masters in architecture from UCLA in 2002, Baker moved to Albuquerque and started his own firm - Baker Architecture + Design.    

Baker had a number areas of interest - he was a musician and a part-time songwriter, he played tennis and founded Tennisopolis, the world's largest social network site for tennis players.  But he also loved coffee, especially craft coffee.  In 2014, Baker opened Humble Coffee, a small craft coffee brewer on Lomas Ave. in Albuquerque's Nob Hill neighborhood. 

But Baker also liked to travel and during his time in Europe and South America he noticed a number of food halls in place where people would congregate and have their choice of restaurants where to eat.  It was something that he visualized being in downtown Albuquerque.  So, in 2016 Baker bought the building at 505 Central Avenue just across the street from the historic KiMo Theatre.  The building had three floors each totaling approximately 13,000 square feet in floor space.  Baker planned on having a food hall on the main floor, offices on the 2nd floor, and condos on the 3rd floor.

Pictured right - Mark Baker.  Photo courtesy Albuquerque Business Journal.  

Baker moved his architectural company's offices into the building soon after he bought the building and began the task of designing a food hall similar to the ones he encountered in his travels.  Construction began on the food hall in 2019 and things were moving along nicely until the pandemic hit in March of 2020 basically shutting down all construction and commerce in Albuquerque.  

As the world slowly opened back up in the summer of 2020, construction on the food hall continued and by November the vendors were in place and 505 Central Food Hall opened to much anticipation on November 14, 2020.  9 vendors were in place including a second location of Humble Coffee and Moonwalk Bev - a brewery/distillery that was co-owned by Baker.  

505 Central Food Hall is actually the third food market in the greater Albuquerque area.  In early 2020, Sawmill Market opened on the city's west side near Old Town Albuquerque.  A second food hall - Tin Can Alley - opened in the midst of the pandemic in May of 2020 on Albuquerque's far north side.  A fourth food hall - tentatively named Highlands Central Food Market - has been in development for over 2 years along the Central Ave. corridor on the east side of downtown Albuquerque.  As of now, 505 Central Food Hall is the only one in downtown Albuquerque.  

We got into 505 Central Food Hall around 1:30 that particular afternoon.  It's located at the corner of 5th St. and Central Ave. in downtown Albuquerque, about a three block walk from our hotel. (see map)  The expansive food hall had some vendor booths in the middle and a courtyard of tables along the east wall that looks out on to 5th Street.  

Toward the back opposite corner from the front door was a common area with more tables.  It was a sunny and warm afternoon and there weren't a lot of people in the place so we were able to walk around and check out the vendors in the food hall.

In addition to Humble Coffee and Moonwalk Bev, 505 Central has a taco place (Tino's Tacos), a deli and sandwich shop (Stackt), a spicy chicken joint (KūKri), a ramen noodle place (Naruto Ramen), a pizza joint (Thicc Pizza Co.), and a sports bar/package liquor store (Packie's Bar).  

They also had a burger joint in 505 Central - Stackers Burger Company.  The man behind KūKri n the food hall - Basit Gauba - also owns the Tikka Spice food truck in Albuquerque.  Gauba is a James Beard Award semi-finalist and his food truck also won a local contest for the best green chile cheeseburger in Albuquerque in 2023.  Two spots opened up in the 505 Central Food Hall earlier in 2023 after the vendors didn't renew their leases, and Mark Baker convinced Gauba to open KūKri and Stackers Burger Company in those empty spots.  

And it was at Stackers Burger Company where we ended up.  They had a variety of burgers to choose from and we picked out a couple.  We got our order numbers and went over to Moonwalk to have a drink while we waited for our burgers to cook up.  Moonwalk has sort of a retro-70's vibe to it complete with a large moon on the wall near the bar.  We took a seat at the bar and my wife ordered up a Moonwalk-distilled vodka and cranberry, while I got a Moonwalk India Pale Ale.  I asked the bartender if it would be OK to eat at the bar and she enthusiastically said, "You bet!"

I ended up getting the Duke City Cheeseburger - the recent winner in the Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown contest in Albuquerque.  It featured two smashed burger patties topped with cheese, green chiles, and sautéed onions.  At that point during our trip to New Mexico, I was pretty burnt out on all things chile, but I had to try this burger.  And it was fabulous.  The green chiles had a smoky and earthy quality taste to them.  The burgers were juicy and full of flavor.  It was an outstanding burger. 

All of Stackers Burger Company's burgers come with two patties and my wife wasn't that hungry.  She asked the guy at the counter if she could get just a single burger.  He suggested the classic mustard grilled cheeseburger with just one patty instead of two.  That's what she ended up ordering and she also thought it was very good.  

We've been to food halls before, most notably in Milwaukee and Chicago where they're three or four times larger than 505 Central Food Hall.  But for downtown Albuquerque, this food hall is large enough with enough diversity to take care of people working in the area.  The burgers we had at Stackers Burger Company were excellent - the award winning Duke City Cheeseburger was a great value at $11.95 - and I thought the IPA from Moonwalk Bev in the food hall was very good, as well. The food hall/market concept is one that we're starting to see more and more of where old buildings are being repurposed.  And the 505 Central Food Hall was a good representation of just that.  

Smash Pizza - Bettendorf, IA

My wife and I didn't grow up in the Quad Cities but became transplants back in the early 90's.  Unlike people who grew up in the Quad's, we have never been fond of Quad City-style pizza.  There are a couple places that make a pseudo-QC-style pizza that we like, but the full blown places like Harris Pizza, we just don't like.  We're spoiled by trips to Chicago to places like Pat's Pizza, Salerno's, Pequod's and Vito and Nick's.  However, over the past few years, some "authentic" pizza places have sprung up around the Quad Cities.  One of them - Crust Wood Fired Pizza - was one of our favorites.  However, Crust closed during the height of the pandemic in 2020.  That really bummed us out, but then we found out in the fall of 2022 that the owner of Crust had started up a new venture in Bettendorf by the name of Smash Pizza.  We've been there a couple of times and it's starting to become our favorite non-Quad City-style of pizza.  

Brian Olsen grew up infatuated with food.  As a young child he would watch re-runs of cooking shows with Julia Child and Graham Kerr.  When he turned 16, he was old enough to work in a restaurant and he got a job working at Gramma's Kitchen just off Interstate 80 in Walcott, IA.  While going to high school, Olsen thought he wanted to study engineering.  However, during the summer after his junior year in high school, he visited Iowa State University to talk with engineering professors and students.   But going back to work at the restaurant, he realized that he would rather be working in a kitchen than being behind a desk working on a computer all day.

Prodded by his parents as to what he was going to do with his life after graduating high school, Olsen decided he wanted to become a chef.  He proposed going through the culinary program at Scott Community College, but they wanted him out of the nest.  He had family up in the Twin Cities and they encouraged him to enroll at (the now-closed) Le Cordon Bleu School for the Culinary Arts in Minneapolis.   

In 2011, Olsen had an opportunity to help start Crust Wood Fired Pizza with developer Mark Roemer.  He later became a part-owner and the managing partner of the restaurant.  In 2017, Olsen had another opportunity to buy into another local restaurant developed by Roemer - Central Standard.  The wood fired ovens at Crust provided the buns that were used at Central Standard.  

In early 2020, just before the pandemic wreaked havoc on a number of restaurants, Olsen was looking to do something new - and on his own.  Just before the pandemic hit, Olsen sold out his interest in both Central Standard and in Crust with Crust eventually closing their doors later that year.  (A couple of other pizza places have gone into the old Crust space over the last couple years.  One lasted about a year or so, but suffered from staffing issues.  The other one opened in the fall of 2023 and we've tried it and didn't care for it.)

Olsen's plan was to open up a new restaurant that focused on New York-style and Sicilian-style pizzas, as well as artisan breads that he would sell at retail from his restaurant.  He had the spot picked out, equipment ordered, and his initial plan was to open in the fall of 2020.  But with the pandemic disrupting supply chains around the world, Olsen's new venture was going to have to hold off for awhile.  In the meantime, he acquired a food truck and began to sell pizzas at various sites around the Quad Cities.  We saw the Smash food truck at Crawford Brew Works in Bettendorf quite a bit and we found out that it was former guy behind Crust and he was going to open up a brick and mortar location in Bettendorf at some point.  We were excited because we liked Crust and couldn't wait to try his new venture.  

Olsen opened the Smash Pizza location in September of 2022.  It was appreciably smaller than Crust and we found that getting into the place even into early 2023 was sometimes impossible without a long wait as they do not take reservations.  We finally made it into Smash last summer.  This particular visit was our second time visiting the pizza place.  

It was after 8 p.m. on a Saturday night when we got into Smash.  It was well past the restaurant's busy time on Saturday night, but it was still well over half-filled with diners.  As I said, it's not a big place and the dining area can get fill up rather quickly.  We took a table in the corner near the small bar just in front of the open-windowed kitchen.  In fact, we were so close to the bar that the bartender ended up being our server.  

It was server by committee that night and one of the three who eventually waited on us was a familiar face from the days of Crust.  My wife remembered her from Crust and I finally recognized her after talking with her for a couple moments.  She told us that they were out of the Sicilian-style dough - a thicker dough that's made into a square, similar to Detroit-style pizza.  The dough is fermented for 5 days before it's ready to cook.  "We usually run out of the Sicilian-style pizza pretty quickly, especially on the weekend," she told us.  "We get a lot of take-out orders for the pizza because it can feed a family of 4 pretty easily."  We had tried the New York-style pizza - a more thin crust - on our previous visit, and had wanted to try the Sicilian-style at some point.  That will have to be down the road.  

Looking through the menu, they have a number of specialty pizzas including the Bee Sting - tomato sauce, cherry peppers, pepperoni, hot sopressata, locally-sourced honey and arugula.  The Alla Vodka featured a vodka-tomato sauce, house-made sausage, garlic, spinach, fried kale, and Mediterranean oregano.  The Meatball Ricotta pizza had a braised tomato sauce, mozzarella, house-made meatballs, ricotta, and Mediterranean oregano.  And the Calabrian has a garlic cream sauce, nduja (a spicy pork sausage), corn, onion, Calabrian chili oil, and topped with fresh basil.  

Smash also features a bread plate as an appetizer, as well as a charcuterie board.  They have dips and drizzles to go with the bread such as a house-made marinara, California olive oil, and the Calabrian spicy oil to choose from.  

Smash has a variety of wines by the glass and a number of craft beers to choose from.  One of the servers came over to take our drink order and I got a hazy IPA from the Stompbox microbrewery in downtown Davenport.  My wife got a glass of the house Malbec.  

My wife always has to have some greens before getting pizza and she ordered up the house salad consisting of chopped fresh romaine lettuce, sliced cucumbers, radishes, and red onions, then topped with toasted bread crumbs and finished with a parmesan buttermilk dressing.  She always liked the salads over at Crust and she likes the salad equally as well at Smash.  

We got our usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven.  The pizza was blistered and the cheese was caramelized in places.  The New York-style pizzas come in one size at Smash - 16".  (The Sicilian-style pizzas come in a 14" size.)  The slices are big enough where they can be folded like a traditional New York pizza, but the crust on Smash's pizzas aren't as thin or pliable as a true New York-style pizza.  

The toppings are definitely top notch.  The sausage has a nice spicy taste; the pepperoni is probably a tad too salty, but still good; and the chopped roasted mushrooms they use on their pizzas at Smash are fresh.  They have a great marinara sauce and I asked our server if we could get some marinara on the side to dip some of the crust edges into.  One of the trio of servers brought out a cup of marinara and she said, "We usually charge $2 dollars for the marinara, but I'll give this to you for free tonight.  We're getting low on this batch of marinara, so we have to make more tomorrow."  It was perfect for some crust dipping.  

We ended up being the last ones in the place and they began to move tables and chairs around the dining area and out the door.  We asked one of them what was going on and she said, "We do a Sunday morning yoga class in here.  We used to do it elsewhere, but Chef Brian said that we could do it here."  My wife said that she remembered that the lady who initially waited on us used to have yoga classes.  

We had more than enough pizza left over to take home for a lunch meal or a snack over the next couple of days.  But it's also expensive - our pizza was $28 bucks and the salad was $7.  Add in a glass of wine and a couple craft beers and the tab adds up quickly.  Both times we've gone into Smash, it's a $70 bill by the time tips and taxes are figured in.  But compared to some of the other pizza joints in the area, you can really tell it's a definite step-up in taste and quality.  Smash Pizza isn't going to be a regular stop for us because it is sort of pricey, but we'll definitely be back at some point.  

Vince's Restaurant & Pizzeria - Monroe, WI

My wife and I had spent a long weekend up in Wisconsin last summer and we were working our way back on backroads toward the Quad Cities.  We stopped in Lake Geneva along the way and had a couple beers at the Topsy Turvy microbrewery.  From there, we sort of just kept going west through southern Wisconsin ending up in a town that we hadn't been to for quite some time, Monroe, WI.  It was getting late in the afternoon and we thought we'd better eat sooner than later as it would be after 8 p.m. by the time we got home and fixed something to eat.  We did a search of Italian places in town and one place came up as highly recommended - Vince's Restaurant & Pizzeria.  We drove over to Vince's on the west side of Monroe to get something to eat.  

For a number of years, Fabio and Maria Grado operated Vince's out of a strip mall where their business was carry-out or delivery only.  Vince's offered some Italian pasta dishes in addition to their pizzas.  Their business had clearly outgrown the small storefront and more people were clamoring for the Grado's to have a sit-down establishment.  In 2008, the Grado's broke ground on a brick-and-mortar establishment in a growing retail area on Monroe's near west side.  The Grado's opened the expanded Vince's Restaurant & Pizza in February of 2009.  

Vince's is kind of hidden off of Wisconsin State Highway 69 - the main north-south route through Monroe - near the corner of 6th Street and 4th Avenue on the west side of Monroe.  (see map)  There's a large parking lot in front of the earth tone-colored building with arched windows and a small outdoor patio in front.  

Inside Vince's, the dining room is made up to look sort of like an outdoor seating area in a Tuscan villa.  Fake vines were wrapped around wires of incandescent lights which criss-crossed the ceiling.  A lighter earth-tone shade gave the room a bit of light along with the natural light coming in the window.  The tables were topped in vinyl coverings.  It wasn't fancy, but it wasn't a dump, either.  

There is a small bar area off to the side of the dining room.  It featured a small back bar with limited liquor and wine on the shelves.  4 beers were on tap and there were beer and liquor signs on the wall.  Once again, it wasn't anything fancy or inviting, but it definitely served its purpose.  

We took a seat at a table along the wall next to a window.  The menus were place mats on the top of the table.  Our waitress that day was a young lady by the name of Brielle.  We talked with her later on and she was telling us about the restaurant and its history.  "I married into the family," she said with a hint of a smile.  She asked us if we wanted anything to drink while we looked over the menu.  I got a High & Hazy IPA from the Terrapin Beer Company from Athens, GA.  My wife got a glass of the house chianti.

They had a little bit of everything Italian on the menu at Vince's - pizza, panini sandwiches, pasta dishes, chicken parm, pasta bakes and sandwiches such as Italian beef and meatball hoagies.  They also had gluten free selections on the menu, as well.

My wife needed some greens and she ordered a Caesar salad.  It was a basic salad with romaine and iceberg lettuce tossed with bacon and parmesan cheese and topped with a cream Caesar dressing.  She offered a bite to me, but I passed because I wanted to save my appetite for what we ordered for our meal.

They had an extra-thin crust/tavern-style pizza on the menu and we got our stand-by sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  In addition to the extra-thin crust, they have a crispy thin crust, a thin crust and a thicker regular crust pizza.  But this one was so similar to Chicago-area tavern-style pizza that we were more than happy with what we ordered.

The toppings were fresh and plentiful.  Actually, my wife felt there was too much cheese on the pizza.  I didn't think that way until she mentioned something about it.  The cheese was perfectly caramelized and the crust was firm enough that there was minimal sag when we picked up a piece.  That's the mark of a great thin crust pizza - when it can hold all the toppings, sauce and cheese when you pick it up.  The pizza at Vince's more than passed that test.  

We had more than enough to put into a to-go box to take with us back home.  While my wife still thought there was too much mozzarella cheese on the pizza, I had no problem heating the remaining pieces up over the next couple days for lunch.  And with that, I thought the pizza at Vince's Restaurant & Pizzeria was well above average for a tavern-style pizza.  Lots of toppings, lots of cheese, and the crust was thin, but held up well.  I hope the people in Monroe realize how good the pizza is at Vince's.  It's one of those places that I wish we had in the Quad Cities.  

Lazzara's Pizza - New York City

While in New York for a dealer expo earlier this summer, one of my former colleagues was also participating in the show.  After the show was over, we were both stuck in town for one last night as our flights out of New York weren't until the following morning.  I had been hankering for a good New York pizza and told my former colleague about that yen.  He said that he would be up for a pizza somewhere.  All we had to do is find a place.  After some searching, we found an interesting place not far from our hotel in mid-town Manhattan that was easily walking distance.  We ended up heading over to Lazzara's Pizza on W. 38th St.  (see map)  

There are literally hundreds of pizza joints in the five boroughs of New York City and everyone seems to have their favorite.  You have to figure that a place that has been in business for 38 years has to be pretty good.  And it was in 1985 when brothers Sebastian and Tony Lazzara opened Lazzara's Pizza in the Garment District of Manhattan.  Originally a lunch only place, the Lazzara's started evening dining a few years ago.  If you're looking for a good Italian place over in Orange, NJ about 20 miles to the west of Manhattan, Sebastian and Tony's younger brother Danny owns Libretti's, an old school Italian restaurant that dates back nearly 75 years.  

As we were walking toward Lazzara's on W. 38th, we passed what looked to be a somewhat upscale burger joint.  I stopped for a moment and asked my friend if he wanted to get a burger instead.  "Are you kidding," he asked me incredulously.  "My mouth has been watering for pizza since you first suggested it!"  I was happy he turned down the burger place.  

Lazzara's is in a narrow brownstone building that was built in the early 1900's with a walk-up to the restaurant.  The dining room features tables with linen table cloths, wall sconces for lighting, and a tin-ceiling that looks like it may have been the original ceiling in the place. There was a small bar in the back of the restaurant space.  The place was about half-full with diners when we arrived which meant there were about 18 to 20 people having dinner.   It was certainly cozy in there.

We took a seat at a four-seat table next to an exposed brick wall with ornate-framed paintings of Italy or Italian culture hung on the walls.  Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Natalia.  She had a thick Mediterranean accent and coupled with the loudness in the room and my tinnitus, I had to ask her to repeat herself a number of times.  She gave us a couple menus to look over and I ordered a Peroni beer while my friend settled for a soft drink.  

While pizza is the main attraction at Lazzara's, they also feature Italian specialties such as chicken parm, fettuccine alfredo, gnocchi in a bolognese sauce, eggplant parmigiana, and ravioli in a marinara sauce.  The ravioli was filled with cheese, but if was filled with beef, pork or veal, I would have considered getting it.  But we were definitely going for the pizza.  

Unlike many New York pizza places where the slices are large triangles, Lazzara's pizza is cooked on a 13" x 18" cooking sheet, sort of like Detroit-style pizza only a lot more thin with their crust.  They had two sizes offered at Lazzara's - half or whole.  I saw a couple guys sharing a whole and I thought that maybe I'd order up a half.  

And I'm glad I did as my friend ordered up the Hawaiian pizza - ham and pineapple.  Now, I've known this guy for a few years and we were just getting reacquainted after not being around one another for a couple three years, but I was silently incredulous with his choice of pizza.  Ham and pineapple?  On a New York pizza?  I'm not trying to be a pizza snob, but pineapple - or sauerkraut - should not be on ANY pizza.  Oh well...

Me, I went with my old standby - sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.   There were three slices in a half measuring approximately 8" x 6" inches square.  And the crust was thin and crispy, the way I love my pizza.  The mozzarella was caramelized over the ingredients and the tomato sauce was slopped on the dough before the ingredients and cheese were added on.  

The pizza was delicious.  The sauce was sort of tangy and sweet, the mushrooms were chopped (I wish they would have been sliced), and the pepperoni was salty and a bit spicy.  The sausage didn't have that fennel taste that I find in the Chicago thin-crust pizzas, but it was still good.  It was sort of expensive - $21 bucks for a half-pizza with two extra toppings.  Ouch!

I was at that point after finishing the last slice of pizza of wishing I had at least another slice.  I was in that in-between of being satiated and needing something else.  That's when Natalia came out with the dessert menu.  They had cannoli, cheesecake and a chocolate mousse.  But they also had tiramisu.  I had to get one of those.  It was a generous piece of tiramisu topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a strawberry.  I love the taste of strawberries, but I'm allergic to them.  No matter, however.  The tiramisu was fresh and flavorful - the perfect answer to the "more-food" craving I was having after finishing up my pizza.  

My friend and I had a good time getting caught up on things, talking about my old work place, who was still there, who had left.  I told him that I truly missed many of the people I had worked with and he agreed that he also missed many of the people who worked there years ago.  But, time goes on and so does life.  

I'm sure there are equal to better pizza places to try in New York City, but for my first visit in a number of years I was happy with our choice of Lazzara's for dinner that night.  It was a quaint place, cozy and inviting.  Natalia's service was impeccable, and the pizza was very good.  Expensive, but very good.  I'm sure that I'll have to go back to New York at some point in the future and I'll be doing some homework as to where I'll want to get my next pizza when I'm there.  But for now, I'll have Lazzara's as my gold standard to compare to other places I'll try.   

Basta - Iowa City

We were back in the Iowa City area visiting relatives this summer and we decided to stop at a place in downtown Iowa City that we'd heard about, had driven by many times, but had never been to.  For a late lunch, we decided to stop into Basta before we headed back home to the Quad Cities.  

Basta is one of three restaurants that have been developed by Jack Piper and James Adrian.  Those restaurants include the highly popular Jimmy Jack's Rib Shack and the (now-closed) Atlas.  (Piper and Adrian sold Atlas in the summer of 2016.  The new owners kept it going for 9 months before shutting it down and rebranding the restaurant as St. Burch Tavern.)    Piper and Adrian were friends growing up in Burlington, IA and both went to school to school at the University of Iowa.  After college, both went their separate ways to work in restaurants - Piper to Park City, Utah and Adrian to New Orleans.  Piper worked at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, while Adrian worked at the prestigious Commander's Palace in New Orleans.  

Adrian and Piper ended up together working at a restaurant in Boulder, CO and longed to get back to Iowa to open a restaurant in Iowa City.  They initially started Atlas in 2002 and then followed up with Jimmy Jack's Rib Shack in 2005.  

While at Atlas, Adrian and Piper had a young chef working in the kitchen by the name of Brady McDonald.  McDonald's brother was studying in Italy in 2004 and had visited his brother during that time.  Brady McDonald was blown away by the Italian food that he ate and immediately became enthralled with all things Italian.  In 2008, McDonald took a sabbatical from Atlas and went to Florence, Italy to work in a Michelin-starred restaurant for a year.  He came back to Iowa City and convinced Adrian and Piper to open an Italian restaurant next door to Atlas.  With McDonald as a partner in the venture, the trio opened Basta in 2011.  

Basta is located on Iowa Street just down from the Old Capitol in Iowa City.  (see map)  We were able to find parking on the street since it was a Sunday in the summertime and it was the summer semester when a fraction of students are on campus.  I was sort of surprised at the old world Italian feel that Basta exudes.  The tiled floors couple with the tin ceiling panels between the dark wooden beams on the ceiling really classed up the place.  There was patio seating in front of the restaurant, but it was sort of spitting rain out and we decided to sit inside. 

The young lady who was the hostess that day tried to seat us in the bar area.  The seating opposite the stately bar featured tables with banquet benches and metal chairs.  I hate banquet seating and the metal chairs looked uncomfortable.  I immediately asked to be seated elsewhere.  She took us just over the wall from the banquet seating and pointed out a table.  My wife asked if we could be seated in the upper level, three steps up from the main floor.  The hostess - somewhat exasperated with us at that point - sat us at a table along the barrier from the lower level.  I could tell she was somewhat pissed as she sort of threw the menus on the table in front of us.

Picking up the menu, I immediately saw that they were still on the brunch menu until 2:30 p.m.  It was a bit after 2 when we had walked in.  I looked over the brunch menu and found nothing that really jumped out at me.   Our server that afternoon - a pleasant young lady by the name of Piper - came over to greet us.  I told her that we really weren't interested that much in the brunch menu and wondered if she could bring us the dinner menu.  Piper said that it would probably be a half-hour or so before we could order and I told her that wouldn't be a problem.  

In the meantime, we got a couple drinks to while away the time.  My wife got her normal cranberry and vodka - Grey Goose - (she has exquisite taste in vodka thanks to my younger sister), and I got a bloody mary and a Kona Big Wave.   When Piper brought the drinks, my wife's cranberry and vodka was nearly clear.  My wife immediately questioned this and Piper went to check.  Turns out they use white cranberry juice at Basta.  And she was fine with that after a taste.  

I was thinking of something along the line of pasta, but it was tough to not notice the large steel-plated oven in the front back corner.  A noticeable char from years of use blackened the front of the oven.  The pizza was sure tempting, but so were the pasta dishes on the menu.  

