Road Tips

Nonna Silvia's - Park Ridge, IL

A place I'd really been wanting to try for quite sometime is an Italian restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge by the name of Nonna Silvia's.  When I found out that there was some family lineage between one of my new favorite Italian restaurants on the northwest side of Chicago - Pasta d'Arte (click here to see the Road Tips entry on Pasta d'Arte) - then I knew that I really wanted to try Nonna Silvia's.  My first visit to Nonna Silvia's was a strike-out - they were having one of their four-course/wine dinners the evening I showed up and I couldn't get in.  But on a couple of subsequent visits, I was finally able to give the place a try.  

Cousins Steve Marti and John Giannini are the men behind Nonna Silvia's.  Both were raised on their grandmother Silvia Giannini's food while growing up.  Marti and Giannini cut their culinary teeth while working at their uncle's restaurant Via Venuto (click here to read the Road Tips entry on Via Venuto).  

Pictured right - Steve Marti and John Giannini

Steve Marti was trained as a chef by his brother and by a number of chefs in Italy.  Getting together with John Giannini after Marti came back to the U.S., the cousins opened Nonna Silvia's in 2000 using many of the base recipes handed down from their grandmother who grew up in the Italian countryside, but adding a contemporary take to many of the dishes they make.

Nonna Silvia's is located at the corner of North Canfield Ave. and West Talcott Road in Park Ridge.  (see map)  There's diagonal parking along Canfield from Nonna Silvia's and down, and there's also parking across the street to the southeast in a lot after 5 p.m.

As I said, the first time that I tried to go to Nonna Silvia's, they were packed from a four-course wine dinner they have scheduled from time to time.  The hostess apologized profusely when I came in after telling me there were no seats to be had that evening.  I ended up going back the next night when it wasn't anywhere close to being as busy as it was the night before.  

Nonna Silvia's is not that large with two cozy dining areas in the place.  The front dining area has a small bar while the back dining area also features a small bar and can be used for private parties or receptions.  

I was seated in the front dining room along a wall and given a menu to look over.  My server for the evening, a man with a thick Eastern European accent by the name of Karol, came over to greet me.  I ordered up a glass of the Avalon cabernet to start out with while I looked through the menu.  

The menu consisted of antipasto appetizers such as grilled or fried calamari, beef carpaccio, grilled portobello mushroom caps, and Prince Edward Island mussels in a San Marzano tomato broth with fresh basil, garlic, and red pepper flakes.  I almost got those along with an order of baked little neck clams as my dinner.  

But the main entree options were just too good to pass up on my first visit.  Pasta dishes - with all pasta made from scratch in the kitchen - included pumpkin ravioli, linguine vongoli with clams, gnocchi in a vodka cream sauce, and Nonna Silvia's signature dish - a housemade Swiss chard fettuccine mixed with extra virgin olive oil, roasted garlic, cherry tomatoes, red pepper flakes, and topped with a parmigiano reggiano cheese.  

In addition to pasta dishes, Nonna Silvia's had bone-in Cajun spiced pork chops, a red snapper entree, a couple of chicken dishes, a beef tenderloin filet with a blue cheese crust and served in a shiitake porto mushroom reduction sauce with garlic mashed potatoes.  But something else on the entree list caught my eye and I ordered that up.  

With my meal, I got a basket of fresh baked bread.  Now, the bread was absolutely fabulous.  It had a thin crust that wasn't too crunchy and the inner part was soft, spongy and literally melted in my mouth.  

I got the house salad which consisted of organic greens with sliced cucumbers, halved cherry tomatoes, shaved carrots and topped with a red wine vinaigrette dressing.  The salad was fine, but it was at this point that I started to notice something.  My server was ignoring me.  

Now, eating out alone is always a tricky part of traveling for a living.  Finding restaurants that are keen on making sure the solo diner is comfortable and welcome has been easier as the years have gone on as restaurateurs have figured out that single diners can make up a significant portion of their business.  I'm still self-conscious enough when I dine alone in a nice restaurant, but a server who is friendly and accommodating can help out a lot.  (Plus, it's bad enough when loud-mouthed diners point out to others at their table that you're eating alone, as what happened on my second visit to Nonna Silvia's.  A typical Chicago wise-ass saw me sitting along at the table next to him, his wife, and another couple and he told his wife to go over and sit with me as I was all alone.  It was pretty embarrassing and I damned near got up and walked out.)

In this instance, I noticed that Karol - who was very friendly with a number of tables he was working around me - had offered freshly cracked black pepper to a table of four people who had gotten their salads after me.  I was never offered the fresh black pepper.  Karol wordlessly placed the salad in front of me and scampered away.  I just sort of brushed it off as him being busy.    

For my main entree that evening, I got the veal piccata.  It featured three veal cutlets, pan-fried and served with capers and garlic on a bed of linguine in a lemon/white wine sauce.  The veal was tender and delicious, as was the linguine in the sauce.  The linguine noodles were thick, yet soft and pliable - cooked to perfection.  Along with the sharp and salty taste of the capers, as well as the pungent fresh chopped fresh garlic there were a lot of taste sensations going on all at once. 

However, Karol continued to ignore me.  Not once did he come over to check on me or ask if I needed anything else.  I was nearly finished with my glass of wine and I would have ordered up a second glass to savor with my dinner.  My water glass, too, was nearly empty and I would have liked to have some more water to counter the salty taste of the capers.  Plus, I really needed a spoon to twirl my linguine with my fork.  As it was, I was having to twirl it on the plate, but that wasn't working well thanks to the laws of gravity and the lemon/white sauce.  

As I continued with my meal, Karol continued to accommodate the tables with three or four people seated at them around me.  He carried on conversations with them - I was guessing that some may have been regular diners.  But he continued to ignore me, right up to and after my plate had been removed by a busboy.  I could only shake my head thinking that he could have been a LOT more attentive to my needs as a solo diner.  When he dropped off the check (not asking if I wanted any dessert - which I didn't), he laid it on the table in front of me and merely said, "Thank you, sir."   Let me just say that Karol didn't get any more than a 10% tip from me that evening.  And I could make the argument that the 10% was possibly too much of a tip.  I was extremely disappointed with the level of service I received that evening.  

Having been thoroughly disappointed in the service, but being thoroughly happy with all aspects of my food, I knew that I couldn't let the lack of attentive service by one person stop me from trying Nonna Silvia's again.  Besides, when I was there on my first visit, a table of four seated near me got a couple of pizzas that looked absolutely great.  Thin crush, fresh toppings - and plenty of them.  It was my kind of pizza.  I had to go back to Nonna Silvia's and try their pizza.  

It was about two months after my initial visit to Nonna Silvia's when I went back into the place to get one of their pizzas.  I was seated at a table in the middle of the cozy dining room (close enough to the table of four people with the jack-ass who made the joke of having his wife go sit with me because I was by myself) and given a menu.  The only problem I saw, initially, were that the pizzas they had on the menu were Italian artisan-style pizza.  They had a margherita pizza with San Marzano tomatoes, fresh basil and bocconcini mozzarella cheese balls; a house-made duck sausage pizza with goat cheese and bocconcini; and a rustic Italian-style pizza with sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, sliced red onions with marinara and mozzarella cheese.  

I was there for a couple minutes - they were busier than the last time I was in - and I noticed Karol was there that evening.  Thankfully, a lady by the name of Rachel rushed past the table, stopped for a moment and came back to me.  "I'll be with you in a moment," she said somewhat breathlessly.  "Can I get you anything to drink in the meantime?  I ordered up an Anchor Steam beer and she cheerily said, "Great!  I'll get it for you and be right back."  

She came back a couple minutes later and said, "Gosh, I'm sorry.  We're out of the Anchor Steam."  I ordered up a Revolution Brewing Co. Anti-Hero IPA instead.  "We have that one, I know for sure," she said to me in an assured and good-natured tone.

When Rachel came back with my beer, she started to give me the specials for the evening.  (Hmmm... come to think of it, Karol never offered any specials to me the night I was there for my previous visit.  Maybe they didn't have any that particular night, but I doubt it.)  I stopped her and told her that I was going to get a pizza.  I was getting ready to order the roasted mushroom medley pizza with the burrata cheese and marinara sauce when Rachel said, "We can do just about anything on a pizza.  Sausage, black olives, Canadian bacon..."

I asked if they could do my standard - Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - a 10-inch size.  (They also have a 12-inch pizza available.)  "Absolutely," Rachel exclaimed.  "Mmmm...  That's sounds delicious!  I'll get it in right away for you."  Rachel's demeanor was already making up for the lack of service I received on my first visit.  

When she brought the pizza out to me about 15 minutes later, I was ready to eat.  She sat this pizza down in front of me with a load of sausage chunks, fresh sliced mushrooms and pepperoni slices all mixed in with fresh mozzarella and a marinara sauce.  The thin-crust of the pizza was light and flaky, but held together very well with all the weight on top.  

And the overall taste of the pizza was excellent.  This was one of the better thin-crust pizzas I've had in all my travels.  While it wasn't big, it was more than filling with all the toppings.  By the time I was done, I was more than satiated.  

And Rachel couldn't have been a better server.  She poured my beer into new glasses at the table with each one I ordered (I had three - and the pizza went very well with beer), she checked on me at least twice while I was waiting on the pizza and a couple more times after the pizza arrived.  She did everything that Karol didn't on my first visit.  You think I'm throwing Karol under the bus in this entry?  I am.  But Rachel did more than enough on this visit to make up for the poor service I received on my initial visit to Nonna Silvia's. 

I knew that I needed to give Nonna Silvia's a second chance after the horrible service I received on my first visit.  Even with that said, the food I had on both visits was outstanding.  The veal piccata I had on my first visit was excellent, and the pizza I had on my second visit was exceptional.  My server on the second visit, Rachel, more than made up for the crappy service I received on my first visit.  She made me feel welcome and she was attentive and pleasant during my second visit.  I'm glad I went back to Nonna Silvia's and I'll probably be going back again sometime soon.  

Zipp's Pizzaria - Adair, IA

In the over 10 years that I've been doing Road Tips, I've garnered a number of people who like to follow the blog over social media.  A handful of these people I've conversed with on an occasional basis, or even met during my travels.  A guy who has been following Road Tips for three or four years also happens to own a pizza place in Adair, IA - Zipp's Pizzeria.  I've been promising the owner that I'd stop by at some point, but most of the times I go by Adair is usually when he's not open (he opens at 5 p.m. through the week - closed on Monday). On a recent trip between Des Moines and Omaha, I made the point to stop in and try one of his pizzas.  

Jim Zimmerline is a pretty well-rounded guy.  He's had his own lawn-care/landscaping business for over 20 years, he's a photographer whose specialty is taking sports action and motor racing photos (click here to see some of his work), and he's somewhat of a pizza connoisseur who travels around the Midwest and beyond, stopping at pizza places along the way to try out different styles of pizza.  (That's sort of how he got hooked up with Road Tips - he found the blog and found that he had a kindred spirit in yours truly who was always looking for new and unique places to eat.)  

Jim had always wanted to run his own restaurant - he'd grown up working in restaurants around the Adair area, primarily at McDonald's, Casey's, and at Happy Chef which is now called the Chuckwagon and the winner of the Iowa Beef Industry Council's Best Burger in Iowa contest for 2016.  (Click here to read the Road Tips' visit to the Chuckwagon.)  While at Casey's, he and a buddy were experimenting in the kitchen while taking a break from making pizzas and they made bread sticks and cheese sticks long before Casey's - or a lot of other places - had those items available.  Jim knew that if he was going to do a restaurant he was going to concentrate on one thing and do it well - a philosophy that we both share.   Given his affinity for pizza, he knew that he could do a pizza place and do it well.

Pictured right - Jim Zimmerline.  Photo courtesy Zipp's Pizzaria Facebook page. 

He and his wife, Tammy, leased a building in downtown Adair and they refurbished the corner space into Zipp's Pizzaria (yeah, it's spelled wrong, but I've always thought pizzeria should be spelled "pizzaria", too) using Jim's nickname in the name of the business.   The Zimmerline's opened Zipp's Pizzaria in May of 2012.

The main road into the center of Adair has been out of commission for a long time due to the reconstruction of a bridge over the railroad on the town's south side.  I was able to take a detour around to the east and over the tracks before I turned left and found Zipp's on the corner of Audubon and 3rd St.  (see map)  It was difficult to miss with the big mural of Jim Zimmerline as a pizza chef on the side of the building.  

As I was walking from down the street toward Zipp's, a large man walked out of the restaurant and toward me.  "How you doin'," he asked in an easy and affable manner as he turned to go into a door in the building next door.   It turned out that they guy was Jim Zimmerline.  

I'll have to admit, I really didn't know what to expect when I walked in the place.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice little cozy space with brick walls and corrugated tin wainscoting along the walls.  A small bar area was up toward the front and the kitchen was in the back.  

There was an area off to the side behind a low wall that featured longer tables for larger groups.  Most of the people that were in there - and it was around 6 p.m. - were seated in the larger of the dining area that evening.  

I took a seat along the east wall of the restaurant and a lady came over a little while after that with a menu.  She asked if I wanted anything to drink and about the only thing they had to offer in terms of beer were Anheuser-Busch and Miller-Coors products - no craft beers, which was a bit of a disappointment. (But, then again, it IS small-town Iowa.)  However, they did have Triple XXX Root Beer available which sort of surprised me.  (More on that in a bit.)  

Zipp's Pizzaria prides itself on using only the freshest ingredients for their pizza.  In addition to making their own dough and pizza sauce, the Zimmerline's will chop fresh veggies daily and the meat is cooked directly on the pizza rather than beforehand like some pizza places will do.  And he uses fresh provolone instead of mozzarella on his pizza, a curious choice in my book, considering Zipp's is one of a very few places I've found that uses provolone instead of mozzarella.  (Which is probably why he does it that way.)  

And it must be working because Zipp's has garnered mentions on web sites such as Red Tricycle (a family web site geared to raising children), First We Feast and by PBS as having the best pizza in Iowa.  And last year the Iowa Tourism Office had a March Pizza Madness Award where people voted in three rounds for the best pizza in Iowa, and Zipp's taco pizza won the Best Pizza in Iowa award.  

Honestly, I didn't know any of that when I went into the place.  But I was intrigued by some of the pizzas they had to offer.  They had a chicken broccoli pizza they were featuring that evening, but the other one they were showing on the menu was a chili dog pizza.  Like me, it turns out that Jim Zimmerline is a chili dog aficionado and he came up with a chili dog pizza with sliced hot dogs, topped with cheddar cheese, chili and onions topped with yellow mustard.  I would have to be in the right frame of mind to have one of those.

On my initial visit to Zipp's, I went with my standard Italian sausage, mushroom and pepperoni.  They have 3 different sizes of thin-crust pizza - 10", 14" and 16" - and I went with the small 10".  (They also have a thicker crust 12" pizza available.)  They were pretty busy that evening, not only in the dining room, but with carry-out orders so it took a little over 20 minutes to get my pizza.  

Jim Zimmerline and I are cut from the same cloth - we both like a good thin-crust pizza and the Zipp's pizza was the perfect thickness for the crust.  It was misshapen, charred on the edges and cut into party cut (or tavern) squares.  The pepperoni slices were large, the provolone was slathered over the top and had some nice caramelization.  I let it set for awhile letting it cool down while all the flavors coagulated together.  

From the first bite, I knew it was a great pizza.  Not the best I've had in all my travels, but a great pizza for a small town in west central Iowa.  Actually, it was a great pizza for anywhere in Iowa.  The Italian sausage had a bit of a spicy bite and the mushrooms were fresh and earthy.  The saltiness and spicy flavor helped this pizza pass my "Does it Taste Good With a Beer?" test.  The sauce wasn't all that sweet - which is fine with me - and had a nice tomato sharpness on the tongue.  I was a little taken back by the creaminess of the provolone cheese as I sort of missed the stringy nature of mozzarella.  But the provolone was fine enough.   This was the perfect sized pizza for one person, but I have to say that it was so good that I was sort of crestfallen after I had my final piece.  I could have had a couple more squares and while I would have been stuffed, I would have been happy.  

I went up to the front counter to pay for the pizza and the beers I had that evening and Tammy Zimmerline was manning the cash register.  I asked if Jim was in and she said, "Do you know Jim?"

"No," I replied.  "But he may know who I am."  

She went to get him from the building next door and about three minutes later he came in.  I introduced myself and at first he had a blank look on his face.  When I went a little deeper into my explanation of my blog, his face lit up and he said, "Oh, sure!  Yeah, yeah!  You finally made it in!  Great!"  He asked me how I liked the pizza and I told him it was stellar.  

We stood and talked for nearly 20 minutes - or maybe more - as he told me of all the places he'd been to, some that I had been to that he tried from reading Road Tips, and his philosophy of his restaurant.  "We don't do anything half-assed," he told me in an enthusiastic, yet, matter-of-fact fashion.  "There's too many other places out there that do it half-assed."  

I had noticed that he sold Triple XXX root beer.  "This is the place out in West Lafayette, Indiana, right," I asked.  (Click here to read Road Tips' entry on the Triple XXX restaurant.)  

"Yep," he replied.  "In fact, I'm heading out there to get some more root beer tomorrow.  And I'm going to stop at a couple pizza places on the way out and some more on the way back."  Here's a guy who will drive nearly 500 miles to get root beer for his restaurant because he thinks it's the best in the world.  And it is very good root beer.  That, to me, showed the passion Jim has for his business and bringing only the best to his customers.  Plus, he's testing out other pizza places to get ideas and to see how his pizza stacks up against others out there.  

I wanted to visit more with Jim, but I had another hour plus drive to get to Omaha and I didn't want to take up any more of his time.  But I told him that I'd let him know when I was coming through again so we could sit down and talk some more.  

Jim Zimmerline told me that he has people regularly come from up to 75 miles away to eat pizza at Zipp's Pizzaria.  And I can easily see why.  The pizza I had at Zipp's was very, very good - one of the better pizza places I have encountered in Iowa.  It's difficult for me to say which pizza I've had in my travels is better, but the pizza at Zipp's easily rivals the top and more established places I've found in the Midwest.  Take it from me, Zipp's is worth the side trip off Interstate 80 to experience a very good pizza in a cozy and friendly small-town atmosphere. 

Candlelite - Chicago

On the recommendation of a buddy of mine at one of my dealers in the Chicago area, he told me to head over to the Candlelite, a long-time neighborhood bar/restaurant located on N. Western Ave. in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the city's far north side.  "They have surprisingly good pizza there," he told me a couple three years ago.  Over a year ago, I went there one evening to try their food and the place was packed with no parking in the immediate area.  But I was still determined to try the place at some point.  It was just after I finished up at one of my dealers in Chicago one recent early evening that I stopped at - and was able to get into - the Candlelite.  

The Candlelite has been around since 1950 when the Dileo family opened the supper club/roadhouse-style restaurant just a couple blocks south of Evanston's border with Chicago.  Even before Prohibition took effect in 1919, Evanston was a dry town for alcohol as an agreement with Northwestern University said that alcohol could not be served within 4 miles of campus.  Because of this law, many Evanstonians and students at Northwestern had to go outside the city limits to get a drink.  The Candlelite thrived in the 50's and 60's thanks to Evanston's city laws on no liquor sales.  Even after Evanston's prohibition on alcohol ended in 1972, the Candlelite had already built a healthy and loyal clientele who kept coming back for their pizza, homemade French onion soup, and chicken wings.   

The Dileo family - who had interests in other restaurants and banquet facilities around the city - continued to run the Candlelite with sister Jean Dileo taking over the business in 1979.  After running it for 15 years, she decided it was time to sell.  Her cousin, John Enright, had graduated in the mid-80's from the University of Iowa with a degree in film and was making commercials in the Chicago area while working part time at the Candlelite.  Enright decided that working in a restaurant was much more fun than making commercials, so he bought the place in 1994.  

Trying to raise a family and run a bar that was slowly deteriorating due to neglect was weighing heavily on Enright.  After six years of running the place on his own, Enright enlisted the help of Tom O'Malley, a former financial advisor who found that his true calling was running bars.  O'Malley joined Enright at the Candlelite in 2000, but the two soon discovered that they both had the same dream - to open a restaurant in downtown Evanston.  In 2002, O'Malley, Enright and another partner opened Bluestone, an American-style known for their upscale pub fare, comfort food, and pizza.

Rather than putting money into the decaying infrastructure at the Candlelite, Enright decided to shutter the place in 2002.  It sat empty, much to the dismay of loyal Candlelite customers who missed the place, for a couple years.  Then in 2004, a group of four investors including Pete Vernon and Chicago Athletic Clubs owner Pat Cunningham bought the Candlelite and put in tens of thousands of dollars sprucing up the place and reopening the restaurant resurrecting much of the food on the original menu.  Today, Pete Vernon is still an owner along with co-owner Pat Fowler.  

It's tough to miss the Candlelite while driving along N. Western Avenue south of Howard with its large 50's style neon sign sticking out from the building.  (see map) I was able to find parking on a side street just around the corner from the Candlelite on this visit.  It was early, around 5:20 or so when I walked into the place.  A handful of early diners were already there.   

You would have to classify the Candlelite a sports bar as there are a number of flat screen televisions hanging from the wall along with a lot of local sports memorabilia.  The L-shaped establishment was open and roomy.

The Candlelite is also an official Chicago Blackhawks bar with all the televisions turned to the hockey match each time the team plays.  One of the waitresses told me that the place can get pretty crazy in there when the Blackhawks are playing.  I guessed that the night I had shown up to the place a year or so before was probably a night the Hawks were on TV.  

I ended up seated at the bar in the center of the place and ordered up a Revolution Brewing Co. Anti-Hero IPA that they had on tap.  The bartender asked if I was going to eat and he put a menu on the top of the bar for me to look through.  I pretty much knew that I was going to order a pizza, but I wanted to see what else they had to offer.  

It was pretty much what you would expect from a sports bar - but a sports bar that offered some upscale items on the menu.  Their signature appetizers seemed to be either loaded French fries and tater tots with a choice of a red wine-garlic sauce; or fries and tots with a buffalo sauce and blue cheese; or loaded fries and tots with a melted cheddar cheese, chopped green onions, real bacon bits, and sour cream.  They also a parmesan herb topping with a side of marinara sauce for their French fries and tater tots.  All four of the toppings along with the fried potatoes sounded sinfully great.

They also had veggie or chicken quesadillas, barbecued brisket nachos, fried calamari, fried pickles and, of course, wings on the appetizer menu.  And they also had poutine - fries topped with gravy, cheese curds, chopped bacon bits and scallions.  I love good poutine when I can find it.  

They had a couple three burgers and five or so sandwiches on the menu, but you could tell that their focus was on pizza.  Thin crust pizza is their specialty, but last year Vernon and Fowler decided to offer something new - a rectangular pan pizza that originated in Detroit.  While not calling it "Detroit-style" pizza on the menu, 10" X 14" pan pizza was offered with a choice of fresh toppings, as well as with a red or a white pizza sauce.  