The spaghetti bolognese was the first thing that caught my eye on the pasta section of the menu.  It featured a beef, pork and pancetta bolognese ragú over a bed of spaghetti noodles.  The shrimp fettuccine and the grilled chicken alfredo also sounded pretty good.  

My wife was having some trouble coming to grips with getting pasta.  She thought about the roasted Atlantic salmon, but that really didn't trip her trigger.  I noticed she kept looking at the pizza oven and I finally asked if a pizza would be good.  She said, "If you want pasta, that's fine.  But I'm starting to think about a pizza."  I said that I could easily switch from pasta to pizza.  

Piper came back and said that since it was close to the time that the changeover from brunch to dinner was going to take place, she could take our order early.  I told her that we were thinking of getting a pizza and she said, "Oh, well, we do pizzas during brunch, so that's not a problem."  

We ordered our usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  My wife needed some greens, so she got the beet salad that came with arugula, gorgonzola and pistachio nuts.  Since we were the only ones getting pizza at that time - and it cooks quickly in the wood-fired pizza oven - my wife had taken about two bites of her salad when the pizza was delivered to our table.  

The pizza looked great, but it also looked like the pizza maker had added some additional toppings to it.  It appeared there were basil leaves, cauliflower and artichoke hearts to the pizza.  I was fine with all that as long as we didn't get charged for the extras (we didn't).  And it wasn't bad, actually.

Overall, the pizza was very good.  It had a thin-ish crust with a stout circle of thicker crust on the outside.  It was laden with copious amounts of sausage, pepperoni, sliced mushrooms in a sweet and tangy tomato sauce with dollops of fresh mozzarella cheese on top of the concoction.  I don't know if the pizza chef was confused or if he had added the other toppings by a mistake.  But the added ingredients didn't detract from the flavors of the ones that we had originally order.  In fact, my wife sort of enjoyed them.  (Most recently, she has been keen on ordering vegetarian pizzas and having them put Italian sausage on them as an addition.  Those kind of pizzas actually taste pretty good!)

We were both impressed with our initial visit to Basta and sort of surprised that we hadn't tried the place before this.  While the hostess was sort of pissy with us, Piper was a wonderful server.  The pizza was well above average in quality and flavor, and it looked like the selections of pasta were interesting enough to where we would have to come back at some point.  

 

 

 

 

Lincoln Winebar - Mount Vernon, IA

My wife and I were a little handcuffed when it came to our anniversary in 2022, mainly because I had been unemployed for a few months, but was getting ready to start a new job in the coming weeks.  We really couldn't go anywhere - even though my wife had taken the week off as she has done many times over the years during the week of our anniversary.  We both had been keen on a place that we'd heard about in the small town of Mount Vernon, IA that specialized in wood-fired pizzas made with locally sourced food items, as well as having an interesting wine list.  We took a little road trip on the day of our anniversary and took the backroads around Eastern Iowa ending up in Mount Vernon late in the afternoon to have dinner at the Lincoln Winebar.  

Actually, we had always wanted to go to the Lincoln Café, a destination restaurant that was started by Matt Steigerwald in 2000.  Steigerwald - a native of Cincinnati who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina - had an extensive background in culinary services working for a handful of restaurants as well as with James Beard Award-winning chef Ben Barker at the lauded (but now closed) Magnolia Grill in Durham, NC.  While in the Raleigh-Durham area, Steigerwald's wife Michelle Mouton completed her doctorate in English and Critical Theory at the University of North Carolina.  Dr. Mouton's first job with her doctorate degree was to come to Mount Vernon and teach at Cornell College.  

Steigerwald realized that Mount Vernon had a dearth of destination restaurants that served sustainable foods - as in zero.  Working with local farmers and food co-ops, Steigerwald came up with an idea for a restaurant where the menu would change seasonally upon availability of locally-raised food products.  Steigerwald opened the Lincoln Cafè in 2000 and it was an immediate hit with food connoisseurs who drove miles to dine at the restaurant.  Steigerwald was a three-time James Beard Award nominee for his work at the Lincoln Café.  

Three doors down from the Lincoln Café was a small wine cafe by the name of Divine Wines.  It opened about the same time that Steigerwald opened his restaurant in 2000.  In 2006, the owners of Divine Wines were looking to sell their spot, and like many chefs Steigerwald was looking to do something a little different.  When the opportunity to buy Divine Wines came up, he jumped on it renaming the place the Lincoln Winebar.  

In 2013, Steigerwald closed the Lincoln Café to concentrate on a revamp of the Lincoln Winebar.  (Ironically, one of the people who Steigerwald bought Divine Wines from - Rachel Sauter - reopened a restaurant in the old Lincoln Café spot and called it the Palisades Cafe after the nearby cliffs along the Cedar River in what is known as Palisades-Kepler State Park.  Sauter sold the restaurant in 2016.)  

About six years after Steigerwald purchased the Lincoln Winebar, it became home to a huge (6500 lb.) specially-made wood-fired brick pizza oven that was manufactured in Italy by renowned artisan Stephano Ferrara, a 3rd-generation Napoli craftsman who is now helped in the family business by his son Simone.  The oven - which features Santa Maria bricks from Campania, Italy, and mortar from Mount Vesuvius - cost about $25,000 to build and it took 3 months for the oven to make it to Mount Vernon from Naples.  The roof of Lincoln Winebar had to be removed for the oven to be lowered into the establishment via crane.  Inlaid in the ceramic tiles above the opening of the oven is the Italian phrase Il Cibo E Importante - "Food is Important".  The brick oven can reach temperatures of 900 to 950 degrees (F) and can cook pizzas in 60 to 90 seconds.  

In September of 2014, Steigerwald sold the Lincoln Winebar to long-time employee Jesse Sauerbrei.  Sauerbrei had a background in wine and beer distribution before joining Steigerwald at the Lincoln Café.  Steigerwald went to head up the New Pioneer Food Co-op's kitchen in Cedar Rapids.  (Steigerwald is now involved with Wilson's Orchard and Farm outside of Iowa City heading up the kitchen at the Rapid Creek Cidery.)  

Under Sauerbrei, Lincoln Winebar started doing lunches featuring sandwiches, salads and soups.  (They no longer do lunches at Lincoln Winebar.)  In the late summer of 2018, Lincoln Winebar procured a mobile brick oven that they take to events, private parties, farmers markets and other venues around Eastern Iowa.  And just a few weeks ago, Sauerbrei partnered with James Beard Award regional semi-finalist Aaron Hall from The Local Crumb in Mount Vernon to open a new pizza/bakery concept in Cedar Rapids by the name of Fancy's New York.  

It was just before 5 p.m. when we pulled up in front of Lincoln Winebar at the corner of 1st St. West and 2nd Ave. NW in downtown Mount Vernon.  (see map)  We had tried to go to the restaurant before, only to learn that they are closed on Sundays.  (They're closed Mondays, as well.)  

We walked up a set of stairs and into the restaurant.  The large pizza oven in the corner behind the counter was tough to miss.  There was a small bar area off to the side opposite the pizza oven.  Lincoln Winebar featured wooden floors and a Tuscan-style wallpaper scheme.  My wife immediately noticed the sound dampening panels on the ceiling to help keep the restaurant from being an ear-splitting echo chamber when filled with people.  

The place was void of people when we walked in and an outgoing woman by the name of Rachel greeted us as we came in.  She told us that we could sit anywhere and we took a table near the front window.   Parched from the road trip, I immediately ordered a Big Grove Easy Eddie Hazy IPA.  My wife ordered a glass of the house cabernet.  

The menu was on the wall near the pizza oven.   It was basic with just a few appetizers and a handful of pizzas with featured toppings.  They also had a few specials that day including Morel mushrooms with chives in a panna cream sauce (it was $24 bucks and there was a limit to just one per table); locally grown asparagus with 'nduja salami from River Bear Meats out of Denver, CO; and a nettles salad with cream, red onion, sweet peppers and Mahón Spanish cheese.  (I had to look up to see what nettles were and it's a spring herb that is high in oxidants and Vitamin C, and is usually served in tea.)

Some of the other items on the appetizer part of the menu were breadsticks made in the brick oven, house-made meatballs with arugula in a tomato sauce with parmesan cheese, and a basic house salad made with locally sourced greens.  

What we ended up getting to start out was the burrata cheese with 'nduja appetizer.  It featured a dollop of excellent burrata mozzarella cheese (hard on the outside, gooey on the inside) with sort of a paté of the 'nduja salami in a chile oil along with sweet pepper rings, arugula and gremolata (parsley, garlic and lemon juice).  It came with crackers and the taste sensations from all fronts were off the charts.  We sort of laughed and said that we could have had a couple more plates like that and that would have been fine for dinner.  

Since pizza was the only main item on the menu board, we decided to get a sausage and pepperoni pizza.  More people had come into the place, but our was going to be the first pizza of the day.  It didn't take long and Rachel was setting the pizza down in front of us.  It looked delicious with some charring on the fringes with ample amounts of ground Italian sausage and pepperoni slices mixed with a tangy pizza sauce with fresh mozzarella.

The only problem was that it really didn't taste all that great.  It was very burnt on the bottom of the pizza.  I like a little bit of burnt caramelization of the cheese on pizza, but the crust had that very burnt taste.  We both had a piece and thought, "Wow, this is really burned."  

Rachel came over to check on us and she said, "How's the pizza?"  I turned a slice over on the pan I asked if it was supposed to be this burned on the bottom.  "Oh my gosh," she gushed.  "Oh, no!  That's really burnt!"  

It wasn't long until Jesse Sauerbrei walked over to the table and looked at the pizza.  "Oh, man.  I'm so sorry, folks," he said.  "We're going to get you guys another pizza."  

As they were making up another pizza, Jesse Sauerbrei came back over to the table to explain what had happened. "I've got a new guy working the pizza oven," he said. "He was working our mobile pizza oven over the weekend and the floor of that oven doesn't get as hot as the floor on this oven.  He was still thinking that the pizzas needed to stay in a little longer."  Jesse also comped us on another beer and a glass of wine for our troubles.  We insisted that it wasn't that big of deal, but he made sure that we got a new set of drinks on the house.    

Moments later Rachel brought over a new pizza for us.  This time, there was much less char on the bottom of the dough.  And it was a much better pizza, too.  The flavors were all very fresh and melded well together.  The crust was crispy, but had a nice doughy texture to the bite.  I remarked to my wife that a side of marinara sauce would have been perfect to dip the pizza crust into.  (We found out later on from Rachel that the breadsticks they have come with a marinara dipping sauce.  We'll be sure to get some marinara on the side for the pizza crust next time we make it back.)

For dessert, they have tiramisu on the menu.  Only - that day - they didn't.  Rachel apologized to us for the lack of tiramisu and we were sort of crestfallen with that revelation.  But that didn't stop us - we went back to the Quad Cities and stopped at Biaggi's for a couple pieces of tiramisu to finish off our anniversary evening.  

The first very burnt pizza would have had us probably not coming back had we not said something to our server when she came back to check on us.  But they were very apologetic and accommodating in getting us a pizza that wasn't burned - and one that was very good.  It was an excellent pizza where all the ingredients tasted fresh and flavorful.  The service from Rachel was top-notch, and the atmosphere was cozy and welcoming.  Mount Vernon is kind of a haul from the Quad Cities, so it's difficult for us to get back to the Lincoln Winebar as much as we'd like to.  But for others willing to make the drive to Mount Vernon from Iowa City, Cedar Rapids or other points in Eastern Iowa, the pizza is worth it.

Harmony Brewing Company - Grand Rapids, MI

On our trip to Grand Rapids, MI, I was keen to try some of the nearly 5 dozen breweries/brewpubs in the area.  I had looked up some in advance and found that a good portion of the breweries served food.  Well, on our first night in Grand Rapids, my wife wasn't too whippy about going to a brewpub for dinner.  She saw a Cuban restaurant south and east of downtown Grand Rapids that she really wanted to try.  I decided to go along with her wishes and we found the restaurant.  We parked in the back, went around to the front door and pulled on it.  Locked.  Closed.  According to the sign on their front window, they were supposed to open at 5 p.m. and close at 9.  It was well past 5 p.m. when we were there.  My wife was crestfallen and wondered if I had a Plan B.  I did and it wasn't all that far away.  We ended up going over to the Harmony Brewing Company.  

Like most brewpubs, the genesis of the business usually starts in someone's home or basement.  And that's exactly what happened with brothers Jackson and Barry Van Dyke who started to brew their own beers at home around the start of the millennium.  The brothers eventually got into property management and helped develop some old buildings in Grand Rapids in the city's Uptown neighborhood.  However, their dream to open their own brewpub was always in the back of their minds.  

The brothers found an old building in the Eastown neighborhood of Grand Rapids that had been a liquor store for years before the place went out of the business and the building fell into neglect.  The building originally was built in 1928 and when Prohibition ended in 1933, it became a distribution center for Miller beer.  When the brothers bought the building in late 2009, they found product on the shelves, as well as bottles of soda pop still in long shut down coolers.  The Van Dyke brothers spent the first month of ownership of the building taking garbage and old inventory out of the main floor and the basement.  

Over the next two years, the Van Dyke brothers spent $300,000 on the transformation of the old building.  They used salvaged doors and floors throughout the place and their first beer vessels were re-purposed dairy tanks they bought on line from a dairy farm in Wisconsin.  Renovations took a little longer than they anticipated, mainly because the brothers were doing most of the build-outs themselves.  But in February of 2012, the Van Dyke brothers - along with their sister Heather - opened the doors to Harmony Brewing Company.  

Business turned out to be brisk and at times demand was so high for both beer and food at the original location that the Van Dyke's knew they needed to expand.  Since they were sort of locked in at Harmony Brewing, they found a 100-year-old-plus building on the west side of Grand Rapids that had originally been a sausage factory, but more recently had been a Mexican restaurant.  After renovations, the Van Dyke's opened Harmony Hall in 2015.  

We found Harmony Brewing Company at the corner of Wealthy St. SE and Lake Drive SE - a sort of convoluted intersection that puts Harmony Brewing inside a triangle.  (see map)  There's a small parking lot that we were able to get the last parking space when we drove in.  Other than that, parking is available on the street near the brewery.  

(A quick aside - we were sort of amused and somewhat curious about Wealthy Street and the origin of the name. It's a prominent street on the east side of Grand Rapids and we found ourselves on Wealthy Street a handful of times during our visit as there were a number of restaurants, shops and breweries along the way.  It almost sounded like a street on the board game Monopoly, or was named for one of the more well-to-do areas of the city.   It turns out that the street was named for the wife of one of Grand Rapids' first merchants and community leaders, Jefferson Morrison, who was also instrumental in platting out the city in the mid-19th century.  After losing his first wife to illness, Morrison married Wealthy Davis in 1850 and named one of the streets after his new wife.  That's it - the street was named as a loving gesture to Morrison's new wife.)

After getting inside, we entered the bar area and there was a hostess at the stand just inside the door.  The small bar featured a few stools and there were a small handful of booths in the bar area.  The hostess took us to a booth in the bar and dropped off a couple menus for us.  

There was a back dining area in Harmony Brewing that featured booths and tables with garage doors that would open for patio dining.  It had been raining and had cooled off after the front came through, so there was no outdoor dining that evening.  A small stage was in the corner that has been used for live music in the past, but there was a four-seater table on the stage during our visit.  

Our server that day was a young guy by the name of Keely who was a personable and helpful staffer throughout our visit.  We sampled a couple of their beers - the Fiddlestix American pale ale and the Pleasant Peninsula India pale ale - to start out.  We both liked the flavors of the Fiddlestix over the IPA and ended up getting that.  I was sort of surprised that my wife didn't get her usual vodka and cranberry juice as they had a full bar at Harmony Brewing.  

The menu is pretty basic at Harmony Brewing.  The main emphasis is on their wood-fired pizzas called by some as the best pizza in Grand Rapids.  But they also had appetizers such as house-made breadsticks that could be topped with either a pesto or with a balsamic vinegar, sea salt and oregano.  They also had pretzel rods with a beer-cheese sauce for appetizers, as well as a roasted red pepper dip served with kettle chips.  

My wife felt she needed some greens to start out with, so she ended up ordering a Caesar salad from their salads part of the menu for both of us to share.  For a dollar up-charge, she also got anchovies on the salad.  The romaine lettuce was cool and crisp with a nice house-made Caesar dressing along with fresh grated parmesan cheese and croutons.  Fresh-cracked black pepper was mixed in with the greens and dressing.  The salad was big enough for one person to have as a meal.

We ordered our usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  It was a Neapolitan-style pizza with a thin hand-tossed crust.  It was a good pizza - not the best we'd ever had - but it was still good.  I think my wife was not too enamored with the pizza because I think she had her heart set on having Cuban food.  But we ended up eating all of the 12" pizza.  

I knew we were going to go to Harmony Brewing and get one of their pizzas at some point during our visit to Grand Rapids.  Because the Cuban restaurant that my wife wanted to go to was closed for the evening, we ended up going there on our first night in town.  We enjoyed their Fiddlestix American pale ale, and my wife really liked the Caesar salad that she had ordered to start off with.  And the Neapolitan pizza we both shared was a good pizza.  Harmony Brewing's original location was a cozy and funky little joint, and the service we had was fun and friendly.  For our first visit to a brewery in Grand Rapids - a city that is known for their numerous breweries - Harmony Brewing was a good choice. 

The Airliner - Iowa City, IA

My wife and I met her sister one Friday night in Iowa City just to hang out and listen to some live music on the Ped Mall in the downtown area.  We decided to go get something to eat and pizza came up in the conversation.  We talked about a couple three different places and the venerable Airliner came up as one of the places to go get a pizza.  We walked down Clinton Street and turned into the Airliner.  I figured it was probably the first time in over 30 years since I was last in there. (see map)

The Airliner was one of my many hangouts during my college days at the University of Iowa.  More of the sorority and fraternity types would hang out at the Airliner and my roommates and I would usually cruise the " 'liner" first during Friday and/or Saturday evenings before heading over to a place with live music and/or cheap beer.  The gaming area at the Airliner was one of my favorite places. In fact, I flunked a summer school class during my time at Iowa because I liked playing the video game Galaga much better than I liked attending a 10:30 a.m. class.  (Actually, I got on incomplete on the course because I feigned ignorance on the "drop" date for the class.  I was just lazy that summer.)  

The Airliner has been a staple of collegians since the mid-1940's.  That was when Joe and Edris Rinnela opened the Airliner - named after a diner the two remembered that was near Midway Airport in Chicago.  It didn't hurt that during World War II, the University of Iowa was the home to one of four Navy pre-flight training sites at college campuses around the country where cadets underwent strenuous physical training, as well as basic aerial navigation, communications, and ground flight training.  Many Navy airmen got their start at the University of Iowa PreFlight - and many bellied up to the bar at the Airliner for drinks and beers.  

Local lore has it that former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw frequented the Airliner during his one year at the University of Iowa in the late 50's.  In fact, he frequented the place so much that he ended up flunking out of school and went back home to South Dakota to go to college there.  A booth at the Airliner is named in Brokaw's honor.  

Joe Rinnela died unexpectedly in 1956 at the age of 52.  The Rinnela family continued to run the restaurant before selling it in the 60's.  However, in 1970, the brother of one of Joe Rinnela's daughter's-in-law - Doug Tvedt - took over the Airliner.  Tvedt steered the Airliner in one of its most profitable periods.  Tvedt also sponsored an Amateur Athletic Union men's basketball team that was one of the top teams in the nation for a number of years.  The basketball team - comprised primarily of former University of Iowa basketball players - won the national AAU championship in 1980.  

Doug Tvedt and his wife, Gail, had seven children - all went to the University of Iowa and all worked at the Airliner from time to time.  However, in 1988, Doug and Gail sold the Airliner and moved to Florida.  I'm not certain who owned the Airliner from 1988 to 1992, but two local men came in to buy the bar/restaurant in 1992.  

Brad Lohaus was a former Iowa basketball player who was then playing for the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA.  Randy Larson was an Iowa City attorney who was friendly with many Iowa basketball players over the years.  The two stepped in to buy the Airliner and start a new chapter for the venerable bar.  The one thing that has me confused is that I've read where the Rinnela family started serving pizza when they opened in 1944.  I don't think that's correct as I sort of remember that Lohaus and Larson put a pizza oven in when they took over the place.  I never knew the Airliner had pizza when I used to go there on a regular basis in the 80's - at least I don't remember them having pizza.  But with Larson and Lohaus in charge, the Airliner made a name for itself for its pizza.  

Lohaus and Larson ran the restaurant as a partnership until 2001 when Larson sold his share to Lohaus who had retired from the NBA just three years before.  Larson went on to open a couple pizza places in the Iowa City - Bob's Your Uncle - but sold the business in 2015.  Larson is also the person behind the popular Monica's Italian restaurant along the Coralville strip.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Monica's).  

With Lohaus in charge by himself, things started to go downhill at the Airliner - and fast.  The bar was hit with a violation for serving underaged drinkers in July 2002.  Not learning their lesson from that, the bar then was cited for serving underaged drinkers again in April of 2003 and then again in May of 2003.  The third citation prompted a 90-day suspension of their liquor license that they started serving in June of 2004.  The Airliner continued to sell food in the day time, but shut down at night when they quit serving food.  But by mid-July of 2004, Lohaus shut down the Airliner and walked away from the business.  

Since the Rinella family still owned the building and were holding a lease that still had over two years on it, they were forced into action on the Airliner.  A local guy stepped in to buy the restaurant, but the deal fell through at the last minute because of language in the lease.  That's when Jim Rinella - the grandson of Joe Rinella - stepped in to take over.  

The first thing Rinella did was a complete renovation of the space.  Since he was living in Michigan at the time, he asked his uncle Doug Tvedt to come back and oversee the project.  It took nearly a year and the restaurant was reconfigured and new fixtures were put in place.  The bar/restaurant reopened in the summer of 2005 and Jim Rinella continues to own the restaurant with a local manager in place.  

The Airliner calls itself Iowa City's oldest bar, but I'm also sort of confused on that one, as well.  I was always under the assumption that the venerable George's Buffet first opened their doors in 1939.  (For the Road Tips write-up on George's Buffet from May of 2011, along with its history, click here.)  But "Established 1944" is part of the logo on the awning over the front entrance of the place. 

We walked in and the place had completely changed from the last time I was in the Airliner.  The bar was still in the same place, but the area in front of the bar was now filled with booths.  They had moved the bathrooms from behind the bar to an area that used to be where the video games and pinball machines were when I went there in the 80's.  

The back room off the main dining room is where the video games used to be.  Now, my wife and my sister-in-law and I got into a small argument about the upstairs at the Airliner.  I had never been upstairs at the Airliner, but my wife said that's where we - as in she and me - used to play the Centipede video game when we would hang out in the early 80's.  I said, "Oh, no.  It was right back over there, where the bathrooms are now!"  Her sister said that she remembered being upstairs at the Airliner, too.  I saw some stairs by the front entrance that went up, but it was definitely dark up there.  At the end, I think we agreed to disagree as I think they were thinking of someplace else along Clinton Street.  

We were seated at a booth opposite the bar along the wall in the main dining room.  The hostess sort of tossed 3 menus on the table top and it turned out that the booth hadn't really been cleaned off.  Our server that night was a young lady by the name of Audrey.  When my wife asked if she could clean off the table (it was water marks from the people previously seated there), she left in a huff, then came back with a spray bottle and spayed cleaning solution all over the table - and it sprayed onto us.  She quickly wiped down the table and then left once again in a huff.  "What's her problem," my sister-in-law indignantly asked.  

(Spoiler alert - Audrey's attitude didn't get any better the rest of the evening.) 

Audrey did come back moments later and asked if we wanted anything to drink.  I saw they had the distinctive Kona Big Wave spigot on their draft beer wall and I signed up for one of those.  My wife got her customary Tito's vodka and cranberry juice, while her sister got a drink from the specialty drink list at the Airliner - an Irish Mule made with Jameson whiskey, ginger beer and lime juice.   

While were there for pizza, I took a look through the menu at what else the Airliner has to offer.   They had burgers names after planes - the B-2 was a bacon, mushroom burger with your choice of cheese; the Stealth Bomber was a burger with Cajun spices and bleu cheese; and the F-16 was a burger topped with cheddar cheese, barbecue sauce, bacon, and onion rings.  They also had sandwiches on the menu at the Airliner - a breaded chicken breast covered in Buffalo wing sauce, a pork tenderloin sandwich, a chicken parm sandwich, and a traditional grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough bread.  

They also had salads, soups and a handful of appetizers on the menu.  The appetizers weren't anything special or unique - cheese balls, chicken wings, chips and salsa, breadsticks, etc.  My wife and sister-in-law were hungry to we ordered up some the onion rings.  They were cooked to a golden brown and came with a side of ranch dressing.  They were fine for what they were, but I thought they were a little expensive at $7.99 for a small plate where there were just 9 various size rings.  

They have three different styles of pizza crust at the Airliner - a thin-crust they call a New York-style crust, the Airliner-style crust which is a little more thick, then they have a deep-dish Chicago-style.  They have a number of specialty pizzas such as a taco pizza, a meat-lovers pizza, a traditional margherita pizza, and an alfredo chicken pizza with a white sauce.  

I wanted to try their deep-dish pizza - I had heard good things about that.  My wife and her sister were leaning more toward the thin-crust pizza, so we decided to get two.  I ordered a small (10") deep-dish with sausage, pepperoni and mushroom, while my wife and her sister got a large (16") supreme pizza topped with pepperonis, Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, black olives, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, then finished off with a house-blended shredded cheese.  I figured that I'd have a couple pieces of the supreme pizza in addition to my deep-dish pizza.

When both pizzas showed up at the table at the same time - about 20 minutes after we had ordered them - I knew something was amiss with my pizza.  First of all, a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza usually takes a minimum of 35 minutes to cook.  This pizza was misshapen and they had tried to push the dough up on the side of the pizza pan to make one of their Airliner original-crust pizzas look like a deep-dish pizza.  It was a feeble attempt at trying to make this a deep-dish pizza.  The toppings were all jumbled in one area and on top of all that, they added green peppers to my pizza.  I like the taste of green peppers, but they don't digest well in my stomach and I end up burping them up the rest of the night.  I wasn't going to quibble about the peppers - there were other things wrong with this pizza.

The main problem is that it tasted horrible.  There was like some sort of industrial cleaner taste to the dough.  I had a couple pieces of the pizza and it didn't get any better.  It left sort of a bad aftertaste in my mouth.  Between Audrey's attitude and indifference, and now this sad excuse of a deep-dish pizza, I was becoming highly disappointed in our visit to the Airliner.  

The large supreme pizza was fine.  It was cut tavern-style and had a very good crust that wasn't too thin, but still had some pliability.  It tasted much, much better than the abysmal deep-dish pizza that I had.  My wife and her sister were both happy with the pizza.  I told them that I'd offer them a piece of my pizza, but I didn't want to spoil their taste buds for the pizza they ordered.  

The Airliner - to me - always bordered on being a dive-bar.  But I had noticed a few things about the place during our time there that sort of disappointed me compared to how nice their renovations had been years ago.  I noticed that my flip-flops would stick to the floor under the table. It was like they had spilled a full pitcher of beer under the table sometime back and hadn't cleaned it up.  But when I went into the restroom after I finished eating, I couldn't believe what I saw.  One of the urinals was completely out of order, the other urinal was just a step above unusable, the toilet in the stall had a loose seat, and the bathroom was just completely filthy.  Now, I've peed in some pretty disgusting places over the years, but they were in places where I expected the bathroom to be disgusting.  For as nice as the Airliner appeared to be, it didn't take much looking around (or stepping around) to know that this place needed an enema.  

They say that you can never go back to the places that you went to in your youth, and that may be true in the case of the Airliner.  I was never so disappointed in going back to a place that was one of my favorite haunts when I was going to college at Iowa in the early to mid-80's.  We had a server who was in a foul mood all night long, the deep-dish pizza I had completely sucked and was one of the worst tasting pizzas I ever had, and the place was filthy with the men's restroom especially disgusting.  I will say that the thin-crust pizza was pretty good, however.  It had been over 30 years since I was last in the Airliner and if I get back in there sometime in the next 30 years, well, that will be too soon. 

Joe's Pizza - Chicago, IL

A large number of months ago, I got an e-mail from a Road Tips reader in Chicago that said, "I saw your blog post about Dino's Pizza.  That's one of my favorites, too.  But if you like Dino's, I'm sure you'll like Joe's which is just down the street."  The reader was referring to Joe's Pizza, located about a mile and a half east of Dino's on Higgins.  I filed Joe's away in my "Restaurants to Visit" list.  But with the pandemic raging and my travel shut down, I wasn't able to get there until Chicago opened up to vaccinated travelers in early June.  Thinking pizza would be good for a meal one evening, I started out thinking about heading to Dino's.  But then I remembered about the one place down the road.  I looked it up on my saved places on my Google Maps application and decided to head over to Joe's Pizza to give it a try.

Giuseppe "Joe" Pollini was a sailor in the Italian navy during World War II.  However, his ship and fellow crew mates were captured and taken via ship to the United States to be interned in a prison camp.  (My dad was stationed in Texas during World War II and the base he was at held a number of Italian prisoners of war.)  During the trip to the U.S., Joe was one of the cooks who made meals for the crew of the American ship.

Once he got to New York, the war was coming to an end and many of the Italians on the ship just stayed in the U.S.  By the mid-50's, Joe Pollini had made it to the south side of Chicago and worked at a tavern-style pizza place in the Evergreen Park neighborhood.  There were others in the neighborhood who either owned or worked at pizza places and even though they were in competition, the families co-mingled at church and at school.  The pizza restaurants would even share ingredients with one another if one was running low on something.  

Joe's Pizza moved to their present day location on W. Higgins in the late-60's.  Joe Pollini was later joined by his son-in-law Mario Demonte, an Italian immigrant who grew up in a small village in southern Italy.  Mario Demonte was a culinary specialist in Italian cuisine and he expanded the menu to include pasta dishes, deep pan pizza and seafood.  Mario eventually took over the business and he was eventually joined in the business by Joe Pollini's grandson Frankie Pollini - the third generation family member to run Joe's Pizza.

I pulled up to Joe's Pizza just before 6 p.m.  It's situated in a small store front near the corner of W. Higgins and N. Mango Ave.  (see map)  Parking was available on the street in front of the business.  

I went inside and was met by none other than Vicki Demonte, Joe's daughter and the wife of Mario Demonte.  I was the only patron in the place.  I asked if they were open for dine-in and she said, "Yes, we are!  Come on in!"  She told me that I could sit anywhere.  I took a booth along one of the walls of the establishment and she dropped off a menu for me to look through.  I knew that a number of restaurants in Chicago had to close for dine-in services during the height of the pandemic, so I asked Vicki when they reopened for dining-in.  "Early March," she said.  "And it didn't come any time too soon!"   She asked if she could get me something to drink and I saw that they had a handful of local craft beers and a couple imports.  I ended up getting a bottle of the Peroni beer from Italy.  

The inside of Joe's Pizza is pretty small.  There was a small bar and a few tables and chairs in the middle of the floor with four or five booths on the side wall.  While I was there, they had a couple delivery guys hanging out waiting to do their runs.  They also had a pretty brisk take-out business during the time I was there.  It was a nice clean and cozy little restaurant.

The menu at Joe's Pizza is pretty deep.  In addition to tavern-style, stuffed and deep-dish pizza, Joe's features a number of pasta dishes including basked mostaccioli, gnocchi in a vodka sauce, fettuccine alfredo, and linguine in a clam sauce.  They also had entrees such as chicken parmigiana, lemon pepper tilapia, barbecued ribs, and roasted or fried chicken dinners.  Joe's also featured a number of sandwiches and burgers, as well as appetizers and salads.  I wondered how big their kitchen was with all the foods they offered on their menu.  

But I was there for the pizza and that's exactly what I got.  I got a small tavern-style pizza with my standard toppings - sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms.  Vicki brought out the trio of parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes and Italian seasonings in shaker jars.  The Italian seasonings were heavy on the oregano - exactly how I like it.  The 10" pizza was topped with bubbly caramelized mozzarella cheese.  

I always like to take a square or corner triangle of a tavern-style pizza to try before I put any seasonings or cheese on the piece.  From the first bite, I knew I had a winner.  The sauce was sweet and tangy; the cheese was plentiful and smooth in taste with a hint of that burnt taste that really can give mozzarella a good kick in flavor; and the crust was crisp, but not hard to chew.  This was an outstanding pizza.  

I love finding great tavern-style pizza places in Chicago and Joe's Pizza will definitely become part of my rotation.  I loved everything about Joe's - the small, intimate setting, the great service from Vicki and her crew, and the pizza itself.  Joe's is a great little neighborhood pizza place and I'm sort of jealous that I don't have anything like it near me at my home.  I'll certainly look forward to getting back to Joe's at some point during my travels to Chicago.  

Marquee Pizzeria - Coralville, IA

My wife and I made a recent Sunday trip over to Iowa City to hit the Trader Joe's store in Coralville.  My wife had suggested a place in Iowa City to go to for lunch, but when we got there it was packed and there would be a wait.  We went to another place I thought about, but it turned out they were closed.  A third and fourth place in Coralville were respectively closed as well.  My wife and I were incredulous that these many places would be closed, even though it was a Sunday.  Finally, my wife said, "There's a place down in the (Iowa River) Landing in Coralville that (her sister) and I noticed one time.  Let's try that place out."  She gave me directions how to get there and it turned out this place was open.  We were going to check out Marquee Pizzeria.  

Marquee Pizzeria was started by the same group of people - Sam Hall and siblings Ravi Patel, Raj Patel and Sajni Patel - who started La Vecina, a wood-fired Mexican restaurant just around the corner from Marquee Pizzeria.  (Click here to see our visit to La Vecina.  Also, quite interestingly, La Vecina is closed on Sunday.)  The group was also involved with the Clinton Street Social Club and the Patel's are all part of the family who owns the Hawkeye Hotels hospitality group of hotels and restaurants.  

After purchasing the Clinton Street Social Club, the group came up with a concept of a restaurant that had communal dining.  The logical food selection was pizza which large groups can enjoy.  They wanted to make the restaurant festive, sort of a "Brooklyn, NY comes to Iowa City" vibe and they wanted a large space with sort of a "backyard party" touch.  Strings of Edison lights were hung from the ceiling and criss-crossed over the tables of the space.  

The type of pizza was also important to the group.  Neo-Neapolitan-style pizzas were selected, but they added a type of New York signature to their pizzas - thin crust with a crispy underside to the pizza.  And they had to be wood-fired pizzas, so the group turned to the world renown Pavasi Forni Modena company located in Modena, Italy for their oven.  The oven is capable of reaching temperatures of 900 degrees (F) to be able to cook the pizzas quickly.  

Finding the right kind of dough was also crucial to Sam Hall's vision of what makes an exceptional pizza.  Hall worked with five or six different types of dough structures before deciding up on a naturally leavened dough that takes 48 hours from the time it's mixed to the time it's portioned out in dough balls.  With a wood-fired oven, it takes more time to prepare the pizza - shaping the dough and putting housemade mozzarella, sauce and premium toppings on top - than it does to cook it.  Pizzas at Marquee Pizzeria are usually fully cooked in as little as 90 seconds.  

With everything in place, Marquee Pizzeria started out with a soft-opening in October of 2017 to help shake the kinks out.  They opened their doors with full menu dining in November of that year.  

Pulling up in front of Marquee Pizzeria, we weren't certain that IT was open, either.  (see map)  But as we turned the corner to go into the public parking ramp at the Iowa River Landing, we saw that there were people inside.  

After parking the car, we came in the back door of the place and found that the hostess stand was up to the front of dining room underneath a replica portrait of the Mona Lisa.  A full bar with seating was along one wall with a number of tables throughout the place.  We were greeted by a young lady who said we could sit anywhere, so we took a table up front next to a large garage door that opened out to a small patio in front of the restaurant.  

In the back of restaurant was the large wood-fired pizza oven.  The large red oven was difficult to miss.  It had char marks on the top of the opening from a number of wood-fired pizzas made over the last two-and-a-half years.  

Our server that day was a friendly young man by the name of Nate.  I have to say that Nate had a good sense of humor, was more than helpful with suggestions and requests, and was more than accommodating during our time at Marquee Pizzeria.  He was what you would categorize as a "good guy".  

Nate dropped off a couple menus on the table and wanted to know what we would like to drink.  My wife ordered her usual Tito's and cranberry juice, while I asked if I could get a bloody mary.  Nate said, "Oh, no, I'm sorry.  We don't have bloody mary's.  I don't know why, but we don't have the mix for them."  I was sort of crestfallen when he told me that as I was craving a bloody mary.  And I was sort of confused as they appeared to have a full bar as they certainly had vodka, but didn't have bloody mary mix.  But that didn't matter all that much as I found out they had a number of craft beers on tap.  I ended up ordering a Toppling Goliath Pompeii mosaic IPA, one of my favorite hazy IPA's.

The menu at Marquee Pizzeria featured a handful of shareable appetizers and salads.  They had a handful of pasta dishes, but the main aspect of the menu are their pizzas.  They have a number of speciality pizzas on the menu including a margherita pizza that sounded wonderful with their housemade mozzarella, a red sauce and fresh basil.  The Vice City pizza consisted of smoked mozzarella, locally-sourced sausage and pepperoni, with a pickled pepper sauce and hot honey.  And the Prosciutto Primavera featured - of course - prosciutto, housemade mozzarella, Prairie Breeze aged-white cheddar cheese from the Milton Creamery in Milton, IA, red pepper flakes, garlic-oiled arugula with Calabrian olive oil drizzled on top.  Marquee also had a vegan pizza available, as well.  

My wife likes to have some greens when she can and she was sort of interested in the Classic Italian Salad - romaine lettuce, sliced cherry tomatoes on sliced cucumbers, chopped red onions, pepperoncini, with parmesan cheese and bread crumbs on top with a red wine vinaigrette on the side.  We decided to get a full size salad to share as I thought it sounded good.  Well, it looked even better than the description on the menu. My wife remarked that it was almost too nice to dig in to.  The presentation was equalled by the fresh taste of the ingredients on the salad.  It was a great start for our lunch.  

We ordered up the Falco pizza - probably the most popular one on the menu according to Nate.  It consisted of locally-sourced pork sausage with a red sauce, then sliced red onions, breadcrumbs, garlic, fresh basil and  parmigiano cheese were all added.  I asked Nate if he could add some of the locally-sourced pepperoni to the pizza and he said it would be no problem.  

The pizza was a 12" pizza - as are all the pizzas at Marquee Pizzeria.  It was thicker on the blistered outer ridge, but nice and thin in the middle - just as my wife and I like our pizza.  And from the first bite, we could easily tell it was a quality pizza.  The fresh flavors of the basil, tomato sauce, the sausage and the pepperoni exploded with each bite.  The dough was perfect with little to no sag with each piece.   

My wife and I have experienced some pretty good Neapolitan-style pizza in our travels and I would have to say that the pizza we had a Marquee Pizzeria would rival many of the better ones we've had.  Everything about the pizza was wonderful - the fresh toppings were flavorful, the dough was spongy, but still had a crispiness to it, and the overall taste was very good.  I can't say enough about our server Nate who was attentive and accommodating throughout our visit, going about his job in a friendly and jovial kind of fashion.  The only drawback - and a minor one, at that - is that for a place with a full bar, I was surprised that they didn't have a bloody mary mix.  But it still seemed like a nice place to gather and even with a number of very good pizza options in the Iowa City area, I'd go back to Marquee Pizzeria at some point.

Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza - Eldridge, IA

My wife and I have a friend who had a home in the small town of Long Grove, about a 20 minute drive north of the Quad Cities.  Had is the correct tense here as she just moved back to West Virginia to be closer to family while her husband works overseas as a government contractor.  A couple weeks before she moved, she invited us out to her place to help her make heads or tails of some electronics equipment her husband said to go ahead and sell in the upcoming garage sale.  I jumped on the chance to see if there was something that was appealing to me.  (There was - I got a vintage Yamaha cassette tape deck player.  I haven't had a cassette tape deck player in my system since my Nakamichi LX-3 died - for the third time - a few years back and I didn't want to keep putting money into the thing.  And - yes - I still have hundreds of cassette tapes in my music collection.)  To further entice us to come out, our friend said that she wanted to go to a new pizza place in Eldridge, the town just to the south of Long Grove.  We thought that would be a fun night, so after spending some time going through things at her house, we ventured down the road to Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Kitchen.

Now, I was somewhat familiar with Tony Sacco's and knew that it was a franchise.  About 10 years ago, I stayed at a hotel in the northwest Chicago suburb of Mount Prospect.  The hotel was part of an entertainment/shopping destination called Randhurst Village that had a Tony Sacco's pizza joint in it.  That Tony Sacco's location didn't last too long - maybe two or three years - and I never did try it.  

The original Tony Sacco's dates back nearly 15 years ago when three Florida friends - all Michigan natives - decided to open a coal-fired pizza place, similar to old-world wood-fired Italian pizza places they had in their youths.  Only one - Tony Sacco - had any restaurant experience, while the other two - Chuck Senatore and George Kurajian - were an engineer and a former food service equipment executive, respectively.  They decided upon using Sacco's name since it sounded the most Italian of the bunch, but Sacco left the venture before they opened their first Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza in Estero, FL in 2008.  The group decided on coal over the old world wood ovens because coal burned hotter - and faster - than wood.  

Now, opening a restaurant in the midst of a recession probably isn't the smartest thing to do, but Senatore and Kurajian stuck it out and Tony Sacco's started to get a following.  They initially had plans to open 10 of the Tony Sacco's locations in the southwest Florida area on their own, but then the co-owners were approached by a handful of people looking to open franchised restaurants in the Midwest and southern states.  Senatore and Kurajian soon started the TSP Management Group to oversee franchising the Tony Sacco restaurants.  At one point, there were over a dozen Tony Sacco's in states from Illinois and Michigan down through Indiana and Ohio, and on south all the way to a handful in southwest Florida.  

It turned out that the Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza concept didn't work out well for a lot of franchisees as there are now just four other locations outside of the original one in Estero, FL.  And the confounding things is that the remaining locations are located in peculiar areas - there's one in northwest Indiana, one in a small city outside of Cleveland, one in a small town between Detroit and Lansing, MI, and the newest one in Eldridge, a bedroom community/agriculture-centric area just north of the Quad Cities.  

In 2017, the Whitty family - whose father, Joe, founded Happy Joe's Pizza - sold their interests in Happy Joe's to a newly formed company called Dynamic Restaurant Holdings.  At the same time, Dynamic Restaurant Holdings acquired majority interest in Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza.  Ironically, Dynamic Restaurant Holdings named industry veteran Tom Sacco (formerly with Bonanza and Ponderosa Steakhouse, Red Robin and BJ's Brewhouse) as their new CEO in October of last year.  Sacco - who has no family connection to the original Tony Sacco - announced last fall that they would put in a Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza in what was the old Lancers, then Grille 350 location in Eldridge.  

The Eldridge Tony's Sacco location is attached to the Happy Joe's restaurant, and because of that it has a different menu than the other locations.  From Day 1, Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza never had fryers, microwave ovens, or stove tops.  Everything was made in the coal-fired ovens.  But while the Eldridge location still has a coal-fired oven, the attached kitchen from Happy Joe's allows for an expansion of food offerings such as burgers, sandwiches, Italian entrees and appetizers such as Buffalo chicken dip and Italian nachos featuring crostini bread instead of corn chips.  

Our friend had eaten there with other friends a few nights before, but she said, "The service was just so bad.  I  thought the food was good, but the service was horrible."  It could be that the service is bad because Tony Sacco's is having trouble getting employees to work there.  In a recent article in the Quad City Times, Tom Sacco lamented that he was struggling to find full-time employees - even paying more than the going rate of most other restaurants in the area.  He said that many of the potential employees indicated that they didn't want to make the drive from the Quad Cities up to Eldridge - just 15 minutes north of downtown Davenport.  Sacco said that he only had 12 employees at one point when he ideally would like to have 30 to 35 people on staff.   Sacco said that he had to move a couple employees over to Eldridge from the Tony Sacco's operation just outside of South Bend, IN.  

This past late fall, we lost one of our favorite pizza places in the Quad Cities, Crust Pizza.  (Click here to see the entry on Crust.)  We liked the variety Crust offered (Chicago-deep dish, wood-fired Neapolitan, and tavern-cut thin crust pizzas) and they had a great selection of craft beer, wine and a full bar menu.  So, when we heard that a Tony Sacco's was opening in the area, we were hoping that it would, at the very least, fill some of the hole that the closing of Crust put into our regular rotation of non-Quad City-style pizza establishments that we like to go to.  

We pulled into the parking lot at Tony Sacco's just after 6 p.m. on a Friday night.  (see map)  We think that getting employees was still a problem for Tony Sacco's because we were told it would be a 30 minute wait for a table.  Even with social distancing guidelines in place, there appeared to be a number of open tables and booths in the restaurant.  It was a very large space.  We had eaten at the old Lancers Grille a couple of times years and years ago, but I didn't remember it being this big of a place.  We just figured they didn't have enough wait staff to take care of people if they sat everyone as they came in.  

After we put our name in, the hostess asked for a phone number to contact us when our table was ready.  I looked over and saw a small bar area with a corrugated tin facade.  I asked if we could get a drink while we waited.  The hostess flatly said, "No, you cannot."  We sort of stood by the front door and she finally said, "And you can't even be in here waiting for your table.  You'll have to go to your car."  I asked if we could stand in the vestibule and she said, "No, I'm sorry."  

So we did.  We sat in our car waiting for just over 30 minutes before my phone buzzed with a text that our table was ready.  While we were sitting there talking, our friend kept peering over at the front door.  "There's people standing in the entry way," she said with a disgusted tone.  We told her that it was fine to wait in the car.  I'd rather be hanging in an area away from people in the dead of winter in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.  

We went back inside and were greeted by another young lady who took us to a booth just past the hostess stand.  We were given menus and it wasn't too long after that when our server for the evening, an energetic and fun young lady by the name of Pam came over to greet us.  The first dilemma we had was what to drink.  They had a couple IPA's on tap - one of 12 beers they had on tap - one, the Space Dust from the Elysian Brewing Company in Seattle, Washington, and the other the Surf Zombie IPA from the Iowa Brewing Company in Cedar Rapids.  I started out with a Space Dust, then switched to a Surf Zombie for my second beer.  

Drinks for the women were tough.  My wife wanted a vodka and cranberry, but all they had were cans of cranberry lemonade.  She ended up taking a Space Dust IPA.  Our friend loves lagers and she's a big fan of Samuel Adams beer.  Well, they had no lagers on tap, no Sam Adams in bottles and the only full-bodied lager they had was Budweiser in bottles.  She reluctantly took one of those.  Pam apologized for them not having Samuel Adams.  "We get requests for that beer all the time," she said.  "I need to let the owner know that we may need to bring some in."  

(I saw Tom Sacco sitting up at the bar later in the evening, recognizing him from his picture in the paper.)

We figured that we'd get a pizza - our friend was completely good with our standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  At Tony Sacco's, they offer two kinds of pepperoni - the regular cut and the "cupped" pepperoni that curls up and is a little more crisp than the regular pepperoni.  We ordered a large (16") pizza with the regular pepperoni.  

My wife also wanted to get a salad and she was able to talk our friend into sharing the Italian chop salad they had on the menu.  It featured chopped romaine lettuce mixed in with pepperoni, sliced ham and salami, red onions, chopped tomatoes, banana pepper rings, chopped celery with green and Kalamata olives.  Shredded provolone cheese topped the salad.   

We sat there for quite sometime waiting for the salad to show up.  It finally came to the table and not more than 30 seconds later while the women were divvying up the salad, our pizza came.  "Oh, geez," my wife said.  "I would have liked to have gotten the salad long before the pizza."  

Pam came over to check on us after the pizza made it to the table and I said, "I think they would have liked to have gotten the salad a lot sooner than just 30 seconds before the pizza showed up."   

She immediately apologized.  "That's on me, you guys," she said.  "I should have asked if you wanted it before the pizza because we consider our salads as regular entrees."  Quite honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal and it was another learning experience for us as patrons and Pam as a server at a new restaurant.  

The pizza looked pretty good.  It featured chunks of sausage, large discs of pepperoni, and a bunch of sliced fresh mushrooms.  The only thing that I could see was that it seemed that they concentrated much of the toppings in the center of the pizza.  

And I have to say that the pizza was very good.  The crust was puffy, but not too thick.  The mozzarella cheese was fresh and creamy.  And the sausage and pepperoni were slight spicy.  The earthiness of the fresh mushrooms rounded the overall flavor of the pizza into a very favorable taste.  

The women concentrated more on their salad - which was served in a large bowl and put on two plates that they had brought out - than they did the pizza.  I had three pieces before I threw in the towel.  My wife and our friend both had one piece each.  The remaining 3 pieces we put into a box and let our friend take them back to her house.    

Since Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza had been open less than 6 weeks when we went there for our first visit, we completely broke our rule of waiting 3 months after a restaurant opens to give it a try.  While there were a couple hiccups along the way on this visit, we wrote them off to growing pains of a new restaurant trying to find itself on a short staff.  Our friend said that the service on this visit was markedly better than the service she experienced on her first visit just a few days before.  I was pleased with our pizza - the cheese and toppings were fresh and full of flavor.  It's one of the better ones that I've had in the greater Quad Cities area.  We're not averse to taking the drive out to Eldridge and I'm sure we'll find ourselves out at Tony Sacco's Coal Fire Oven every once in a while to enjoy a good non-Quad City-style pizza.  

Guanella Pass Brewery - Georgetown, CO

A few weeks ago, I had a post on the brewpubs of Steamboat Springs.  (Click here to see that entry.)  At the time I included a microbrewery we visited in Georgetown, CO, about an hour's drive west of Denver.  Then I realized after the fact that it probably needed its own entry.  The brewpub was fun and fascinating, and the back story of how it came to be was also pretty interesting.  