I was easy to work with that evening - I got my usual Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza, the 10" size.  Cut into party (or also called tavern) squares, it was loaded with fresh mushroom slices, pepperoni, and chunks of sausage.  The cheese had somewhat caramelized on the top of the pizza while the edge had a burnt crispiness.  The bartender had brought over a triumvirate of shaker jars containing grated parmesan cheese, ground oregano and crushed red peppers.  

And the pizza was wonderful - the crust was crisp, but it wasn't overcooked.  The toppings were fresh - especially the mushroom slices - and the sausage had a bit of a spicy taste.  The pepperoni slices were spicy and salty giving the pizza a rousing affirmation from my "does it taste good with a beer?" test.  The cheese was creamy - I guessed that they used a provolone cheese instead of mozzarella - and the pizza sauce was sweet and tangy.  It was a perfect size for one person and I was pretty full when I finished the "honey pot" center piece of the pizza.  

My friend couldn't have been more spot on about how good the pizza was at the Candlelite.  What a great little neighborhood spot, too!  Keep in mind that parking can be somewhat of a bear at times, and if there's a Blackhawks game on TV the place is likely to be packed.  They have a good beer list, some interesting appetizers and their pizza is outstanding, as well.  Even if you're not into sports, the Candlelite is a good place to go get a good thin-crust Chicago pizza.

LaBarra - Oak Brook, IL

One of the more hyped restaurant openings in the western suburbs of Chicago last fall was the new pizza restaurant from artisan baker and restaurateur Rich Labriola, Pizza Barra.  I have eaten at both of his other restaurants - Labriola Bakery Cafe in Oak Brook and in downtown Chicago (click here to read about my visit to the one in Oak Brook) - and was impressed with the food on both visits.   Since my visit earlier this summer, Labriola has changed the name of Pizza Barra to LaBarra signifying a shift in their food philosophy to more of an Italian restaurant more so than just being pizza-centric. 

Rich Labriola's background in the culinary arts began at his parents south side Chicago pizza joint when he was a young boy.  He learned how to bake artisan breads at a young age and ended up studying under world-class bread makers to learn from the masters.  Labriola found that taking the extra step or the extra minute to sift or add ingredients made all the difference in the world.

He opened his artisan bakery - Labriola Baking Company - in 1993 using specially designed baking ovens from Italy and using only the finest ingredients for his breads.  Not long after he started his bakery, he was selling his breads to a number of top-end restaurants in Chicago.  At its peak, Labriola Baking Company was supplying bread to over 700 restaurants in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.  

Pictured right - Rich Labriola (Photo courtesy Crain's Chicago Business)

Labriola dove into the restaurant business when he opened the first of his two Labriola Bakery Cafe locations in the Oak Brook Promenade in west suburban Oak Brook in 2009.  He sold his namesake bakery in 2013 and opened a second Labriola Bakery Cafe just off Michigan Ave. at E. Grand.  While the Labriola Bakery Cafe in Oak Brook is an upscale cafe, the one in downtown Chicago features a more formal Italian menu in an even more upscale setting.  

For his pizza restaurant, Labriola joined forces with Chris Macchia whose background included stints as the executive chef at The Florentine and Coco Pazzo, two highly acclaimed Italian restaurants in Chicago.  The two came up the idea of having all different types of pizza from Chicago deep-dish style, to a thin-crust tavern style, to a coal oven-baked Neapolitan-style of pizza.  Macchia helped Labriola fashion a menu that used locally grown and sourced items for the pizza they served.  With both Labriola and Macchia well-known in the Chicago restaurant community, Pizza Barra opened to much fanfare in September of last year.  Initial reviews were overly favorable.  (Macchia has since gone on to become the executive chef at Nonnina which was the former Piccolo Sogno Due in Chicago's River North neighborhood.)  

I had a late day meeting with one of my dealers in the Oak Brook area and decided to head over to Pizza LaBarra - which what it was still called at the time - to try one of their pizzas.  It is located on the east side of the Oak Brook Promenade, literally a stone's throw from the Labriola Bakery Cafe off of Butterfield Road.  (see map)  Valet parking is available at peak times, but this was just after 6 p.m. when I was there and there was plenty of parking in the lot out front.  

Walking into Pizza LaBarra, the pizza ovens are prominently on display behind the counter.  There are two ovens - a gas oven for regular tavern-style or deep-dish pizza - and a coal-fired oven for the artisan Neapolitan pizzas the restaurant offers.  

There is a nice outside patio dining area that was nearly full the evening that I was there.  It overlooks a small man-made pond and is fully covered.   

There are a couple of dining areas off to the main dining area.  These are used for private parties or overflow from the main dining area in the middle of the restaurant.  A divider separates the two rooms that can be individually closed off.  A large mural of black and white photographs depicting the melding of Italian and American cultures ran the length of the two rooms.

The main dining room features a large rectangular bar with a window that looks into the kitchen.  It features contemporary decor and a number of booths along the wall.  Wooden floors and a wooden ceiling made the room a little loud and echo-y.  

I ended up sitting at the bar and was greeted by Angel, a pleasant young guy who handed me a menu to look over.  They had a number of beers on tap and I ended up getting a Goose Island Summertime, their seasonal summertime Kolsch.  

The menu has changed since I was there initially - as I said they went more to an Italian-centric menu with pizza now sort of down on the menu.  But I was there for the pizza that night and I got my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - a small thin-crust. I was tempted to get a deep-dish pizza given Rich Labriola's reputation of making great bread.  I could almost imagine how good the deep-dish crust would be at Pizza LaBarra.

The pizza came out and was piping hot.  The chunks of the sausage that Pizza LaBarra sources from DiRusso Italian Sausage Co. were sweet and spicy.  The pepperoni slices were large and salty, and the sliced mushrooms were very fresh.  The sauce they used on the pizzas at Pizza LaBarra was a little sweet, yet had a good tangy taste.  The crust, however, was light, flaky and wonderful.   The overall taste of the pizza with everything wrapped together was outstanding.  There wasn't much I could quibble about with the taste of the pizza.  A small was just enough for me.  I was full after I finished the last of the "honey-pot" squares in the center of the tavern-cut pizza - the best pieces of any tavern-cut pizza.  

I've encountered a lot of great pizza places in Chicago over the years, but I will say that the thin-crust, tavern-cut pizza that I got at Pizza LaBarra would give some of my favorites a run for their money.  The hand-tossed crust was wonderful and the toppings were plentiful and full of flavor.  Pizza LaBarra is a little more upscale than most of the pizza places I like in the Chicago area, but the service I received was fine, and the surroundings and decor of the restaurant was pleasant.  I'm definitely going back to try one of Pizza LaBarra's deep-dish pizza sometime this fall.   

Primo's Pizza - Rockford, IL

A couple of years ago, I was talking with one of my friends from the Rockford area in northern Illinois about the seemingly large number of good pizza joints that are in and around Rockford.  He was telling me of a little hole in the wall place that he and his wife favored over all of them - Primo's Pizza.  After a meeting in Rockford one evening and before I drove on to Chicago for the night, I sought out Primo's for a pizza. 

Dominic Loria was born in Sicily and as a young boy he immigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1953.  He ended up in Rockford and eventually met his wife, Anna, who also was born in Sicily and immigrated to the U.S. in 1969.  In 1990, the husband and wife team opened Primo's Pizza in an unassuming spot in a small strip mall near the intersection of N. Guilford Road, N. Prospect and Rural streets north and east of downtown Rockford.  (see map)

It was around 6:15 when I walked into Primo's that evening.  It was not a large place - it sat possibly 35 people maximum.  Bright red and green accent trim - the main colors on the Italian flag - were prevalent throughout the place.  It wasn't posh, but it was certainly cozy in the dining room.  This was your quintessential neighborhood pizza joint. 

I took a spot at a booth along the wall.  A young lady came out and gave me a menu.  They don't serve beer at Primo's Pizza, so I just had a water with my meal. 

They do a large amount of carry-out pizza business at Primo's.  While I was in there, at least a half-dozen people came in to get pizza to go.  I understand that they also have delivery at Primo's. 

In addition to pizza, they have a number of pasta dishes - lasagna, mostaccioli, spaghetti, tortellini - as well as chicken and veal parmigiana.  Appetizers, salads, and sandwiches rounded out the menu at Primo's.  They have three different types of pizzas to choose from - thin crust, pan or stuffed.  Sizes range from a 10" (small) to a 16" (X-large). 

I ordered my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom thin crust pizza in the small size.  My young lady server brought it out and set it on a pizza rack on top of my table.  The crust was thin, but it was light and airy, almost sort of fluffy around the edges. The toppings were plentiful with large slices of pepperoni, a good amount of sliced mushrooms and some good sized chunks of sausage on top of the pizza.  The pizza wasn't overly flowing with mozzarella and sauce, but it was enough to make an edible impact with each bite.  This was simply a very good pizza.   

One thing to take note - Primo's is closed on Mondays.  Also, they don't have beer or wine in the place.  I don't know if you can bring your own in, but it wouldn't hurt to call ahead to see if that would be all right with them before you go.  I can't say enough about the pizza I had - it was superb for a thin crust pizza.  The crust was light and airy, the toppings were plentiful, the sauce was tangy, and it had just about the right amount of mozzarella to help compliment every bite of the pizza.  My friend didn't steer me wrong on the pizza at Primo's.  While it's far to say this was an elegant or classy place, Primo's certainly served up a killer pizza.  

Pizza Man - Milwaukee

"Hello, Pizza Man Pizza?  This is the King.  Uh, huh.  Elll-vis.  Send me over a large, no, make that an extra large cheese, no, make that two extra large cheese, no, make that two extra large double cheese pizzas."  (Singing)  "I'm young, I'm alone and I'm hungry..." 

That was a comedy bit I used to hear back in the mid-70's before Elvis Presley passed away.  I always liked the name of the place in the piece - Pizza Man Pizza.  So, when I started to travel to Milwaukee a number of years ago, I found that there was a popular place on the city's east side that was named Pizza Man.  I had tried to get in a couple times before, but the 55-seat restaurant was packed both times and it would have been an hour wait to get a seat.  Then, and quite unfortunately, it burned to the ground in January of 2010.  There was talk for awhile that Pizza Man wouldn't be back in business, but they did reopen in a new location in late July of 2013.  I finally had the chance to go try a Pizza Man pizza on a visit to Milwaukee in the late part of last year. 

Mike Amidzich was a mid-20's hippie entrepreneur who would take his barbecue wagon around to outdoor concerts in the Midwest in the late 60's and into 1970.  After a disastrous weekend at the Wadena rock festival in NE Iowa in 1970, Amidzich found himself completely broke and had to shut down his small enterprise. 

Coming back to his hometown of Milwaukee, Amidzich went looking for a job and was talking to someone about becoming a pizza cook.  However, that opportunity was pulled out from underneath him at the last moment.  But when Amidzich found that another pizza place had recently gone out of business, he got a small bank loan - co-signed by his parents - and bought the former Rudy's Pizza, a take-out place at the corner of North Ave. and Oakland Ave. on Milwaukee's east side, and opened Pizza Man. 

Initially, he used the recipes that were left from Rudy's Pizza, but found that most of the ingredients were frozen beforehand.  He decided that he wanted to use only the freshest of ingredients on his pizzas.  Customer's immediately noticed the better taste of the Pizza Man pizzas.

Amidzich embraced the counter-culture atmosphere that was growing in Milwaukee and decided to market to the people who liked what he liked.  Nearly all of the pizza places in Milwaukee at the time either closed at 10 p.m., or they didn't deliver.  (Or both!)  Knowing that people who liked to party late in the night usually meant that they had the munchies, Pizza Man delivered up to 3 a.m. during the week and 4 a.m. on the weekends.  And to help quench their customer's thirst, Amidzich provided free quart bottles of Pepsi products with each pizza.  Business got so good for Pizza Man that they became one of the largest independent Pepsi accounts in the state of Wisconsin - and they gave away the vast majority of the pop! 

A year after opening and with business booming, Amidzich asked the bike shop next door if they would mind moving to a larger location down the street so he could take over the space for a dining room.  Pizza Man started sit down service in 1971.  He built a small bar area and stocked the back bar with a number of higher-end liquors - Scotch, vodka, liqueurs, and appertifs, mainly.   But that didn't seem to go over well with the patrons eating pizzas.  He eventually took out the back bar liquor cabinets and put in wine racks.  Amidzich loved wine and he felt that it was a better companion with pizza than hard liquor.

Intially, Amidzich (pictured right - photo courtesy Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) turned to a wine sommelier to help him pick the wines.  California wines were beginning to become the rage and Amidzich and the sommelier picked out a number of wines to stock at Pizza Man.  Within a short period of time, he garnered an impressive collection of great wines one of the best in the greater Milwaukee area earning Pizza Man the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.  At one point in time, Pizza Man offered 600 different bottles of wine - all of them available by the glass.  Suddenly, Pizza Man became one of the largest wine bars, not only in Wisconsin, not only in the U.S., but in the world!

In July of 2010, a fire erupted next door at the Black and White Cafe destroying both the cafe and Pizza Man, along with a couple of other businesses and a number of apartments that were located on the second floor of the building.  (Photo at left courtesy Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)  Authorities eventually indicted the cafe's owner for setting the fire to garner over $100,000 in insurance money so he could move to a new location.  (Even though the cafe owner was acquitted by a jury in 2013, the judge in the case still gave him a 2 1/2 year sentence for probable cause.  That sentence was thrown out on appeal in 2015.) 

Amidzich lost everything.  Even the bottled wine stored in the basement had to be destroyed.  It was a low part in his life, but he decided he wanted to rebuild.  However, banks were unwilling to work with Amidzich regarding his financial needs to build a new Pizza Man restaurant.  Down in the dumps, Amidzich announced that Pizza Man would be no more, and that his wife, Deanna, and he would focus on their other business - Stinky Gringo pre-mixed margaritas. 

But Pizza Man was his number one love and toward the end of 2012, Amidzich announced that a group of Pizza Man fans had approached him about helping him reopen in a new location.  The funds from the private investors allowed Amizich to find a new building on Downer Ave. less than a mile from the original Pizza Man in what was the former Lixx Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt shop.  Amidzich worked with the progressive Milwaukee architecture firm Rinka Chung on the design for the new Pizza Man.

After extensive remodeling of the space including putting in an upstairs eating area with rooftop and deck seating, a larger bar with 12 taps and coolers for 50 different types of bottled beers, and the installation of the same-style of the huge barn-style wooden doors that were so heavy that they needed a counterweight to control their opening and closing, Pizza Man had a soft opening on July 30, 2013 featuring a limited menu.  However, thanks to a mix-up via social media, hundreds of people showed up for the soft opening overwhelming the staff.  Pizza man officially opened with a full menu a couple weeks later.

In the meantime, Amidzich - who is in his early 70's - opened a second Pizza Man location in the summer of 2015 at the Mayfair Collection, an upscale mall in west suburban Wauwatosa.  Both locations have about 250 different bottles of wine - all by the glass.  It's not quite the over 600 bottles of wine Amidzich had at the original Pizza Man location, but it's a nice start as he and his sommelier, Heather Korte, are trying to add about 10 new varieties a month. 

I was staying in downtown Milwaukee and I made my way up Prospect Ave., then after a couple jogs I was on N. Downer Ave. pulling up to Pizza Man which sits on the corner of Downer and E. Belleville Place.  (see map)  The parking around the place is primarily street parking and I was able to find a spot just down the street from the restaurant. 

Many of the tables and booths were filled when I got in around 8 p.m.  I asked the hostess if I could get food at the bar.  She said it was no problem.  She let me pick out my spot at the crowded bar - I think I got the last seat - and she left off a menu for me to look through.  My bartender/server that evening was a young man with the distinctive name of Eder.  I had a quick look through the beer list and I had him bring me a Lagunitas IPA while I looked through the wine list just to see what they had to offer.  It was an impressive collection of West Coast U.S. wines, most of them from California, but they also had a number of wines from Washington and Oregon. 

The inside of the place had sort of a rustic, yet urban look to the place.  The back bar was sent in an arch of bricks with a long tall bar in front.  There was a tin roof ceiling above the bar and the famous wine bottle Christmas tree at the old Pizza man has been replaced by a wine bottle chandelier that hangs above the staircase.   (Photo at right courtesy Milwaukee Business Journal.)

All the pizzas at Pizza Man start with a choice of thin crust, pan, or gluten free dough.  From there, you choose a sauce - the classic is Pizza Man's original red pizza sauce, the Italia features a red sauce made out of San Marzano tomatoes, the bianca is a white garlic sauce, and they have a pesto sauce base, as well.  The toppings start with a dozen different types of meat including spicy lamb sausage, pancetta and prosciutto from the La Quercia artisan meat company out of Norwalk, IA, and grass-fed ground beef.  Vegetable toppings to choose from number over 20 including raddachio, rappini, Brussels sprouts, Kalamata olives, Calabrian hot peppers, and caramelized pineapple.  And Pizza Man offers nearly a dozen different types of cheese including goat cheese, a 3-year-old cheddar, smoked provolone, gorgonzola, and cream cheese.  Of course, they have fresh mozzarella, parmesan and romano cheese. 

Pizza Man specialty pizzas - which number over a dozen - include the Atomic made with the San Marzano sauce, salami, pancetta, Calabrian peppers, red onions, smoked provolone, and oregano; the Greca has the white garlic sauce base, spicy lamb sausage, pine nuts, oregano and red onions; the Apugliese is topped with sausage, rapini, romano cheese, and an anchovy-garlic oil; and the Avantgardner is Pizza Man's vegetarian specialty pizza topped with grilled egg plant, rapini, red peppers, onions, oregano, ricotta cheese and a lemon oil. 

The one thing about it, because of the eclectic sauces, vegetable and meat toppings, the pizza at Pizza Man isn't cheap.  Many of the specialty pizzas started out at $17 for a small (12") thin crust pizza.  A small pizza made with the San Marzano sauce base starts at $12.  From there, meat toppings run $3 or $4 dollars each and vegetables run $2 each.  Additional cheese toppings run $3 bucks.  And it doesn't matter with the size of pizza - the price of the toppings is the same no matter the size (small, medium - 14", large - 18"), so getting a larger pizza is a better value.

I went with my old standby Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  I went with the thin crust - a small - and with the San Marzano sauce and fresh mozzarella cheese.  The sausage served on Pizza Man's pizza comes from Vinny's Sausage Company, a Milwaukee-based meat company known for their bratwurst, Italian, Hungarian and Polish sausage.  The pizza you're looking at on the left ran right at $23 bucks.  Ouch! 

So, it had better be great, right?  Well, it wasn't THAT great - I mean it was very good with the fresh toppings including the zippy pepperoni slices, the chunky and zesty Italian sausage, and the fresh and earthy sliced mushrooms.  The San Marzano sauce was difficult to decipher on the tongue - I would have liked to have tried the classic Pizza Man sauce to see if there was a significant difference.  The fresh mozzarella was very good, however.  And the crust had a caramelized ring with a soft, yet crunchy texture.   This was a very good pizza - but $23 bucks worth?  For a 12" pizza? Hmmm...  Tough to say.

I can see where some people would get sticker shock if they didn't know what to expect with the prices of the pizzas at Pizza Man.  And for those of you who haven't been there before - like me - that's why I'm telling you.  With my pizza and three Lagunitas IPA's (beers were $6 bucks each - double ouch!), my bill came to over $50 bucks with tax and a tip for Eder's fine job of taking care of me.  I mean, the pizza was very good.  I don't know if it was that good of a value, but it was different than most any other pizza in the Milwaukee area.  And given that the place was packed - and they've opened a second location in Wauwatosa - the people who go to Pizza Man realize that they're getting a better pizza and are willing to pay for it.  And that's what Pizza Man is evidently going for - a better and different pizza than what's available elsewhere.  I just don't know if it's worth it, though.  (Photo courtesy Milwaukee Business Journal.)

Campisi's - Dallas, TX

When we were in Dallas for a trade show last fall, right across the street from our hotel was an Italian place called Campisi's.  One of my colleagues and I went in for a beer at the bar and reported back that both the place and the food looked pretty good.  So, for dinner that evening we - as a group - walked back across the street to Campisi's. 

It turns out that Campisi's has somewhat of a storied and notorious history.  It all started just after the turn of the 20th century when Carlo Campisi and his wife, Antonia, emigrated to New Orleans from Sicily.  He got a letter from a relative living in Dallas telling him of a grocery store that was for sale in that city for the price of $800.  The Campisi's moved to Dallas, bought the store and moved into an apartment above the business where they raised six kids.  All six kids worked in the store at one time or another.  

Just after World War II, Carlo Campisi - known as "Papa" to his family - got into the bar business after he bought a place called the Idle Hour.  A cousin visiting from New York suggested that Papa make pizza pies that were the rage in the Big Apple.  Armed with a recipe, Papa made the first pizza in Dallas.  His two sons, Joe and Sam were working in the bar at the time helping to promote the pizzas that the family were making.  

In 1950, the Campisi family bought a place on Mockingbird Lane in Dallas that was called the Egyptian Lounge.  After buying the place, the family didn't have enough money to fully change the sign out front so they called it Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant.  After the death of Papa and Sam Campisi, Joe Campisi took over ownership of the restaurant.

Pictured right - Joe Campisi

Joe Campisi transformed himself into a larger than life character who mingled with politicians and sports figures.  Through his political contacts, Campisi was able to get one of the first liquor licenses issued in the state of Texas since Prohibition when liquor by the drink was passed by the state legislature in 1971.  Passing liquor by the drink also meant the end to a growing amount of illegal liquor activity in restaurants across the state - some say that the Mafia was involved in massive amounts of bootlegging in the state up to 1971. 

Rumors that Joe Campisi was a powerful mob boss in Dallas circulated for years.  It was true that Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant seemed to be a gathering place of the more seedy side of society, and that Joe Campisi was close friends with New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcellos.  And the family today concedes that bookmaking activities did take place in the restaurant in the 50's and 60's.  But there was never any direct evidence that Joe Campisi was a mob boss as many said he was.

It's been said that Jack Ruby dined with Joe Campisi at the restaurant the night before the Kennedy assassination in 1963.  And it's been said that Joe Campisi gave Ruby the order to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald to keep him from talking about the Mafia's involvement in Kennedy's murder.  It got to a point that the FBI staked out the place taking pictures of people who entered the place.  They even tapped the phones of the restaurant trying to find any evidence of organzied crime going on.  But none of those allegations were ever substantiated and today the Campisi family actually plays up the notoriety of Joe Campisi's supposed Mafia ties.

Joe Campisi died in 1990 and Joe's brother, Corky, continued to run the original Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant.  David Campisi - who was the son of Marie Campisi, a daughter to Joe Campisi - went out on his own in 1993 to open the first of what are now 10 Campisi's locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.  David Campisi (pictured left) continues his family's legacy as the face of the Campisi's restaurants.  (David Campisi photo courtesy Dallas Business Journal) 

The downtown location for Campisi's is located on Elm Street in what was an old F.W. Woolworth building.  (see map)  We were actually pretty early for dinner because some of the guys had traveled in to Dallas that day and had missed lunch.  I was hungry, so it didn't matter to me that it was going to be an early dinner. 