Situated at just over 8500 feet above sea level and a few miles east of the Continental Divide off I-70, Georgetown is a historic, yet touristy town that reminded me a lot of Galena, IL.  My wife and I stopped in Georgetown to look around and we found a brew pub near the downtown area called Guanella Pass Brewery.  The brew pub takes its name from the high mountain pass of the same name located about 10 miles south of Georgetown on a scenic road that is open from Memorial Day to the end of November.  

Steve Skalski got his start in the business world working for EchoStar, the Denver-based company that operated Dish Network.  Skalski was in charge of EchoStar's interests in China for a number of years before moving back to the U.S. in 2011.  He eventually became the head of a company that designed and installed interactive entertainment and business systems in Hyatt hotels across the country before going to work for another communications company in California.  

One thing that Skalski loved was craft beer.  He started to brew his own beer at home and became friends with his neighbor Jon Strother who also brewed his own beers.  The two would brew beers together before Skalski decided that he wanted to get serious about it.  With the blessing of his wife, Skalski quit the corporate world, grew his hair long and grew a beard.  He then enrolled at the Siebel Institute in Chicago and their prestigious brewmaster course.  In the meantime, Strother got some advanced brew-training at Regis University in Denver.   

Skalski and his wife, Stacey, began to look for a building that would house their microbrewery.  But they found real estate around Denver to be cost prohibitive.  However, one day Steve found a building for sale in Georgetown - it was built in 1943 as a gas station, but had been an antique shop for a number of years.  The building was in a sad state of disrepair and the price was right.  The Skalski's bought the building, rehabbed it into a brewery and brought in Jon Strother to help with the operation.  They opened Guanella Pass Brewery in the late summer of 2017.  

As we were driving back to Denver from Steamboat Springs, we stopped in Georgetown to use the restroom.  My wife wanted me to drive toward the downtown area to check the place out.  We found the main street through the heart of downtown was closed off.  We were guessing they did that for the loads of people who come out from Denver - 45 miles to the east - on the weekends.  We walked around to a few shops, but I became quickly bored seeing knick-knacks, trinkets, and figurines.  My wife dangled the carrot of finding a brewpub after she was finished going through some of the stores.   

Getting back to the car, we did a quick search for breweries in the area.  The first one that came up was Guanella Pass, just a block off the main shopping street in town.  We pulled into a parking lot across from the brewery and went in.  (see map)  

Guanella Pass Brewery is not a big place.  It sort of reminded me somewhat of Storm Peak back in Steamboat, only much more cozy.  It seemed that we were right in the middle of the brewery operation enjoying a fresh beer.  There was a small bar area where you placed your order for their beers.  They had 12 beers on tap and we decided to taste 4 of them to start out.  


There is a patio off to the side of the building, but it was pretty brisk in the mountains that day so we ended up at a bench near the window.  We're glad we came in when we did because they got pretty busy.  The place seated - maybe - 18 people inside.  

We tried four beers - the Clear Creek hazy New England IPA that was delicious, a wheat and rye IPA that was all right, an Oktoberfest Märzen that I liked, and the Liquid Gold double IPA that was also very good.  I decided on getting a pint of the hazy IPA.  My wife took a half pint of the same beer.  

They also had pizza by the slice at Guanella Pass.  They opened a second location with a pizza kitchen in the town of Empire about 7 miles away from Georgetown in April of this year and they would ship their Detroit-style pizza over to warm up in a pizza oven.  My wife thought she should have something to tide her over until dinner in Denver that evening and we both got a slice of their pepperoni pizza.  It was thicker than Detroit-style that I've had in the past - more like the crust-less deep dish pizza that we both love from Pequod's in Chicago.  But it was very good.  The pepperoni was salty and spicy, which went well with the beer.  And the sauce was sweet and tangy.  I would have been happy having a couple more pieces along with a couple more beers and not eating dinner that evening.  But we needed to move on to Denver.   

It turned out that Guanella Pass Brewery was a great find on our trip to Colorado earlier this year.  Their New England-style hazy IPA was a great beer, their Detroit-style pizza - although made in the kitchen of their sister brewpub and brought over to the Georgetown location - was very good, and the small cozy atmosphere with the seating within the brewing was a nice touch.  We never did venture out to the patio, but if we would have been dressed for it better, it would have been a great place to hang.  If you're headed west from Denver and have the time to stop into Georgetown, don't forget to stop in to Guanella Pass Brewery.  

Mabe's Pizza - Decorah, IA

My wife and I took a recent drive up to Northeast Iowa to see the fall foliage, which was actually pretty nice along the Mississippi River.  We decided that we were going to spend the night in Decorah and made our way there from La Crosse one cool fall morning.  Initially, we were going to meet my wife's son for lunch in Decorah as he was on a short fishing/camping expedition not far from there.  But on our way over to Decorah, he said that he'd had a hard night and was going to head back to him home east of Cedar Rapids.  Well, we had planned on meeting and eating at Mabe's Pizza, the esteemed destination in Decorah known for their thin-crust, tavern-style pizzas.  But just because he wasn't going to join us didn't mean that we couldn't go to Mabe's for lunch.     

Probably 25 years ago, I was part of a list-serve group that chatted on-line about Iowa Hawkeyes sports.  Invariably, the threads would go 90 degrees from the Iowa football team to who has good food.  (Those left-turn threads were one of the sparks for the idea of Road Tips when I started this blog 10 years later.)   Some of the Iowa fans in the group did undergraduate work at Luther College in Decorah and they raved about Mabe's Pizza.  I tried it for the first time over 20 year ago and I was pretty impressed.  Over the years, Mabe's branched out with franchises in places such as Cresco, IA, Postville, IA, and Prairie du Chien, WI.  My wife and I ate at the one in Prairie du Chien a number of years ago, but we were convinced it wasn't as good as the original in Decorah.  And I think other people felt the same way as those locations are long closed.  

The "Mabe" behind Mabe's Pizza was Mabel White, an unassuming and kindly lady who opened a small 30-seat cafe - Mabel's Lunchroom - in 1953 at the age of 49.  It was a small place at the corner of College Dr. and Leif Erickson Dr. where Mabel would make sandwiches for students at nearby Luther College.  Many of the students were male and living off-campus due to a housing shortage at the rapidly growing small college.  Sometimes, Mabel would allow the students to make their own sandwiches and self-pay for them at the register.  The students at Luther loved "Mabe", the affectionate nickname they eventually gave her.

Pictured right - a portrait of Mabel "Mabe" White that hangs on the wall of the present day Mabe's Pizza

One day, a student came in and asked Mabel if he could he could make a pizza.  Mabel knew nothing about pizzas - it was in the early 60's when pizzas were relatively unheard of in rural parts of Iowa.  The student made his version of pizza - I'm guessing he was from the Chicago area as the pizza he made had a thin-crust and he cut it into tavern-style party squares -  and Mabel was intrigued enough to do some research of her own.  Thanks to the growing number of students from the Chicago area, she began to regularly make pizzas. And in 1968 she renamed her little lunch counter Mabe's Pizza.  

Mabe's had outgrown their original small location and moved to a larger building in Decorah.  It wasn't long before they had to move again, and not long after that, another move.  Mabe's Pizza had three or four different locations before settling into a spot near downtown Decorah in the early 70's.  Unfortunately, on New Years Eve in 1976, Mabe's was destroyed by fire.  

Undeterred, Mabel White - then 72 years old - decided that she wanted to rebuild.  She eventually found a spot on E. Water Street in the heart of downtown Decorah where she built a 200-seat restaurant.  Ground was broke in May of 1977 and the new and improved Mabe's Pizza opened in the spring of 1978.  

Over the years, Mabel's youngest son Don White had been helping out in the business.  When Mabel retired in 1981 at the age of 77, Don White and his wife Maime had been running the day-to-day operations for a number of years.  Mable didn't go far - she lived in an apartment above Mabe's - and would still pop in to the restaurant from time to time over the next few years before passing away in 2002, just weeks before her 98th birthday.

Maime White tragically passed on New Years Day in 1993 and Don White kept going with the restaurant.  He eventually turned the reins over to his son Steve White and Steve's wife Connie in 1999.  Don White would also pop in from time to time during his retirement before he passed away in 2014 at the age of 77.  A fourth generation of the White family - Collin White - is the general manager for his parents' business today and will undoubtedly take over sole ownership of Mabe's at some point in the future.  

We got into Decorah around 11 a.m. - the time that Mabe's opens up seven days a week.  It was Sunday and I was pretty certain that it wouldn't be all that busy if we went there at our original planned time of noon.  We drove around Decorah a bit and took a walk along the Upper Iowa River and Trout Run Creek on the east side of town on what turned out to be a beautiful fall day.  By the time we got that out of the way and pulled up in front of Mabe's at 110 E. Water St. (see map) it was 11:55 a.m.  I figured that we wouldn't have any trouble getting into the restaurant - after all, it was a Sunday and I just didn't think any restaurant would be busy on a Sunday at noon.  Especially a pizza place in Decorah, IA.

Oh, boy.  How wrong I was with that...

When we walked into Mabe's we found a long line of people waiting to pick up "to-go" orders.  It had been homecoming weekend for Luther - even though there weren't any festivities or a football game due to the pandemic - and a lot of people were there to pick up half-baked pizzas or regular orders to take home locally.  People were coming in the front door and in from the rear door where there's a smaller dining area.  We saw people carrying multiple boxes of pizza out the door during our time at Mabe's.   

We were lucky as we got the last booth available, back in the very far corner of the dining room that was socially distanced with tables taken out of the middle.  On the far end wall of the dining room partitioned off from the front dining area by glass windows are portraits of founder Mable White, and her son Don with his wife Maime.   

We got our menus when we were seated, but we pretty much had our heart set on getting a pizza.  In addition to their pizzas, Mabe's also features burgers, sandwiches, broasted chicken, pasta entrees, appetizers and salads.  Nope - we were there for the pizza.

Our server that day was a young lady whose attitude was so sour and dour that it was very evident that she didn't want to be there, let alone even wait on us.  When I asked what they had for craft beers, she let out a heavy sigh and said, "I'll check to see."  I told her to just hang on and ordered up a domestic bottle to cut my losses.  She brought it back to our table moments later sliding it across the table with nary a word.   She was like that the whole time we were there.

My wife thought she better get a small salad with Italian dressing.  When she asked our surly waitress if she had like a vinegar and oil dressing, she sort of shrugged her shoulders and said, "It's Italian."  My wife, too, thought she better just go along with the flow of our unhappy waitress and take what she brings her.  It was a nice light Italian dressing and my wife was happy with that.

We noticed the lines getting longer and more people coming in right and left either waiting on to-go orders or for a booth or table to open up.  One couple who looked to be in their late 60's, early 70's took the table near us and said that they had already ordered their pizza in advance.  Five minutes later - and being waited on another girl than the one we had - they were munching on their pre-ordered pizza.  My wife remarked, "Wow!  Given how busy it is, they got lucky to get a table!"  I jokingly said that they could have been forced to stand and eat their pizza had nothing been open to sit.  

We put our order in for a small (12") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza at 12:10.  We knew they were busy and I figured that it may take a little time.  But I wasn't expecting our pizza to show up 35 minutes after we ordered it.  It usually doesn't take that long for a thin-crust pizza, but Mabe's was rockin' with all the in-house and to-go orders.  Their pizza oven is a multi-level "merry-go-round" style oven and there's only so much space that you have to bake pizzas.  

It had been a long, long time since I had had a Mabe's pizza - maybe 15 years.  The thin hand-tossed dough was misshapen a bit, but it featured ample toppings of ground Italian sausage, spicy pepperoni and fresh mushrooms with an abundance of mozzarella cheese that had been caramelized in the oven.  The pizza was cut into the traditional Mabe's tavern-style squares.  

The only thing wrong with the pizza - I think they could have left it in for a couple three more minutes.  I remember Mabe's in the past for having sort of a more crunchy crust.  On this one, however, it tasted sort of doughy like it needed to bake for a bit longer.  Everything else associated with the pizza was fine - I love the tangy and somewhat spicy sauce they have on a Mabe's pizza. But we just felt that it was a bit undercooked, no matter how cooked it looked on top.  

Service didn't improve much during our visit.  The young lady who waited on us was visibly pissed off about something - we figured that maybe she was called in to work when she had the day off.  But that shouldn't have spilled over in her outward demeanor toward the people she was serving.  I usually will give a server the benefit of the doubt when I go to tip them and I usually go 20%.   Our server got just barely a 10% tip in cash. Yes, I know times are tough for restaurants and wait staffs.  But this young lady was not the best in her field.

Other than the outward surliness displayed by our waitress throughout the visit to Mabe's Pizza, we were happy to get back to try their pizza.  Later on, we figured out that not much was open for dining options in Decorah on a Sunday evening and we sort of lamented that we should have waited to go to Mabe's that evening rather than for lunch.   The pizza was fine - a little undercooked, but still fine.  And everything could have been caused by how busy they were and were trying to get pizzas cooked as quickly as possible.  We've eaten at some very good pizza places over time and I know why Luther graduates come back in droves to have a Mabe's pizza year after year.  But let's just say this was not their best effort either in service or with the pizza.  

Bar 209 - Bemidji, MN

On our first night in Bemidji during our summer vacation up there, we were trying to get the lay of the land in terms of restaurants.  It was a Monday night, so a few places were closed.  (We found that parts of Bemidji literally shut down from Monday thru Wednesday.)  We weren't all that hungry, but we figured we needed something.  Driving around the downtown area, we found a handful of bar and grills that were open, but one sort of stuck out from all the outdoor seating they had in the street in front of the place.  We decided to hit up Bar 209 for dinner that evening.  

Bar 209 sat at 209 NW Minnesota Ave. in downtown Bemidji for a number of years.  Two brothers - Derek and Brett Leach - had an early life taste of the restaurant business when they both worked at the old Union Station, an upscale restaurant housed in an old train depot that opened in 1976.  Derek was 13 when he worked in the kitchen washing dishes and doing prep work, and Brett was 11 or 12 when he started at Union Station busing tables.  

An opportunity arose for the brothers to buy an existing little burger joint - Bar 209 (located at 209 Minnesota Ave. NW in Bemidji) in 2011.  It wasn't long before they expanded the menu and realized that they needed more space.  In late 2014, the brothers agreed to purchase the American Legion building a half block north of Bar 209.  Membership in the legion had dwindled to about 50 members and the 7,000 square foot building was way too big for their needs.  The Leach brothers needed the space as the original Bar 209 was long, but too narrow to comfortably seat people in the place.

It turned out that the American Legion post was way too big for Bar 209's needs, as well.  The Leach brothers hired a design team out of the Twin Cities who suggested putting two restaurants in the building.  The brothers decided to go with a "day & night" concept for the restaurants.  A breakfast place on one side and the new and improved Bar 209 on the other side.  

Pictured at right - Derek and Brett Leach.  Photo courtesy Bemidji Pioneer.  

Work finally began on the building and by June of 2018 the new Bar 209 opened on the north side of the building, while Red Stu - a breakfast place named after the brothers' father - opened on the south end.  In addition to 209 Bar and Red Stu, the brothers also own the Cabin Coffee House & Cafe (we went there for coffee one day), and Turtle River Chophouse, a supper club that's located about 11 miles north and east of Bemidji.  (Look for an upcoming Road Tips post on Turtle River Chophouse.)  

We parked our car just down the street from 209 Bar and walked toward the front door at the corner of 3rd St. NW and Minnesota Ave. NW.  (see map)  As I said earlier, Minnesota Ave. was shut down for the block in front of Bar 209 for outdoor seating.  With COVID-19 restrictions on dining inside, 209 Bar set up a number of folding tables and chairs in the street.  My wife and I looked at the set up and decided against dining in the street.  But there were a lot of people seated outside.  We figured that because outside dining in Bemidji is limited because of the short season, people there probably didn't care if they were sitting in the middle of a street to have dinner.  

We went inside and were greeted by a hostess who took us to a booth along the wall.  In Minnesota, you had to have a mask on to go into establishments, but once you were seated in a restaurant, you could remove them.  We found that most people complied with the mask mandate that Minnesota's governor had decreed earlier in the summer, even though they may not have liked it.  

Bar 209 was very nice.  It featured a number of high top tables including a couple of community tables in the middle of the dining area.  The bar curved around in front of an open serving window looking into the kitchen.  Booths were on the north wall of the restaurant and high-top tables with banquette seating along the wall faced opposite the bar.  I would call the decor in the place as modern industrial.  

We had been given menus when were seated and our server for the evening asked us what we would like to drink.  They had a number of beers on tap including a handful from the Bemidji Brewing Company located just a couple blocks away.  I wanted to go to Bemidji Brewing at some point to try their beers, but I didn't want to try them before then.  I ended up getting a Bell's Two Hearted Ale.  My wife got a glass of 209 Bar's house red wine - a French blend.  

The menu at 209 Bar featured appetizers, salads, sandwiches and wraps.  Bar 209 is known locally for their good burgers and they had a number on the menu - all their beef is sourced locally from Stittsworth Meats in Bemidji.  The different burgers sounded good, but I had a burger for lunch earlier in the day and I wasn't all that hungry.  But they also had pizza on the menu with the dough made-from-scratch in the kitchen daily.  

And that's what we ended up getting. It was a 10" pizza with raised dough and we got our usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  The crust was sort of chewy, but the chunks of sausage had that great fennel flavor, the pepperoni was spicy, and the mushrooms were earthy in flavor.  Actually, there was almost too much crust for the pizza as most of the toppings were center of the pizza.  But it was still all right, in our book.  And it turned out to be just enough for what we needed that night.  

My wife thought she had better get some greens in her, so she ordered up the house salad - a mix of spring greens and romaine lettuce, with sliced cucumbers and cherry tomatoes all topped with shredded cheddar cheese.  She got the balsamic vinaigrette dressing to go with the salad.  She said the greens were cool, fresh and crisp.  She just had a couple pieces of pizza, so the salad was a nice addition to her meal.  

I would have to say that our visit to 209 Bar was all right.  The menu is pretty basic and caters more to a bar crowd and families.  We thought the place was nice, had a laid-back vibe and was comfortable.  We just thought it was a little strange to be eating in the street in front of the place, so that's why we decided to eat inside on what was a beautiful Northern Minnesota evening.  The service was fine - our server was pleasant and efficient.  209 Bar isn't fine dining, and they don't pretend to be.  But it would be a good place for a casual meal in downtown Bemidji.  

 

Heggies Pizza

Since we haven't been able to dine out during the COVID-19 pandemic, we've been doing a lot of home cooking.  Sometimes we'll take short cuts when we don't want to put a lot of effort into what we're making and go the easy route - as in something like a "take-and-bake" meal.  Costco has some wonderful lasagna in their frozen food section that we've made a couple times during the pandemic, but they also have something that I was very skeptical of when I was first told of this product - Heggies Pizza.  We happened to find a two-pack of Heggies Pizza in the freezer during a trip to Costco in late March and we decided to give it try.  

Heggies (pronounced with a hard "g" as in "egg" and not a soft "g" as in "hedge") is sort of a phenomenon across the Upper Midwest.  Found primarily in backwoods bars, small town taverns, lakeside resorts and bowling alleys in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas, Heggies got its start in humbled fashion after a failed attempt by Don and Polly Hegedus at running their own pizza restaurant in the Minneapolis suburb of Anoka.  

After closing their restaurant, the Hegedus' moved to the small town of Onamia, MN near Lake Mille Lacs.  They went out to some of the small bars in the area that catered to boaters, fishermen and - in the winter - snowmobilers and found that the places had limited to no options for food.  Talking with friends of his in the area, Don was encouraged to start making pizzas in his garage, freezing them, and delivering them to the bars in the area for them to cook and sell to their customers.  Don and Polly started Heggies Pizza - named after Don's father's nickname - in 1989.  (Completely disregarding fate and any sense of bad luck, Heggies was also the name of their defunct pizza restaurant.)  

Heggies first customer was the owner of a lodge on Mille Lacs who was friendly with Don and Polly.  Using fresh ingredients and a crust that didn't taste like cardboard or get flimsy during cooking, Heggie's pizzas were an instant success with those who tried them.  Soon, many other small bars, VFW halls, bowling alleys and seasonal resorts in the area were stocking Heggies Pizza and making them on little single pizza broiler ovens that the Hegedus' provided to their customers.  

As Heggies grew, the Hegedus' continued to work out of their two-car garage in Onamia.  At one point in time, they had to get certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in order to make and sell their pizzas wholesale.  It was written in articles I read on the Heggies legacy that the Hegedus' garage may have been the smallest USDA-approved facility in the nation.  

Don set up delivery drivers to transport his pizza to the bars in and around North Central Minnesota.  He tried to control growth with Heggies allowing bars to buy not more than $250 worth of pizzas at a time.  As Heggies continued to grow slowly, it came to a point where he knew he needed to expand his operation.  The Hegedus' added onto their garage not once, but twice in order to keep up with growing demand as they began to branch out to bars as far away as the Twin Cities, nearly 90 miles to the south.  

And Heggies also gained somewhat of a cult following in the process.  Since they were only available for sale at bars, the stories of people stopping Heggies delivery drivers in tavern parking lots to buy pizzas directly from the truck were abundant.  There were also stories of how cops would pull over Heggies drivers along the road only to see if they, too, could buy pizza directly off the truck.  

By 2003, the Hegedus' were on the verge of outgrowing their garage operation in Onamia and they weren't certain they had it in their heart for another expansion.  Don and Polly decided it was time to retire.  This is where Shawn Dockter comes into the story.

Dockter grew up in South Dakota and attended the University of Minnesota where he graduated with a degree in aeronautical engineering.  Over the following years, Dockter worked for the likes of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and with a small start-up company that marketed satellite images.  By 2003, he was ready to do something else and when he heard from a friend back in Minnesota that Heggies was for sale, he became intrigued with the possibility of taking over the operation.  He'd had his first slice of Heggies pizza at a VFW hall in Chaska, MN a number of years before and was hooked.  Once he heard it was for sale, he started to look into what it would take to purchase the business.  In 2004, Dockter - along with a small group of minority partners - purchased Heggies Pizza from Don and Polly Hegedus for an undisclosed sum.  

Dockter immediately saw the limitations of working out of a expanded garage in the small town of Onamia.  He knew that the first rule in taking over a successful business was to not mess with the formula.  But in order to grow, he knew he needed to expand beyond bars and VFW halls.  He started to distribute Heggies pizza to grocery and convenience stores.  He did away with the $250 maximum limit that Don Hegedus imposed on pizza purchases for bars.  He added production line workers and delivery drivers to meet the demand.  It wasn't long before Dockter knew that he had to expand the facility in order to continue to grow the business.  And it wasn't going to be in the expanded garage where Don Hegedus started Heggies Pizza.

In 2008, Heggies Pizza moved to a new building in the small town of Milaca, MN, about 20 miles to the south of Onamia.  The new facility was extremely bigger than the expanded garage - 25,000 square feet in total, or more than 3 times the space they had in Onamia.  Even more production workers were hired, more delivery drivers were hired and the further expansion of Heggies Pizza across the Upper Midwest was underway.  

Heggies is also instrumental in working with local groups, schools and charities providing pizzas for community fundraisers.  Heggies works with organizations around Central Minnesota in the planning of selling pizzas as a fundraising option and will deliver the pizzas once the group order has been made.      

I first heard about Heggies when I was with a buddy having a beer at a VFW post in Newton, IA about six or seven years ago.  He pointed to a Heggies sign behind the bar and said, "You ever had one of those Heggies pizzas?"  I told him that I had never heard of them before.  He said, "They're a frozen pizza..." and I sort of turned up my nose at the notion of a frozen pizza.  I had graduated out of frozen pizzas years ago, with the notable exception of a couple three frozen deep-dish pizzas I've brought home in the past from Lou Malnati's in Chicago.  My take on frozen pizza is that while some were good, they just aren't THAT good.  I would rather wait 45 minutes on a delivered pizza (and NOT from one of the national chains) than have a frozen pizza in less than 30 minutes.  

But my buddy was adamant.  "No, no," he assured me.  "They're actually pretty good."  And over time - and liking to get a burger in dive bars every once in a while when I'm on the road - I noticed that Heggies was available at more and more places that I stopped at.  It intrigued me enough to want to try one, but preferably not at a bar. 

So, weeks ago when my wife and I were looking through the frozen food section at our local Costco to try and find some of their very good frozen lasagna, I looked over and said, "Holy crap!  They have Heggies Pizza here!"  My wife didn't know what Heggies was and I gave her the quick explanation of hearing about how good it was.  "I've always wanted to try one of these," I said as I admired the box holding 2 sausage and pepperoni pizzas inside the glass door of the freezer.

"Well, grab one," my wife said somewhat enthusiastically.  I was sort of surprised by her eagerness of wanting to try a Heggies Pizza because her ideology of frozen pizza parallels mine.  

The instructions for cooking a Heggie's Pizza is pretty straight-forward - get your oven to 450 degrees, put the pizza in the oven when it hits that temperature, and cook it for 12 to 15 minutes, depending how done you want the cheese and other ingredients.  

Out of the plastic wrap the pizza is in, it doesn't look much different than other frozen pizzas I've seen in my lifetime.  The cheese appeared sort of waxy, but there was a lot of it.  I couldn't tell how much sausage or pepperoni was on the pizza.  But I could see some of the tomato sauce peeking through the shards of cheese on top of the pizza. 

We don't have a pizza stone, so we decided to put it on a 12"x20" baking sheet.  It fit perfectly inside the side edges of the pan.  We set the timer for 12 minutes, popped it in and waited.  

After 12 minutes, we sort of looked it over and it seemed to not be all the way finished.  The cheese wasn't fully melted and there was no caramelization of the cheese on the pizza.  We popped it back in for another 3 minutes.  

We figured that it had to be cooked after 15 minutes, but the cheese still wasn't browned all that much on top.  So I turned on the broiler for a couple three minutes to quickly melt the cheese.  And that did the trick. 

For a frozen pizza, it smelled pretty good out of the oven.  We let it cool on the baking sheet for a moment before transferring it to the round cardboard base it came on out of the box.  It cut pretty easily with the crappy pizza cutter that we've had for years.  

The crust was a little bit chewy.  We determined that it probably needed to be on a stone or possibly on a pre-heated baking sheet to give it a little more crunch to the crust.  We liked the thickness - or lack thereof - of the pizza.  Anything more thick in the crust would have made it very doughy in taste.

It turned out that there was ample amounts of sausage and pepperoni under the cheese.  The cheese was - maybe - a little too caramelized, but it was still creamy in its taste.  The pizza sauce I liked a lot.  It was tangy and had a bit of a spicy taste to it.  The sausage and pepperoni tasted very fresh to me.  We were both impressed with the taste quality of the pizza.  And the most important part - and a test I use with every new pizza I try - it tasted very good with a cold beer.  

Well, we had a second one that we needed to eat at some time.  And that some time was about two weeks later on a Friday evening.  Only this time, we had fresh baby bella mushrooms that we sliced up to put on the pizza.  Then I put some shredded Italian-blend cheese on top of the pizza.  We preheated the baking sheet this time along with the oven, then cooked it 15 minutes at 450 degrees and 3 minutes of low broiling to caramelize the cheese.  

This time, the crust was almost too crunchy.  We accomplished our goal of making the crust more crispy, but I thought it was probably in there for 3 or 4 minutes too long on the pre-heated baking sheet.  And my wife complained that there was too much cheese on this pizza - the shredded Italian blend overpowered the overall taste of the pizza for her.  OK, well, like trying anything new, there's always trial and error.

We did go back to Costco about three weeks ago and picked up another 2-pack of the Heggie's sausage and pepperoni pizzas.  The third one we did about two weeks ago was spot on - 450 degrees on a pre-heated cookie sheet for 12 minutes, then 3 minutes at low-broil to caramelize the cheese.  We didn't add anything to the pizza and let it set on the cardboard after cooking for a couple minutes to cool it down.  It cut pretty easily and the taste quality was very good.  Even my wife likes it, which sort of surprises me knowing her discerning palate for pizza.  In fact, one evening last week she suggested just making the other one out of the second 2-pack that we bought.  And it, too, was good.

So, now we have to go back out to Costco and get another 2-pack of Heggies Pizza just to keep around the house for those times we just don't feel like futzing with anything for dinner.  It's probably the best store-bought frozen pizza I've ever had.  

LoPiez - Davenport, IA

Anytime a new pizza place opens in the Quad Cities - and it isn't Quad Cities-style pizza - my wife and I are anxious to give it a try.  When we found out from good friends of ours that a new pizza place would be opening up in downtown Davenport that would be a "by-the-slice" establishment with craft beers and margaritas available, we were even more excited.  However, the record setting flood of last spring sort of derailed their opening day plans pushing their official opening back nearly two months as they cleaned up flood waters in and around their building.  On a Friday night with really nothing to do last fall, we decided to head down to LoPiez to check the place out.  

Andrew and Peter Lopez grew up in Davenport and got into the service industry at an early age.  (As an aside, their cousin is Colby Lopez, better known as Seth Rollins, one of the superstar wrestlers under the World Wrestling Entertainment banner.  Lopez/Rollins is a Davenport native and still maintains a residence here.)  In their early 20's, the brothers moved to Colorado and Andrew got a job at Mellow Mushroom, an Atlanta-based pizza chain that was just starting up in Denver.  But he soon found himself working for a Denver-based band as their tour manager and traveled across the nation.  His love for pizza never declined, however, and he was able to try different types of pizza all over the U.S.  His favorite - by far - was the "by-the-slice" style of pizza New York City is known for.

A couple three years ago, the brothers had moved back to the Quad Cites and had been working for the Great River Brewing Company when something just clicked in their heads.  Why not do a New York-style pizza joint in the Quad Cities?  But they also wanted their place to have a rock and roll vibe to it.  And they needed a place for their venture and one came open in late 2018.  

Pictured at right - Peter and Andrew Lopez.  Photo courtesy LoPiez Facebook page.

An establishment called "Panini and Friends", a small restaurant attached to Ruby's, a combination bike shop/bar/restaurant that was profiled on Road Tips here, closed up in late December of 2018 after being open for just over one year.  The small shop was open for breakfast and lunch, but never really caught on the way the owners had hoped.  When that space became available, the Lopez brothers jumped at the chance to take it over.  The lease was signed in early 2018 and they set about turning the spot into a pizza joint with a little bar.  Things were going along pretty well until the nearby Mississippi River started to flood and that caused drains to back up into the restaurant.  They had hoped to by open by the end of April of last year, but on April 30, the HESCO barriers that had been erected to keep flood waters out of the downtown area gave way and the building was surrounded by water.

It took the Lopez brothers another nearly two months before they could get back in to get the mess cleaned up.  Compared to other businesses in the downtown area, they were spared much of the damage that caused some places to stay closed for months on end.  LoPiez finally opened for business toward the end of June of last year.  

We went down to LoPiez just after 7:30 on a Friday night.  Our friends had been touting LoPiez, mainly because their son grew up with the Lopez brothers.  Actually, I had a couple pieces of LoPiez pizza last summer as they sent some to the backstage area at the annual Mississippi Valley Blues Festival that I again helped out with.  But it was delivered more than a half hour after it had been taken out of the oven, so I don't think I really had what I would call a true representation of their pizza.  So we were eager to try Lopiez that evening last fall as we found a parking space in the lot next to the building located at E. 3rd and LeClaire Street in downtown Davenport.  (see map)  

Upon entering the building we found a lively and well-lit place that had a small L-shaped bar upfront with counter service for ordering food.  True to form, rock music was playing in the background, but it wasn't loud or obnoxious.  Decorations were minimal in the space, save for large posters done by local artist/musician Johnnie Cluney that hung on the wall above some banquette seats.  (Cluney is also responsible for the "Welcome to Downtown Davenport" mural the Lopez brothers are standing in front of in the photo above.)  The place was packed and we were surprised to see all different age groups in there.  As we walked in, a couple got up from one of the tables and my wife parked herself there while I went to get us a menu to look over.  It turned out we were pretty lucky.

Pizzas can be ordered by-the-slice, or whole in either 10 inch or 20 inch sizes.  Calzones are also available at LoPiez.  Bread knots topped with an agave garlic butter and parmesan cheese are also available along with a choice of a marinara sauce or LoPiez's El Rancho sauce.   All the standard pizza toppings are available with premium toppings such as fresh mozzarella, chicken, artichoke hearts, bacon and vegan meatballs available for a slight upcharge.  

As I said, it's counter service at LoPiez and the line kept growing with both eat-in and carry-out orders.  We were amazed at the number of large 20" pizzas they sold for carry-out.  It gave me time to kind of figure out the lay of the land with how and what to order.  My wife had heard from our friends that they make a pretty good margarita.  When I went up to order a couple slices for us, I also found that they had Kona Big Wave in 16 ounce cans.  Another score for me!  

Our first pizza slices we ordered was a slice of their Margherita pizza for both my wife and I, and a slice of the Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom for me.  After about 10 minutes, one of the kitchen workers came out with slices on paper plates, calling my name.  The slices were large and my wife said she was happy with getting just one slice.  The Margherita pizza was topped with fresh mozzarella, chopped basil and sprinkled parmesan cheese in a tangy sweet tomato sauce.  The thin crust of the slice was especially tasty.  We couldn't figure it out.  Was it garlic in the crust?  Was it butter?  Was it herbs?  Was it all of the above?  I'm not usually that much into the crust of the pizza, but LoPiez pizza crust was very good.

But if you click on the above picture to take a closer look at the sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza slice on the right, well, it just didn't taste like I thought it should.  It had fresh sliced mushrooms and pepperoni on the pizza, but it didn't seem to have any outward sign of any sausage.  I thought that possibly the sausage was fine crumbled sausage - like they do for Quad City-style pizza - but after a couple bites I determined that there was little to no sausage on the slice.  

I decided to get another beer and a slice of the sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  When I finally got to the register to order (the line was seven people deep when I got in line), I asked the guy at the counter if their sausage was ground fine or in large chunks.  "About in the middle of that, I'd say," he replied.  I said I didn't think that I got any sausage on my first slice.  

One of the guys in the kitchen came out and he had a slice that had sausage on it.  "It's like that," the guy behind the counter told me pointing at the slice.  The chunks were noticeable - not large, but not crumbly as the guy said.  I said that I just had a slice that was supposed to have sausage on it, but it didn't have any on it.  When I ordered a second slice with another Big Wave, he said, "I'll give you a beer on the house for that one."  I thought it was a magnanimous gesture on his part.  And he said he would personally make sure that I had Italian sausage on my pizza this time.  

The second slice definitely had sausage on it this time.  And the crust was just as wonderful as the first two slices I'd had.  Now THIS was my perfect slice of pizza.  The mushrooms were fresh and earthy, the pepperoni slices had a salty and spicy taste, and the Italian sausage had that great fennel seasoning to it.  The pizza at LoPiez easily passed my, "Does it taste good with beer?" test.  

Only we had one other problem while we were there.  When the guy from the kitchen came out with my slice, he asked if he could clean up the empty's from the table.  I had drank about a 1/3 of my 16 ounce can of Big Wave and after he picked some stuff up and took off toward the garbage can, I didn't realize until it was too late that he had picked up the rest of the beer that I had not drank.  I was incredulous!  I know it was a free beer, but it was still a lot of beer that I didn't get to drink.

Much to the embarrassment of my wife, I went up to the bar to tell the bartender that the guy had taken my well over half-full beer.  The bartender asked me which guy it was.  I pointed him out standing over near the other end of the bar near the kitchen and the bartender yelled to him, "Hey, did you take this guy's beer?"  

The other guy yelled back, "I asked if I could take the empties and he said, 'Yeah!' " 

"Well, there was nearly a full beer that you took," the bartender said back.  The guy just sort of shrugged and said he was sorry.  The bartender - the same guy who gave me the free Big Wave to begin with - gave me another one on the house.  I pulled three one dollar bills out of my pocket and laid them on the bar.  My wife thought it was a nice thing to do.

Things had settled down by the time we were finished and getting ready to leave.  I walked up to the guy behind the bar who I had been dealing with and thanked him for making things right on the mistakes.  He apologized profusely for the errors and I told him not to worry as it was a crazy night in there.  "We will be back," we told him just before we turned to walk out of the place.  

And since I wrote this entry, we have been back.  We went back on a Friday night and it was packed, as usual.  This time we sat at the bar and had a slice of the sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza - this time they didn't forget to put the sausage on it - and a slice of the Margherita pizza.  The Big Wave was cold and tasty with the pizza, and my wife had a cranberry and Tito's with a very generous pour of the vodka.  Actually, they did make a mistake, but it was a good mistake - they made an extra slice of the sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  The guy came out from the kitchen with it and said, "Hey, we made this one by mistake.  You guys want it at no charge?"  Sure!  

The pizza we had at LoPiez was very good.  The little problems and errors on our first visit notwithstanding, we were more than impressed with every aspect of LoPiez.  The only other quibble I had with the place is that four slices of pizza came to $27.50.  That's a lot for just four pieces of pizza in my book.  We told our friends the next day that we had gone to LoPiez and the first thing they asked was if we were able to get in.  Yeah, it was busy and my friend told me that it was busy all the time.  Well, I can see why - the pizza is wonderful.  Expensive, but very good.  If LoPiez can cut down on the errors, it would still be a good place to go.  But don't forget to take your wallet. 

Northstar Tavern - Bloomington, MN

Up in the Twin Cities late last year, I was searching out a place to eat one late afternoon.  I usually stay in the Bloomington area on the south side of the Twin Cities, so finding new places to try can be sort of tough at times.  However, there was one place that I found that I hadn't been to before and it wasn't far from my hotel.  I drove over the Northstar Tavern to give the place a try.

Jon Norine grew up on the southside of Bloomington before moving away to work in the food service industry.  His wife, Ashley, also grew up nearby and she, too, had worked in restaurants.  The Norine's had always talked about owning their own restaurant and they decided to move back to their home base in the Twin Cities to scout out locations for their dream restaurant.  

The two scouted locations in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis before they finally came across a building in a shopping plaza that Jon Norine used to ride his bike to as a young boy.  The building formally housed a Famous Dave's barbecue joint and the Norine's signed the lease to the place in May of 2018.  

The next five months saw a complete build-out of a new restaurant space guided by one of their partners, Nate Hunt, who kept only the sinks and the refrigeration/freezers in the place during the renovation.  The Norine's brought in another partner to run their kitchen as the executive chef, Ryan Pasiuk, who previously was the executive chef at The Fremont, an upscale sports bar/dance club in Minneapolis's uptown neighborhood.  With everything in place, Northstar Tavern opened their doors for business in October of 2018. 

Pictured right - Ashley and Jon Norine.  Photo courtesy Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers - Minnesota.

It was a bit after 5 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot at the Normandale Village shopping complex at the corner of Normandale and 98th Street in Bloomington.  (see map)  I went inside and sort of stood by the hostess stand for a moment before a server showed up and told me that I could sit pretty much about anywhere.  Well, I soon find out that "pretty much anywhere" didn't include one of the open high-top tables near the bar.  He came up to me and said, "This area is going to be reserved in less than an hour.  Are you going to be done by then?"  I figured that I probably wouldn't be - or didn't know if I would be - and I didn't really want to be rushed if I wanted to linger a bit longer to have another beer after dinner.  He moved me to a regular height four-seater in the dining area of the restaurant just past the bar. 

I had done a little on-line scouting of the place earlier on and I expected to find a nice little upscale sports bar/restaurant.  While it was comfortable and cozy, I sort of expected it to be a little more classy than it was.  There was a stone hearth fireplace in the dining room, but there was a corrugated tin awning with the Maker's Mark logo that was above a number of booths along the wall.  It was a popular place with the bar completely full and many of the tables and booths filled with people in for an early dinner - like me.  

My server for my visit was a young guy by the name of Aarin.  He dropped off a food menu and I asked what kind of beers they had to offer.  He produced a beer list that had their current selection of two dozen beers on tap.  Quite honestly, I was sort of surprised that they didn't offer more local beers on their beer menu as they had beers from Deschutes in Oregon, Goose Island in Chicago, and Boulevard out of Kansas City.  They even had Coors on tap.  I think out of the 24 beers they had on tap, only 9 or 10 were from Minnesota or Wisconsin.  I just ordered up a Lagunitas IPA and took a look through the food menu.   

The Northstar Tavern offered a variety of appetizers on their menu.  They had the normal fare - chicken wings, pretzels, and nachos - but they also had fried walleye fingers, a barbecued pork quesadilla, egg rolls that were stuffed with shrimp and candied cayenne-seasoned bacon, loaded sweet potato tots with ground turkey, jalapeños and an avocado cream sauce, and wontons stuffed with roasted jalapeños and an avocado cream cheese.  

They have a unique system of being able to order sandwiches or burgers at the Northstar Tavern.  You have a choice of a protein - grilled chicken, burger patty, grilled salmon, beer-battered walleye, etc. (vegan options were also available).  Then you have your choice of the "set up" which are the toppings on whatever you pick.  They had some suggestions like "The Teriyaki" that consisted of a teriyaki glaze, grilled pineapple, red onions, and a charred scallion aioli; "The Cream Cheese" which had an herbed cream cheese, red onion, cucumbers and mixed greens; "The Buffalo" which had a spicy buffalo wing sauce with a creamy blue cheese dressing, shredded lettuce and tomato slices; and "The Tangy California" which featured goat cheese and avocado slices, with lettuce, tomato, and red onion slices.  Then you had your choice of the "holder" which was a choice of a ciabatta bun, lettuce wrap, tortilla wrap, honey wheat bun, or a pita bread among some of the choices.  

Regular sandwiches such as a reuben, a Philly cheesesteak, and a slow-roasted barbecued pork sandwich were also available at the Northstar Tavern.  And they also had pizza available - both as a build-your-own or featured pizzas such as a meat only pizza with Italian sausage, pepperoni and a candied cayenne bacon spread; or a traditional margherita pizza, or the Vietnamese-style Banh Mi pizza with chopped pork carnitas, pickled onions, cucumbers, and carrots, along with jalapeños, cilantro, and finished with a teriyaki barbecue sauce, and an aioli drizzle that is mixed with Cry Baby sauce, a pickled jalapeño and garlic hot sauce that is made in Minneapolis. 

I have to say the menu was definitely interesting and a couple three things caught my eye.  They had some entrees that included a Cajun chicken and shrimp pasta, and a meatloaf platter with mashed potatoes and gravy.  I seriously contemplated getting the meat loaf almost breaking my rule of not ordering meat loaf away from home as I really could have used a "stick-to-your-ribs" kind of meal that evening.  But in the long run, I ended up getting what amounted to the house burger.

The house burger consisted of a half-pound beef patty topped with a thick slice of smoked cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and red onion slices, and dill pickles on a toasted brioche bun.  It came with a side of fries in a metal cup and it was all served  on a small metal cookie sheet.   I asked Aarin if I could get some bacon on the burger and he said it was no problem.  

Quite actually, the burger was very good.   It was thick with juices oozing out of the beef patty as it rested on the bun.  The bun held together very well for what turned out to be a multi-napkin burger.  The veggie toppings were all fresh and didn't over power the great beef taste in the burger.  The smoked cheddar and bacon helped give it another gear in flavor.  I had asked it to be cooked medium and it was the perfect temperature when served to me with a hint of pink in the middle of the burger.

The fries were actually pretty good, as well.  I normally don't eat many fries when they're served to me, but the ones at the Northstar Tavern had that great crispy outer shell with a nice warm flaky potato inside.  It was pretty tough to stop eating the fries when I finished with my burger.  

Maybe I was expecting a little more in terms of atmosphere at the Northstar Tavern, but I have to admit that the surroundings didn't detract from the delicious house burger that I had while I was there.  The menu was very interesting, and even though I was a little underwhelmed with the selection of beers they had on tap, I was still able to find one that I enjoyed.  The service that I had at Northstar Tavern was quick, efficient and friendly.   The Northstar Tavern is a nice little place and it's easy to see how it's become a local favorite in their just under 18 month existence.  I'd say give it a shot the next time you're in the area.  

Felix's Pizza Pub - St. Louis

One of my St. Louis accounts had mentioned something to me about Felix's Pizza Pub in the Dogtown neighborhood a few months ago.  I had driven by there a handful of times going to other restaurants in the area and I always wondered about the place.  When I was in St. Louis last fall, I offered to take a couple of guys from my account out for dinner and I suggested Felix's.  Both guys were enthusiastic because they liked Felix's pizza and their selection of craft beer.  Since I was staying at a hotel near the restaurant, we took two cars to have pizza and beers at Felix's.  

Actually, Felix's Pizza Pub has been around for a little over 15 years.  It was formed by a collaboration between two lifelong friends - Steve Kolb and Tom Galbraith - who met while in kindergarten.  In 2004, the two founded Felix's, a upscale pub in Dogtown. One of their first employees, Andy Roesch, decided that he wanted to become a chef and he left to head to the Johnson & Wales culinary school with its main campus in Providence, RI.  

In 2011, Kolb and Galbraith decided to re-brand Felix's into an eclectic pizza-by-the-slice place.  They were able to lure Andy Roesch back to St. Louis after his graduation who grudgingly accepted their offer of a partnership if he would run their kitchen for them.  Roesch had no training in making pizzas, nor did he have any desire to learn how.  Part of the curriculum at Johnson & Wales was a two week course on baking, so that was the only time he was exposed to baking breads.  However, when Kolb and Galbraith described some of the diverse and interesting toppings they wanted to include on their pizza selections, they convinced Roesch to go off to New York to do some research.  Upon returning, it took him awhile, but he was able to perfect the thin crust pizza that makes New York-style pizza so famous.  

In 2014, Kolb (who soon thereafter got married and changed his name to VanderKolb as a combination of his wife's maiden name - Vanderford - and his), Galbraith and Roesch had the chance to expand their place by moving literally across the street to the other corner establishment that once housed Latitude 26, a Tex-Mex restaurant that had recently gone out of business. They were able to expand the menu and the new digs gave them over 1000 square feet of more dining space along with an outdoor patio area.  On top of all that, they re-named their restaurant Felix's Pizza Pub.  

After meeting at their store, I followed the guys to Dogtown to go to Felix's.  (see map)  My past experience with parking in the immediate area reminded me that finding a spot can be dicey, but I happened to find a parking space just down the street on Tamm while the guys parked further down Clayton.   

Inside Felix's Pizza Pub, I found a three-tiered area with the upper level featuring a number of high-top tables, with a short wall that separated that area from the bar.  A number of flat panel televisions were hung on the wall behind the bar and the craft beer list hung at the end of the bar.   

A sloping walk-way went from the front door past the bar and into a lower tiered room.  This area was more cozy and not as lively as the bar area.  One of the guys was telling me that during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade that is held along Clayton, Felix's has a special deal that for $100 per person it's unlimited food, mixed drinks and beer from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with food served in this room.  "We did that the last couple of years and I think they've lost money on me both years because of all the food I've eaten and the drinks I've had," he told me.  

We sat at a high-top table on the upper tier.  I noticed that they had the Urban Chestnut Zwickel on the board and I ordered up one of those.  Our server, a young guy who had a very laid back demeanor, came back to apologize that they were out of the Zwickel.  Then I noticed that they had the Kona Big Wave on tap.  He said, "I know we have that.  I just served one of those to that table over there."  I immediately ordered up one of those.  

Naturally, pizza dominates the menu at Felix's.  But they did have hoagie-style sandwiches such as a braised beef with pepperoncini's and proved cheese, a blackened chicken with pepper jack cheese, and a pulled pork sandwich topped with a cumin cole slaw.  My friend who has been at Felix's for their St. Patrick's Day celebration said that they have great cheeseburgers available on that day only.  

We decided to get an appetizer to start out.  We considered getting the chicken wings that you could get with a choice of a sweet and spicy Thai chile sauce or in a traditional Buffalo wing sauce with a side of jalapeño ranch dressing.  The pulled pork mac & cheese sounded interesting, as did the caprese bread topped with fresh mozzarella, Roma tomato slices, red onion and basil with a balsamic vinaigrette drizzle.  

But we ended up with going with the good ol' St. Louis standby - the toasted ravioli.  Felix's gets their sausage and cheese-stuffed ravioli from Mama Toscano's - a venerable Italian market and deli located on The Hill in St. Louis that are famous for their ravioli.  The ravioli came in a sweet and tangy marinara sauce along with fresh chopped basil.  And they were very good.  

The pizza selections at Felix's are interesting, to say the least.  The Clayton featured smoked chicken, lettuce, tomato, green onions and feta cheese on a coconut red curry base and topped off with a jalapeño ranch dressing.  The Tamm Ave. also had chicken on it, but it was paired with spinach, pepper bacon and artichoke hearts on an alfredo sauce base.  The Art Hill (the pizzas were named for nearby streets, neighborhoods or locations) featured smoked meatballs with fresh basil, green peppers and a ricotta cheese.  

Pizzas were available by the slice for $5.99, or you could get a 12" or a 16" pizza.  I was sort of confused and I'm glad I was there on my first visit with two guys who knew the drill.  I asked if I could get a "make-your-own" slice or did it have to be one of the specialty pizzas to get a slice.  "Whatever you want," one of the guys said.  "They make 'em fresh by the slice, straight out of the oven."  I still couldn't quite wrap my head around that as most slice places that I've been to in my past only let you order what they've made and are under the heat lamp.  

I wanted to try my old standby - sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - but I was also intrigued by the Franz Park, which was Felix's take on a margherita pizza.  I ended up ordering both to start out with.

The sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza featured big chunks of Italian sausage with fresh mushrooms and somewhat zippy pepperoni slices.  The crust on the pizza wasn't limp, but it wasn't cracker thin and crisp.  It was a nice balance between crisp and limp.  The sausage, pepperoni and mushroom was good, and I thought about getting a second slice.  But when I took the first bite of the Franz Hill margherita pizza, I had a culinary epiphany.  

The combination of the sliced tomatoes, ricotta cheese, fresh basil and a balsamic drizzle had such a taste sensation that I suddenly didn't care about getting a second slice of the other pizza.  Everything was balanced out where you could easily make out the flavors of the cheese, tomatoes, basil and balsamic vinaigrette.  It tasted so fresh, so invigorating, and so wonderful that I immediately signed up for a second slice.  And after I had my second slice, I had to stop because I would have embarrassed myself in front of my guests had I ordered a third piece.  It was that good.  It completely overwhelmed the sausage, pepperoni and mushroom slice that I started out with.  