The bar area wasn't all that large, but it was stylish and contemporary.  The bar, itself, was pretty small.

We were seated at a table near the bar in the dining area upfront.  (There's also a larger dining area toward the back of the restaurant.)  Large pictures of what I believe are Campisi family members hung on the walls in this area.  We were given menus and I immediately ordered up what I had at the bar earlier in the afternoon - a Lagunitas IPA. 

It's entirely Italian at Campisi's - pasta dishes, chicken and veal entrees, grilled salmon, and - of course - Campisi's famous pizza were featured on the menu.  Most of the menu was heavily Southern Italian influenced with a lot of entrees served with a red sauce.  However, they did offer a variety of sauces to go with their pasta dishes including an alfredo sauce, a creamy tomato sauce, a meat marinara sauce, and an olive and garlic sauce.

Someone was smart and immediately ordered up a couple plates of the fried calamari.  The calamari had a wonderful breaded batter on the outside and were served with some of Campisi's very good marinara sauce.  These were tasty little morsels. 

I had been on a ravioli with marinara sauce kick as of late.  I got the beef filled ravioli with the meat sauce.  And I also got a couple of meatballs to go along with the plate.  The meat sauce was thick, zesty, sweet and tasty.  The pillowy ravioli were thick and filled with a wonderfully seasoned beef.  Even the meatballs were a wonderful taste sensation - a mixture of beef and pork mixed with Italian seasonings.  This was a damned fine meal - and there was a lot of it.  The portions were generous, to say the least. 

My colleague Mitch went with the veal parmigiana.  It was a thick piece of breaded veal scallopini topped with cheese and served with a red sauce on the side.  Mitch followed my lead and got a single meatball to go along with his meal.  He said that the veal parm was excellent.  And, like me, he was having a hard time finishing the whole meal.  There was a lot of food on his plate. 

My colleagues Francois and Matt decided to try Campisi's "famous pizza".  We didn't know at the time that Campisi's probably had the first pizza served in Dallas.  The pizza is made in Campisi's signature oval shape and features a very thin crust.  They got the large "All the Way" pizza that was topped with sausage, salami, mushrooms, green onions and green peppers.  They offered me a bite when they were nearly done and I took them up on that.  I had a small corner piece and the tomato sauce was very good - it was sweet and tangy.  The crust of the pizza was crisp, but not cracker crisp.  I'm sure that I would have enjoyed getting a pizza, but I was happy with what I had. 

For really not knowing what to expect with Campisi's, well, I have to admit that I was pretty impressed with the meal that I had when we were there.  The ravioli with the meat sauce was very good and I really like the taste of the meatballs I got as an extra.  The fried calamari was very good, as well.  Everyone at the table seemed to be happy with their meals.  We had a couple waiters who we had hopping with our repeated requests for drinks and extra whatevers, and they were more than up to the task of taking good care of us.  If this Campisi's location is indicative of the other ones in the Dallas area, then any of them should be able to dish out with a great old world Italian meal. 

The Red Pines Bar and Grill - Onalaska, WI

I was up in the La Crosse area for the night earlier this year as I had an appointment with a dealer in the morning.  I asked the front desk people at the hotel if there were any "supper club"-type places in the area.  One of them came up with the suggestion of the Red Pines Bar and Grill up the road a bit in Onalaska.  "It's sort of tough to find," she told me.  "But my husband and I like it a lot."  With an address plugged into my GPS, I took off to find the Red Pines Bar and Grill.  

In 2008, Mark Koblitz - a rental property owner in La Crosse - bought the former Red Sails Campground and Resort along Lake Onalaska which is part of the Mississippi River north of the city.  He briefly contemplated building either a storage unit or an apartment building on part of the site before he decided to build a restaurant.  But he didn't want it to be like any other campground/neighborhood bar that did cheap burgers and frozen pizzas in convection ovens.  He wanted a place that would be nice with fresh fish dinners, steaks and high quality foods.  

Koblitz broke ground on the restaurant in November of 2008 and built much of the bar and tables for the restaurant himself out of white pine wood.  He made a small patio area off to the side that looked out onto the lake through the thick trees out back.  The restaurant did have burgers and pizza, but they were high quality burgers and the pizzas were made from scratch with fresh ingredients.  Dinners included fresh fish, steaks and chicken entrees.  

Running a restaurant was a daunting task for Koblitz and he eventually sold the bar and grill to a couple of his regular patrons, Barbara and Larry Leis.  Barbara Leis had been a longtime cafe owner in La Crosse before retiring to take care of her mother in 2006 and Larry Leis had recently retired as a business management consultant.  Barbara missed the interaction between customers and when the opportunity to buy the Red Pines came up, the Leis' jumped on it.  The Leis' are joined in the restaurant by their son-in-law Robin Godolphin who had run the Dark Horse Bar and Grill in Boulder, CO for five years.  They kept much of the food on the menu, adding their own little twists here and there.  

It was around 7:30 when I pulled into the Red Pines.  It was sort of a confusing way to get to the restaurant, but the GPS brought me right to the parking lot.  (see map)  There was plenty of parking and I found a spot near the building.

It was a beautiful evening with a nearly full moon rising over the trees in the southeast. I contemplated eating out in the patio area as it was very nice out there.   But it was sort of warm and humid, and I was also worried about mosquitoes annoying me while I was trying to eat.   

I decided to eat inside in the dining room.  The dining area is a large open space with a three sided bar as the centerpiece.  Large suspension beams hung over the dining room with a number of wall-mounted flat panel televisions showing baseball games.  I took a seat at one of the white pine tables near the bar.  My server for the evening - Kelly - came over to give me a menu and to take my beer order.  I saw that they had the Alaskan Icy Bay IPA in bottles and I like that beer very much.  That was a no brainer for my beer choice.  

Quite actually, calling the Red Pines a "supper club" is somewhat of a stretch.  They do have steaks on the menu, but the only "real" steak is a 10 ounce sirloin steak and an 8 ounce chopped sirloin.  They have a pan-fried walleye on the menu, as well as perch, haddock and catfish filets.  They have three chicken entrees including a Key West chicken breast that's marinated in soy, lime and honey, grilled and served with rice.  

They had eight burgers on the menu and all of them sounded interesting, but I had a burger earlier in the day.  Sandwiches on the menu consisted of grilled chicken offerings, a roast beef and Swiss cheese sandwich, and a couple fish sandwiches.  Appetizers included cheese curds (hey, it IS Wisconsin!), battered mushrooms and chicken tenders. 

When Kelly came over to ask if I had any questions, I asked her about the tenderloin tips - beef tips sautéed with mushrooms and onions, then topped with a cheese sauce. I asked if the cheese was fresh cheese slices or if it was a warm cheese sauce.  She confessed that it was a cheese sauce.  I told her to give me a couple more moments to check out the menu.

I had noticed that a pizza was brought to a table near mine.  It was a thin-crust, party-cut pizza just as I like.  I was a little leery of getting a pizza, but I thought I'd give it a shot.  That's what I ordered from Kelly when she came back.

I ordered a 10" pizza with my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom toppings.  And when Kelly delivered it to the table I was even more apprehensive because it was served on a round piece of cardboard.  I grew up in a town where they had pre-made pizza crusts where they slapped the stuff on top, baked it and served it on a cardboard circle.  

But from my first bite, all my fears were allayed.  The crust was crispy, but not overcooked.  The sausage came in the large chunks that I like.  The spicy and salty pepperoni came in large circular slices and the mushrooms - seemingly from a can - were all right.  Definitely not a deal breaker.  The sauce had a sweet tomato taste and thick consistency.  The only quibble I'd have with the pizza is that they appeared to scrimp on the mozzarella.  This was a good pizza - not the best I've had, but surprisingly good for what I was expecting.  

While the Red Pines isn't quite a supper club, it was still a good place to go for a meal.  The pizza was surprisingly good and I had little, if anything, bad to say about it.  Kelly's service was prompt and efficient.  The atmosphere was welcoming and had that Northwoods lake feel to the place.  The Red Pines Bar and Grill was a good find in the La Crosse area. 

Romano's - Rosemont, IL

In a small strip mall near the hotel I like to stay at when I'm in Chicago are three restaurants that are side-by-side-by-side.  I've eaten at two of them - Maharaja, one of my favorite Indian restaurants (click here to see my entry on Maharaja); and a pretty good little Mexican restaurant by the name of Laredo's Embassy of Mexican Food (click here to see my entry on Laredo's).  The third restaurant - Romano's Restaurant - is a family owned Italian/pizza joint that has been around for 65 years, but not at this location.  I thought I'd give this place a try one evening earlier this year.  

Charles and Sophie Romano opened the original Romano's - known as Charles Romano's to the locals - in 1950 in a building on E. Oakton St. in Des Plaines.  It was said the pizza joint was the hang out of Hillary Rodham (now Hillary Clinton) and Harrison Ford when they were both going to high school in nearby Park Ridge.  Burt Reynolds and Dinah Shore visited Romano's in the 1970's when that couple were an item.  It wasn't just the thin-crust pizza is what brought people back for generations, it was the neighborhood feel to the place that time hadn't touched since the 1950's.   

Charles and Sophie's three sons - Joe, Paul and Chuck - all worked in the business growing up, but Chuck was the one who took over the family business when Charles died in 1989.  Chuck Romano owned the business until around 2008 when he sold it to longtime employee Tom Sitarski.  In 2010, the IRS had a lien filed on the business and Romano's was forced to close to get their finances in order.  After selling the building and most of the contents to help pay against the lien, Sitarski quietly re-opened Romano's in a strip mall along W. Higgins Road in Rosemont in 2012.  (See map)

If they were trying to replicate the original Charles Romano's location in the new Romano's in the strip mall, well, they had to fall short.  No matter how timeless and well-worn the old place may have been, they couldn't replicate that interior in the Romano's on W. Higgins.  It was dark - all the pictures I took of the interior didn't come out - but had sort of a homey feeling to the place.  

I took a seat in a booth along the wall and was given a menu by a waitress who came over to greet me.  I ordered up a beer and took a look through the menu.  I've read where some regulars of the old Charles Romano's didn't even know there was a menu with other food items on it.  All they did was order pizza each time they came in.  But Romano's features a number of pasta dishes, sandwiches, Italian appetizers, and a number of salads on the menu.  They also have chicken dishes such as chicken parmesan and chicken marsala, as well as ribs and fried shrimp on the menu.  

The pizzas at Romano's are all thin crust and come in five sizes from a 10" individual pizza up to a 20" pizza for groups of 4 or more.  I pulled a rookie mistake and ordered a small pizza thinking that it was a 10", but it came out as a 12" pizza.  I didn't order the "individual" pizza which was the 10" size. That was all right.  What I didn't eat I could take back to the hotel.

The pizza was sort of misshapen and looked handmade.  Generous amounts of mozzarella, sliced fresh mushrooms, large slices of pepperoni and and chunks of Italian sausage topped the crispy thin crust.   From the first bite, I could tell Romano's pizza was a little different from other thin crust pizzas I've had in the past.  

The sauce was sweet and tangy, but cheese seemed to be a little more creamy than what I was used to.  It says that they use mozzarella on their menu, but I thought that the cheese on the Romano's pizza seemed to be more of a blend.  Sort of like it had provolone or even St. Louis-style provel cheese mixed in.  At first I didn't think I cared for it all that much, but I found that it wasn't offensive in the taste.  

The crust also had sort of a strange texture.  I can't quite put my finger on what it was, but the crust was crispy, yet pliable at the same time.  It had a slight burnt taste from the oven, but overall the crust was fine.  I prefer a good thin crust versus a thicker hand-tossed crust.    

After thinking about the pizza after the fact, I determined that I liked it enough that I could always go back if I were staying around O'Hare and needed a quick thin crust pizza fix.  The pizza at Romano's was unique and I can see why some people still send frozen Romano pizza's to friends and family around the nation.  I really wish I would have been able to go to the original Romano's in Des Plaines, from all that I read about the place and from the pictures I've seen the place had character.  It's tough to make a strip mall space have character.  But you'll find Romano's in Rosemont to be inviting enough with the same style of pizza they've been serving for 65 years.  

Waldo Pizza - Lee's Summit, MO

Since I started to go to Kansas City years ago, I've never really felt that there was any pizza joint that truly knocked my socks off in terms of having really good pizza.  I was telling one of my Kansas City area dealers that one time and he said that I really needed to try a pizza at Waldo Pizza sometime.  On a recent trip to Kansas City, I stayed out in Lee's Summit on the southeast side and there happened to be a Waldo Pizza that was walking distance from my hotel.    

I'd actually tried to get into the original Waldo Pizza off of Wornall at 75th St. in the Waldo neighborhood in south Kansas City on one previous occasion, but the place was packed and there would have been a 45 minute wait for a place to sit.  This location has been open since the mid-80's and definitely flew under my radar in regards to pizza places in Kansas City.  Phil Bourne - the owner of Waldo Pizza since 1993 - started out at the original location in 1991 as a dishwasher, working his way up to being a delivery man, then getting to wait tables.  When the original owners had enough of running the place, Phil gave them an offer to buy Waldo Pizza.  They accepted and Phil's been running the place for 22 years.  

Susan Sims and Donna Vaughan were fans of the original Waldo Pizza and felt that the Lee's Summit area needed a good St. Louis-style (thin crust) pizza place.  They bought an already successful pizza establishment and turned it into a Waldo Pizza franchise.  They opened the Lee's Summit location in 2004.  

The Lee's Summit location is in a strip mall back from N.E. Douglas, a main street in that K.C. suburb.  (see map)  It was later in the evening - around 8:30 - when I went inside and there was a sparse crowd in the place at that time.  There was a small bar toward the back of the dining room, a game room off to the side and a handful of booths along the wall.  I was greeted by a young man by the name of Drake who was sporting a T-shirt that said, "Corporate Pizza Sucks".  I immediately liked the place.

I took a seat at a booth on the side of the dining room.  On the walls were a number of pieces of artwork including this portrait of Kansas City-based blues guitarist/singer Samantha Fish.  I've seen her play a couple of times - she's very good - the first time when she was still a teenager and beginning to make a name for herself.  

The hallway going toward the restrooms was filled with 70's and 80's era album covers that were pretty interesting to see.  In the men's room, a number of jigsaw puzzles that had been put together were on the wall.  It was kind of funny to see jigsaw puzzles in the men's room. 

As I said, the pizza at Waldo Pizza is primarily of the thin-crust variety, but they also feature a hand-tossed and a honey-wheat crusted pizza.  Waldo Pizza also features gluten free and vegetarian options with their pizzas.  They feature 15 different types of cheese to put on their pizzas, over two dozen meat or seafood toppings (including crab meat, smoked turkey, lamb sausage and Spam), and over 30 different types of veggies to put on a pizza (including roasted corn, zucchini, egg plant, as well as almonds and pine nuts).  The Waldo pizza usually comes with a tangy tomato sauce, but you can also get an alfredo sauce, a taco sauce, blended pesto, or a buffalo chicken sauce.

Their St. Louis-style pizzas come with a four cheese blend - mozzarella, provolone, provel, and cheddar.  The thin-crust is glazed with garlic butter and topped with the house tomato sauce.  I asked Drake if I could just get mozzarella on my pizza.  "Uhhh...  I'll have to check," he said in a monotonic voice before he walked away.  I was kind of dumbfounded because it said that you COULD get mozzarella - and only mozzarella - on the pizza if you liked.  He came back moments later and said, "Yeah, we can do that."  I figured he must have been new.  

I ordered up a small (10") thin-crust Italian sausage sourced from Scimeca's Sausage Company, a family-owned grocery store/Italian food purveyor that has been in the Kansas City area for over 75 years.  I also got some mushrooms and pepperoni on the pizza.  It had a crispy crust that was cracker thin (some people don't like that thin of a crust but I do - I'd rather taste the toppings than the dough), large slices of pepperoni were on top of the fresh mozzarella cheese, and the sliced fresh mushrooms and chunks of Italian sausage littered the pizza.  This was a very good pizza - one that easily passed the "Does it Taste Good with Beer?" test.  It went very well with the Boulevard Double Wide IPA that I was enjoying that evening.  

The very thin crust pizza is not everyone's favorite, but I thought the one I had at Waldo Pizza in Lee's Summit was outstanding.  The fresh ingredients and toppings were a definitely plus with the taste of the pizza.  Drake's service was a little confusing and he was very neutral in his demeanor, but that didn't take anything away from the spot-hitting pizza.  After years of searching for a good pizza in Kansas City, Waldo Pizza has become my favorite pizza in the area.  

Moretti's Ristorante and Pizzeria - Chicago

Staying on the northwest side of Chicago on a recent trip there, I was looking for a new place to go in the Edison Park neighborhood.  I found a place that looked sort of interesting - Moretti's Ristorante and Pizzeria.  I didn't know much about it, but it looked inviting enough to give it a try.  

It turns out that Moretti's is a local chain consisting of seven locations primarily in the far north and west suburbs of Chicago.  The Edison Park location is the only one that is actually in the city limits of Chicago.  But they are part of an empire called the Ala Carte Entertainment group headed by entrepreneur Fred Hoffman.

Hoffman was a self-made man who made up his mind when he was 17 years old that he would either make it or break it in the business world by the time he was 25.  In his early 20's, Hoffman opened The Snuggery - quite possibly the first sports pub and eatery in Chicago.  By the time he was 27, he was a millionaire and working on other projects.  He started up Ala Carte Entertainment to oversee Snuggery locations as well as a number of night clubs that he owned.  

Hoffman eventually closed his original Snuggery in downtown Chicago and converted the Snuggery in Edison Park to a Moretti's specializing in thin crust and deep dish pizza, as well as Italian entrees.  Today, Hoffman still heads Ala Carte Entertainment with help from his son, Mark.  (There are still three Snuggery locations mainly in the western and far northern suburbs of Chicago.)  

The Moretti's in Edison Park is located on Olmsted Ave. next to the Metra rail station, a block off of Northwest Highway.  (see map)   I found a parking spot in the parking lot across the street and went inside.  Just inside the door is the main bar area - a large rectangular bar with an old world design.  Tables and booths are in the main area, as well. 

Moretti's is a rather large place with another bar in the room off to the side.  There were a couple other dining areas off the main bar area and there was an outdoor patio for summertime eating.  Although I didn't see the second floor, I'm guessing that there's ample space up there for banquets and private parties.  

I ended up sitting at the main bar simultaneously watching baseball and a Stanley Cup play-off hockey match they had on the large number of flat panel televisions throughout the place.  One of the bartenders, Madison, came over to greet me and to drop off a menu.  She asked me what I wanted to drink and I saw that they had Sam Adams on tap so I got one of those.  

In the mood for pizza, I took a quick gander to see what else Moretti's had to offer.  In addition to their thin crust and deep dish pizzas, they had a number of Italian appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches, wraps, and burgers, as well as a number of  pasta entrees and Italian specialties such as chicken marsala, baked ziti, eggplant parmesan, and gnocchi bolognese.  They also had ribs, steaks, seafood and gluten-free items on the menu.  There was a little bit of everything once again raising my fears that while they probably do everything well, they don't do everything great.  

Getting back to the pizza, I ended up ordering my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom with the thin crust.  Their smallest thin crust pizza size is 12" so I knew that I'd be taking some back to the hotel with me for snacks or breakfast at some point.  

The pizza featured large slices of pepperoni on top of the mozzarella cheese that hid the chunky Italian sausage and fresh mushroom slices they use at Moretti's.  The sauce had a nice tangy and sweet taste that went well with the spicy and salty pepperoni and the somewhat spicy Italian sausage.  It was cut into party squares and I was able to eat all but about four or five slices of the pizza.  I took the rest with me.  Quite actually, I thought it tasted better heated up the next evening when I got back to the hotel and had a couple pieces as a snack.  

While it wasn't the best thin crust pizza I've had in the Chicago area, the pizza I had at Moretti's was good enough that I wouldn't have any problem going back - or to any of the other Moretti's locations, for that matter.  I was happy enough with the pizza, Madison did a fine job making sure that I was taken care of, and there were enough televisions that I could watch a couple baseball games and a hockey match all at the same times.  They've got a good formula at Moretti's and if you don't know what you are hungry for, you could probably figure out something to get when you go there.  

Marie's Pizza and Liquors - Chicago

I had a dealer who moved from downtown Chicago to the north side a couple of years ago and getting to their new location I sometimes go down W. Lawrence Ave. to get there.  On a number of occasions I've passed a place with a sign on a wall above it that simply says, "Stop here!  Marie's Pizza and Liquors."  Well, of course pizza and liquors are a winning combination anywhere, but I've never seen a place that sold both.  One evening before heading back out to my hotel, I decided to stop in to Marie's Pizza and Liquors and check the place out.  

Marie's Pizza and Liquors dates back to 1940 when Greek immigrant Theodore Karavidas opened a small tavern and a package store - sort of a combination liquor store/convenience store in those days.  Theodore came to the U.S. at the age of 16 and initially lived in New England.  He eventually made it to Chicago where he married a young woman who gave birth to a child.  When Theodore's wife was pregnant with her second child, she tripped in a hole and severely injured herself.  She miscarried and then died of her injuries.  

Distraught over losing his wife, Theodore sent a letter back to his home village in Greece explaining the tragedy and asked if they could send him a new wife.  Well, I guess that's how things were done in those days because the village did send him a new bride.  He drove to New York and met her on Ellis Island.  They married there and came back to Chicago.  Her name was Mary, but she is the Marie of the Italian restaurant owned by a Greek family.  

Theodore and Mary raised four boys and a girl, all of whom worked in restaurants that Theodore ran prior to opening the tavern/package store.  One of the sons, George, was serving pie and coffee to patrons before he was 10 years old.  George eventually went off to serve in the army toward the end of World War II.  When he was honorably discharged in 1948, he came back to Chicago and bought out Theodore with plans of expansion and a new direction for the tavern.  In 1950, George put in a pizza oven and systematically knocked down walls of surrounding buildings to expand his place.  

George and his wife Lillian had a son and a daughter.  The son went off to law school and became an attorney.  The daughter - Nadine - was a self-described "triple threat" of a singer/dancer/actor.  She lived in Las Vegas until her father fell ill in 1999.  She moved back to Chicago and took over when George died a year later at the age of 72.  Nadine still runs Marie's today and her mother, now well into her 80's, helps out as the restaurant's secretary.  

Marie's Pizza and Liquors is located in Chicago's Albany Park/Mayfair neighborhood.  (see map)  I was able to find parking on Lawrence Ave. across the street from Marie's.  The liquor store and pizza parlor share the same front door with Marie's to the right and the liqour store to the left as you walk in.  