My guests both got a slice of the Dogtown - similar to my slice with Italian sausage and pepperoni, but it also had pepper bacon on it.  One of the guys also got a slice of the Murphy Pie - smoked chicken with blue cheese crumbles and green onions, topped with a Buffalo wing sauce and a drizzle of their jalapeño ranch dressing.  It looked pretty interesting, but I'm not big with chicken on a pizza.  My other guest ordered up slice that consisted of Canadian bacon, pepperoncinis, and mozzarella cheese.  The only problem is that the kitchen forgot to make that one up for him.  But he waited patiently and it wasn't long before he got his slice.  Our server told me that the slice would be on the house for the kitchen forgetting to get it made with the other slices.  

I've discovered three or four good little restaurants in the Dogtown area over the past couple of years and Felix's Pizza Pub is definitely in my rotation from here on out.  I can't stop raving about the Franz Hill pizza - their version of a margherita pizza.  It was so fresh and flavorful that I can't imagine having anything else but the Franz Hill on my next visit.  Felix's also had a very good craft beer selection with 21 beers on tap, but they were out of my first choice that particular evening.  Nonetheless, I was able to find another one of my favorite beers on tap to have.  Service was laid back, but professional.  The atmosphere was lively, yet comfortable.  I was happy to finally try Felix's Pizza Pub and I was not disappointed in the least.   

Bourbons Bar & Grill - Coal Valley, IL

For awhile now, my wife and I have been on a quest to find a place that has a good burger along with a good selection of craft beers in the Quad Cities.  She had mentioned a place clear over in Coal Valley, a small community on the far southeast side of the Quad City area.  I read up on it and on a Sunday afternoon we headed over to Bourbons Bar & Grill.  

Troy and Shelly Shehorn lived in the Coal Valley area and loved to go to a neighborhood bar there called Headquarters.   Shelly was an accountant by trade and Troy was self-employed.  A few years ago, Headquarters went up for sale and the Shehorn's thought it would be fun to own the bar.  However, after weeks of negotiations, the deal fell through.  

But the Shehorn's always kept an eye on the property and when it became available for sale in the fall of October 2016, they didn't hesitate this time.  They knew they could do something with the little neighborhood bar in terms of food and drink, focusing on Troy's love for barbecue and bourbon.  But first they had to do some renovations.

The building, itself, dates back to the 1890's with the original tin ceiling still intact.  The Shehorn's brought in over 10 tons of stone for walls and accents, and they installed cedar panels for walls and trim around the stone walls.  They renovated the kitchen and bar area, a meat smoker was installed in the back, and they put up about a half-dozen large screen flat panel televisions around the place.  By March of 2018, Bourbons Bar & Grill was ready to open to the public.  

It was around 2 p.m. when we pulled up to Bourbons which is located near the corner of 1st Street and E. 22nd Ave. A in Coal Valley.  (see map)  We parked in front of the building, but there's ample parking off to the side.   From the outside, the building is pretty nondescript with a couple beer signs in the window.  But upon entering Bourbons, we found a cozy and inviting space that featured a number of tables in the center of the bar with a nice three-sided bar off to the side.  The combination of the lights from beer signs and the glow of the televisions with some accent lighting along the walls gave the bar a colorful glow.

We took a seat at a table toward the back of the dining area of the bar.  Our server that day - a pleasant and helpful lady by the name of Jane - came over to greet us and to drop off a couple menus.  They had a pretty good craft beer list and I saw that they had Kona Big Wave.  I asked Jane if their bloody mary's were good and she said, "Oh, yeah.  We load 'em up."  I ordered a Big Wave and a bloody mary.  The "packed" bloody mary featured a thick and zesty mix served in a salt-rimmed glass.  A skewer of green olives, pickles, salami and cubed cheese came on top of the bloody mary glass.  And it was a very good bloody mary.  My wife got her usual cranberry juice and Tito's vodka - light on the cranberry juice.  

The menu at Bourbons wasn't all that large, but most of the items they had sounded pretty interesting.  Appetizers included jalapeño poppers, fried portobello mushrooms, and fried avocado wedges which caught the eye of my wife.  They had sandwiches such as grilled or breaded pork tenderloins, and a grilled chicken sandwich topped with bacon and a house-made bourbon barbecue sauce.  They had four different burgers on the menu, along with fish and chips, chicken strips, and a four-piece broasted chicken dinner.  Pizzas (I understand they're Quad City-style, which we don't care for) and calzones are also available.  On Thursday night, they have barbecued rib dinners as a special.  

My wife wanted to try their pulled pork sandwich.  They smoke the pork shoulders at Bourbons with hickory and it's slow-cooked and shredded.   The barbecue pork is placed on a toasted brioche bun and topped with their house-made bourbon barbecue sauce, cole slaw and an onion ring.  She had a choice of sides that came with the sandwich which included French fries, seasoned waffle fries, bourbon baked beans, or cottage cheese.  She ended up getting the macaroni salad.  She thought the barbecue pulled pork sandwich was very good.  

Of course, I was looking to try one of their burgers and I ended up getting their mushroom burger.  For some reason, I thought that I would be getting sautéed mushrooms, but the menu said the burger was topped with fried mushrooms.  They were portobello mushroom strips, similar to the ones they serve as appetizers.  The burger patty was topped with provolone cheese and an aioli sauce.  I asked Jane if I could get some bacon on my burger and she said that it was no problem.  I also got a side of onion rings for a $1 dollar upcharge.  

I ended up taking the mushroom strips off the burger and just having it with the bacon and cheese. The burger was very good.  It was juicy and flavorful, and the bun held together well for what turned out to be a multiple-napkin burger.  The onion rings were pretty good as well.  They had an abundance of beer-batter on them - almost too much, even if you like beer-battered onion rings - and I found them to be a little too salty for my taste.  

A few weeks after our first trip to Bourbons, my wife's son came to visit us on a Sunday.  He had just come back from Cincinnati for a factory training session he took part in, and he was telling us that the factory guys took the group out to a couple bourbon bars in Newport, KY, just across the river from Cincinnati.  We were telling him about Bourbons in Coal Valley and he is much more into bourbons than my wife and I are.  But he was intrigued enough that we took him over there for lunch.  

On this visit, he got to look at the over 120 different bourbons that they offer at Bourbons Bar & Grill.  In fact, we had a nice conversation with Shelly Shehorn about her husband's love for bourbon, the trips they have taken that have centered on bourbon-centric bars and restaurants, and she compared notes with my step-son on the more expensive bourbons that are out there.  Once again, I'm not well-versed on bourbons at all, but my step-son was telling her about a Pappy Van Winkle bourbon that one of the places across the river from Cincinnati he went to had for $500 a shot.  Shelly Shehorn said that she was familiar with that bourbon, but they didn't have that particular liquor at their bar.  "We're working up to it, though," she told us.  "We're slowly getting the reputation for good bourbons and we're starting to become a destination for some bourbon lovers."  She said that the highest priced bourbon they have is about $80 bucks a shot.

We've found some pretty good places over in the Illinois Quad Cities over the past few months that have good burgers, a good craft beer list, and good bloody mary's.  I'd have to put Bourbons Bar & Grill toward the top of that list.  The only problem is that it's about a 20 minute drive for us, and with the I-74 bridge work going on, it's even longer to cross the river to go back home.   But to us, it's worth the drive.  The atmosphere is cozy and comfortable, the service that we've experienced on our visits has alway been friendly and folksy, and the food is interesting and a step or two above your typical bar food in taste and quality.  I wish Bourbons was a lot closer to our house because it would be the kind of place where I'd like to hang out.   

Huckleberry's - Rock Island, IL

A place that my wife and I have been over to in downtown Rock Island in the past - but not for awhile - is a pizza place called Huckleberry's.  They had gone through a devastating fire a few years back, but they rebuilt and reopened less than four months later.  We hadn't been there since they had reopened and it sort of dawned on us one Friday night that we needed to go try the place out again.

Huckleberry's owner, Jon Keim, and his then-girlfriend at the time - now wife - were asleep in their apartment above Huckleberry's when a fire broke out on an early Saturday morning in a building a couple doors from Huckleberry's that used to a cafe.  The building had been slated to be torn down at some point, and had been vacant for some time.  Keim and his girlfriend woke up when they smelled smoke and saw flames in the building next to them.  They were able to make it out, but Huckleberry's sustained heavy water and smoke damage, along with 8 other buildings.  Some of them had to be razed after the fire was put out.   Keim cleaned up the damage and rebuilt one of the two dining rooms at Huckleberry's and, miraculously, they reopened in early 2015.  Keim has now owned Huckleberry's for over 25 years.  

Huckleberry's is located on 18th Street in the heart of the Arts and Entertainment District of Rock Island, known locally as "The District".  (see map)  We were able to find a parking spot on the street in front of Huckleberry's, which is usually tough to do on a weekend evening given all the bars and restaurants in the immediate area.  

The main dining area as you go in to Huckleberry's looks pretty much the same as it was when we were last in there.  Knotty pine wooden booths were along the brick walls with tables on either side of a half wall in the center of the room.  The open kitchen area in the back was bustling with workers keeping up with pizza and calzone orders that were coming in for dine in and take out.  

The dining area off to the side that sustained considerable damage in the fire had a nice comfortable vibe to it.  This room is used for overflow or for events, primarily.  Surprisingly, no one was seated in the room that Friday evening.  

We were seated at one of the booths in the main dining area and given a couple menus to look over.  Our server for the evening, Jessica, came over to greet us and to take our drinks order.  They had a handful of craft beers on tap and in bottles including a number of Samuel Adams selections.  They had a lot of fruit beers available and the only IPA they had was a New Belgium Voodoo Ranger, but I've never really been a fan of the New Belgium beers.  I just sucked it up and got a domestic bottle.  My wife got a glass of the house chianti.  

Pizza and calzones are the main items Huckleberry's is most well-known for, but they also have a handful of pasta entrees including a bucatini pasta in a carbonara sauce with prosciutto ham and bacon, a shrimp and cheese tortellini with a basil pesto sauce, and an oven-baked pasta with penne pasta, in a spicy marinara with ground sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions and green peppers layer with a combination of cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  Sandwiches such as a meatball sub or an Italian beef hoagie were also available on Huckleberry's menu, as well as a number of appetizers and salads.  We split a Caesar's salad to start off with because my wife felt she needed some greens in her if we were going to be eating dough, cheese and greasy meats.  It was actually a pretty good salad. 

Since it had been awhile from our last visit, we remembered the calzones were pretty good.  But my wife was sort of thinking we needed to try their pizza, too.  We ordered both a small calzone and a 7" hand-tossed pizza - both with sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms - to share between the two of us.  The calzone came out in a big mound stuffed full of the Italian meats and mushrooms with a mixture of ricotta and mozzarella cheeses.  It was served with a side of their sweet marinara sauce to dip the calzone crust in.  The calzone was good, not great, but it was certainly fine for us.    

The pizza was loaded mozzarella cheese on the top and had a bit of caramelization of the cheese and crust around the edges.  It was far from a Quad City-style pizza - which my wife and don't care for - with four triangle cuts with generous amounts of the toppings under the thick and gooey mozzarella.  It wasn't the best pizza we've had, nor was it the worst.  But, like the calzone, it worked for what we were looking for that evening.  

The service was a little sketchy as our server would disappear for long periods of time after our food was served.  I wanted another beer and my wife had to flag down another server who took my beer order.  Jessica finally brought the bottle back to me and asked how things were going.  By that time, we were pretty much done with our meals leaving pieces of the pizza and calzone crusts on the plates.  

But other than our server sort of disappearing after our meal was served and not checking with us to see if we needed anything else - like another beer - we had little to no problems at Huckleberry's.  Well, we also thought it was a little pricey, however - for all we got with an individual sized pizza and a calzone with three toppings or ingredients, a Caesar's salad, domestic beers and a glass of wine - the bill came to just a shade over $50 bucks before tip and tax.   The calzone and the pizza we had were good - not great, but good.  I was a little crestfallen for the lack of a good selection of craft beers, and the majority of the craft beers were fruit-based which I don't care for.  The place is clean, cozy and comfortable, to say the least.  We decided that Huckleberry's was worthy of future visits and I especially want to try their oven-baked pasta entree at some point in the future.  If you're looking for a good and serviceable calzone or pizza - and don't mind paying a little more than other places in the area - I don't think you'll be disappointed in the ones at Huckleberry's.  

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.

The Tangled Wood - Bettendorf, IA

Earlier this year, one of the restaurants that we would go to from time to time - Governor's in Bettendorf - closed their doors and moved to a new location with a new concept and a new name called The Tangled Wood.  We were eager to try the place a couple months after they opened, but each time we would go there the place was packed.  My wife had a Monday off recently and I suggested that we go out for lunch somewhere.  Then I remembered that we hadn't been to The Tangled Wood as of yet, so we ventured out there.

Governor's in Bettendorf had been a main-stay for over 40 years before they closed their location late last year at the corner of Middle Road and Devil's Glen to make way for a Hy-Vee Fast and Fresh convenience store.  The ownership group - headed by Craig Wagner who also owns Steventon's and Blue Iguana out in LeClaire, IA - had announced nearly 2 years ago that they had outgrown the purpose for Governor's and were looking to put a new re-branded restaurant somewhere in Bettendorf.  They had already closed the Governor's over in Moline in 2016 (personal note - that was the place my wife and I had our first official lunch date in 1993), and were focusing their efforts on the new Bettendorf location.  They built a building just up the road from the old Governor's location at Devil's Glen and Tanglewood Road in Bettendorf (see map) and opened in January of this year.   

It was around 1:30 p.m. when we made it into The Tangled Wood.  We immediately were impressed with the dining area which featured a mixture of contemporary industrial fixtures and frames with some beautiful wood and brick accents.  It was definitely a step-up from the decor at Governor's which had grown tired over the years.  The atmosphere at The Tangled Wood was much more bright and lively compared to the dark wood accents and low lighting that people experienced at Governor's.  

We should have realized something was amiss from the start when two young ladies were standing at the hostess stand for a couple minutes before they even acknowledged our presence.  We had been sort of wandering around looking into the dining area and in the bar area before my wife went up to them and said, "Can we get seated for lunch?"  One of the young ladies said, "Oh!  I'm sorry.  I thought you were looking for someone."  No - we just wanted to check the place out since it was our first visit.

We had our choice of the bar or the dining room and we opted for a booth in the bar.  The brick walls featured a number of flat screen televisions hanging from them, a number of high-top tables in the middle, booths on one wall and low-top tables along the other wall.  A large outdoor patio/bar area - which was still under construction when we were there (but is open now) - was just beyond the large windows past the bar.  Even if the patio was open, we wouldn't have sat out there as we were having an extremely cold late spring in the Midwest.  And this day was no exception.

The bar, itself, featured three sides of seating with a large island of liquor shelves and taps in the middle.  Their beer menu featured 44 beers on tap, as well as another 30 cans and bottles to choose from.  Governor's always had a good beer selection, but nothing like the selection The Tangled Wood has.

After we were seated in the booth in the bar area, we were given food menus to look over.  A couple young ladies who were servers came over to greet us.  One explained that the other one was new and was in shadow training.  (Turned out the "new" waitress was a seasoned veteran server from other restaurants whose first day at The Tangled Wood was that day and probably could have shown the other one a thing or two about waitressing.)  I noticed that they had Kona Big Wave Golden Ale on tap and I ordered a pint of that.  My wife just went with water for the time being.  It was great they had the Big Wave on tap, but I was disappointed as it tasted sort of flat.      

It's basically a whole new menu from the one they had at Governor's - well, sort of.  They still have a number of sandwiches, appetizers, burgers and salads on the menu - many that were available at Governor's only with a new name.  The Tangled Wood also features barbecued entrees such as ribs and brisket, they have 12" pizzas with a hand-tossed or tavern-thin crust, and they have some of Governor's old favorites like fish and chips, and their classic nachos on the menu.  

My wife went with the grilled chicken sandwich.  She asked for it without the brioche bun, but they put the house spread in a bowl on the side.  (Don't exactly know what the house spread was, sort of like a mayo/dijon mustard, I guess.)  She got the tomato-braised kale for her side.  

I ordered the mushroom-Swiss burger with bacon on it.  I also saw that they had onion straws for some of their sandwiches and I asked our waitress if I could get a side of those.  The onion straws turned out to be nothing like I would classify as onion straws but more like thin cut food purveyor-style frozen onion rings.  

On the menu, the grilled chicken sandwich was called "Tastes Like Chicken".  My wife said it did not.  It was overcooked, rubbery and void of flavor.  She surmised the reason they had the house-made sauce with it was to at least give it some flavor.  She was highly disappointed in the grilled chicken.  But she did say that she very much liked the tomato-braised kale.  

I had asked for some "pink" in my burger when the waitress asked how I wanted my burger cooked.  Pink went out the window long before this burger was served to me.  It was over-cooked and well-done.  It didn't help that the bun that came with it was also dry - and there was too much of it.  The grilled mushrooms were all right, and they slathered a lot of Swiss cheese on top of the burger to help give it some flavor.  But the bacon was too crispy and crumbled apart like bacon bits.  The onion rings were as I feared they would be - pretty dull.  We were not happy with the quality of our meal.

And our waitresses literally left us.  I like to be checked on, but not hovered over, during our meal and I really wanted another pint of Big Wave to help wash the dry food down.  But they never came back.  Finally, I was able to flag down the "new" waitress and she came over.  She thought the other waitress had been back to check on us, but we hadn't seen her.  She got me another flat tasting Big Wave, mainly because I didn't have their beer list and I wasn't going to go up to the bar to check out their tap handles.  

We had hoped that our first visit to The Tangled Wood was an anomaly and that we would like to go back again at some point to try one of their tavern-style pizzas.  But we've heard from a handful of friends who have gone out there since that they, too, were sort of disappointed in the food and service.  It's a nice place, don't get me wrong.  And I understand the outdoor patio/bar area is always packed during these summer months.  But the chicken breast and the burger patty we had were both woefully overcooked.  I really hoped The Tangled Wood would become part of our rotation of restaurants to visit when we'd go out on weekends with friends, but we're going to have to give it more time to figure things out before we'll go there again. 

Dudley's Pizza & Tavern - Omaha

I was staying in the Aksarben Village area of Omaha on a recent trip out to that fair city, a city that has always been one of my favorite places to visit.  They had been getting a lot of snow in the area this past winter and I had just driven around the city for a good portion of the day after they had gotten five to seven inches of heavy, wet snow earlier in the day.  Walking distance from the hotel is a pizza place that I've noticed on previous visits to the area - Dudley's Pizza & Tavern.  I decided to head over there for dinner on a cold evening when I wished I was home instead of on the road.  

When I first moved to the Quad Cities over 25 years ago, there was a long-established pizza place next to where I used to work called Dudley's Pizza Works.  Knowing that the Dudley from that place had retired a number of years ago and moved to the mountains of south-central Colorado, I didn't think the same guy - or his family - would have a stake in this place.  Turns out that they don't.  The place is named after Dudley Smith, an Omaha resident in the late 19th century who coined the phrase "Aksarben" - Nebraska spelled backwards.   And it was two brothers - Tim and Rob Malm - who came up with the name. 

The Malm brothers took over the old Mojo Smokehouse & Ales location in the Aksarben Village in 2013.  They initially called their venture Railyard Pizza and Tavern.  But confusion over affiliations with other businesses in Omaha and Lincoln that had similar names caused the brothers to shift directions and name it after the man who originally came up with the "Aksarben" name.  They opened Dudley's in late 2013.  

The Malm brothers eventually sold their shares in Dudley's Pizza and Tavern in 2015 to Bill Barstow, the owner of a number of movie theaters in Omaha and Lincoln including the Aksarben Cinema next door to Dudley's Pizza.  Barstow installed Tony Digilio to run Dudley's for him.  (The Malm brothers have resurfaced in Omaha with a new Mexican taqueria concept - Hook & Lime - located on the north end of Omaha's downtown area.)  

I walked through the parking garage next to the hotel, over and around to Dudley's Pizza and Tavern.  (see map)  It's set back from the street a bit, but still pretty visible if you approach it from Center Road up S. 67th in Aksarben Village.  Mounds of snow from previous snowstorms - including the six-plus inch dumping from earlier in the day - were piled up on the patio that probably would have been filled with al fresco diners if the weather was much more warm.  

Inside Dudley's, I was sort of surprised to see how small it was.  In fact, it appeared that they were in the midst of downsizing the space they were in.  High-top and regular tables were in the center of the room with booths along a short wall on one side.  A local artist by the name of Chris Saub - who goes by the stage name of Christopher Raven - was playing guitar in the dining area during the latter part of happy hour.  The music was very good and very relaxing.

I ended up seated at one end of the three-sided bar toward the front of the restaurant.  A couple of flat screen televisions hung over a set of beer spigots with a glass-front refrigerator was off to the side.  I was greeted by one of the bartenders, a young lady by the name of Kat, who gave me both a food menu and a beer menu.  Nothing on their tap list tripped my trigger, but I did see that they had the Cardinal Pale Ale from the Nebraska Brewing Co. in a 16 ounce can.  I ordered that from Kat while I looked over the menu and listened to the music.   

Pizza is definitely the main item on the menu at Dudley's with a choice of either a thicker braided-crust pizza or a thinner "tavern-style" pizza.  (Gluten free crust is also available at Dudley's Pizza.)  But they also had burgers, sandwiches and wraps on the menu, along with a number of appetizers including chicken wings, fried dill pickle spears, truffle-salted pub fries topped with Romano cheese sprinkles, and sausage-stuffed fried ravioli that was also topped with grated Romano cheese and served with both a pesto and a marinara dipping sauce.  I thought about just getting the ravioli and calling that my meal for the evening.

But the tavern-style pizza was calling my name and I ordered up a small - 10" - sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  When it was brought out to me, I was sort of surprised on a couple three fronts.  First of all, tavern-style pizza - to me - is cut into the square pieces.  This was cut into triangles.  Secondly, the crust wasn't all that thin - at least not as thin as I was expecting a thin-crust pizza to be.  And lastly, I wish I would have had a ruler with me because it looked like the smallest 10" pizza I've ever seen.  I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and let the pizza cool down while I got another Cardinal Pale Ale.  

Quite actually, the pizza at Dudley's wasn't all that bad.  In fact, it was surprisingly good for what it was.  While the crust wasn't all that thin, it was crispy enough that it had the consistency of a thinner crust pizza.  The toppings were all fresh and very good.  I especially liked the sauce - it wasn't too sweet, nor was it too tangy.  It was a good mix of tomato sauce and paste - something I have trouble with in making sauce at home from time to time.  Yeah, I wish it were a little larger, but I was fine with what I had when I finished the pizza, which wasn't all that hard to do.  

The pizza I had at Dudley's Pizza and Tavern was good - not exactly what I was expecting in a "tavern-style" pizza - but good enough that I enjoyed the taste of it.  They had a good selection of craft and domestic beers to choose from, and other than a minor hiccup when I needed a couple more napkins and no one was behind the bar for five minutes, the service was pretty good, as well.  And Christopher Raven's music was a nice relaxing touch at the end of the day.   Over all the years I've been traveling to Omaha, I've only found maybe one or two pizza places that I thought were really good.  I wouldn't put Dudley's into that category of "really good", but it was serviceable pizza that didn't suck.  

(Update - April 2020 - I understand that Bill Barstow bought out his partners in the Dudley's venture and closed the place down.  He replaced it with the Backlot Taphouse, a craft beer/Detroit-style pizza place.)

Pals Brewing Company - North Platte, NE

My wife and I woke up in Colorado Springs during the last part of our vacation in Colorado earlier this year and decided to try to make it to Omaha - a 9 hour drive one-way.  I figured I could make it easily - well, I've done 9 hour drives before for my work and while it was tough, I've made it.  But I was a little worried my wife would have some problems with it.  By the time we got to North Platte, my wife was tired and hungry when we stopped there for gas.  Since most of our trip to Colorado was tied to visiting brewpubs, my wife did a quick search of brewpubs in the area.  She found a place that was - well - I was a little skeptical as to the location.  It appeared to be out in the middle of the country south and west of North Platte.  After gassing up and putting the address into the GPS, it just gave me a general destination to go to.  As we drove down a county highway, I saw something off in the distance - a sort of pole-barn building sitting on a flat plain near the road.  We pulled in and realized we had made it to Pals Brewing Company.  

One day a little over 20 years ago, Paul Oettinger - who was also known as "Pal" to his friends - just happened to be biking down State Street in Madison where he was going to school at the University of Wisconsin.  He saw a small sign in a storefront window that roughly said, "Brew Your Own Beer Cheaper Than You Can Buy It!"  Intrigued because he was becoming somewhat of an aficionado with small batch craft-brewed beers, he stopped into the little shop and found out what he would need to start brewing his own beer at home.  It turned out that he would need $85 bucks for a beginners home brewing kit and $85 bucks didn't exactly grow on a tree for a college student studying microbiology.  But he was able to come up with the money and he began to brew his own beer at home.

After college, Paul Oettinger and his wife, Amy, moved to Kalamazoo, MI which was becoming a burgeoning craft brewery town.  Finding like minded people in a local homebrewing club, Paul Oettinger became fast friends with a man who loved to experiment with different types of tastes in beers.  That's when he really became hooked on homebrewing and it became a passion that was also embraced by Amy.  He had perfected one of his recipes so well that his friends would insist on Oettinger bringing over a couple small kegs of his "Palsbrew" whenever they were invited to a party.   

The Oettinger's had talked about buying or opening their own brewpub.  A microbrewery was up for sale in Kalamazoo, but they didn't buy it.  Nor did they buy a brewpub in their home state of Wisconsin that was up for sale after they moved back to Madison a few years later.  They knew they would have their work cut out for them by starting a brewery in a place like Madison.  

Paul Oettinger's older brother Mark, and Mark's wife Mendy had moved to North Platte in 2006 to be the General Manager of the Walmart store there.  Paul and Amy Oettinger would sometimes come out to North Platte to visit his brother and the two couples would continue to talk about their dream of one day opening a brewpub.  It was during a visit over Thanksgiving in 2015 when it occurred to Mark Oettinger that North Platte was in dire need of a good brewpub.  There were over 175 brewpubs in the state of Wisconsin at that time, but in Nebraska there were less than three dozen.  Paul Oettinger couldn't agree more.  

The Oettinger brothers decided to jump into a brewpub venture with both feet.  Paul quit his job in Madison and moved out to North Platte to pursue his dream.  The Oettinger families found some land south of North Platte in which they built a brewpub from scratch.  They wanted their brewpub to be a little bit of everything - have enough room for outdoor activities and music in the summertime, have a little patio to enjoy a beer on the first warm day in the spring, to have a small tap room that could be used for meetings or special tastings, and to have a menu that wasn't too extensive, but would give people something to nibble on while they enjoyed their beers made from Paul Oettinger's years of homebrewing recipes.  Pal's Brewing Company had a soft opening on St. Patrick's Day in 2017, then opened their doors for normal business in two weeks later.  

As I said, getting out to Pal's Brewing was a bit nerve racking as the GPS was taking us to a general area and not really a destination.  When we saw the building on the flat plain along the west side of the road, we were happy enough to pull into the parking lot.  (see map)  The building didn't look like much from the front - it looked like an industrial pole barn with an awning over the front entrance.  

Inside the building, we found a large space that had a long bar, a brewery facility off to the side, and a number of high-top tables throughout the room.  A guy playing guitar was setting up to provide some music on a Saturday afternoon.

We took a seat at a table toward the corner of the restaurant.  I had to use the facilities before we got settled, and I went into the men's room to find a couple of urinals made out of stainless steel kegs.  They were similar to the ones I've seen at the Lionstone Brewing Company in Geneseo, IL.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Lionstone.)  

After getting back to the table, we were greeted by a young man who came out from behind the bar.  He gave us a food menu and asked us what we'd like to drink.  We had to take a minute because we weren't familiar with their beers.  The beer menu was on a flat panel television on the wall near us and we decided to try a couple of their beers - the Nob IPA and the Palgian Belgian pale ale.  The Palgian Belgian pale ale, well, we didn't really care for all that much.  But the Nob IPA was outstanding.  My wife and I drank at a lot of brewpubs on our trip to Colorado, but we both remarked that the Nob IPA may have been the best beer we had tasted on our trip.  It had a somewhat forward hoppy taste with a very nice smooth finish on the back side.  We were very impressed with the beer.

The food menu at Pals is pretty basic.  No sandwiches or burgers could be found, which was sort of a downer for us.  They had a number of appetizers including Wisconsin cheese curds - both regular and baked.  We figured that they didn't have a fryer in the kitchen as they didn't have wings, mozzarella sticks or french fries on the menu, but they had something called pizza fries that appeared to be nothing more than small bread sticks served with a choice of dipping sauce.  They also had pecan-smoked ribs basted in a barbecue sauce and topped with blue cheese crumbles.  We thought about that for a moment and decided against it.

The signature food item at Pals is pizza.  They have 10" or 14" thin crust pizza (including a 10" gluten free crust for a $3 upcharge or a 10" cauliflower crust for a $5 upcharge) along with 5 different types of sauce, five different types of cheese, six different types of meat, and six different varieties of vegetables.  We ended up getting a 10" thin crust with Mendy's Pizza Sauce - a tomato-based sauce - along with Italian Sausage chunks and Pepperoni slices.  They also had what they called Palsbrew mushrooms - beer-marinated mushroom slice - but my wife wasn't too adventurous in ordering them.  She is coming around when it comes to fresh mushrooms when for years her stomach would turn with the canned mushrooms.  But the beer-marinated mushrooms - as much as I wanted to try them - didn't trip her trigger.    We got the mozzarella cheese on the pizza, but they also had cheddar, blue cheese, goat cheese, or cheese curds for pizza cheese.  

And the pizza was, well, it was good.  Much better than average.  The crust wasn't crisp, but it was chewy and pliable.  There was a ton of the mozzarella cheese on the pizza along with copious amounts of a sweet and tart sauce.  The Italian sausage came in big chunks - just as we like it.  And the pepperoni was salty and spicy, but there could have been more slices on it.  

A young lady from the kitchen brought our pizza out to us and we were both ready to sign up for a couple more beers.  But no one else came out to check on us while we were having the pizza.  It was getting sort of annoying as there didn't seem to be any staff members around either on the floor or behind the bar.  The guy who took our order - we figured he was a manager - finally came back out to the bar area and I had to flag him down to get his attention to get us a couple more beers.  He brought them over to us and asked if we liked the pizza.  We did - and it went together very well with the Nob IPA that we thoroughly enjoyed.  

After we got our bill and paid, we decided to take a look around the backyard of Pals.  We found an area where they had an outdoor bar for events, picnic tables, and a "bags" game area.  It looked like there may have been an area for live music outdoors, as well. 

There was a wrap-around patio on the backside of the building.  It featured a number of picnic tables under an awning and it looked out to the backyard at Pals.  Being that it was Nebraska, you could see for miles in each direction.  There was something kind of relaxing and refreshing within a pastoral setting in the middle the plains.  Quite honestly, we really didn't want to leave, but we had hotel reservations in Omaha that evening.  We were looking at another 4 hours in the car before we'd get to our destination.  

Pals Brewing Company was a great find and a pleasant surprise.  As I said, their Nob IPA may have been the best beer that we tasted on our trip to brewpubs in Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.  It had a great hoppy taste, but was smooth on the back side.  The pizza was also very good.  The abundant mozzarella cheese and the sweet and tart tomato sauce was a great combination along with the Italian sausage and salty/spicy pepperoni.  I wouldn't call Pals Brewing Company in the middle of nowhere, but it was out in the country giving it a great laidback rustic feel.  This is a place that I would go back to in a heartbeat and spend some more time enjoying their beers, pizza and country setting.  

Tapped - St. Louis

One of my accounts in St. Louis was telling me of a new place that featured "pour-your-own" craft beers, wood-fired pizzas and sandwiches.  Well, they had me at "pour-your-own" craft beers and their description of the place made me want to go there.  We ended up meeting at Tapped one evening on a recent trip to St. Louis.

Ryan Reel had been in retail for over 20 years, many of those as a manager of a big box retailer in the St. Louis area.  His wife, Lindsay, was the director of pharmacy at a local hospital.  Fed up with retail management and wanting to become his own boss, Ryan looked into a concept that was becoming big on the coasts - self-poured beer and wine bars.  He got in touch with iPourit, a California-based company that specialized in tap systems that allowed customers to pour their own beer or wine, giving them a choice of being able to taste different styles while a computer kept track of how many ounces the customer has poured.  It also cuts down on waste and the system monitors keg levels letting management know that a keg may be running dry.  

The Reel's found a spot for their new venture in what was a former wood-fired pizza restaurant.  The space was initially going to be a second location for a local bar/restaurant in St. Louis, but when that fell through, the Reel's jumped on it.   After a few months of renovations and putting in the tap system, Tapped opened in early May of 2017.  They featured 48 craft beers on tap - many of them local beers from Missouri and Illinois.  The 48 tap system was one of the largest that iPourit has designed for a pour-your-own bar and it was the first iPourit system in the state of Missouri.  

I pulled up to Tapped located on Manchester Road in the Maplewood neighborhood of St. Louis, not far from the Schlafly Bottleworks.  (see map)  I met the guys inside and I started a tab for us at the front counter.  We were given these wristwatch-looking things called RFID's (radio frequency identification).  Each RFID allowed the user to tap on the screen above the tap to activate the system, then the system's computer kept track of how many ounces were poured.  Each user has a limit of 40 ounces before they have to go back up to the front counter to have them authorize another 40 ounce limit.  (I suppose the re-authorization is a good way to also gauge how drunk a person may be, as well.)  

With 48 beers on tap, there was a wide variety of beers to choose from.  Beers were grouped together by style, so they had stouts, IPA's, lagers, wheat beers and ciders bunched up.  (You can click here to see what Tapped has on tap right now.)  The monitor screen above the taps would let you know how much beer you poured and how much you have left on your authorization.  

I tried many beers while I was there which is one of the great things about the "pour-your-own" concept.  I poured 3 or 4 ounces of about a dozen types of beers and I settled on the Urban Chestnut pale ale for my first pint, then got the Urban Chestnut altbier for my second pint.  My final pint was the Schlafly Summer Lager, a helles-style beer perfect on a warm summer evening.  My wife likes to try samples of different beers at brewpubs and I thought she would just love this place.    

With a small bar in front of the taps, Tapped also featured a number tables for people to sit at.  On the wall were a number of prints depicting the history of breweries in St. Louis.  It was kind of fun to grab a beer and walk around to see some of the pictures that dated back to pre-Prohibition eras.  

When the Reel's took over the building, they kept in the large wood-fired pizza oven and they kept pizza on the menu.  They also had sharable appetizers such as Bavarian-style pretzels, fried baby portobello mushrooms, and toasted ravioli - a St. Louis staple.  They also had soups, salads, and sandwiches in addition to the wood-fired pizzas and calzones.  

I ended up getting the Italian sandwich that featured salami, coppa, and pastrami that was topped with tomato, onion, lettuce, smoked gouda, and sweet St. Louis-style Italian dressing all served on a hoagie bun.  A side of fries came with the sandwich and I had the option of having it served cold or hot - I took the hot option.  A couple of the other guys got the hot pastrami sandwich.  

One of the guys decided to get a pizza.  He got the veggie pizza that had green peppers, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, red onions and black olives.  It had a bit of a char to the perimeter of the pizza and the cheese on top was caramelized.  The crust was a little more thick than I like, but my guest said that the pizza was very good.  He offered me a piece, but I declined.  

Actually, I'm sort of wishing that I had gotten a calzone.  The sandwich was fine enough, but there was a lot of bread that I had to work through to get to the meat and toppings.  But the sandwich had good flavor with a bit of a spicy bite.  The fries were just throwaways for me.  A calzone with Italian sausage and pepperoni would have been a better bet.  

Tapped is a unique experience.  I'm running into more and more of the "pour-your-own" beer places in my travels, but for the first time experiencing one of these places was a real treat.  The problem is that by serving yourself, it's easy to get over-served.  After sampling some beers and then getting a couple of pints, you pretty much run through your first 40 ounce allotment.  But it was a slick and fun way to enjoy many different types of beers.  The sandwiches were all right, but one of my guests who got the wood-fired pizza said it was very good.  So, maybe next time I go to Tapped I'll have to try the pizza or a calzone.   

Little Angelo's Pizza - Rosemont, IL

When I stay at the Hilton Garden Inn near O'Hare Airport, I like to go down and have a beer or two at the bar served by Jim, the bartender extraordinaire at the hotel.  He's turned me on to a number of places to eat over the years and a couple years ago he was telling me about a place not far from the hotel that served great pizza. "The great thing about this place is that they'll deliver up to about 3 a.m.," Jim told me one time.  He said that he would sometime order a pizza for delivery just before his shift was over so he could take it home to eat.  He said so many good things about Little Angelo's Pizza in Rosemont that I had to go give it a try earlier this summer.  

Angelo Pegni was a franchisee of Rosati's Pizza, a chain of Chicago-style pizza places with over 200 locations across the nation.  I was told Pegni got into a tiff with the suburban-Chicago based chain and quit his franchise agreement.  He opened Little Angelo's Pizza in the same spot where he had the Rosati's a few years back.  

Little Angelo's is located in a strip mall at the corner of Touhy and Mannheim in Rosemont.  (see map)  There was a small patio out in front of the place and the dining area inside was nice, but very small.  I would say that it didn't sit much more than 26 to 30 people.  They had high-top and low-top wooden tables in the dining area. 60's-era rock music was playing in the background. 

It's counter service at Little Angelo's and Angelo Penni, himself, took my order at the counter.  A short man with sort of a gruff personality, Angelo asked if I wanted thin crust, double crust, Chicago pan-style, or stuffed pizza.  I got a thin crust pizza and a couple of domestic beers.  In addition to pizza at Little Angelo's, they also have pasta dishes such as spaghetti, mostaccioli, lasagna, and chicken parm and their menu that hangs on the wall behind the counter.

I got my standard sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  The toppings along with the mozzarella cheese and a sweet tomato sauce were thick across the top of the thin crust pizza.  The 12" pizza was expensive - over $20 bucks, but it would have easily fed two, and possibly, three people. The cheese was so thick on top of the pizza that on a couple of bites everything slid off the crust.  But it was good - very good.  There were large chunks of sausage, the mushrooms appeared to be fresh, and the pepperoni slices were thick, spicy and somewhat salty.  It was a very good pizza.  I like a pizza with a load of toppings and cheese on it.  The pizza at Little Angelo's did not disappoint.

I wasn't able to eat the whole thing, so I went to get a to-go box at the counter to take half of the pizza back to my room.  Angelo asked me, "So, what did you think?"

I told him it was a very good pizza.  And that was the same thing I said to Jim when I got back to the hotel.  "Didn't I tell you," he said to me.  "It's excellent pizza."  I had half of the pizza in the box and I got to thinking when would I have time to eat it.  I told Jim that I had half a sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza in the box and asked if he wanted the leftovers.  "Are you sure," he asked.  He took it from me and said he'd share with the staff.  

Little Angelo's was all that I was told it would be.  It was a very good thin-crust pizza that was loaded with mozzarella cheese and fresh toppings.  The dining room at Little Angelo's is small, but tidy, and there's only counter service and no wait staff at the small pizzeria.  About the only thing that gave me pause about the place was that the pizza was very expensive.  A small three-topping pizza with a couple of domestic beers came to over $30 bucks.  But, other than that I didn't have much of any other problems with my pizza at Little Angelo's.  

 

 

Tap 22 - Silvis, IL

Late last year, we had read about a new place over in the Illinois Quad Cities that was going to focus on gourmet burgers, pizza and craft beers.  We're always up for checking out places like this and on a warm Saturday afternoon we decided to make the trek over to Tap 22 in Silvis, IL.   

26-year-old Mitch Kadriu grew up working in his family's restaurant business, first in Anchorage, Alaska, then at the Welcome Inn in Milan, IL that his father, Denny, bought in 2009.  Mitch Kadriu was the general manager and bartender at the Welcome Inn for a number of years.

When the former Red Bull restaurant went out of business a couple of years ago, Mitch Kadriu saw an opportunity to turn the restaurant - which had also housed PK Dugan's and the Olympic Flame over the previous years - into something that featured high quality food, a number of craft beers, and a laid-back atmosphere that families could enjoy.  After months of renovating the building, Kadriu opened Tap 22 in February of this year.  

It was a little less than our standard "3-month-break in" period that we give new restaurants to work the kinks out of their system when we pulled up to Tap 22 in Silvis.  (see map)  We found a parking lot that was full and we were lucky when a car happened to be pulling out of a spot near the building.  Upon entering Tap 22, we were greeted by a hostess who took us into a dining area off to the side.  I had been to this place when it was called PK Dugan's and this room was always shut off.  But this room was lively with flat panel televisions, some exquisite custom artwork done for Tap 22, and a number of people having lunch.  Our server for our visit, Chrissy, came over with menus and asked what we'd like to start out to drink.  

The first thing I needed to have was on of Tap 22's delicious looking Bloody Mary's.  I'd had a bit of a rough night of partying the evening before, so a Bloody Mary with a beer was calling my name.  The Bloody Mary mix was a house mix that Tap 22 had - zesty and a bit spicy, but it seemed a little sweet for me, as well.  I got a Bell's Two Hearted India pale ale to go along with my Bloody Mary.  My wife got a Revolution Anti-Hero IPA for her beer choice. 

As I said, Tap 22 features a number of gourmet burgers, pizza and nightly food specials including prime rib on the weekend, along with fried chicken, fish and chips and other nightly chef specials through the week.  Tap 22 also had a number of appetizers to choose from on the menu.  

We were there for the burgers and we both ended up getting something different.  I went with the gruyere cheese burger with grilled ham.  For a side, I got fries.  The burger was presented on a wooden cutting board that looked like it had some miles on it.  The top of the bun was branded with a "Tap 22" logo.  The toppings - including lettuce, sliced onions, pickles and tomato -  were off to the side.  The fries were served in a stainless steel container.  It was a nice presentation.

My wife got the 22 burger - a basic burger featuring American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles.  She cut it in half so I could get a picture of the perfectly cooked medium burgers that we both had.  

My burger was juicy and delicious.  The gruyere cheese wasn't too forward in taste masking the taste of the burger, and the grilled ham gave it a bit of a salty taste.  My wife was equally impressed with her 22 burger.  We both felt the bun - which is the key to any good burger - was light and spongy, and held together very well with the juiciness of our burgers.  

The fries were good - crispy on the outside with a warm, flaky inner core.  But my wife got the cole slaw that she wasn't too happy with.  She felt the cole slaw was too dry and not very flavorful.  But, overall, we certainly enjoyed the burgers at Tap 22.  

After we finished up in the dining room, my wife wanted to look around the place.  The bar area was somewhat similar to what I remembered from the PK Dugan's days.  It featured a long bar that curved and meandered the length of the room.  There was a turnout on one end with a large liquor island.  Large flat panel televisions were on the wall behind the bar.

Off to the side of the bar was another dining area.  The chairs were a little more comfortable than the ones in the other dining area.  It was a well-lit room with a wooden slat floor.   

For some reason, my wife was in the mood to continue to party like we did the previous evening and she said she wanted to have another beer at the bar.  There were two seats open on the corner and we sat down.  One of the bartenders came over and we both ordered a pint of the Pseudo Sue IPA from the Toppling Goliath brewery in Decorah, IA.  

As we were watching a baseball game on one of the many flat panel televisions behind the bar, the couple next to us had a pizza brought to them.  It looked very good with a thick outer crust, but a thin crust underneath the toppings.  As the couple was eating, they remarked how good the pizza was.  My wife said, "It certainly does look good!"  And it wasn't too much later when a SECOND pizza was brought out and sat down between the man and my wife.  I asked if I could take a picture of the pizza and he had no problem with me doing that.   

We would have to say that Tap 22 is a nice place for a casual meal of burgers or pizza with an ever-changing menu of craft beers.  My wife and I were both impressed with our burger selections, while the couple seated next to us at the bar seemed to really like their pizza.  The service we received in both the dining room and in the bar area was friendly and efficient, and the atmosphere was lively, yet laid-back.  We'd probably frequent Tap 22 more if it were closer to our house, but we've found it to be a worthy stop on a road trip to the southeast side of the Quad Cities.  

 

Wildwood Tavern - Niles, IL

A place that has popped up over the past couple years is the Wildwood Tavern at the corner of Touhy and Caldwell Avenues in the northwest Chicago suburb of Niles.  (see map)  I've thought that the place looked pretty nice from the outside with its mountain cabin-type exterior with a nice patio on the side and I always had it in the back of my mind for a place to try out at some point.  During a trip into Chicago earlier this year, I decided to stop in and have something to eat at Wildwood Tavern.

Mark Freedman was only 11 years old in 1971 when his father Myron, and his uncle, Phil, opened a steakhouse - the eponymously named Myron and Phil's - along Devon Ave. in Lincolnwood.  Mark Freedman started out bussing tables shortly after the steakhouse opened up and he eventually worked his way up in nearly every capacity from kitchen work, to waiter, to manager, finally taking over ownership of the restaurant in 1998.  Mark's wife, Ellie, became a defacto partner as Ellie's background in business and the food service industry made it a match in heaven for the both of them.

In May of 2013, a devastating electrical fire destroyed Myron and Phil's. It was a double shot of grief for Freedman as his father passed away the same day at the age of 95. But the Freedman's held their head up and vowed they'd rebuild and reopen.  However, negotiations with the insurance company dragged on long enough that Freedman decided to not rebuild Myron and Phil's, but to have a new place that catered to a more casual crowd rather than a steakhouse clientele.   

Pictured right - Ellie and Mark Freedman.  Photo courtesy Chicago Tribune.

The Freedman's found a place in Niles that had recently been a steakhouse/barbecue spot that closed in 2013.  They gutted the building and gave it a northwoods motif.  Since the restaurant before them had a smoker, the Freedman's incorporated smoked meats into a mix of food items that included burgers, sandwiches, pizza, and some entrees.  With everything in place, the Wildwood Tavern opened in late August 2015.  

It was around 1:30 when I went into Wildwood Tavern in between appointments in the area.  There's a good-sized dining area off to the right when you come into the restaurant.  It has a high ceiling with a number of tables and booths interspersed throughout the area.  An outdoor patio is just off the main dining room.  

I took a seat at the large rectangular bar that had metal high-back chairs around it.  There was an island in the middle with glass refrigerators below and a line of flat panel televisions that were perched above for viewing on all sides of the bar.  The bartender that day, Marissa, was also going to be my server.  She got me a food menu and showed me a beer list that had a number of domestics and a smattering of craft brews.  Wildwood Tavern also had a pretty good wine menu, as well.  I ended up getting a Lagunitas IPA while I looked through the menu.   

It was a wide and varied menu at Wildwood Tavern.  They had a handful of sharable appetizers, as well as soups and salads.  Since they do have a smoker from the restaurant they took over, they have ribs, brisket, pulled pork and smoked chicken on the menu.  They have a number of burgers and sandwiches, as well as signature entrees such as the original Myron and Phil's skirt steak, pork chops, fish and chips, a charbroiled New York strip, and another Myron and Phil's specialty, braised brisket.   Wildwood Tavern also had thin-crust pizza that looked pretty good, as well.  They had a lot of things to choose from, but I just wasn't certain what I wanted.   

For starters, I got a cup of their chicken/andouille sausage and rice soup.  It was similar to gumbo, only not as thick of a consistency as good gumbo.  Still, this was very good soup.  It had a bit of a spicy bite from the andouille sausage, and the chicken was cut into big chunks.  If I had just gotten a bowl of the soup, I would have been happy.  

For my lunch that day, I went with one of their specials - Gramma's meatloaf.  It came with mashed potatoes and a hearty mushroom gravy.  It was two slabs of their house-made meatloaf with the mushroom gravy slathered over the top.  Getting meatloaf in a restaurant can be an iffy proposition, but this was actually very good.  While it wasn't as moist as I may like my meatloaf, it had a good consistency and taste quality.  I enjoyed the mushroom gravy with the meatloaf, but the pieces were pretty big.  I had a couple bites of the adequate mashed potatoes with the gravy and was able to finish off one of the meatloaf pieces and had the other one about halfway gone before I threw in the towel.  It was such a filling and well-rounded meal that I was full the rest of the day and didn't even bother getting dinner that evening.   

For my first time into Wildwood Tavern, I would have to say that I was more than happy with the meatloaf special they had that day.  The cup of chicken/andouille rice soup was also a warm and hearty opener to the meal.  While I sat at the bar, the service was prompt and attentive.  And it was a nice wholesome atmosphere at Wildwood Tavern.  Since it's not too far from where I stay when I go to Chicago, I'm sure I'll be back at some point to try their pizza.  The ghost of Myron and Phil's has come back in the form of the Wildwood Tavern.  (Photo courtesy Tripadvisor.) 

The Beerhouse - Urbandale, IA

I got into my hotel in Urbandale on the northwest side of Des Moines around 8 p.m. one evening last December and asked if they had a list of restaurants in the area.  They gave me a sheet and I studied it as I took my bag up to my room.  One place sort of stood out for me on the list - a sports bar called The Beerhouse that was just over Interstate 80 from my hotel.  I decided to give The Beerhouse a try that evening.

The building that houses The Beerhouse actually started out as a third location for a popular local steakhouse called Jesse's Embers.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the original Jesse's Embers on Ingersoll Ave. in Des Moines.)   The Jesse's Embers in Urbandale didn't last all that long as the area around it was far from being developed as it is now.  An upscale Italian restaurant took its place after Jesse's Embers closed in 2007, but less than a year later it, too, was out of business.

Jerry and Kim Cobb saw an opportunity in the building that housed the two restaurants that didn't make it.  The came up with a concept of a neighborhood place - a sports bar - that served good food at an affordable price.  Live music would be available at times and they wanted to have an outdoor patio where friends and families could congregate in the summer months.  They renovated the building and opened Overtime in 2009.  Their daughter, Kristi, was the general manager of the place.