Walking into Marie's was like taking a step back in time.  A 35 year step back in time.  The dining room, heavy on red vinyl trim and chairs, dark wood accents and a stained glass ceiling above the bar, looked a little kitschy.  But it looked like one of those places that had recurring neighborhood clientele.  I instantly fell in love with the decor.    

The pizza is made right up front as you walk into the restaurant/lounge area.  Since Marie's is on a corner, the pizza maker has two large windows that allows people walking by to get a good look at his craft.  

I took a seat in a booth next to the bar and my server for the evening, Susie, came over to great me.  I noticed that they had the Revolution Brewery's Anti-Hero IPA on tap and I ordered up one of those while I looked through the menu.  (Since the liquor store is next door, if you're looking for a type of beer or wine they don't have in the restaurant, Marie's allows you to go next door and purchase something to bring over.)

Even though I was there for a pizza, I did take a tour through the menu to see that Marie's also offered a number of pasta entrees, Italian favorites such as veal or chicken parmigiana, a number of sandwiches, soups, salads, and an extensive list of appetizers such as toasted ravioli, chicken wings, fried zucchini and pizza bread.  

I asked Susie how big their small pizza was and she was using her hands to show me the size.  "I don't know, 10 inches, I guess," she said with not a lot of conviction in her voice and a lot of movement with her hands.  I told her that I'd take one with sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  She got the order right in.

When Susie brought the pizza to me, it was served on a small tray covered with white paper.  I also found that she was a little off in her size description.  It was more of a 12" to 13" pizza, but cut into party cuts that I like so well.  My hotel room had a refrigerator and microwave so I figured I could always take back what I didn't finish and have pizza for breakfast in the morning.  

The crust was thin, but pliable.  The cheese was caramelized across the top of the pizza.  The first bite told me this was a great pizza.  The sauce had sort of a sweet tomato taste to it.  The sausage had a notable black pepper taste on the tongue.  The mushrooms were fresh and earthy, and the pepperoni had that salty and spicy taste.  This pizza definitely went very well with beer.  And there were definitely pieces left over when I determined that I was full enough.  

Quite actually, I thought the pizza tasted better after I let the remaining pieces sit and coagulate the taste sensations all together overnight in the refrigerator, then warming it up in the microwave.  Not that it wasn't that good when I was having it at the restaurant - it was still an outstanding pizza.  But Marie's pizza is one of those that you can be assured that it will taste as good - if not better - if you take it home and warm it up later.  Susie's service was straight-forward, personable with a bit of humor, and efficient.  I seriously liked the decor in the old place and you can't beat a pizza place that has a liquor store attached to it.  Marie's is worth the stop if you want to step back in time, but experience one of the better thin crust pizzas in Chicago.   

BJ's Brewhouse - Kissimmee, FL

When we were down in the Orlando area for a trade show earlier this year, my colleague John and I had finished up the day and were looking for a place to lounge out and have a couple drinks and some food.  I found that there was a BJ's Brewhouse not far from the hotel and we decided to head there for dinner.  

This is not the first time I've been to a BJ's Brewhouse - the first time was when we were in Boulder on a day trip during a trade show in Denver about 8 years ago.  (Click here to see that entry.)   At that time, there were 66 BJ's Brewhouse locations in 11 states.  Today, there are 150 BJ's Brewhouse restaurants in 18 states.  

The first BJ's Brewhouse opened in Santa Ana, CA in 1978.  It all started when two men - Bill Cunningham and Michael Phillips - owners of a Burger King franchise in Southern California wanted to expand their franchise empire but were halted by the company who decreed that franchisees couldn't own multiple locations.  

Cunningham and Phillips then looked toward owning a pizza restaurant.  But not the typical Southern California pizza restaurant at that time where you had to wade through screaming kids, ordered your pizza at the counter and basically had to wait on yourself.   They wanted an upscale sit-down place with good Chicago style pizza, beer and good food.  

With only two years experience of running a Burger King, the men opened BJ's Chicago Pizzeria in Santa Ana, CA in 1978.  The place became an instant hit.  They eventually opened six BJ's in the area and business was booming.  For years, they garnered awards for having the best pizza in the Los Angeles area.  

In 1991, they turned to their accountants - Jerry Hennessy and Paul Motenko - to see how they could scale back their day-to-day involvement in the business.  This intrigued the two accountants who immediately agreed to take over running the six restaurants, even though they had absolutely no experience running a restaurant.     

Pictured right - Paul Motenko and Jerry Hennessy.  Photo courtesy Orange County Register.

Hennessy and Motenko went on an aggressive campaign to expand BJ's by expanding the number of restaurants, buying up other chains, adding brewpubs to the mix, and making franchises available to buy.  Motenko and Hennessy ended up buying out Cunningham and Phillips remaining shares of Chicago Pizza and Brewing, Inc. in 1995 and turning the existing locations into BJ's Brewhouse locations.  

Hennessy and Motenko left BJ's Brewhouse in 2008 handing the reigns over to Jerry Deitchle.  During the Deitchle's leadership, BJ's Brewhouse saw unprecedented growth in the number of franchises.  In 2012, restaurant industry trade magazines called BJ's Brewhouse one of the fastest growing specialty restaurants in the nation.  (Hennessy and Motenko subsequently opened a small chain of fast casual burger joints in Southern California called Stacked.  It was called the first restaurant where customers placed their orders via a table side iPad.)  

It was after 8 p.m. by the time we got into BJ's Brewhouse located in a shopping area on the north side W. Osceola Parkway in Kissimmee.  (See map)  We were seated in the dining area in a small booth.  We were given menus and our server for the evening came by to take our drink orders.  I got a Piranha Pale Ale, a house-brewed pale ale that I've had before during a previous visit to a BJ's Brewhouse.  (I later found that they had Kona Big Wave Golden Ale on tap.  I would have gotten that had I known they had it.  But the Piranha was very good in its own right.)  Industrial garage doors opened to an outdoor seating area.  

The contemporary and ornate bar area featured a load of colorfully back-lit bottles of display beers and liquor bottles.  A large flat screen television was featured in the middle of the back bar.  I would have had no problem bellying up to the bar at this BJ's Brewhouse.  

The menu at BJ's Brewhouse is large and varied.  There's the upper crust appetizers such as calimari, Thai shrimp lettuce wraps, chicken pot stickers and Mexican-style spring rolls, as well as the normal chicken wings, mozzarella sticks and potato skins.  Main entrees included Moroccan-spiced salmon, grilled pork chops, parmesan-encrusted chicken and an oven-roasted mahi mahi.  Sandwiches and burgers were also plentiful on the menu along with a number of salads.  BJ's Brewhouse also had steaks and pasta dishes on their menu. 

I saw something that piqued my interest on the menu - the mahi mahi grilled fish tacos.  The fish was topped with chipotle mayo and a spicy Santa Fe sauce, and finished with shredded cabbage, sliced carrots, sliced red onions and cilantro.  They also came with an avocado cream sauce and fire-roasted tomato salsa with tortilla chips on the side.  The fish tacos were very good.  They did them right by not putting any cheese on top of the fish and toppings.  The lightly grilled mahi mahi was flavorful and moist.  The combination of the chipotle mayo and the spicy sauce gave the tacos a nice kick in the taste.  

Being that BJ's Brewhouse started out as a pizza place nearly 40 years ago, they still have pizzas on the menu.  Their pizza includes deep-dish pizza selections in four sizes.  John ordered a small (9") BJ's Classic Combo that hit all my favorite toppings - sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms.  Sliced seasoned tomatoes also came as a topping with BJ's Classic Combo.  I had made quick work of my two fish tacos and John asked me if I wanted to have a piece of pizza.  I couldn't say no.  The pizza was good - not as good as some of the better deep-dish pizza places in Chicago that I like - but it was fine for what it was.

Everything was fine up to the end - our server forgot about us.  I could have used another beer, but he was nowhere to be found.  He didn't bring back our bill, either, when we were ready to leave.  John had to find another server to try to find our guy.  We finally got the bill - the only hiccup of the evening.

If you find a BJ's Brewhouse along the way, you can expect good food that is a notch up from a normal brewpub.  While none of the food seems to be outstanding, it's still worth a stop if you can't figure out what you want to have for lunch or dinner.  The beer they serve - both the ones they brew and the others they support - is very good.  I normally don't like chains, but BJ's Brewhouse sort of breaks the mold for a chain restaurant.

Dino's Pizza and Italian Restaurant - Chicago

Staying near O'Hare International Airport when I go into Chicago, I've been neglecting restaurants to the east of where my hotel is.  Heading over toward the Norwood Park area on the northwest side of Chicago, I was looking for either an Italian place or some Mexican food.  On Higgins Ave. just east of Harlem and just south of the Kennedy Freeway, I saw a sign for Dino's Pizza and Italian Restaurant.  (see map)  I thought, "Hmmm... That looks like a good little neighborhood place.  I'm gonna give it a try."  I went around the block and parked in the lot on the west side of the building.

Umberto "Dino" Borrini came to the United States from Italy in 1956.  Like a number of Italian immigrants, Dino hung out at the original Father & Son Pizza (now known as Marcello's) which was one of the first "tavern-style" pizza places on the north side of Chicago.  Learning how to make pizza, Dino Borrini ended up starting up a restaurant in the Hermosa neighborhood on the northwest side of the city.  In 1968, Borrini - along with his wife Concetta (also known at Tina) - moved to the Norwood.  They were attached to a small bar by the name of Tommy's and provided patrons of the bar with their thin-crust pizza or their signature fried chicken.  When Tommy's moved a half-block to the east and put in their own kitchen, the Borrini's took over the whole building and put in a dining area.

The Borrini's two daughters, Bianca and Bruna, literally grew up in the business and when their parents retired they took over the ownership of Dino's along with their husbands Joe Henniges and Derek Morrison.  Bianca and Joe's son, Joey, took on managing the restaurant for the family a few years ago.  

Pictured right - Tina and Dino Borrini  

It was about 7:30 when I pulled up to Dino's.  Parking is available on the west side of the building in a small lot, or on the street surrounding the restaurant.  There is a small vestibule as you come in with a door to the left - the dining area - and one on the immediate right - the bar area.  I took the door on the left.  The first dining room was a small area with a handful of booths.  There was a larger room off to the side with a number of tables and one or two video games.  The booths in the smaller room were all full, while the larger dining area had a few open tables, but it also had a gaggle of young kids making a lot of noise while their parents were eating.  

I did an about face and saw a man standing at the counter toward the front.  I asked if I could get food in the bar area.  "Yes sir," was his reply, knowing good and well that I didn't care to have dinner with a bunch of rambunctious kids.  

Heading back out into the vestibule and subsequently into the bar area, I soon found myself in a small low-ceilinged, dimly lit room with a small L-shaped bar.  A couple three tables were along the wall.  It wasn't fancy, but it was my kind of place.  I took a seat at the bar and was greeted by the bartender, Brian.  Amiable and welcoming, he asked if I needed a menu.  After placing the menu in front of me, I ordered up a Samuel Adams Rebel IPA that he had on tap. 

There's more than pizza on Dino's menu - a lot more.  Not only do they have their regular thin crust pizza and a deep dish Chicago-style pizza, Dino's also offers a stuffed pizza that is popular in and around the Chicago area.  From there, they have sandwiches, Italian entrees, veal dishes, steak, seafood and barbecued ribs.  Dino's is also famous for their fried chicken that comes from an old Borrini family recipe. 

I decided on a small thin-crust pizza with my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms.   When Brian brought out the pizza I saw that it cut party-style (or tavern-style, as some people call it) with the great "honey-pot" squares in the middle.  

The crust was crispy, yet somewhat flaky.  The sauce was tangy with a nice little hint of sweetness.  The toppings were fresh - the mushrooms were especially fresh.  The pepperoni had a nice salty taste that went well with the Sam Adams Rebel IPA.  About the only thing that I had a quibble with was the sausage that I felt was a little bland to the taste.  But overall, this was a very good pizza.  It was so good that I refrained from putting on any of the oregano, red pepper flakes or parmesan cheese that was provided with the pizza.   

As I ate my pizza, it was apparent that a number of regulars were in the small bar.  Brian was talking to a guy down the bar from where I was seated, telling him about how the bar area was actually owned by another person when Dino first opened the restaurant next door.  A window was put in between the two businesses to allow for the passage of pizza - or Dino's signature fried chicken - into the bar.   A few years ago, Dino's daughters Bianca and Bruna put in an outdoor patio just off the bar that's used for parties or outdoor dining in the summer months.  

I have to tell you, I loved everything about Dino's Pizza.  The pizza was very good, Brian's service was efficient and he was a very friendly guy - asking me to come back, but not in a patronizing way.  And I will come back.  I fell in love with the laid back neighborhood feel of the bar at Dino's.  As I said, it's not fancy, but the pizza is well above average and the place - and people - are very welcoming.   (Photo courtesy Eater Chicago.)

Pellegrini Pizza - Las Vegas

During the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show held recently in Las Vegas, we rented a large 9 bedroom "villa" to house the sales team who worked the event.    We had been working at The Venetian all day setting up the suites where we showed our gear and we were pretty tired when we got back out to the house.  Instead of making something or going out, we decided upon getting some pizza delivered to us.  We found a place not far from the house by the name of Pellegrini Pizza that delivered and the pizzas were so good - and unique - that I wanted to tell you about them.  

Pellegrini Pizza is a relatively new restaurant, opened in 2013.  Their specialties are thin crust pizza and chicken wings, but they also serve pasta dishes, sandwiches and subs, burgers, soups, salads and a wide variety of appetizers.  Although we didn't go to the restaurant, it is located in northwest Las Vegas in a strip mall back off of Rainbow, just south of the Highway 95 freeway where it meets up with Summerlin Parkway.  (see map) 

On our first full day in Las Vegas for CES we set up our displays in a handful of suites in The Venetian.  It was getting to be close to 6 p.m. and we'd pretty much finished up with what needed to be done and our boss suggested that half of us take off and figure out what to do for pizzas that night and the rest of our group of 10 would follow along shortly.  On the way to the house, my colleague Matt was looking up pizza places in northwest Las Vegas and whether or not they delivered.  He came up with three different places and when we got back to the house, we got on my lap top and took a closer look at these places on Urbanspoon and Yelp.  Overwhelmingly, the on-line users of those web sites gave Pellegrini Pizza the most glowing reviews of them all.  

We looked up Pellegrini Pizza on-line and found their menu page.  We found that they didn't just have the regular "small, medium, large" sizes of pizza - they had SIX different sizes ranging from 10" all the way up to a 30" pizza!  Well, we wanted to see a 30" pizza!  And this was our first mistake.  Our second mistake is that we ordered FOUR of them!  For 10 guys!  The third mistake was when Matt called in the order, he was told that it would take over an hour to make the four pizzas, then another 15 minutes to deliver them.  If I would have known that it was going to take that long, I would have put the kibosh on that many 30" pizzas and gone with smaller ones.  But the order was in and we had to wait for 90 minutes before the pizza driver called us and said he was just outside the gates (it was a gated community that we stayed in) with the pizzas.  

The rest of our group had shown up about a half hour earlier expecting pizzas to be there when they go back to the house, but when we told them that we'd ordered 30" pizzas the novelty soothed any rumbling stomachs that some of us had.  When the pizzas showed up, four of us went out to meet the pizza guy at the gate.  He came out with these huges boxes and we took them into the house.  Exclamations and hollering ensued when we laid them on the counter.  

The four pizzas we got were my standard favorite of Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  That proved to be the most popular pizza of the four we got.  As you can see with the picture at right, the pizza was gargantuan.  I put the bottle of the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale in the corner of the box to show the size scale of the pizza.  

Usually, novelty sized pizzas aren't very good.  There's an unevenness of temperature causing some parts of the pizza dough to be more cooked than others.  But with the Pellegrini pizza, I didn't get that at all.  The slices were cut into the tavern style square pieces that I like so well.  The crust was understandably more limp than what you'd probably get on a non-delivered pizza, but the overall taste was wonderful.  The toppings were plentiful, the cheese had a great mozzarella flavor to it, and the sauce was tangy and sweet.  The pizza easily passed my "Does it taste good with a beer?" test.  I stayed away from the thicker outer crust pieces and went more for the "honey pot" squares in the middle.  

And we had a lot of pizza to go with a lot of beer in the house.  The three other pizzas included on that was half mozzarella cheese and half pepperoni, a "supreme" pizza that featured pepperoni, black olives, green peppers, mushrooms and onions, and the "Pilgrim" that was more of a "meat lovers" pizza topped with pepperoni, sausage, ham and meatballs.  That pizza is the one on the left in the picture at left, the "supreme" is the one on the right.  

The sausage, pepperoni and mushroom went first, followed by a large portion of the "Pilgrim" pizza.  The saltiness of the all meat pizza was very pronounced making for a great flavor with beer.  But when it was all said and done, there was still a large amount of the half-sausage and half-cheese left in the box.  (No one had a slice of the cheese-only side of the pizza.)  And the supreme was well over half-way from being finished.  We started to combine pizza pieces in the boxes and we had just under two full pizzas remaining.  And we were stuffed.  

Then it hit us - where in the world were we going to store what basically amounted to two 30" pizzas?  The large refrigerator was already stocked full of items for breakfast and for a couple of upcoming dinners were having.  Even if we put the pieces in Ziploc bags, we still wouldn't have been able to find much room in the fridge for the leftovers.  And, besides, when would we have time to eat the leftover pizza with all the other food that we had in the house?  It was cool in the garage at night - about 40 degrees - so we just put them out there.  The next morning I took a look at the pizzas and made the executive decision to throw 'em away.  The cheese, grease and toppings had all coagulated and they weren't worth keeping.  

And it was a shame because I'll bet the Pellegrini Pizza pies would have been great warmed up for a snack at some point.  They were very good on their own - even with the sogginess that happens with delivery.   Even though they took a little too long to make then deliver, the 30" pizzas worked out great - not only because of the taste and quality of the pizzas, but because of the "Holy Shit!" factor when we first saw the size of the pizzas.  If we're back at this house again next year for the 2016 CES, we'd have no problem calling up Pellegrini Pizza to have them deliver us more pizzas.  Although it probably won't be four 30" pizzas next time.

Cerno's Bar and Grill - Kewanee, IL

My wife had taken a half day off on a Friday recently and talked me into playing hooky with her for the afternoon.  I didn't feel guilty because I had been doing a lot of traveling and even some weekend work before then.  A few weeks before, she had told me of a place in Kewanee, IL that had pretty good pizza.  One of our neighbors had been working on the electrical system as part of an expansion at the place and had brought home a pizza and invited my wife up to share with him and his partner one night while I was traveling.  With that in mind, we set out to go to Cerno's Bar and Grill about an hour drive away in Kewanee.  

There's a rich history to Cerno's, one that dates back to just before the turn of the 20th century.  Years ago, breweries used to build taverns for patrons to enjoy their beers.  They were usually built in larger cities or industrial towns.  It so happened that the Pabst Brewery decided to build three bars - one in their hometown of Milwaukee, one in Chicago, and one in the then industrial town of Kewanee, IL.  The first saloon keeper was a young local businessman, John P. Brady.  Brady started out as a horse dealer before getting into the wholesale distribution and retail sales of beer and liquor in Kewanee.  His initials are still etched into the glass on the front door of the place.  

John Brady ran the tavern through Prohibition and into World War II.  In 1944, failing health forced him to sell his bar to Gustav Van Hulle, a German immigrant who fled Germany before the war.  Van Hulle ran the place up to his death in 1954 and his wife, Ann, took over the place.  She changed the name to simply Ann's and she ran the place up until it was sold to former auto parts dealer and stock car driver Lloyd Ewing in the early 70's.  (Two different accounts put the sale in either 1971 or 1974.)  

Lloyd Ewing ran the place as Ann's for a number of years before he changed the name to Lloyd's Club sometime in the late 70's or early 80's.  But the spirit of Ann's lived on - and still does today with a neon lighted Ann's sign on the wall in the back of the bar.  In 2001, Ewing sold out to partners John Cernovich (the "Cerno" in the name) and Brian Crabtree.  The name of the place was changed to Cerno's Bar and Grill and the two continue to run the place today.

Cerno's is located on West 3rd Street across from the Amtrak station in Kewanee.  (see map)  West 3rd was known as Whiskey Row for a number of years until bars along the two block stretch of the street.  Only Cerno's remains out of all the bars and taverns that thrived along the street from the 40's into the 80's.  

The showcase of Cerno's is a 50 foot mahogany bar that was built for the Pabst Brewery in the early 1890's.  The bar was built in Belgium, then shipped to the United States and put on display at the Pabst exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  When Pabst built the saloon a few years later they moved what was at the time - and for a long number of years after - the largest bar in Illinois to Kewanee.  

Back-lit Pabst signs are inlaid into the pillars on each end.  Small ornamental eagles sit on top of buzzers that were used to summon waiters to the kitchen to pick up food orders.  The original handcarved figurines stand at each end of the bar.  The original brass fixtures attached the bar are still there.  Brass spittoons that were used by men to expectorate tobacco years ago are used as tip jars behind the bar.  

Along part of the walls of the restaurant is the original wallpaper that featured the Pabst logo.  Stained glass-leaded windows along the east wall sit over a the orginal mural wallpaper.  As you walk into the building and look to the right, an old time teller cage still sits where it did 100 years ago.  This was a small check cashing area where men could come in, cash their checks and drink at the bar.

For years, women weren't allowed in the bar.  There was a small room upstairs where the women could sit and enjoy a drink.  Orders were placed and drinks were sent up to the second floor via a dumbwaiter by the bar.  The dumbwaiter is still in place - and still works.  But, of course, women are now allowed in the bar.  

As I said that there was an expansion to Cerno's not long ago.  They took the space next to the bar to the west which used to be a water distribution company, put in a larger dining room (with a serving hole in the wall behind the bar), expanded the kitchen and put in new bathrooms replacing what I was told were abysmal facilities by my neighbor who helped wire the new place.  Secondary expansion is on going with John Cernovich moving a golf simulator business he has in Kewanee into a space in the back of the old warehouse, while the front part of the warehouse will eventually house the Kewanee Brewing Company bringing back the tradition of brewing beer locally.

We got into Cerno's just before 2 p.m.  A number of people were seated at bar and at tables in the bar area.  A few of them were finishing up lunch while we were just getting ready to order.  A young lady by the name of Jane came out from behind the bar and dropped off a couple menus.  She asked what we wanted to drink and I wanted to know what they had on tap - Cerno's features 20 beers on tap.  Jane said, "Oh!  There's not a beer menu on the table."  She walked over to the bar and pulled a beer menu off the top and brought it over.  To my surprise and somewhat elation, they had Kona Castaway India Pale Ale on tap.  I've been drinking a lot of that lately at home, but it was the first time I'd found a bar that actually served it on tap.  My wife got a Castaway IPA, as well.  