In 2013, Jerry and Kim Cobb decided they wanted to retire to Arizona.  A few months later they sold the business to Cindy Barnes-Stone, who owned a small coffee shop/diner in Urbandale; and Ron Biondi, the owner Ron's Dawg House, a now-closed tavern on Hubbell Ave. in Des Moines.  Barnes-Stone and Biondi ran the business for seven months before they realized they couldn't make a go of the place and they gave it back to the Cobb's in late 2014.  

The Cobb's, now living in Arizona, really didn't want anything to do with the sports bar, but their daughter, Kristi, was interested in doing something with the place.  Along with business partner Nick Kuhn - who ran a couple of food trucks around Des Moines - Kristi Cobb bought Overtime from her parents and rebranded it into a beer-centric sports bar that featured nearly two dozen craft beers on tap.  They called the place Overtime Beerhouse, but shortened the name to just The Beerhouse a few months later.  

The Beerhouse is your typical sports bar - a lot of flat panel televisions, sports motif, community tables in the center of the dining room.  It was packed with people in to watch basketball that evening.  

I ended up sitting at the bar and the bartenders were pretty busy trying to keep up.  Finally, one of them - a young lady by the name of Jess - came up to me.  I noticed that they had a Kona Brewing Co. sign in the window above the front door when I walked up to the building, but when I ordered one of those Jess told me that they didn't have any Kona beers. Somewhat crestfallen, I saw that they had a Des Moines IPA from the Confluence Brewing Company in Des Moines and I got that.  She got my beer and brought me back a food menu to look over.  

The food menu is typical of most sports bars - burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, pizza, salads.  Nothing that was really out of the ordinary.  But I really didn't know what I wanted for dinner that night.  They did have fish tacos on the menu - blackened grilled tilapia with avocado and a mango salsa were one of the offerings.  They had a blackened ahi tuna sandwich available.  And they had lamb sliders with sliced gyro meat topped with tzatziki sauce, red onion, tomato and cucumber.  

The one thing that I kept going back to on the menu was the smoked brisket reuben sandwich.  Instead of sauerkraut, it was topped with cole slaw.  Instead of Swiss cheese, it was topped with smoked gouda.  And it came with Thousand Island dressing on grilled marble rye bread. And - as an added treat - I could get tater tots on the side.  And they gave me a load of tater tots.  When Jess asked me if I wanted sour cream or ranch dressing for the tots, I replied, "Sure!"  

From there, things went down hill.

The sandwich was, in a word, horrible.  The brisket was tough and dry.  And while it had a bit of a smoky taste, it was absolutely horrible in the overall taste.  Period.  I'm sorry.  I could not think of one redeeming thing about the brisket reuben.  I ate half the sandwich and forgot about the other half.  And, quite frankly, I'm surprised that I even ate that much of it.

The tater tots were cool, not cold, but they'd been sitting for awhile before they were put on the plate.  I also found that I like neither sour cream or ranch dressing with tater tots.  Give me a bottle of Cholula with my tots, please.  

And Jess was suddenly nowhere to be found.  I don't know if she went on break or what happened, but I would have liked to get another beer but there was only one other girl behind the bar.  And she was talking with a friend behind me at the L-shaped bar complaining about how busy they were that evening, calling it a "shit show" with all the people in the place.  Another male bartender came out from the back, I got his attention and asked for my check.  I just needed to cut my losses and get out of there.

With a sports bar with the name of The Beerhouse, I had high hopes of having a good sandwich along with a good selection of beers.  Well, the brisket reuben sandwich I had was absolutely horrid, and while they did have an adequate selection of beer, they didn't have the Kona Brewery beer they had advertised in the front window of the place.  My bartender/server started out good, but she disappeared on me when I wanted to get out of there.  I did not have a good experience at The Beerhouse and I'm hoping that it's an anomaly because it seems to be a pretty popular place.  But a lot of times, the first impression is a lasting one.  And I can't see any reason to go back to The Beerhouse at any time in future travels to Des Moines.  

Pizza Lucé - Richfield, MN

I've been wanting to try Pizza Lucé in the Twin Cities for a number of years.  For some reason, I just never got around to doing it.  Staying in the south side suburbs of Minneapolis recently, I decided to head over to Pizza Lucé for dinner one evening last fall.  Only, I almost didn't get in.  The parking lot was full and I was thinking that I wouldn't be able to get in anyhow.  However, a parking spot opened up before I exited the parking lot.  I thought "What the hell?" and I went inside.  Luckily, I found an open spot - the only open spot - at the bar.  That's where I parked myself that evening to try a pizza at Pizza Luce.   

Joe Baier found a niche in life when he was working for a pizza place doing deliveries and making pizzas.  When that pizza place closed its doors in 1992, Baier felt he had enough knowledge about pizzas that he could do his own place.  In 1993, Baier opened Pizza Lucé in the Warehouse District in downtown Minneapolis.  Initially, it was a by-the-slice place, but after a couple of years Baier was able to expand the space with a dining area.  

The only problem was that Pizza Lucé was just treading water fiscally.  Baier needed someone with some business sense to come in and help right the ship, so he turned to a former co-worker at the defunct pizza place, Scott Nelson.  Nelson was able to turn Pizza Lucé around and they were able to open a second location in the Twin Cities.  

In 2001, Nelson and Baier were getting ready to open a third location in Duluth run by Nelson.  Baier's niece, JJ Haywood worked in food service while she was going to Brown University, then got her masters in public administration at Harvard.  She worked in food service at colleges and universities for 10 years running dining halls.  When her uncle called her to come out to Minnesota to help centralize his pizza business, she figured it would be a one year job and she'd be moving on.  However, Haywood found Pizza Lucé to be an interesting business and she eventually stayed on and took on the day-to-day operations as the CEO.   

One of the Pizza Lucé's first location managers, Laura Hansen, became instrumental in the expansion of the restaurant overseeing quality control, ingredients and human resources.  Haywood brought her into the corporate office and Hansen is now one of the co-owners of the restaurant chain.  There are currently 8 locations for Pizza Lucé - 7 in the greater Twin Cities area including a concession stand at Target Field for Minnesota Twins games.  An 8th location in the Twin Cities will open this year (if it hasn't already) in southwest suburban Eden Prairie.  

It was around 7:45 when I walked into Pizza Lucé and I found a nice dining area with contemporary decor.  One section of the dining area appeared to be set up for a large party.  The other part of the dining area by the bar was full of diners.  It was a pretty popular place.

I ended up getting the last seat at the bar.  The bar staff was very busy and it took them awhile to acknowledge that I was there and to get a menu.  I saw that they had Surly Furious on tap and once someone came over to drop off a menu I ordered up one of those.

One thing that stood out with the staff at Pizza Lucé, nearly every employee sported tattoos or piercings.  That's a culture that Pizza Lucé fully embraces and encourages the expression of body art by its employees.  The bartenders behind the bar - both male and female - all had tattoos and piercings.  So, if that kind of stuff is offensive to you, don't bother going to Pizza Lucé

In addition to pizza, Pizza Lucé features a number of specialty hot and deli-style hoagie sandwiches, some pasta dishes, appetizers and salads.  They have a number of vegan and gluten-free options on the menu, as well.  

But I was there for the pizza that evening and I ended up getting a small (10") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom, my standard toppings on a pizza.  The crust was thin, but not cracker thin, and was more pliable than crisp.  The cheese on top of the pizza was caramelized, and the toppings were plentiful.  

The Italian sausage had a bit of a spicy taste to it, the pepperoni had a good salty taste, and the mushrooms were fresh and earthly.  It had a good amount of mozzarella on the pizza tying all the tastes together.  It was a very good pizza, definitely one of the better ones I've encountered in the Twin Cities.  

OK, so I finally got to try a pizza at Pizza Lucé - what did I think?  Well, they say they have the best pizza in Minneapolis, but my favorite continues to be the one over at Pizzeria Lola.  But if you can't get into Lola and need a pizza fix, the first alternative would be Pizza Lucé.  I certainly liked their pizza topped with sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  The toppings and cheese were plentiful on top of the thin crust pizza and it went very well with a glass of the Surly Furious beer that I had with it.  Sure, I'd go back to Pizza Lucé and I will at some point.  

Port City Underground - Muscatine, IA

It seems like we've been heading down to Muscatine a lot over the past couple of years to change things up in terms of food offerings when we go out on little date nights.  One recent night found us heading to Muscatine to circumnavigate the massive construction along Mississippi Drive to try the Contrary Brewing Company.  As we were enjoying our beers at Contrary, we decided to try and find someplace to have dinner nearby.  I did a quick search on my smartphone and found a place that I'd heard about, but we had yet to visit - Port City Underground.  

Sister and brother Lacey Henderson-Mueller and Cameron Henderson used to travel to Chicago with their family and one of their favorite places to eat was the Gino's East on E. Superior.   The Henderson family loved the subterranean ambiance of the original Gino's East and the memories stuck with them for years.  Their mother, Diane, was a good cook who had a good pizza recipe that she used to serve to the Henderson family and friends, and Lacey Henderson-Mueller had some service background working in restaurants.  Lacey had always wanted to own her own restaurant at some point and when an underground space in downtown Muscatine became available in late 2004, she and her brother Cameron jumped in with both feet. 

The family spruced up the downstairs space with carpeting, put in a bar and dining area, and fashioned a kitchen in the back of the place.  By February of 2005, Port City Underground was up and running.  Diane Henderson, who - by day - was a postmaster at a small post office in a nearby town, helped out in the kitchen primarily making her pizzas and breadsticks.  But over the years, the menu expanded to include pasta dishes, sandwiches and salads. 

We were able to find a parking space along W. 2nd St. in downtown Muscatine just down the street from Port City Underground.  (see map)  We were rather confused as how to get to the place and we entered the building where we saw a sign for the place.  We didn't know if we needed to take the steps or the elevator and we ended up walking down a stairway and found that it wasn't the way.  We ended up taking the elevator down and found what is basically the hostess stand near the small bar on the end near the kitchen.  

The dining room is long and narrow with stone walls.   It was cozy and sort of tight in the place, but it was manageable enough.  We had to wait a moment for a table and they sat us at a table that was up front with windows looking out at some stairs that went upward to the street level.  Our server for the evening, a nice guy by the name of Mitch, came over to greet us, drop off menus and get our drink order.  It turned out that Mitch was also the manager of Port City Underground.  My wife got a glass of the James Mitchell cabernet they had on their small, but impressive wine list while I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had Alaskan Amber available for one of their craft beers.  

A good portion of the menu at Port City Underground was devoted to pizza.  They had a handful of appetizers, some salads and soups, some sandwiches and about a half dozen pasta dishes.  They also featured some specials that evening, but I can't remember what they were.

I was in the mood for pasta, but my wife really wanted pizza.  So, I got a pasta dish that sounded interesting, while she got a pizza.  With my pasta entree, I got a small dinner salad.  I let my wife pick the dressing and unsurprisingly she went with the garlic dressing.  The salad featured crisp greens with a large bread stick.  The dressing wasn't all that strong as far as a garlic taste, but it was all right.

My wife got a small specialty pizza - the Man Cave Pizza that featured Italian sausage, pepperoni, ground beef, black olives, mushrooms, jalapeños, onions and extra cheese that seemed to be a mixture of mozzarella, provolone and cheddar cheese.  It was a thin-crust pizza and cut into triangle squares with some caramelization along the edges.  My wife seemed to be happy with it - I had a piece and I thought it was good, as well.  There were a lot of flavors going on with the pizza.  She was able to eat three pieces and she was able to take a couple pieces home with her for a snack in the coming days.  

Even though they didn't seem to have a lot in terms of pasta at Port City Underground, I ended up finding something that sounded good to me.  It was called the Baked Pastizza and it featured rotini noodles in their pizza sauce with a choice of up to three toppings from their pizza menu.  Of course, I got the Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  It was covered with a cheese blend, including bits of shredded cheddar.  I'm not huge on cheddar cheese in Italian dishes, but it seemed to be a signature of Port City Underground's.  

Once I peeled back the top to allow the steam to rise out of the pasta dish and cool down a bit, I saw a wonderful gooey mess of pasta, sausage, mushrooms and pepperoni in their pizza sauce.  When it finally cooled down a bit to enjoy, I found a very flavorful dish with a lot of flavors going on.  While the noodles and the other toppings were very good, I found the pizza sauce to be a little too sweet for my taste.  Having a piece of my wife's pizza, I found that the sauce was consistent in taste.  It was thick, but it was very sweet.  It wasn't a deal breaker, but we both just found it to distract from the overall good taste of both the pizza and the pasta dish.

Things had settled down enough for Mitch to visit with us as we were getting ready to pay.  We told him that we thought the pizza sauce was a little too sweet for us.  He said, "Yeah, we get that every once in a while.  But there's a lot of people who like it that way."  I told him that for as packed as the place was that night and for how long they've been in business, it appeared that a lot of people liked it that way.  

So, other than thinking the pizza sauce was too sweet, we couldn't come up with any other complaints about our visit and meal at Port City Underground.  It was a quaint and cozy little place, they had a nice wine selection and a small, but surprising selection of craft beers.  The pastizza dish I had was very good, and my wife was more than happy with her pizza - even though the sauce was pretty sweet.  As many trips we've made to Muscatine for dinner over the past few years, we're sort of surprised that we'd never been to Port City Underground before this.  But it won't be our last visit.  

Holt's - Park Ridge, IL

Looking for a new place to eat near the hotel where I stay most of the times when I'm in Chicago, I found a place on line in nearby Park Ridge that I was not familiar with.  Holt's is in a space at the corner of Summit and Prospect in downtown Park Ridge (see map) that used to house a former men's wear shop and was the first restaurant owned by Park Ridge native and resident Matt Ranalli.  Along with managing partners Brad Doyle and Grant Blaszynski, the group opened Holt's in October of 2015 offering sandwiches, pizza, and a lengthy craft beer menu.  I thought it sounded interesting enough to me to go find it and check it out for dinner. 

I was able to find parking just down the street on Prospect and walked into Holt's around 7:30 that evening.  They had a nice patio area that appeared to be able to seat about 30 people, but it was chilly out and they weren't serving patrons out there that evening. 

Inside Holt's I found a nice contemporary decorated space that featured a long dual banquette seat in the middle of the restaurant with tables on either side.  (I thoroughly despise banquette seating.)  There were also larger tables off to the side for communal dining (I probably hate communal dining even more) or for large groups.    There was also outside dining, albeit in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the place.  It was a nice night and there were people seated outside enjoying the fall evening.  The hostess at the front stand was a young lady who was too interested as to what was going on with her smart phone than to greet me when I came in, so I just took a seat at the bar.

The bar was also modern and very nice.  It featured high-back padded seats along a long wooden bar with contemporary lighting hanging from the ceiling.  Large flat paneled televisions were hanging along the back bar area and there was a lot of contemporary country music playing in the background in the restaurant.  

One of the bartenders gave me a food menu and a beer menu.  They had about a dozen beers on tap - all of them locally-brewed craft beers - and over 40 beers, ciders and meads available in bottles.  I immediately ordered up a 3 Floyd's Spaceship Middle Finger American Pale Ale.  She looked at me funny and said, "We don't have that."

I turned the beer menu that she had given me toward her, pointed to it and said, "It's right here."  

She studied it for a moment and said, "Oh!  That's the old beer list.  Sorry about that."  She took that one back and came back with another beer list.  This time I ordered the 3 Floyd's Necron 99 India Pale Ale.  I studied the beer menu as time went on and noticed that they had the Solemn Oath Lü, a nice Kolsch that I've had before.  While I did like the Necron 99, I got the Lü for my second beer.  I love a good Kolsch and the Solemn Oath Lü is definitely a good one. 

The food menu wasn't all that long and didn't seem to be very creative.  They had a number of appetizers - things like chicken wings, cheese curds, and calamari.  They had a couple of burgers on the menu, an egg and pepper sandwich, a salmon BLT, and even a Sloppy Joe.  There were a number of salads available, but the main focus seemed to be on pizza.  They had a handful of specialty pizzas including a sausage and mashed potato pizza, a pizza topped with goat cheese and sliced grapes, and an Italian beef and giardiniera pizza.  You could also dial up your own combinations of pizza including over a dozen toppings and three different types of cheese. 

But I wasn't all that hungry that evening and none of the sandwiches sounded all that appetizing to me.  I wandered back to the appetizer part of the menu and found that they had a mac & cheese appetizer that featured three different types of cheese (gouda, white cheddar and Monterrey Jack) where you could add bacon and/or crab meat for an upcharge.  But that even sounded too filling for me, so I ended up getting something lighter - the fish tacos.

The fish tacos were made with grilled Alaskan cod that went with chopped red and green cabbage, pickled red onions, and a chipotle mayo sauce all mixed in flour taco shells.  The tacos were good - not great - but they were fine for what I needed that evening.  The cod wasn't fishy in taste, the cabbage was crisp, the pickled onions gave the tacos a nice balance, and the chipotle mayo sort of tied everything together nicely with a bit of smoky and spicy flavor.  It was the perfect amount of food on an evening when I really didn't need a lot of food, but I needed something.  

I'll have to say that Holt's is a nice place and they had a pretty good selection of craft beers - as long as you get the current beer menu rather than the old one that was initially presented to me.  The food menu isn't all that extensive and I did see one of their pizzas later in the evening that piqued my interest as it looked pretty good - thin, misshapen crust with plenty of toppings.  Other than the uninterested young lady at the hostess stand, the service was also pretty good.  Holt's seems to be more of a place for groups rather than a single diner, but I think I'd go back again at some point.    

Millz Pizza and Grill - Davenport, IA

One of our favorite pizza places in the Quad Cities - Hall of Fame Pizza - closed last year and we've been hard-pressed to find a replacement for it in the very small rotation of pizza places we like to visit in the area.  (Quad City-style pizza is just plain nasty tasting to me and my wife who didn't grow up in the area, but the people who grew up with it still love it.)  There was a pizza place that had opened some time ago on W. Kimberly in Davenport and we've been reluctant to give it a try.  Well, mainly because we hadn't heard much about the place.  One Friday evening this past fall, we decided to head over and give Millz Pizza and Grill a try.  (see map)

Joe Hines is the young guy who started Millz Pizza and Grill in August of 2016.  We were trying to figure out what the building used to be that Millz is in.  My wife thought it was an old Kentucky Fried Chicken, I thought it was an old Pizza Hut.  It may have been both at some point in time.  One of the first things Hines did after Millz opened was to offer an eating challenge - order a 28" single-topping pizza and you have 30 minutes to eat the whole thing.  If you beat the challenge, you get a $50 gift certificate from the restaurant, the pizza will be free, and your picture will go up on a wall.  If you can't do the challenge, you'll have to pay the full price of the pizza - $36.99.   I didn't notice any pictures on the wall when we were there.  

Millz used to open at 7 a.m. for breakfast, but I see that they now open at 10 a.m. seven days a week.  They're usually open until 10 p.m. through the week, but are open late on Friday and Saturday nights until 2 a.m. when they have live music available.  

It was around 6:30 when we walked into Millz and found a table in the dining area near a corner.  They had a bar in the place and a pool table in the back.  A number of flat screen televisions were hung on the wall, most showing sporting events.  I would say there were about 16 or 17 people in the place, so it wasn't packed at all.

They had their music system cranked incredibly loud when we first got in.  I love AC/DC like the next guy, but not when it's hitting about 110 decibels with two Bose commercial speakers pointed at us.  Our waitress for the evening came over to greet us and drop off menus.  Quite honestly, I couldn't hear a word she was saying because the music was so loud.  She had to come up close to me to ask me what I wanted to drink, I couldn't hear her above the music.  I told her to come back once the music was turned down.  We seriously considered leaving because it was so loud - as in dance club loud - before someone got smart and turned down their sound system.  

Our server came back and asked again what we would like to drink.  I asked what they had and she tried to go through the beer list from memory and by looking at the taps behind the bar.  She then apologized and said, "This is my second day on the job and I'm still trying to sort things out."  I turned to look at what they had on tap and I immediately could see the distinctive tap handle of Kona Brewing Co. Big Wave.  Since it's my favorite beer, I had to have one of those.  My wife saw that they had the Lagunitas IPA and she got that.  

The girl asked me if I wanted a small one or a pint.  I told her I would take the pint.  She brought me back a 23 ounce glass with the Big Wave - which is what I would have ordered in the first place had she known the difference between 16 ounces - a pint - and 23 ounces.  She was having troubles on her second day.  

We ordered up a 16" thin crust/New York-style pizza with our standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  The mushrooms were canned and my wife - who wouldn't even consider eating mushrooms up to 10 years ago until she started having fresh mushrooms on pizza and in foods - didn't care for them.  She picked off the mushrooms from the two or three triangles of pizza she had.

The pizza crust was light and crispy, but held up very well with the plentiful toppings.  The pepperoni was salty with a hint of spiciness, and the Italian sausage had a great fennel taste with a slight spicy bite.  

The cheese they used on their pizza, well, we weren't overly certain we cared for it.  It appeared to be a combination of cheddar and provolone that didn't really seem to work well together.  The cheese had the creamy nature of provolone, but the cheddar was sort of coagulating as it cooled down.  The caramelization on top of the cheese gave it a good flavor, but we just weren't that whippy on the taste combination.  Still, the pizza tasted good with a beer.

The pizza at Millz Pizza was - in my estimation - just above average.  I would have like to have tried a Millz pizza with straight mozzarella cheese and see how it stacked up versus the very good pizza that we're missing at Hall of Fame.  The atmosphere at Millz Pizza was more of a sports bar and once they figured out the music was extremely too loud and turned it down, it was a more enjoyable place to hang.  And we cut some slack with our server who had only been on the job at Millz for a couple days.  We were glad that she told us she was new or we would have been questioning her serving skills.  We're not quite ready to put Millz into our rotation of pizza places in the Quad Cities - as limited as they are.  But it would be a nice option for those who don't care for Quad City-style pizza.  

(Update - Not long after this entry was published, Millz Pizza announced that they would be shutting down on January 23.  We never did make it back there, and while it's sad a restaurant with a young owner closed down, we just didn't care for the mixed cheese on the pizza.)

Geno's Pizza - Eau Claire, WI

I'm in the process of putting on a new dealer up in Eau Claire and I ended up spending a night there this fall at The Lismore, a boutique hotel in the downtown part of the city that is a Doubletree/Hilton property.  I was sort of hungry for pizza that evening and I did some on-line searches to see what was available around the downtown area.  It turns out that a place on the outskirts of town - Geno's Pizza - got a lot of rave reviews for their pizza and I thought I'd drive out to see if it was up to all the accolades it received in their on-line reviews.  

Kevin Burzynski opened Geno's Pizza in June of 2014 with a marketing plan of "word of mouth" to get the news out to the citizens around Eau Claire that they had the best pizza in town.  His thin crust pizzas were chock full of toppings offering a great value for what people were getting.   Geno's Pizza is located at the end of Fairview Drive on the south side of Eau Claire, next to the Metropolis Resort/Action City family entertainment center.  (see map)  Geno's shares the building with Casa Margarita Mexican restaurant.  (And the restrooms for Geno's are located in Casa Margarita, as well.)  

After parking out in front of Geno's Pizza, I went in to the restaurant with a couple guys who were there to pick up a pizza to go.  I didn't know the drill in ordering a pizza, so I stood at the counter/bar and waited to order a pizza from the menu they had up front.  It turned out the manager, Paul, ended up waiting on me.  After I ordered a small pizza and a beer, he asked me if I wanted my beer while I waited to get my pizza.  I told him that I was planning on dining in.  "Oh," he exclaimed.  "You could have sat down and I would have come out to take your order."  Oh!  OK - rookie mistake.  But it was just him and a guy back in the open kitchen who were working that night.  Paul was the bartender, server, and bus boy.  

The dining space wasn't all that big and featured some high-top tables with some vinyl-checked table cloths on the regular tables along the wall.  Flat screen televisions were hanging on the wall - all of them were tuned to a Green Bay Packers pre-season game.  

The dining room looked into the open kitchen where some well-used gas pizza ovens were the centerpiece of the space.  I asked Paul how old the ovens were and he said he didn't really know.  "The owner bought them used," he explained.  "But they've got a lot of seasoning in them and that really helps our pizzas."  

I ordered up my usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  The pizza was cut into tavern squares, the crust was thin and crispy, and the toppings were definitely thick and plentiful.  The sausage was in large chunks and had a great fennel taste.  The mushrooms were fresh and earthy, and the pepperoni had that great salty and spicy taste.  The pizza went exceptionally well with my Goose Island IPA.  

Geno's Pizza calls their pizza "the best in Eau Claire".  While I can't comment on that since this is the only pizza I've had in my visits here, compared to other pizzas I've had around the Midwest, I thought their pizza was very good.  The hand-tossed dough was thin and crisp, the toppings were fresh and plentiful, and they had a pretty good selection of craft beers that would very well with their pizza.  It's not much to look at from the outside, but the small dining room with the open kitchen was comfortable and clean.  If someone would ask me where to get a pizza in Eau Claire, I wouldn't hesitate in offering up Geno's Pizza.