Looking through the menu, I cast my eyes down toward the thin crust pizza that Cerno's offers.  Then to my horror I saw at the bottom of the menu that pizza was served beginning at 4:30 p.m.  (11 a.m. on Sundays.)  When Jane came back to drop off our beers and we told her that we were crestfallen to find that they didn't serve pizza until 4:30.  "Oh, yeah," she said as she apologized.  "Our pizza guy doesn't come in until 4."  But she told us that they had a ribeye steak sandwich on special for lunch and that their burgers and pork tenderloin sandwiches were good.  We asked her to give us a few more minutes to look through the menu.  

Cerno's has the typical menu of appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches and wraps, as well as burgers, pork tenderloins and grilled chicken sandwiches.  Entrees such as a sirloin or ribeye steak, salmon, and fettuccine alfredo are available after 5 p.m. 

I went with the mushroom/Swiss cheese burger for my lunch.  I was sort of intrigued because it said the burger was also topped with gravy.  There was a similar instance at a burger place I'd been to prior to this visit to Cerno's where I encountered a burger that had been touted as having gravy on it, but they forgot to add the gravy.  I asked Jane if she could put some bacon on the burger and she said it was no problem.  For a side, I had my choice of crinkle fries, seasoned fries, potato salad and a couple three other offerings.  I didn't know what to get, so I asked Jane what I should get.  "The seasoned fries are probably my favorite out of that group," she told me.  "They're pretty good."  I went with the seasoned fries.  I wasn't certain that I'd eat many of them. 

My wife went with the patty melt with a side of cole slaw.  When they brought out the burgers, we were both impressed with the presentation.  The patty melt featured a thick hand-pattied burger, chargrilled, and it was topped with American and Swiss cheese, bacon and grilled onions.  1000 Island dressing was served on the side.  The bread was a caraway-seed rye bread that was toasted.  My wife exclaimed the patty melt was very good - a lot better than she expected it to be.  She said the carraway rye bread was a nice touch.  

My burger was also thick and loaded with Swiss cheese that was melting down the side of the burger.  Bacon was criss-crossed on top of the sauteed mushroom that were sitting on the burger patty.  And, sure enough, they put beef gravy on the burger, a little bit of it was running down the side of the burger.  The toasted bun was light and fluffy, but wasn't too much of a bun to detract from the taste of the very good burger.  The gravy was an interesting touch to the burger.  Other than having a hamburger steak made in a pan with gravy, I don't think I'd ever had gravy on a burger before.  I immediately liked it.  

And, quite actually, the seasoned fries were just as Jane said they'd be - very good.  In fact, between my wife and I, we ate all of them.  It wasn't that her cole slaw was bad - it was a sweet and creamy type of cole slaw - it's just that we both liked the fries.  A lot.  

Other than being disappointed in the fact that we were way early for pizza (Our neighbor told us afterward, "Oh, yeah!  I should have told you guys that."), our dejection turned into a surprised elation with the very good burgers that we had at Cerno's.  Having Kona Castaway IPA on tap was a plus, as well.  Jane's service was proficient and able.  We're definitely going back some evening to get a pizza.  When we do, I'll add a little addendum to this entry to let you know how it is.  

(UPDATE - June 2019.  We still haven't made it back to Cerno's for pizza, but their burger was just voted as the best in Illinois in a contest sponsored by the Illinois Beef Association.  Yes, it was a ballot box-stuffing situation, but it was still a very good burger.)  

Francesca Vitale's - Muscatine, IA

Wheeling and dealing on a new car with a number of dealerships recently, I ended up buying a car from a place in Muscatine.  We've had to go to Muscatine a couple three times over the period of buying the car and we decided to try some of the restaurants in town while we were there.  One that we noticed and wanted to try was Francesca Vitale's on 2nd St. in downtown Muscatine.  (see map)

The Vitale family is sort of the royalty of Italian food in Muscatine.  Reno Vitale settled in Muscatine with his family in the early 80's and opened Salvatore Vitale's - now simply known as Salvatore's - in 1985.  (Click here to see an entry on Salvatore's.)  Reno's sons, Salvatore - known to the locals as Sam - and Claudio helped him out in the restaurant along with his daughter, Antonia.  Antonia eventually married Giovanni (John) Sgro and they now run Antonella's in downtown Davenport.  (Click here to see an entry on Antonella's.)  

Somewhere along the way, Sam and Claudio Vitale had differences and they went their separate ways in recent years.  Claudio continues to run the day-to-day operations at Salvatore's with patriarch Reno - fast approaching 80 years of age - checking in every day, while Sam and his wife, Francesca, (pictured right) opened their own Italian restaurant down the street from Salvatore's in th spring of 2012.  Sam and Francesca are also co-owners with Michelle Roos in Piazza Bella, a catering/reception facility in Muscatine, and also own The Sicilian, a small pizza and sub shop in Muscatine.  

We got into Francesca Vitale's around 7:30 one evening.  (Francesca Vitale's doesn't have a web site, but they do have a Facebook page.  Click on the link to go there.)  The place is reminiscent of Salvatore's up the street with large wooden booths and four-seater tables in the center of the dining area.  A small bar area was in the rear of the place with a roaring natural gas fireplace giving the dining area a homey feel.

We were greeted by our server for the evening, Jake, who dropped off a couple menus for us.  He told us of a couple specials for the evening and took our drink order.  I got a cold beer while Cindy went for a glass of the house chianti.  

The menu at Francesca Vitale's is a mixture of Italian entrees, steaks, seafood and pizza.  We were there for the pizza that evening, although some of the pasta dishes sounded pretty good.  (Cindy was especially intrigued when she saw the Pasta al Salmone - sauteed salmon with bow tie pasta covered with a vodka cream sauce.)  But we ended up ordering a medium (12") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.

But before we had the pizza, Cindy determined that she needed to have a salad.  The Brenda White salad caught her eye.  It's a large salad that was first concocted by a former worker at Salvatore's consisting of iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped green peppers,  mushroom slices, chopped onions, sliced black olives, pepperoni slices, parmesan cheese, fresh shredded mozzarella, with a choice of salad dressing.  Cindy wanted to share the salad and Jake was nice enough to provide two separate bowls for us.  Both of us got the delicious garlic dressing that the Vitale family has been serving in their respective restaurants for years. 

The greens were very fresh, loads of shredded mozzarella topped the greens with the chopped and sliced veggies.  The mushrooms were especially fresh and the pepperoni slices had a good spicy and salty taste.  Of course, the garlic dressing was the key to the whole salad.  If you like garlic, you'd love the salad dressing at Francesca Vitale's (or at Salvatore's or at Antonella's).  I can guarantee that after you eat the garlic dressing, no vampires will be within a quarter mile of you.  

Jake brought the pizza out after we finished up the salads.  The hand-tossed crust was thin, but not cracker thin.  It had some consistency and held up well with the toppings.  The sausage was the chunk sausage that I like so well on a pizza, and there were generous amounts of the same pepperoni that was on the Brenda White salad, and the same thing with the chopped fresh mushrooms.  Cindy doesn't care much for mushrooms, but even she said that the mushrooms on the pizza were very good.  The sweet tomato pizza sauce and the mozzarella were both fresh and delicious.  The pizza easily passed my "Does it taste good with a beer?" test.  

We finished up the pizza and Jake began to entice us with dessert.  Cindy asked if their tiramisu was made in-house and he conceded that it was not.  "But our cannoli's are," he countered.  Against our better judgement we ordered up a cannoli to give it a try.  And it was excellent - and OH! so rich!  The sugar and vanilla infused ricotta cheese filling was excellent as was the flaky pastry shell surrounding the filling.  Drizzled chocolate syrup topped the cannoli.   But it was so damn rich.  Given a good sized salad, a 12" pizza with three toppings, and finishing off the meal with a cannoli, it was a lot of food.  But it was all so very good.

I don't know if you can go wrong with the pizza at either Salvatore's, Antonella's and Francesca Vitale's.  However, we felt the pizza at Francesca Vitale's may have been the best of the three.  It was an outstanding pizza and simply delicious.  I would be remiss in commenting on Jake's service which was also very good.  He and another server were the only ones on duty that evening and they were a tad overwhelmed at times.  But his friendly and playful demeanor camouflaged any stress he may have been under.  Our experience at Francesca Vitale's - the food, the ambiance and the service - was all wonderful.  I would have no problem driving the 35 minutes from our house for another pizza at some point.  

Update - My wife and I were in Muscatine toward the end of 2016 and we went by Francesca Vitale's and found that it was closed.  There is a new place in Muscatine called Sal Vitale's Pizza that - I believe - is the off-shoot of Francesca Vitale's.  

The Butler Inn - Milwaukee, WI

My regular hotel that I had been staying at in Milwaukee for over the past 10 years had quit being a Hilton property, so I've been trying new Hilton family hotels in the area to see if one comes up to my liking.  I was staying at a Hampton Inn on the northwest side of Milwaukee late last year and was not familiar with many of the restaurants in the area.  I went to the front desk and asked one of the guys where the good restaurants were in the area.  He told me of a family restaurant next door, but I said that I wanted to go to a place that served beer.  Then he told me of a sports bar/gentleman's club that was across the road.  I nixed that suggestion and then one of the other desk clerks came out from the office and said, "If you're looking for good food and some beer, you need to go to The Butler Inn."  Asked what they served and he said, "Everything - pizza, burgers, fish, steaks.  My wife and I go there all the time."  He told me that it was less than a five minute drive from the hotel.  I decided to set out to find The Butler Inn.

The Butler Inn is actually in a small town called Butler, but it's more known to the locals as being in the Timmerman West neighborhood of Milwaukee.  In the early 1900's, the railyard in Butler was the largest north/south track facility in the area.  The building where The Butler Inn stands today used to be a hotel for railroad employees who would be passing through the railyard. 

When the golden age of railroads began to die in the 60's, The Butler Inn was turned into a bar/restaurant.  A devastating fire in 1980 rendered the building a total loss, but the owners at the time - the Marks family - rebuilt the building using the foundation footings of the original building.  

The Marks family sold The Butler Inn in 1988 to pub owner David Tomter.  Tomter had run his namesake bar in Milwaukee's west side since 1974 (he closed Tomter's Inn in 1994) and after purchasing The Butler Inn he remodeled the interior, came up with an expanded menu for food and drinks, and added an outdoor beer garden.  

It was a pretty cold night when I pulled into the parking lot of The Butler Inn around 7:30 p.m. after a short drive from my hotel  (see map)  The beer garden was definitely not open that evening.   Entering The Butler Inn, you come into bar area with a three-sided rectangular bar.  Sort of an eerie red glow envelopes the bar area from a number of beer signs that are hung on the wall.  Looking at the fixtures, some of the decorations and the furniture in the place, I'm guessing the place hasn't been updated since Dave Tomter refurbished the place 25 years ago.  It was far from dated or tired, however.

There's a dining area that's next to the bar area divided by a half-wall with wooden pillars.  The Butler Inn had sort of a cross between a supper club and pub feeling to it.  A banquet/reception/party room is located on the upper floor of the place. 

I ended up sitting at the bar and my bartender/server, a nice lady by the name of Jill came over to greet me and handed me a menu.  She asked what I would like to drink and I noticed that they had Alaskan Amber on tap.  Jill poured me a pint of beer in a frosted glass which I thoroughly enjoyed while I looked through the menu.

The menu at The Butler Inn is very extensive.  I was a little leery of that because of my adage that a restaurant that has a large menu probably does everything just all right, but nothing really well.  The problem I was having was that there was almost too much to choose from on the menu at The Butler Inn. 

The guy back at the hotel wasn't kidding - they had a lot of stuff to choose from.  They have a dozen and a half appetizers on the menu, as well as over a dozen soups and salads (and any combination within) to choose from.   Additionally, they have a slew of sandwiches, burgers, chicken sandwiches and brats on the menu.  Seafood, steaks, ribs, rotisserie and broasted chicken, and pasta dishes populated the menu.  Friday nights, The Butler Inn features a fish fry that they're locally famous for.  They also had a pizza menu that featured housemade thin-crust pizzas in sizes from an 8" personal size pizza up to 32" party pizza that can feed 15 to 20 people.  

I was in a quandary as what to get for dinner that evening.  When Jill came back to get my food order I was still up in the air.  I asked what they were famous for at The Butler Inn and she said, "Well, we do sell a lot of reubens."  I had a reuben earlier in the day.  "If you like burgers, ours are big and juicy," she said.  I was getting burnt out on burgers.  I said that I was just in a food funk from being on the road so much and I didn't quite know what I wanted.  She gave me a few more minutes so I could decide what to get.  I thought I'd give their pizza a try.  I got a small (10") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  

The pizza looked hand-tossed, but I guessed they probably had a machine to get the crust so thin.  The pizza was cut into party squares and was topped with a plethora of mushrooms, chunk sausage and pepperoni.  There was a bit of charred caramelization on the perimeter of the pizza.  

The sauce they use was sweet and tangy, the mozzarella cheese was thick and stringy.  The pepperoni slices were a bit spicy and salty allowing the pizza to taste good with the Alaskan Amber.  The sausage chunks were good sized and had a bit of a fennel taste to it.  This was a very good pizza.

I was able to finish the pizza with no problem.  As I finished and contemplated getting another beer to savor the pizza, the other bartender - his name was Dave and I'm guessing he was the owner - came over to check on me.  He asked how the pizza was and I told him it was damned good.  "We started to do pizza about nine years ago," he told me as he poured another beer for me.  "It's one of our more popular items on the menu."  

The next day, I told one of my dealers that was calling on that I had gone to The Butler Inn the previous evening.  "We don't live far from there," he was telling me.  "My wife and I go there all the time."  When I told him of my fear of a menu that had too many things on it, he said, "Actually, they do everything very well.  Not excellent, but very well."  And that was my feeling with the pizza I had at the Butler Inn.  It was a very good pizza - not the best I've had - but it would easily hold its own against other pizza places I've eaten at in Milwaukee.  And Milwaukee has a lot of good pizza places.  I don't know if I cared for the Hampton Inn I stayed in all that well, but I'll probably try other places to stay on the far west side of town.  And I'm sure I'll find myself at The Butler Inn again at some point.  

Scornovacca's - Des Moines, IA

It has been years since I was last in Scornovacca's in Des Moines for pizza.  It has been in business for over 40 years and it's probably been close to 25 years since I was last in the place.  I had been to another family member's restaurant - Sonny's Pizza Bistro (click here to see the entry on Sonny's) - a couple years ago and made a pact with myself that I needed to get back to Scornovacca's at some point.  On a recent trip to Des Moines on a cool and damp fall evening, I had the chance to stop in.  

The Vacco family has been in the Des Moines area for nearly 100 years.  The patriarch of the family, Martino Scornovacca, emigrated to the U.S. in 1914.  As he was being processed for entry into the country at Ellis Island his name was shortened to Vacca.  Later, a clerical error changed the family name to Vacco.  

The Vacco family eventually landed in Des Moines and Martino's grandson Roscoe Vacco and his wife Anne Marie had a business opportunity to open a pizza place on the south side of Des Moines in 1973.  Roscoe had a full time job, so he turned to his eldest son Mike to run the business.  They were trying to come up with names for the place and the next oldest son, Marty, came up with the Scornovacca's name for the restaurant to pay tribute to his great-grandfather.  Many of the Vacco family members worked in the place for a number of years.  

(As an aside, I dated a girl from Des Moines who knew two of the Vacco siblings, Vic and Rocco.  I met them a couple times and they seemed to be pretty nice guys.  Vic was a big football star at Dowling High School in the mid-70's.)  

Tragically, Mike Vacco - whose nickname was "Scorno" - died tragically in August of 2010 at the age of 48.  His sister Amy runs the family business these days, but mother Anne Marie and some of the other siblings still help out from time to time.  

There's a Scornovacca's North on N.E. 14th St. in Des Moines - it's been open since 1976 and is run by Marty Vacco - but I went to the original spot on S.E. 14th St. (see map)  I pulled in around 8 p.m. and found that I had the place to myself.  I took a seat in a booth in the bar area and got a menu from the young lady who was also the bartender that evening.

Next to the bar area is a larger dining room for overflow.  It features a number of booths and tables, but it's nothing fancy.  There is a party room at Scornovacco's that people can rent out for celebrations or receptions.  

The pizza at Scornovacca's is a thin crust, but I seem to remember that they had deep-dish pizza at one point.  (I don't know if my memory is quite as good as it was - I could be thinking of someplace else.)  They have four different sauces that you can choose to go on the pizza - sweet marinara, alfredo sauce, a pesto sauce and a garlic butter.  They have over 24 different toppings that one can choose to put on a pizza.

I went with my old stand-by - sausage, mushroom and pepperoni, a small (9") one.  It didn't take long for the pizza to make it to the table and it was loaded with mozzarella, marinara and ample amounts of toppings.  The crust, even though it is thin, is not cracker-crust thin and had a little bit of pliability to it.  

The first bite immediately took me back about 25 years.  The sweet and tangy marinara sauce along with the caramelized cheese helped offset the slightly spicy taste from the Italian fennel sausage.   The pepperoni also had a nice little spicy and salty bite.  The mushrooms tasted fresh and earthy.  It easily passed my "does it taste good with a beer?" test.    I sat there shaking my head thinking that I have been an idiot for not coming back to Scornovacca's for so long.  

I'll guarantee you, it won't be long before I do make it back to Scornovacca's for another pizza.  There's a lot of excellent pizza choices in Des Moines and Scornovacca's has been one of the better ones for over 40 years.  The pizza was exactly the same as I remember years ago.   And there's something to be said for that kind of consistency.  

Konrad's Kitchen and Tap House - Lee's Summit, MO

On a recent trip to Kansas City, I went over to Lee's Summit on the southeast side of the great K.C. metro area to see one of my dealers around the middle of the day.  They asked if I was hungry and I said that, sure, I could eat something.  So we walked down a ways to a place they like to go to from time to time for lunch by the name of Konrad's Kitchen and Tap House.  

Joe and Julie Kemna are the owners of Konrad's Kitchen which opened in May of 2013.  The train illustration in the logo signifies that the restaurant is located near the train station and next to the railroad tracks in downtown Lee's Summit.  (see map)  

The interior of Konrad's Kitchen features a pretty good sized space with wooden floors and exposed rafters in the ceiling.  The bar area isn't all that large, but they do feature a nice selection of beers as well as a number of signature drinks.  Out a door off the bar area is an outdoor patio.  

There's a stage area along a brick wall in the main dining area where bands and musicians play three nights a week, Thursday thru Saturday.  The music goes until 10 p.m. on Thursdays, 12:30 a.m. on Fridays and 1:00 a.m. on Saturdays.  

It was toward the end of the noon hour when we made it into Konrad's Kitchen.  The menu appears to be typical of what you'd find at a typical tavern/saloon - burgers, sandwiches, appetizers and such.  But they also featured a K.C. strip steak entree as well as grilled fish tacos.  When I was going through the menu, I thought about getting the fish tacos.  

But my dealer took me there for what they called one of the best bargains for lunch in the area.  They have pizza at Konrad's Kitchen and they feature a $7.99 all-you-can-eat lunch special Monday thru Friday from 11:30 to 1:15.  My dealer told me, "We've come here at 1:10 and they only had a couple pieces of pizza on the buffet.  They'll ask us what we want and they'll make it up for us.  And it's only $7.99!"  

We had taken a table near the stage and our server, Jamie, came over to greet us.  My dealer said that we'd be going through the pizza buffet.  She said, "I figured that's what you were going to say."  

He turned to me when we were walking up to the buffet and said, "As you can tell, we come here quite a bit."  

They had a number of pizzas still on the buffet when we got there including one of their signature pizzas, the Train Wreck.  It was topped with just about everything - pepperoni, Italian sausage, pork sausage, beef, ham, green pepper, black olives, mushrooms - it looked overloaded with all the toppings.  

I ended up starting out with a couple pieces of the pepperoni pizza.  There was a thick crust on the outer edge with a thin - but not cracker thin - crust on the bottom.  The cheese was delightfully caramelized and was topped with large slices of salty pepperoni.  Although I would have liked to have had more pepperoni on the pizza, it was enough for what it was.  The pizza was pretty darned good.

I went back and grabbed a couple pieces of the Italian sausage pizza when they brought it out.  It was piping hot and had a good amount of chunky sausage on it.  Together, the Italian sausage and Italian sausage would have made for a fine pizza.

The pizza buffet and drinks for three guys came to under $30 bucks before a tip for Jamie.  She was attentive and even asked if there was any pizza they could make for us before they shut down the buffet.  We were happy with what they had.

I wouldn't mind heading back to Konrad's Kitchen at some point to try some of their fish tacos or one of their burgers at some point.  I liked the atmosphere of the place, Jamie's service was very good - even though we did the buffet - and I did like their pizza.  It was one of the better ones that I've had in the greater Kansas City area over the years. Konrad's Kitchen and Tap House is a good place to try if you're in the Lee's Summit area of Kansas City.  

Wente's O&W - Chesterfield, MO

While in the Chesterfield Valley in the far western suburbs of St. Louis recently, I decided to have lunch at a place that I hadn't been to in quite sometime - Wente's O&W.  I used to work for a company in the Chesterfield Valley nearly 20 years ago and we used to go there every once in a while for lunch or dinner.  It became a favorite place to stop when I had the chance for years after.  But it had simply been years since I was last in the place.  

Bob Wente was a noted midget car racer in the St. Louis area.  He got the racing bug when his parents took him to a race track as a little boy and he raced in his first competitive midget race at the age of 20.  10 years later he won his first United States Auto Club (USAC) national championship after finishing second three years in a row.   Wente eventually got to race in the USAC Championship Car Series - basically the Indy car series of its day.  He had 11 starts for the series and ended up with 5 Top Ten finishes.  

Pictured right - Bob Wente (Photo courtesy St. Louis Post Dispatch)

The highlight of Wente's career came at the 1964 Indianapolis 500.  After trying to qualify for the 500 for four years, he finally made the field starting in the middle of the back row.  A horrific wreck on the second lap happened in front of Wente who steered clear of the raging fire.  Despite being penalized for driving off the track and not through the fire, Wente eventually finished ninth during his inaugural Indy 500.  Luck and bad timing cost Wente other shots at driving at Indianapolis on Memorial Day weekend and he ended up going back to racing midget cars full time.  Bob Wente ended up second on the all-time list of most midget car victories behind the legendary Mel Kenyon.  

Wente retired from racing and opened his restaurant in Chesterfield.  He called it Wente's Open Wheel, which was eventually just shortened to Wente's OW.  My old boss who first turned me on to Wente's years ago told me that Bob told him that two many people were calling it Wente's "ow!", like what you'd say when you got hurt.  So he changed it to simply Wente's O&W.  

Bob Wente ran his restaurant up to his death in 2000.  His son Terry - who was also a midget car racer - took over the restaurant upon his father's death.  He continues to run the place today.  

Wente's O&W is located on Chesterfield Airport Road in the midst of office parks and near the Spirit of St. Louis airport. (see map) Wente's is one of the older structures in the ever growing Chesterfield Valley that has seen an explosion of retail stores, restaurants, small businesses and office buildings over the past 20 years.   

Wente's O&W features a number of racing memorabilia throughout the place.  The place is nothing fancy and it's cozy enough to make it inviting.  With all the businesses in the Chesterfield Valley, you'll often see guys in suits seated at a table with construction workers seated at the next table.  Wente's appeals to all walks.  

It was around 1:30 when I got into Wente's.  It was a cloudy day with mist in the air so it was pretty dark in Wente's.  They have an outdoor patio, but no one was sitting out there because of the moisture in the air.  It looked pretty much the same as it did the last time I was in there so many years ago.  

I took a seat at the bar and was greeted by one of the bartenders, Amber.  She gave me a menu and I immediately ordered up a Budweiser.  (When in St. Louis...)   She gave me a few minutes to figure out what I was going to get.

The racing theme extends to the menu with their "Green Flag" appetizers, their "Lap 1"  is an assortment of salads, "Lap 2" is the low-carb portion of the menu, with "Lap 3" being their pizzas.  I sort of remember their pizzas - thin crust and topped with a lot of cheese.  In fact, I almost went with one of their 7" luncheon sized pizzas.  

"Lap 4" on the menu features Wente's smoked barbecue items including ribs, brisket, pulled pork and smoked chicken wings.  "Lap 5" features the dinner platters including an 8 ounce ribeye, fried chicken entrees and a fried cod plate.  "Lap 6" are the available side items that you can order including 1/2 orders of onion rings, breaded mushrooms and jalapenos, and baked potatoes.  (These are available after 2 p.m.)

"Lap 7" was getting into my wheelhouse - steak sandwiches and burgers.  Wente's uses only Certified Angus Beef for their steaks and burgers.  They have a number of specialty burgers on the menu including the Funny Car burger that features a blackened patty topped with pepper jack cheese and fried jalapeno rings.  You can also build your own burger from their basic 1/4 pound burger (or a 1/2 pound burger for $1.29 more).  

The menu ends with the "White Flag" specialty sandwiches that include a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, a corned beef sandwich, a club sandwich, and something called "Scotty's BLT" - 1/3 pound of bacon with lettuce, tomato, mayo, American cheese and garlic butter on Texas toast.  And the "Checkered Flag" portion features chicken and fish sandwiches.  There's a little bit of everything on the menu at Wente's O&W.  

I went with the double (1/2 pound) burger with Swiss cheese, sauteed mushrooms and bacon.  Amber asked me if I wanted fries with my burger and I sort of turned up my nose at that.  "Cottage cheese?  Baked beans?  Cole slaw," she asked me.  I finally decided on the fries.  

The burger was topped with copious amounts of mushrooms, a couple thick slabs of bacon and Swiss cheese.  Skinny fries came on the side with the burger.  (I found later that I could have had steak fries instead of the regular fries.  I have been on a steak fry kick since I got back from England which had - by far - the best steak fries I've ever had.)  The flat-grilled burger was big, but manageable.  

The first bite was a memory jogger for me - I forgot how good Wente's burgers were.  The burger was juicy, messy and great tasting.  They have rolls of paper towels on the bar and I had to tear off at least five sheets during the course of eating the burger.  It was a glorious messy burger full of flavor.  The fries were basically a throw-away for me.  It was all I could do to eat the burger at Wente's.  

I was certainly glad to get reacquainted with Wente's O&W after all these years.  The food is good to very good for the type of bar/saloon food fare that they serve.  I've always liked going into the place years ago and I feel bad that I've neglected going back in until now.  It's one of those places that never really changes.  And sometimes that's not a bad thing.

It's (on the River) - Port Byron, IL

It was a beautiful Friday night recently and Cindy wanted to go somewhere for dinner where we could sit outside and enjoy the evening.  She suggested a place that we hadn't been to over on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River called It's on the River, or simply known as "It's" for the locals.  We had met some friends over there about six years ago and we thought the food and the views were good, so we decided to head back over that particular evening to give it another try.

It's on the River is owned by a group that calls themselves Quatro Banditos, LLC.  The managing partner is Cindy Bawden, a member of a somewhat famous family in the Quad Cities.  Her family owned Bawden Printing for a number of years located in Eldridge, a small town north of the Quad Cities, before merging with Von Hoffman Press in St. Louis back in 1999.  (Von Hoffman sold the business to RR Donnelley, the huge Chicago-based printing company, in 2007.  RR Donnelley subsequently shut down the Bawden Printing facility in 2009.)  Bawden and her then-husband, Pat Delashmutt, opened It's on the River in 2007.  But after the couple divorced in 2011, Cindy took over as the Managing Partner.  

It's on the River is one of those places where boaters, motorcyclists, or bikers converge in the summer months.  A bike path goes right by the place, and there's a dock with picnic tables for boaters to pull up to.  The Great River Road on the Illinois side of the river is well traveled by motorcyclists and people just out for day rides up and down the river.  It's on the River is less than 50 yards from the Mississippi River offering some stunning views from their deck patio.

  We got into the place around 7 p.m. that particular evening.  It was sort of windy and we thought about sitting inside the restaurant because, well, even if it's 75 degrees (like it was that day), my wife gets cold.  The patio runs the length of the restaurant and features an overhead heating system that will take the chill out of the air for people seated outside.  

The inside area is nice, as well.  While it's not large, it features large windows that look out onto the river.  High tables with high chairs are featured in the dining room.  A small bar area is off to the side.  It's on the River is the kind of place where it would be nice to go to even on a cold winter's day.  

 
We decided to sit outside after Cindy went back out to the car to get a light coat she had brought with her.  We were given a couple of menus by one girl who said the other lady working the deck with her would be our server.  But she did take our drink order while we took a look through the menu.  

The menu was, well, it was very different from what we remembered from our initial visit about six years before.  I remembered a pretty full menu that featured sandwiches and a handful of entrees.  But this menu was, well, pretty lean.  First of all, they only feature four appetizers on the menu at It's on the River - and they're not cheap.  6 boneless chicken wings and dipping sauce for $7.00 is a little steep to me.  And fried green beans don't appeal to me all that much.

I remember getting a pretty good reuben the first time we had dinner there, but they had no sandwiches on the menu.  They had burgers, chicken sandwiches and wraps along with fish and chips, pizza and salads on the menu.  And that was it.  Quite actually, nothing looked too appealing to either Cindy or me.  We contemplated just having a drink and heading to some other place.  

Our server for the evening came over to greet us.  She was a blonde woman who looked slightly familiar to us.  We later found out that she was the server who waited on us previously at the Black Ram Restaurant in Rock Island with the unique name - Donai.   We asked her if she was still at the Black Ram (we haven't been back since the infamous pizza episode I wrote about in this entry) and she said, "Oh, gosh, no.  I just live up the hill here and the commute is much better!"  

We continued to hem and haw about getting food there before Cindy said that she could get the fish and chips - deep fried cod with fries.  I wasn't certain I wanted a burger, but there wasn't anything else that was jumping out at me.  I almost went with the "Henhouse Salad" where they add your choice of a grilled or breaded chicken breast to a salad.  But I ended up getting the basic burger, but added Swiss cheese, sauteed mushrooms and bacon.  I got my choice of a side and since Cindy was getting fries, I thought I'd get cottage cheese to go with my burger.  

The food came out about 15 minutes or so after we ordered.  The fish and chips were, well...  We sort of laughed that they had the audacity to charge $8.00 bucks for basically two small deep-fried filets and a basket of fries.  Cindy said, "You've GOT to be kidding me..."  A small tub of tartar sauce came with the fish.  She said the fish was just "all right".  She called it more of an appetizer than a meal.  

  My burger looked promising with a square ciabatta bun. The only initial problem appeared to be that they gave me fries instead of cottage cheese.  Aw, that was all right with me.  I was going to concentrate on the burger.  

But after taking the bun top off the burger to add some pickles, onions and condiments, I was somewhat horrified to find a thin, processed grilled beef patty that appeared to be overcooked.  There were only a few sauteed mushroom slices on the burger, and a couple small strips of bacon.  This was an $11.00 burger from It's on the River.

 
The first bite of the burger confirmed my fears - the burger WAS overcooked.   The ciabatta bun was a nice touch, but the burger patty was hard and most of the life was cooked out of it.  Even the bacon, Swiss cheese and the small amount of mushrooms - along with the good ciabatta bun - couldn't help the overall taste of the burger.  It was highly disappointing.  

Our total bill came to $30.75 with a couple beers and a drink for Cindy.  (Taxes are included in the menu prices.)  We decided that was way too expensive for what is nothing but boring bar food.  But It's on the River has that dazzling view of the Mississippi, so we figured that has to be included in the menu prices.  We decided that if we did come back to visit It's on the River at some point, we'd come out for drinks and the view and get food somewhere else.

(Update - Almost as soon as this entry was posted, I was informed by a buddy that It's on the River will close on August 17 and the fixtures will be sold at auction.) 

Piece Brewery and Pizzeria - Chicago

I had an early afternoon meeting with a dealer in the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago and finished up around 1:30 or so.  I hadn't had any lunch and I was thinking of getting something to eat.  When I turned onto North Ave., I passed a place that has been in the back of my mind since I first had their pizza about three years ago - Piece Brewery and Pizzeria. (see map) I found a parking spot down the way on North and went inside to have lunch.

The first time I had a Piece pizza was when I was at Music Direct in Chicago and I had them order in some food for lunch for the staff.  They got 8 large thin-crust pizzas with various toppings.  I immediately liked the pizza and asked about the place.  One of the guys at Music Direct said, "The place is owned by Rick Nielsen (the lead guitarist for the rock band Cheap Trick).  It's great pizza."  It certainly was.  Ever since, I'd been wanting to get to Piece to try it out for myself.

It turns out that Rick Nielsen is only an active investor in the place.  The main guy at Piece is Bill Jacobs.  Jacobs is a native of New Haven, CT and came out to Chicago to visit friends over 30 years ago.  He soon found that there was a dearth of good bagel places in the area - especially in downtown Chicago.  Along with his brothers, Andy, the Jacobs brothers opened the Bagel Bakery in 1983. They were eventually joined in the business by their brothers Steve and Peter and they changed the name to Jacobs Bros Bagels.  Over the next 16 years, the Jacobs brothers expanded to 20 different locations around the Chicago area before they sold out to Big Apple Bagels in 1999.

Pictured right - Bill Jacobs 

Andy, Steve and Peter went off and did their own thing, but Bill Jacobs had an idea for a new pizza place in a city where pizza places were seemingly everywhere.  But Chicago didn't have Jacobs' beloved New Haven-style pizza - a thin crust with garlic, red sauce, olive oil and parmesan (no mozzarella) cheese and generally served on cookie sheets.  People told him that he was crazy and that a New Haven-style pizza wouldn't work in Chicago.  But he went ahead with the idea anyway.  

The other thing that Jacobs noticed was that Chicago didn't seem to have a lot of microbrews or brew pubs in the city.  There were a couple - including Goose Island - but brewpubs were opening at a dizzying rate nationally, but not in Chicago.  Jacobs enlisted the help of Jonathan Cutler, a Chicago native and graduate of Southern Illinois University and the Siebel Institute of Technology (where he learned the art of brewing beer).  Cutler had worked on the packing line at the Leinenkugel facility in Milwaukee before going on to stints at Goose Island in Chicago and Sierra Nevada in California.  When Cutler heard that a new brewpub was opening in Chicago, he contacted Bill Jacobs.  After an hour long phone conversation, Jacobs hired Cutler to be his brewmaster at his new brewpub/pizza place.  

Pictured left - Jonathon Cutler

Cutler had never commercially brewed beer before coming to Piece.  Today, he brews 8 beers in rotation with at least six beers on tap at any time.  He is a member of the Master Brewers Association and has won numerous medals in different beer categories at both the Great American Beer Fesitval in Denver and at the biennial World Beer Cup including the prestigious Small Brewpub and Brewmaster champion in 2006. 

Jacobs enlisted the financial help of Rick Nielsen (and others) to get his venture off the ground and Piece Brewery and Pizzeria opened in July of 2001 in what was formerly the garage of a roofing company.  Nielsen is far from a silent investor in the business - he actually came up with the concept for Piece's chocolate pizza dessert, an idea that he got when had traveled to Italy a few years ago.  You'll sometimes see Nielsen in the place, even participating in the live band karaoke on Saturday nights.  

In 2011, Piece was named "Independent Pizzeria of the Year" by Pizza Today magazine.  The single Piece location had topped the $6 million mark in revenues the year before.  

True to the New Haven-style pizza, Jacobs wanted a coal oven in which to cook his pizzas.  But finding that it was going to be nearly impossible to replicate the oven from the legendary Sally's Apizza in New Haven, Jacobs opted for a gas-fired Middleby oven with rotating shelf racks to get that New Haven-style crisp, yet chewy thin crust texture.  

It was well after the lunch rush when I walked into Piece.  The well-lit dining room was helped by a natural skylight in the ceiling letting the daytime light into the center of the room.  A long, curving bar was the most prominent feature of the room with a number of tables throughout the place.  The stage for regular karaoke (Thursday nights) and live band karaoke is to the right as you walk in.  A secondary dining room is on the other side of a wall that is adorned with Rick Nielsen/Cheap Trick memorabilia and pictures.  

A young lady greeted me and told me that I could sit anywhere.  I asked if I could get lunch at the bar and she said, "Sure!"  I sat at the bar and was greeted by a lady who would be my server/bartender who handed me a menu.  Looking over the beer list at Piece, in addition to the six beers they had on tap, they also had a number of regional microbrews to choose from.  I ended up getting one of Piece's "Golden Arm" beers, a German-style Kolsch beer.  

All the ingredients that they put on the pizzas at Piece are fresh.  And there's some pretty eclectic toppings that you can get.  They have pizzas that can be topped with clams in a white sauce (made famous by the legendary Frank Pepe's in New Haven), artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, sauteed mushrooms and even mashed potatoes.  I understand that the mashed potato topping is one of the more popular ones at Piece.  They have two sizes of pizza - a large 16" pizza and a smaller 12" pizza.  They also feature salads, appetizers and sandwiches on the menu including a roasted turkey breast sandwich and an eggplant parmesan sandwich.

But I was going to get a pizza and I asked my server if I could get a 12" Italian sausage, pepperoni and sauteed mushroom pizza.  She said, "Well, a 12" is pretty big.  We do have a single serving small pizza that's about seven or eight inches big."  She pointed it out on the lower part of the menu under lunch size pizzas.  I said that would be perfect.  I was thinking of getting it New Haven style with the parmesan cheese and no mozzarella, but I didn't feel adventurous on this trip.  Besides, I think I will be back at some point and bring my wife.  We can try a New Haven-style pizza then.  I just got a traditional pizza with the red sauce.  

About 15 minutes after I ordered the pizza, my server brought it out to me.  When she sat it down in front of me, I said, "This is perfect!  Exactly the size that I need!"  I didn't want to stuff myself on a larger pizza in the middle of the day.  

 
The pizza was cut into quarter triangles.  It had a bubbly crust like a Neapolitan-style pizza with plentiful toppings.  It wasn't slathered in mozzarella, but there was enough of the melted cheese to let you know it was there.  

The first bite of the Piece pizza brought back the initial memories of the first time I'd had a slice a couple three years previously.  Only this time it was better because it was fresh out of the oven.  The red sauce was tangy and not too sweet.  The sauteed mushrooms had a wonderful flavor as did the somewhat spicy Italian sausage and pepperoni.  The crust - well, I couldn't really tell what it was made out of.  I thought it may have been a cornmeal crust, which I don't care for - but will eat if it's forced upon me.  It was crispy toward the outer edges and more limp toward the middle - especially if the toppings had laid on it long enough for the crust to get saturated.  It was a very good pizza.

The Golden Arm Kolsch beer was also very good.  I like a good Kolsch from time to time because I sometimes like a little less bitterness from a Pilsner-style beer.  Kolsch beers are to Pilsner beers as what American Pale Ales are to India Pale Ales, it's a subdued bitterness on the tongue.  It was great with the pizza.   

Piece Brewery and Pizzeria has been wildly successful in its 13 years of existence.  It's so popular that they do not take reservations on Friday or Saturday nights as the place can get pretty packed. And I can easily see why.  First of all, it's a fun place, they have good service with great pizza and award winning beers.  By the way, Bill Jacobs announced earlier this year that he had taken over the space next to Piece that used to house a salon and will be putting in a bagel store using the same recipes that they had in the Jacobs Bros. Bagel stores.  Pizza and bagels are the only two things Jacobs knows.  Well, and beer.  I'm sure the bagel place will be as big of a hit as Piece is.  (Picture courtesy DNA Info/Chicago.)

Wig and Pen - Ankeny, IA

On a recent trip to Central Iowa, I was forced to get a hotel room in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny, just north of the city, because something was going on in Des Moines and all the good hotel rooms were full.  I found a room at a Hampton Inn in Ankeny and decided that I'd go get something to eat.  I looked up pizza places on my GPS and the Wig and Pen came up.  That's right - Ankeny has a Wig and Pen, just like the original one in the Iowa City/Coralville area.  I decided to head that direction for a late dinner.

The Wig and Pen on the border of Iowa City and Coralville (some say the boundary goes through the men's bathroom) is one of my all-time favorite places to go to.  (Click here to see my entry on Wig and Pen.)  They have a dish called the Wigatoni that is basically baked rigatoni in a meat sauce (spicy or mild - I usually get the spicy) with copious amounts of caramelized mozzarella cheese that on top.  It is truly to die for.  But their pizza is pretty good, too.  My wife and I met her sister there for dinner last fall and we got one of their deep dish pizzas.  It was as if we were transported to Chicago for the evening for a good Chicago stuffed pizza.  We like the deep-dish stuffed pizza a little more than their signature "Flying Tomato" deep-dish pizza that is garnished with tomato slices on the top. 

And this is what frustrates me - the Quad Cities sits 55 miles closer to Chicago than Iowa City and there are only one or two of what I would call "good" pizza places in the greater Q.C. area thanks to the proliferation of the ghastly Quad City-style pizza.  Iowa City has four excellent places for pizza - including a couple "Chicago-style" places that I can think of off the top of my head and if I searched harder I could probably find two or three more.  So when I found out that Wig and Pen had expanded 115 miles to the west in Ankeny about seven years ago, I was upset because they could have put a location in the Quad Cities and literally cleaned up.  

It was around 9 p.m. when I got into the Wig and Pen in Ankeny.  It's located in the corner of a new-ish strip mall on Ankeny's south side on S. Ankeny Blvd. across from the main campus for the Des Moines Area Community College, about a five minute drive from the hotel.  (see map)  There were only a few people in the place when I walked in.  They serve food until 10 p.m. through the week, so I was OK.  

The dining area at the Wig and Pen in Ankeny is different from the one in Iowa City/Coralville.  It's a little more spiffy and open in the Ankeny location than the well-worn, but warm feeling you get from the very cozy dining room in Iowa City.  

 
I ended up sitting at the bar and got a menu from the bartender/server, Katie.  She was efficient, but a little withdrawn and indifferent.  I couldn't tell if she was tired or if she was upset that I came in after 9 p.m. on a weeknight to get food.  Sometimes I get that vibe if a place has been slow and I come in to order food late.  

I was going to make it easy on her.  I just wanted a small, thin-crust sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  It had been a long time since I'd gotten a thin-crust pizza at the Iowa City/Coralville Wig and Pen and I wanted to try one that evening.  And it didn't take long to get out to me as I was - by that time - the only one ordering food in the place.  

Like the one in Iowa City/Coralville, the pizza was cut into square party cut - or some call them "tavern cut" - slices instead of the traditional triangle cuts.  Caramelized mozzarella covered the top of the pizza with large chunks of sausage, fresh mushroom slices and a good amount of pepperoni slices were included on the pizza.  

At first, I thought the pizza was overcooked a bit.  The crust was a little hard and crispy when I got the first bite.  But as I went on and the pizza settled a bit, the crust became more pliable and not as crunchy.  The sweet and tangy tomato sauce Wig and Pen uses on their pizzas in the Iowa City area was the same as the one I had in Ankeny.  As I said, it had been a long time since I'd had a thin-crust pizza at the original Wig and Pen, but the one that I had in the Ankeny location acquitted itself very well.  It's one of the wonderful pizzas that tastes great with a cold beer.  

Here's a note to the owners of Wig and Pen over in Iowa City - do yourselves (and ME!) a big favor.  Look toward the east and put a location in Davenport.  The Fieldhouse from Iowa City is opening a location in the North Park Mall and their food isn't even close to what the Wig and Pen offers.  I'm hoping that gets restaurant owners in Iowa City to consider going east.  If they can replicate the original Wig and Pen's food in Ankeny, they could easily do it in half the distance between Iowa City and Ankeny.  I'm not certain the people in Ankeny know how lucky they are have a Wig and Pen location.  But they're a lot more lucky than the people in the Quad Cities.

Cranky Pat's (Frank and Pat's) Pizza - Green Bay, WI

In Green Bay one recent evening, I decided to give a place called Cranky Pat's a try for their pizza.  Cranky Pat's is the former Frank and Pat's Pizza Palace in Green Bay with a long-ago connection to Frank's Pizza Palace in Appleton, WI.  I liked the pizza at Frank's (click here to see my entry on Frank's Pizza Palace), so I anticipated a pizza at Cranky Pat's that was equal to the one I had at Frank's a few years ago. 

The genesis of the original Frank and Pat's Pizza Palace started out with a young guy from Chicago by the name of Frank Pierri.  Around 1954, Frank had come up to the Fox Valley area for a wedding of a friend and fell in love with the region.  He discovered that there were no pizza places in Appleton, so he opened one there with the help of a friend from Chicago, Pat Earle.  After awhile, the two got into a tiff and split up with Frank Pierri keeping the one in Appleton and Pat Earle opening a place in nearby Menasha.  Pat also had places in Marinette, WI and Oshkosh, before opening a location in Green Bay.  

In 1993, along with his son's Michael and David, the Earle family opened a location in Neenah, WI and named it Cranky Pat's.  They've since opened a new Oshkosh pizzeria about 10 years ago and opened a second Green Bay location in 2013.  Dave Earle runs the Neenah location, and his sister-in-law Mary Sue ran the Green Bay locations until she turned them over to her daughter, Sarah Veldkamp, and her husband, Paul, not long ago.  Pat Earle's grandson's, Jason and Aaron Baer, run the Oshkosh location.  

Green Bay is one of those cities where most of the streets run Northwest to Southeast and Northeast to Southwest.  Every time I go there, I think I'm going east and I look at the compass on my dashboard and it says I'm going south.  So, I wasn't overly certain how to get to Cranky Pat's from my hotel.  Thankfully, my GPS took me right to Cranky Pat's at the corner of Bellevue and Cass Streets, sort of south and east of Green Bay's downtown.  (see map)

I came upon Cranky Pat's, but it still had a sign on the side of the building that said "Frank and Pat's Pizza".  There's a parking lot across the street and I went in to find the place about half full.  The sign said to seat myself, so I found a table along the wall on the east side of the restaurant.  

The dining room is spacious and well lit.  They have tables large enough to seat 8 people with many 6 and 4 seaters throughout the place.  It's definitely family friendly at Cranky Pat's.  There were at least two birthday parties going on during the time I was in there.  

 
The original Faulds oven from the late 50's is still churning out pizza over 50 years after it was first used.  The Ferris Wheel-type revolving shelf oven has room for 24 pizzas at once.  I was told that while this is the original oven, many of the parts have had to be replaced over the years.  I understand that Faulds ovens are no longer made and that you have to take parts from other old Faulds ovens if something goes bad.  The Faulds oven at Cranky Pat's is the same one that's used at Frank's Pizza Palace in Appleton.  

The pizza prep area is right up front with patrons able to see the pizzas being made out in the open.  The thin crust pizzas are rolled and hand tossed before they're put on pizza boards for transfer into the Faulds oven.  

One of the female servers came over with a menu.  She told me she wouldn't be my server, but wanted to know if I wanted anything to drink.  I ordered up a beer and took a look through the menu.  

Pizza is the main item on the menu and they're not cheap - similar to Frank's over in Appleton.  A large (16") Pat's Special that features double sausage and double pepperoni along with your choice of two more toppings comes to just under $27 bucks.  A small "build-your-own" with three toppings comes to just over $19 bucks.  The one thing that I remember from Frank's is that they don't skimp on the toppings there.  I was hoping it would be the same thing with Pat's Pizza.  

In addition to the typical pizza place appetizers - garlic bread, pizza sticks, etc. - they also have a salad bar with soup at Pat's.  The menu features Italian-style sandwiches, pasta - including lasagna - and baked pasta entrees.  

When my server came back to take my order, I went with my usual sausage, mushroom and pepperoni.  It didn't take all that long for the pizza to get out to me.  It was definitely a thin-crusted and very large small pizza, but I could tell from a first glance that it was a little overcooked for my tastes.  The bottom of the first piece of the party cut/tavern cut pizza was slightly burnt.  I know people who like their pizza that way, but I don't like the charred taste on a pizza.  

But the other thing that was tough to notice was that they certainly didn't skimp on the toppings.  In fact, I may have to say that there were TOO MANY mushrooms on my pizza.  I know I'm being a little critical, but nearly each piece of pizza that I had was covered in mushrooms.  So much so that I couldn't make out the taste of the sausage or pepperoni very well.  But the mushrooms were fresh and very flavorful.  

Making my way around the perimeter of the pizza, as I got toward the center pieces I found the burnt taste was primarily on the edges.  As I got into the center "honey pot" square slices, the crisp crust had yielded to a softer, more chewy crust - probably from the combination of the toppings and the tangy sweet sauce settling in.  I couldn't finish the pizza in one sitting - it was a big pizza for a small (two people could have easily eaten it).  I think I left about 10 or 11 square pieces, declaring that I was done when my server came to check on me.  I did, however, get the extra pieces to go and I had three or four more pieces the following morning by warming them up in the microwave in my room.  They warmed up very well and pizza for breakfast is always a treat.

Could I tell which was better between Frank's or Pat's?  Probably not.  They're both so similar that I don't think you could really tell the difference between the two.  Both places use the same Fauld's pizza oven, they use an abundance of fresh toppings, and the crust is thin - just the way I like it. The bill with a couple beers and a tip for the waitress came to about $30 bucks.  Not cheap for a pizza place, but they made up for it with an enormous amount of toppings on the pizza.  One other thing - Pat's Pizzeria has free wi-fi, something that I appreciate when I'm scouring the web for news and updates while I'm waiting for my pizza.  I love finding old pizza joints like this on the road and the pizza at Pat's was one of the better ones that I've come across in my travels.     

Arris' Pizza Palace - Jefferson City, MO

Back in Jefferson City on a mission to put on a new dealer there, it turned out that the product that I had intended to demonstrate to said dealer didn't get delivered (thanks to Saia Freight Company) before I got there.  Without the product, I couldn't do a proper demonstration.  Trying to make the best of a situation, I still held a meeting but I don't know if my points were effective enough without having the product on hand.  Dejected and needing a cold beer, I went back to my hotel in downtown Jeff City.  I talked to a young lady at the front desk and asked her about the pizza at Prison Brews that looked pretty good the first time I had eaten there a few weeks before.  (Click here to see my entry on Prison Brews.)  She said, "Oh, if you want pizza, you need to go over to Arris' Pizza.  It's the best around, by far. "  And she said it wasn't far from the hotel.  A walk or a drive, I asked.  She said I could probably walk to it, but since it was a cold and blustery night, I drove over.

Arris Pardalos was born in 1935 in a village near Mount Olympus in Greece.  After his family moved to the United States, they settled down in Central Missouri.  It was the early 60's and Arris Pardalos had a pizza recipe that he wanted to share with the public.  Finding that Jefferson City had a scarcity of pizza parlors, Arris - with the help of his brother, George - opened Arris' Pizza Parlor in 1961, just across from the Missouri State Capitol building.  George went on to open the G&D Steakhouse and Arris was joined in the business by his wife, Georgia.  

The popularity of Arris' pizza allowed the restaurant to grow from a small location to adding two more buildings next to the original Arris' Pizza Palace.  As the years went on, Arris' Pizza Palace franchised other Missouri locations in Springfield, Osage Beach, Fulton and Columbia.  Pictured at right is Arris Pardalos and his son, George, who now runs the day-to-day operation of Arris' Pizza Palace in Jeff City.  (George Pardalos, along with his wife, Olga, also operates Arris' Bistro and Liquid Lounge in Jefferson City.)  

It was about a five block drive from my hotel to Arris' Pizza on a unseasonably cold evening.  Had it been warmer, I would have just made the walk.  Instead, I pulled up in front of the original Arris' Pizza Palace on West High across from the Missouri State Capitol building.  (see map)  I entered the building and was met by a couple young women at the hostess stand.   There weren't very many people in the place and I had my choice of sitting either in the main dining room (below left) or the bar area (below left).  I said the bar area would be fine.

 

I was to a booth in the corner of the cozy and warm bar area.  Soft Greek jazz music was playing in the background.  The hostess dropped off a menu and it wasn't long before the bartender/server, Amanda, came over to greet me.  "What 'cha gonna have to drink, hon," she asked me in a down-home Mid-Missouri way.  I ordered up a beer.  "You got it, hon," she said as she went to get me a cold one.  I immediately liked her.  

Arris' Pizza Palace has a lot more to offer than their thin-crust Greek-style pizza.  They also offer a number of Greek entrees including souvlaki and chicken Sharas (marinated chicken breast in Greek dressing and grilled), pasta dishes, sandwiches - including gyros and subs, salads and traditional Greek appetizers along with appetizers such as chicken wings, toasted ravioli, breaded mushrooms and jalapeno poppers.  

But I was there for the pizza.  When Amanda came back to drop off my beer, she said, "You know what your gonna get, hon?"  I told her that I wanted a small pizza (10") with sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms.  She asked me what kind of crust I wanted.  "Crispy, not so crispy, light or traditional," she gave as options.  I just said that I wanted just what they're known for.  "Traditional," she said.  "OK, hon, I'll get that out for you."  

About 15 minutes after I ordered, Amanda came out with my pizza.  I could tell from the first look at it that I would thoroughly enjoy eating this pizza.  It was the typical Greek-style of pizza - rolled edges, thin crust, party-cut slices with thick balls of sausage on top of each slice.  It immediately reminded me of Steve's Pizza Palace in River Falls, WI, and Alex's Pizza Palace in Rolla, MO, both outstanding Greek-style pizza places.  (Click here to see my entry on Steve's Pizza Palace and click here to see my entry on Alex's Pizza Palace.)

From the first bite, I could tell that this was definitely a great pizza.  The sauce was light, but tangy.  There was just enough mozzarella cheese on the pizza to be noticeable, but not overpowering.  The crust was lightly crispy, but not cracker thin and brittle.  The mushrooms were there, but not anything special.  The pepperoni was salty and had a little spicy kick.  And the sausage had a great taste with each party-cut slice.  It was a great pizza and it easily passed my "Does it taste good with a beer" test.

The four best pieces of any party cut pizza are the ones left in the middle - or the "honey pot", as I like to refer to them as.  There's no crust and all the ingredients sort of slide toward the middle. It's also where the grease collects and the cheese coagulates.  The "honey pot" pieces on an Arris' pizza were just outstanding.   

 
After I took care of the bill with Amanda, I took a look around the place.  I was taking pictures of some of the colorful murals on the walls and a woman who was standing with two of the young ladies at the hostess stand brusquely asked, "Are you trying to steal some of our ideas?"

Now, I don't like to tell people that I'm doing a blog, but I thought her question was a little rough and rather defensive.  I just told her that I liked to take pictures of places where I eat on the road.  With that, one of the other young ladies standing there came over to where I was and told me that the murals were all painted by an art professor from the local William Woods University.  She pointed out a mural of Arris and his family, as well as ones that depicted Greek villages and ports.  They were actually very colorful and beautiful.    

With my three-topping pizza and three beers, my bill before tax and tip came to just over $20 bucks.  It was a great pizza and - I thought - a pretty good value.  Arris' Pizza Palace has been in business for over 50 years and I was told that the pizza ovens they use are probably the originals giving their pizzas more of that signature taste.  It's my guess that while the other Arris' Pizza locations are good, it will be tough to beat the pizza at the original location in Jefferson City.

Hall of Fame Pizza and Wings - Bettendorf, IA

When I first moved to the Quad Cities over 20 years ago, one of the more popular places to get a pizza was a place called Beaver's East in Bettendorf.  Beaver's East had a style of pizza that was more Chicago-style than the horrid Quad City-style of pizza that is found in the vast majority of pizza places in the area.  Beaver's East decided to move to a new building near the corner of 53rd Ave. and 18th St. in Bettendorf over a dozen years ago.  Since then, there have been no less than three restaurants/bars that have opened - and failed - at the old Beaver's East location.  Many of the locals viewed the location as a culinary "black hole" that was bad luck for the people who put an eatery in the building.  (Ironically, the "new" Beaver's East didn't last long and that building, too, has seen its share of restaurant comings and goings ever since.)  However, last summer a new place opened in the old Beaver's East - Hall of Fame Pizza and Wings.  We gave it a couple tries over a two week period not long ago.  

Jason Harper comes from a restaurant background and opened the first Hall of Fame Pizza about six years ago in DeWitt, IA - about a half hour drive north of the Quad Cities.  Along with his wife, LaShell, the two started out slow in the business.  Jason kept his day job of owning a landscaping business, and LaShell continued to work at the Rock Island Arsenal.  But the two built up quite a following in the DeWitt area before opening a small take-out place in Park View, about a 15 minute drive north of Davenport.  A couple years ago Jason sold his landscaping business and focused on running the restaurants full time.  He closed up the Park View location and moved into the Bettendorf location along State Street in 2013.  (see map)

We had new neighbors move in across the street from us in early 2013.  It turned out that the wife, Shontel, is the sister of LaShell Harper and worked for her sister and brother-in-law on a part-time basis at the Hall of Fame Pizza in DeWitt.  When they opened the Bettendorf location, she moved down there.  Our neighbors told us that the pizza at Hall of Fame was not the Quad City-style that we detest, but more of a traditional style with varying thicknesses of crust.  

On a Friday evening, we went down to Hall of Fame in Bettendorf to give their pizza a try.  We got a medium (14") thin crust sausage, pepperoni and mushroom on our first visit.  It was very good - much better than the Quad City-style pizza.  We couldn't wait to tell our friends about the place.  (I didn't take my phone in on that visit, but we knew we'd be back at some point.)  

One couple we told about Hall of Fame went there for their lunch buffet earlier this year and my friend called me from the place and said, "This pizza is awesome!  This buffet is awesome!  Pizza, salad bar and pop all for $8.95!  I can't stop eating the pizza!"   

It was a Saturday night and we were out with our friends, Scott and Marcia, having a few drinks at a local watering hole.  Around 7:30, the women decided that we needed to go get something to eat.  Cindy said, "Hey, maybe we should go out to Hall of Fame in Bettendorf!"  Our friends were very enthusiastic with the prospect of giving the place a try.  

After being open a few months, it turns out that Hall of Fame is a very popular place.  We got in around 8 p.m. and the place was packed.  There were a few people hanging around the small bar waiting for a place to be seated.  But seated at one of the long tables in the dining room was my neighbor, Dave, his father-in-law (Shontel and LaShell's father) and his two young kids.  There were four seats open next to them and Dave said, "Hey, neighbor!  You guys can have the seats next to us here!"  Sometimes it pays to know the right people.  

Hall of Fame Pizza and Wings in Bettendorf is not all that large, but it has a lot going on.  Flat screen televisions hang from the walls and booths in the back have their own small flat screen televisions.  A number of games are found in the backroom, popular with people of all ages.  

They feature a number of beers on tap and in bottles.  Even though they do have a bar, they don't have mixed drinks - much to the consternation of my wife who rarely drinks beer.  (That's all right - I more than make up for her!)  We also noted that they have a nice patio off to the side that is open in the summer months.  

In addition to pizza and, of course, wings (with over 20 different types of sauces), Hall of Fame also has calzones and pasta dishes, burgers and sandwiches, and a number of appetizers and salads.  The menu also features ribs and shrimp tacos.  

My wife and I like our pizza crust to be as thin as possible without it being cracker-thin, while Scott and Marcia like their crust to be a little more thick and chewy.  Hall of Fame Pizza gives you a choice of thin, hand-tossed or their original (thicker) crust pizza - sort of the thickness of a Quad City-style pizza.  We both ordered pizzas - ours was a thin crust sausage and pepperoni, while Scott and Marcia went with the 14" original crust sausage and mushroom.  

My wife and I decided to get a salad to tide us over before our pizza showed up.  The salad bar at Hall of Fame isn't large, but sufficient enough for a small salad before dinner.  The lettuce - even at that time of night -was very fresh and they had an adequate amount of toppings to liven up the salad.  

 
Our pizzas came out and they smelled wonderful.  Our pizza looked similar to the one we had before, the sausage was not the big chucks as we normally like, but it wasn't finely ground like you find with with most Quad City-style pizza.  The sauce is tangy, not too sweet, and it heightens the taste sensation of the pizza.  Hall of Fame covers their pizza with a lot of mozzarella and the oven gives the cheese a nice caramelization on top.  The crust is thin enough to not make the pizza overly doughy, but holds up well when you're biting into it.

Scott and Marcia were also very impressed with the pizza they got at Hall of Fame.  They liked the thickness of the crust and the fresh flavor of the toppings.  "This is really good pizza," Marcia said.  

After our first visit, my neighbor, Dave, had heard we were down there to give the pizza a try.  (Shontel was working there the first night we came in.)  He asked me what I thought and I told him that it was very good.  When we were finishing up on our second visit, Dave - still seated at the table with his father-in-law and Jason Harper - asked me if the pizza was still good.  Even if Jason wasn't seated there, I would have said the same thing I'm telling you now, "The pizza is awesome, Dave.  It may be our new 'go-to' place for pizza in the Quad Cities."   The pizza is very good to excellent, in my opinion.  And the service, even though it was sort of chaotic in there that evening, was very good, as well.  Our biggest fear is that Hall of Fame Pizza and Wings will get so popular that it will be tough to get in there on a whim.  But that's a problem that Jason and LaShell would gladly love to have.

(Update - September 2017  One of our friends came over to see us recently and during the course of conversation he mentioned that Hall of Fame had closed down.  My wife and I were both floored.  We had no idea that they had closed since we hadn't been there for over a month.  My friend told us that the Harper's had evidently leased the building and the person who owned the building sold it.  Hall of Fame in Bettendorf closed at the end of August, but their DeWitt location is still open.  That's a shame because that had sort of become our "go-to" for pizza in the Quad Cities with our friends and family.  We understand that a new pizza place - Quad City Pizza Company - will open in the former Hall of Fame location later this fall.  It may be worth checking out, that is, if it doesn't have Quad City Style pizza.)

Prison Brews - Jefferson City, MO

I just put on a dealer in Jefferson City, MO, one that I've been pursuing for awhile and they finally came around to picking up some of my products.  I had a meeting with them in Jeff City recently and had some time to get some lunch before I left town.  I happened upon a brewpub with a unique name and concept - Prison Brews.  I decided to give the place a try.  

The Missouri State Penitentiary is a local historical landmark in Jefferson City - some for good reasons, many for the bad ones.  From 1836 to 2004, some of the most notorious of Missouri's criminals were locked up in the prison located on Lafayette Street near the Missouri River in Jefferson City.  It was the oldest prison west of the Mississippi River and - at one time - housed the largest prison population in the U.S.  When the prison closed ten years ago and inmates were moved to a new facility on the outskirts of Jefferson City, they began to conduct tours through the facility starting in 2009.  The "ghost tours" are one of the types of tours with overnight paranormal tours available.  (Note - the Missouri State Penitentiary tours have been closed down since November of 2013 for clean up and renovations making the facility safer to receive tourists.  It is scheduled to reopen sometime in the spring of 2014.)

Debbie Brown also knew the importance of the old prison on the history of Jefferson City and she opened Prison Brews, located about 4 blocks from the former prison, in 2008.  She put a prison theme into her new restaurant and renovated the building to include prison bars, cells and even a "gas chamber", but they're really just the restrooms.  (Get it?)  

 
The building in which Brown put Prison Brews was built toward the end of the 19th century.  It originally housed a wagon and blacksmithing shop, then it became a creamery before turning into the historic Landwehr Dairy in the early 1940's.  After Landwehr Dairy moved out, it was an electrical company for a number of years.   

It was around 1:30 when I pulled up to Prison Brews at the corner of Ash and East High streets in Jefferson City.  (see map)  I was greeted by a guy who pointed me toward one of the booths - called "cells" at Prison Brews.  I took a seat and he dropped off a food menu.  Curiously, there was no beer menu either on the food menu or on the table.  There was a beer menu behind the bar in the step-up bar area, but it was behind prison bars and I couldn't read it very well.  

My server, Jennifer, came over to greet me.  I asked what kind of pale ales they had on tap and she said they had a regular India pale ale and one that was more hoppy.  Then she told me that they had an American pale ale with reduced hops.  I told her I'd take one of those.  

I looked through the menu and it was very typical of many brewpubs I've visited in the past.  They had some interesting and unique appetizers including spicy pub pickles where they take a jalapeno beer-batter and coat a pickle spear before deep frying it.  It's served with a roasted red pepper aioli.  They also have something called pepperoncini bites were they take Italian sausage, dried pepperoncinis, tomatoes and mozzarella that are coated in a breading and deep fried.  Actually, both of those sounded pretty good.  

Of course, they had the normal burgers and sandwiches at Prison Brews.  Soups and salads are also available and they also have a brick-oven fired thin crust pizza that they serve at the brewpub.  I saw one on the table of a group of people as I walked by earlier and it looked damn good.  They also featured entrees of beer-boiled peel-and-eat shrimp, fish and chips, a steak entree, and a couple pasta dishes.  But I decided I'd get a burger.

When Jennifer came back with my beer, I was ready to order.  They had both a mushroom/Swiss cheese burger and an applewood-smoked bacon cheese burger on the menu.  I asked Jennifer if I could combine the two getting some of the applewood-smoked bacon on the mushroom/Swiss burger.  She said it would be no problem.

I sipped on the beer catching up on e-mails while I waited for the burger to come out.  The beer was lightly hopped and seemed fresh enough.  I've been favoring American pale ales as of late and this one was fine. 

Jennifer brought out the burger and it was served open face with a good pile of sauteed mushrooms resting on top of an ample slice of Swiss cheese.  Two slices of the applewood-smoked bacon criss-crossed the top of the burger.  A pile of handcut fries came with the burger.  

I had ordered the burger to be medium, but it was past medium-well.  No pink in the middle, it was not very juicy and had more of a charred taste than I like.  The bun was also pretty substantial - actually it was too much bun for the burger.  But the saving grace were the sauteed mushrooms, which were wonderful, and the very flavorful Swiss cheese that helped with the overall taste of the burger.  I would call it an average burger, at best.  If they hadn't overcooked it to my liking, I'm sure I would have liked it even more.

The handcut French fries were sort of "meh!"  The burger was big enough where I didn't need the fries to help with my appetite.  

After paying for lunch, I went back to use the "gas chamber" restroom.  On the way back to the restrooms, their small batch brewing rooms are on either side of the hallway.  The brewery at Prison Brews is not a big operation as they try to keep the quality of the beers they brew as high as possible.  The beer I had was all right, nothing special, but just all right.  

 
I took a look outside on the side of Prison Brews and found that they had a substantial patio with a number of mesh metal tables and chairs along with a couple bocce ball courts.  This looked like it would be a fun place on a warm summer evening and I'm guessing that it was probably used a lot.  But on a cold late winter afternoon, the patio and bocce courts were understandably closed.

OK, so Prison Brews is a little kitschy with the jail theme to the place.  But it sets itself apart from other generic brewpubs I've found around the Midwest.  The burger was all right.  The beer was - once again - all right. Jennifer did a good job of taking care of me.  I would like to come back and try the pizza at some point, but I may have to wait until the summer when the patio area is open.  Now that I have a dealer in Jeff City I'll have a reason to come back.

The Lucky Monk - S. Barrington, IL

I recently stayed out in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago near a dealer I have in Hoffman Estates.  After a morning meeting, I went back to the hotel to return e-mails and pack up.  Across the street from the hotel I stayed at was a small entertainment area that featured a brew pub called The Lucky Monk.  I didn't have my next appointment until about 2 p.m., so after checking out of the hotel I wandered over to The Lucky Monk to get some lunch. 

The Lucky Monk opened in December of 2009 and is owned by a group of capital investors - NexGen Partners - based out of west suburban Lombard.  Kevin Chorzempa is the General Manager of the restaurant and Anthony Carollo is the Lucky Monk's brewmaster.  The 10-barrel microbrewery features six different styles of year-round beers as well as a number of seasonal varieties.  If you name the place after Trappist Monks who perfected the art of brewing beer, you'd better have some good beer.  

The Lucky Monk is located just north of the Northwest Tollway and just west of Barrington Road in what is known as South Barrington.  (see map)  I think Hoffman Estates is considered to be on the east side of Barrington Road.  I was greeted at the hostess stand by a young lady who delivered me to a table in the bar area of The Lucky Monk.  She seated me at a tall banquette seat along the wall and dropped off a menu.  She said that Jinny would be my server for lunch.    

There's a spacious dining area off to the right as you come in, but the bar area is also rather large with a rectangular bar, the brewing barrels are off to the side behind glass windows, and a number of flat screen televisions hang from the ceiling and walls of the bar area.  There was some sort of one instrument synthesized music playing in the background of the bar.  

My server came over, only she introduced herself as "J.J.".  She asked if I wanted something to drink and I ordered up their housemade Confessional IPA.  In addition to the year-round and seasonal beers they feature at The Lucky Monk, they also have a number of other regional craft brews available including Lagunitas beers from California and some imports.  I found that to be somewhat interesting because most brewpubs refuse to have other beers other than their own.  

They're proud of their burgers at The Lucky Monk - all burgers are made with USDA prime beef and ground in house.  They feature twelve signature burgers which include the Grilled Cheese burger - a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich as the bed for a burger and it's topped with another grilled bacon and cheese sandwich for the crown.  There's also the Ellis burger that is topped with ratatouille, feta cheese, Kalamata olives and arugula.  Then you have the Sunrise burger that is topped with a fried egg and bacon marmalade.  And they have a burger in which they pay homage to Elvis Presley - The King - which is topped with sliced bananas, peanut butter and bacon.  Uh, no.... thank you very much.  For the health conscious, they also have two turkey burgers on the menu.     

In addition to burgers, The Lucky Monk features wood fired pizza, the typical appetizers, soups and salads, a handful of sandwiches, dinner entrees that include baby back ribs, a tri-tip sirloin steak, and an interesting pasta dish featuring short ribs braised with their housemade stout beer and mixed with wild mushrooms.  They also have skirt steak tacos, as well as deep fried fish tacos.  If they had grilled fish tacos, I may have considered getting those.  

The Confessional IPA was actually very good.  It had a good and forward hoppy taste, but it wasn't overpowering as some India Pale Ale's can be.  The beer had a nice finish and a lingering hop taste that was rather tasty.

When Jinny came back to take my order, I figured on making my own burger.  I got a burger topped with Merkts cheddar cheese, smoked bacon and sauteed mushrooms.  Fries came with the burger, but I was more interested in the burger.

The lunch crowd had ramped up while I was there and it took about 20 minutes from the time I ordered my burger until another server brought it to my table.  The burger was topped with sliced red onions, a sliced tomato and lettuce greens in addition to the sauteed mushrooms, Merkts cheddar spread, and smoked bacon.  The burger was sitting on a small base that gave it more height over the mound of hand cut French fries that came with it.  

 
The burger was cooked to a perfect medium for me - a little pink in the middle.  With all the toppings, I was sort of worried that I wouldn't get the essence of the taste of the meat.  But after my first bite, I forgot about that.  The bold taste of the ground USDA Prime beef jumped out at me.  It was juicy and very flavorful.  The toppings were a great complement to the burger.  The Merkts cheddar spread was very forward but not overpowering.  The sauteed mushrooms had a great taste, but I couldn't put my finger on what they sauteed them in.  I was guessing butter and Worcestershire sauce, but it could have been soy sauce, too.  And how you go wrong with bacon on a good burger?  Even the bun was a big part of the burger.  It wasn't large and it held together well with all that was on the burger.  

The hand cut fries were sort of cold and lifeless.  It was like they had made them up about a half-hour earlier and put them under a heat lamp.  But quite honestly, I wasn't there for the fries.  The 8 ounce burger and all the toppings were more than enough for me for my lunch that day.  

For my first visit to The Lucky Monk, I have to say that I went very impressed with the place.  The burger I had was exceptional, I really liked the Confessional IPA that I ordered, Jinny's - or J.J.'s - service was very good, as well.  I liked the atmosphere at The Lucky Monk and I wouldn't mind going back and trying one of their wood-fired pizzas at some point.  Like I said, The Lucky Monk is proud of their burgers, as well they should.  

(Update - I have been back a couple times to The Lucky Monk.  I had the reuben sandwich for lunch one day and it was very good.  But the pizza I had on another visit - a thin-crust sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - was surprisingly very good, as well.  The Lucky Monk has become my go-to place in the far NW suburbs of Chicago.)

Tuscano's - Schiller Park, IL

Sitting in the flight path of O'Hare International Airport along River Road in western suburban Schiller Park is an Italian restaurant that I've driven past a few times when I stay at a hotel in Rosemont - Tuscano's.  Their sign out front says that they're a Greek and Italian restaurant, a nice Mediterranean combination.  It was a cool rainy night when I checked into my hotel just up River Road in Rosemont and I decided to go down to Tuscano's for dinner.

For years, Giannotti's Italian Steak House was *THE* place in the near northwest suburbs for a great meal for families celebrating birthdays or anniversaries, for a guy trying to impress his date, or for a high-powered business lunch.  In the fall of 2009, Giannotti's suddenly closed "for remodeling".  That's usually the kiss of death for fine restaurants that had gone out of business.  The owner of the building, Sam Zarcone, had leased the space in a small strip mall along River Road to the Giannotti family.   After they went out of business, he decided to take over the space with his own Italian restaurant.  He partnered with Peter Jovanovic and rehired many of the staff of Gianotti's - including chef Javiel Villalobos.  They reopened as Tuscano's in early 2010.  

On weekends, Tuscano's can get packed.  They feature a piano player in the lounge area early in the evening.  Then after 9 p.m., they have everything from small bands to a singer who performs with a karaoke machine on a small stage with a dance floor in another part of the restaurant.  Tuscano's is one of those neighborhood places where regulars show up each weekend for food and dancing.  

It was a weeknight when I pulled into Tuscano's, just south of the Stephens Convention Center. (see map)  They have a sort of open dining area with low walls that allows a bit of privacy in some areas, but you can see across the room when you stand up.  The lounge area features a large bar and a number of tables with flat screen televisions on the wall.  The lights are very low in the lounge area and I took two or three pictures of the room with my camera on my smartphone, but none of them came out.  

A hostess asked me if I wanted to sit in the dining room or in the lounge.  They had basketball games on the flat screens in the lounge and I decided to go with that.  She dropped off a dinner menu and I waited for my server to show up.  

The bartender/server that night, Lisa, came over to greet me.  She asked me what I wanted to drink and I took a quick look at the taps behind the bar.  The lights were so low that I was having trouble making out what they had.  Finally, I saw the familiar Samuel Adams logo and I ordered one of those.  She came back out with the Sam Adams poured into one of the special Samuel Adams beer glasses that are supposed to be used to drink their beer.  I thought it was a petty nice touch and something that I've rarely seen at a bar or restaurant.  (Click here to learn more about the Samuel Adams beer glass.)

The dinner menu at Tuscano's features a long list of Italian favorites, Greek specialties, wood-fired ribs and pizza, veal, chicken and pasta dishes, steaks, lamb chops and seafood.  I'm always a little leery of places like this who have a large menu because while they can usually do everything just all right, they can't do it all very well.  

The veal picante - lightly breaded veal sauteed in lemon juice and white wine - sounded pretty good to me.  A choice of soup or salad and a side pasta dish came with the entree.  I thought a bit about the homemade fettuccine alfredo, but that seemed a little boring to me.  The linguine with clams in a white sauce was another thing that caught my eye.  But nothing really jumped out at me.  

I looked long and hard at their wood-fired pizza.  They had a basic margarita pizza with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil.  They also had the Diavola - spicy pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, black olives and red pepper flakes.  Suddenly, pizza sounded real good to me.  I hadn't had a good pizza in a while and I ended up getting the Rustica - Italian sausage and pepperoni along with fresh mozzarella, sliced mushrooms, housemade tomato sauce, onions and sweet peppers.   

While I waited for my pizza to show up, another waiter brought out a basket of warm bread slices.  Olive oil and parmesan cheese were on the table.  The bread was soft and flavorful, and dipping it into a combination of the olive oil, parmesan and black pepper was a great taste sensation.  It went well with the beer.  

I had finished my first beer and was looking for a second one when another server brought my pizza out to me.  Lisa was busy behind the bar and having to wait on patrons in the lounge area.  But after she got my pizza order, she just forgot about me.  I looked over and it appeared that she was talking with a couple guys who were probably regulars at the bar.  She just completely forgot about me.  I had water with my pizza.

The pizza was about 10" in size and the crust looked like it was pre-formed and not hand tossed.  The crust was thick toward the edge and thin in the middle.  

The toppings were a little disappointing.  There was little Italian sausage on the pizza, as well as only a few slices of pepperoni.  Strips of sweet red pepper were on the top of the pizza - a plus in my book.  Small slices of onion were prevalent, but not numerous.  Same with the mushrooms.  I could taste some of the fresh mozzarella, but overall I was disappointed in the pizza.  The crust did taste like a preformed crust - sort of lifeless and hard to chew.  This was a pizza that had a lot of promise, but didn't live up to the billing of a good wood-fired pizza.  I only ate 4 of the six slices before I called it quits. 

On top of all that, Lisa completely forgot about me.  She was still paying attention to people sitting at the bar so much that I thought I should go over with my pizza and just sit at the bar.  When the server who brought me my pizza came back to inquire if I wanted the rest boxed up, I declined and told him I'd just take my check.  I sat an waited for another five minutes or so and no one brought me that check.  I finally had to go up to the bar, interrupt Lisa and ask for my check.  I almost gave her a bad tip and with a note on the receipt "Don't forget your customers."  (I've done that a few times in the past.)  But I gave her what was basically a ten percent tip and called it good.

I do want to go back and try Tuscano's again at some point.  Everything started out so nice, but went downhill after the basket of fresh bread came out.  I'd probably go with my first instinct and get the veal picante or a pasta dish, but I was far from impressed with my pizza at Tuscano's.  I couldn't even give you an answer if it passed my "Does it taste good with beer" test because I didn't have any beer with the pizza thanks to Lisa forgetting about me.  Sitting in the dining room may be a better plan if I do make it back at some point.  I just hope the rest of the food is better than the pizza.

Pizano's - Glenview, IL

I was in the Chicago area on a Friday night - not my ideal situation, but I had a dealer event I had to work the next day.  I've been driving up and down Waukegan Road in Glenview quite a bit over the past couple three years and a place that I'd driven past that had piqued my interest was Pizano's, a pizza joint that has a long and illustrious family history.  I decided to stop into Pizano's that cool, rainy late fall evening.

In 1943, Rudy Malnati was working as a pizza chef at the original Pizzeria Uno in downtown Chicago.  Pizza historians have long said that even though Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo owned Pizzeria Uno, it was Rudy Malnati who came up with the Chicago-style deep dish pizza concept.  Rudy Malnati eventually became a co-owner and opened Pizzeria Due in 1955.  Rudy and his son, Lou, managed the Pizzeria Due location in the 50's and 60's.  In 1971, Lou broke off from his father and opened the first of his eponymous deep dish pizza restaurants in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnwood.     

Rudy Malnati passed away in 1974 and Ike Sewell bought out the family's shares of Pizzeria Uno/Due shortly thereafter.  Son Rudy Malnati, Jr. owned a bar at the time and had thought about opening his own pizza place somewhere in the city.  After Sewell sold Pizzeria Uno, Rudy, Jr. became unhappy with the philosophical direction of the pizza restaurant that his father had helped start.  While Lou Malnati's focused on deep dish pizza, Rudy, Jr. felt that his pizza joint needed to have thin crust pizza, as well.  He opened his first Pizano's location on State Street in 1991.  

At first, Rudy, Jr. wanted his pizzeria to have a touch of class.  Waiters were dressed in coats and ties and people who weren't familiar with the place looked in the window and thought it was a high-dollar restaurant.  Rudy Malnati, Jr. then tossed the coat and tie look for waiters in polo shirts and khakis.  People started to come into his restaurant after that.  

Rudy Malnati's mom, Donna Marie, came into work everyday (and still does, deep into her 80's) to make the family's secret pizza dough recipe.  The original restaurant was soon followed by more three more locations of Pizano's in the city of Chicago, and the Glenview location was opened in 2008 - the only Pizano's location located outside the city limits of Chicago.  The sixth Pizano's location opened in Lincoln Park near DePaul University in the fall of 2013. 

The Glenview location is on the corner of Waukegan Road and Chestnut Ave. (see map)  Valet parking is available, but I was able to find a parking spot in the lot.  I walked into the brick building and was greeted by a young lady who asked me if I wanted to sit in the dining area or in the bar.  I opted for the bar area and she showed me to a small table with newsprint on top of a checkerboard table cloth.  She left off a menu and I was soon thereafter greeted by my server for the evening, Jenny, who was taking a pizza to another table.  She said she'd be back to take my drink order in a moment.  

In addition to both deep-dish and thin-crust pizza, Pizano's has appetizers, soups, salads and traditional Italian entrees and pasta.  But I pretty much knew that I was going to get a thin crust pizza that evening.  When Jenny came back to take my drink order, I told her that I was ready to order a pizza, as well.  "Oh," she exclaimed in a surprised fashion.  "Well, that was quick!  What can I get ya?"

I ordered my usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza - a small (10").  Jenny said, "We'll have that coming right up!"  She left for a moment, then brought out a small basket of homemade bread.  With olive oil and parmesan cheese on the table, it was a nice start to the meal.  But the bread was so good that I was afraid that I'd over-indulge on the bread and not be hungry by the time the pizza made it to the table.  

The dining area in the bar was full of Friday night diners.  The tables were a little close and I had a couple seated pretty close to me.  I wished I'd gotten a booth instead as it was difficult to not hear their conversation about their friends sexual preferences.  Although I don't like to eavesdrop, I found the talk about their friends bi-sexual preference to be somewhat fascinating.  I tried to concentrate on the basketball game that was on one of the flat screens behind the bar.  

About 20 minutes after I put the order in with Jenny, she brought out a piping hot thin crust pizza.  The toppings were plentiful, piled high on top of the party-cut pizza.  After letting it cool for a few moments, I took my first bite of a Pizano's pizza.

The sausage on their pizza is similar to other Malnati-style pizzas.  They use no fennel in their sausage as the Malnati family feels that it masks the fresh taste of the sausage.  I prefer a good fennel sausage, but the large chunks of sausage with sort of a peppery taste on the Pizano's pizza were good enough for me.  The pepperoni was spicy and slightly salty, and the large chunks of fresh mushrooms gave it a wonderful taste.  The sauce was somewhat sweet and not bitter, and there were tons of mozzarella mixed it.  The crust was crisp, but it wasn't cracker thin.  It held up well under the weight of the toppings.  

About the only complaint I could have was that they served the pizza on cardboard on the pizza pan.  It sort of gave the pizza that "carry-out" taste.  Not that there's a lot wrong with that, but I was eating in the restaurant and I could begin to taste the cardboard later on as I made my way through the pizza.

I was able to eat - maybe - two-thirds of the pizza before I said, "No more."  Jenny boxed it up for me and I had the rest for breakfast the next morning.  It warmed up well in the microwave that I had in my hotel room.   

Before I left the restaurant, I went to use the restroom.  On the walls in the hall that led to the restrooms and connected the bar dining area with the other dining area at Pizano's was a number of photos, jerseys and other memorabilia centering around Chicago professional sports.  It was kind of interesting to see the assortment of autographed photos and jerseys they had hanging on the wall.  

For my first experience at a Pizano's, I came away with a good feeling about the place.  The pizza easily passed my, "Does it taste good with beer?" test.  When you're talking about such a pizza family legacy with the Malnati's, it's no wonder the pizza is so good.  I'm just sort of surprised at myself for not trying Pizano's earlier.  

Paisan's - Madison, WI

One day a few weeks ago, I was telling my next door neighbor that I would soon be going up to Madison for a business trip.  She began to tell me about a place that I wasn't familiar with - Paisan's Italian Restaurant.  She said, "Oh, my gosh, they have good pizza and they have this sandwich - the Garibaldi!  Oh!  It's to die for!"  My neighbor can be a little overly dramatic at times, but the conviction in her voice told me that I probably needed to stop at Paisan's during that part of my trip.

The original Paisan's (of course, it means "friend" in Italian) began in 1950 in a small restaurant on the corner of Park Street and University in Madison.  Roy McCormick and his wife, Rosa, used recipes that her Sicilian family handed down over the years.  Paisan's was one of the first places in Madison to serve pizza.  The restaurant eventually moved into the basement of a building that eventually became a sister restaurant - Porta Bella.  But for over 30 years, most Madison residents remember Paisan's in the University Square complex near the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus.  When University Square underwent a major facelift in 2006, the new owners - Ed Shinnick, Jerry Meier and Wally Borowski - decided to move to a new 9,000 square foot street level location in a professional building along Walker Street. (see map)  The new Paisan's opened in 2007.  

The new Paisan's didn't skip a beat with the menu as all three owners - Shinnick, Meier and Borowski - used to work for the McCormick's at the original Paisan's.  All the recipes that Rosa McCormick used back in the 50's are being used today.   

There is a tri-level parking garage underneath the building on W. Wilson, just south and west of the Wisconsin State Capitol square.  You must take a ticket, but Paisan's will validate your parking after 5 p.m. on weeknights and all day on Saturday and Sunday.  After parking the car on the first level, I took the elevator up to the lobby level and immediately saw a door that was marked "Paisan's Entrance".  

After being greeted by a young man at the host stand, he shepherded me down a long hallway, past a colorful back-lit stained glass display, past an enclosed cabinet with ornate beer steins on the shelves, and into a small alcove - one of two or three they had in Paisan's.  I took a seat in an enclosed booth and he dropped off a menu for me to look over.  

 
The popular place to dine at Paisan's on a nice summer evening is their outdoor patio that overlooks Lake Monona.  It was around 7 p.m. when I got into Paisan's and I was told that it was a 30 minute wait if I wanted to eat outside.  I was happy with my cozy little booth in one of the alcoves.

(I tried taking pictures of different areas of the inside of Paisan's, but the disparity of bright outside light coming through the windows and inside dimmed lighting played havoc on my camera phone.  So, I lifted the inside and outside pictures from Paisan's Facebook page.  The food pictures below were taken by my camera phone.) 

Actually, Paisan's is deceivingly big.  It's somewhat of a labyrinth of hallways that empty out into a spacious dining room with large windows that look out over the patio.  Another dining area is off to the side in the back corner of the building.  Paisan's can seat a lot of people inside and out when the weather is nice.  

 
The bar area is to the left as you come into the main entrance.  There's a large back bar and a semi-circled seating area with windows that look out onto a patio that runs along Walker Street.  It was a nice bar and one that I would have liked to have eaten in had I known I could have eaten in there.  

My server for the evening, Paige, came over to greet me as I was going through the menu.  She asked if I wanted anything to start out and I noticed on their beer menu that they had Capital Supper Club beer on tap.  I got a pint of the Supper Club.  

When my neighbor was singing the praises of Paisan's, she was telling me about the Garibaldi sandwich.  It's one of Paisan's signature items, something that they've been serving for 55 years.  They take a small French bread loaf and place ham and salami in it, then add pepper jack cheese and tomatoes on top of that, then you have a choice of green peppers and/or banana peppers.  And that's the Garibaldi.  With the banana peppers, it sounded pretty good.  

Another signature item is Paisan's pizza.  It's a thin crust pizza with an onion-tomato sauce and topped with your choice of fresh mozzarella, Wisconsin cheddar or spicy cheese, and your choice of fresh toppings from as diverse as pepperoni to a walnut-basil pesto.  I was leaning toward the pizza.

Paisan's also has a number of pasta dishes including something called Seafood Tetrazinni - you get your choice of pasta noodles and then it's topped with shrimp, scallops, imitation crab meat and chunks of haddock mixed in with creamy white sauce.  They also had a three meat cannelloni - large tubes of pasta filled with a mixture of ground beef, chicken and Italian sausage, and topped with either a tomato marinara or a cheese sauce.  They sounded interesting, but I was going for the pizza.

They have four different sizes of pizza at Paisan's - a 6" personal size, a 9" small, a 12" medium, and a 16" large.  They have a number of featured pizzas on the menu, but I opted to order one with my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms.  Paige asked, "Is it OK if the sauce has onions in it?"  I normally don't go with onions on a pizza, but it must be something that makes the Paisan pizza special.  I went with the flow.

I sort of figured that I needed a salad, too.  I asked Paige if I could get one of their vegetable salads (as opposed to another signature item on Paisan's menu - the Porta consisting of a mixture of iceberg and romaine lettuce topped with ham and salami, cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, with garbanzo beans and green peppers).  I got a side of blue cheese dressing with it.   

The salad was delivered with a small plate of warm chunks of French bread.  The salad was piled with lettuce greens, chopped carrotts, broccoli crowns, cucumbers and tomato slices.  The blue cheese dressing was all right.  The veggie salad was fresh and crisp.  It was a good entry toward the pizza. 

 
Paige brought out the pizza and I immediately thought it had potential.  The crust looked misshapen like a good hand-tossed pizza should be.  The outer edges of the pizza had caramelized and it was covered with a good amount of Italian sausage chunks, thick slices of pepperoni and fresh cut mushrooms.  

The first bite told me it was a good pizza - not a great pizza, but good one, nonetheless.  The crust was firm, but not overly crunchy.  The Italian sausage had a sweet taste with a hint of fennel.  I loved the thick and flavorful pepperoni slices that curled up on their edges from the baking process.  The mushrooms were a little underwhelming as they lacked that good mushroom flavor I look for on pizza.  But it was a better than average thin crust pizza.  

For just the pizza alone, Paisan's would be worth the visit.  But their other menu items - the Garibaldi sandwich and the pasta dishes, mainly - would be worth checking out.  While I enjoyed the pizza and Paige's attentive service, I will say that Paisan's was a little pricey.  It was $16 dollars and change for a three topping 9" pizza with cheese with an additional $3.85 for the side veggie salad.  With two beers and a tip for Paige, the bill came to well over $30 bucks.  I wouldn't quite build up Paisan's in the way that my neighbor did for me, but it was a good pizza in a good setting with good service.

Frank and Helen's Pizza - St. Louis, MO

On my culinary radar for quite sometime, I finally had the chance to try Frank and Helen's Pizza in St. Louis recently.  St. Louis has some pretty fine pizza places and Frank and Helen's has been in business for nearly 60 years.  It's one of those places where the older locals will tell you that Frank and Helen's was their first pizza.  After a day of travel and meetings, I sought out Frank and Helen's before going to my hotel to check in.

Frank and Helen's is really old school when it comes to their pizza.  In 1956, Julius "Jule" Seitz opened the door to his little pizza place at the corner of Olive and Midland in the St. Louis enclave of University City.  It was called "Jule's Pizza" and was on of the first pizza places in the city.  In 1959, Jule's brother, Frank Seitz, took over the operation of the pizza joint, helped by his wife, Betty.  A year later, Frank and Jule's sister, Helen Wetzel, joined Frank and Betty in the business.  The sign on the front of the building was changed to Frank and Helen's Pizza.  

Business was growing for Frank and Helen's and they decided they needed to move to a larger location.  Wanting to stay in the U City area, they found a business up the road on Olive that had once been a car wash, but had been converted into a food vending and catering company.  Frank and Helen's moved to this new location - their present day location - in 1967 (see map) while maintaining the original restaurant for a short while.  In 1968, they sold the original Frank and Helen's to Ennio Cardinale who put in his own pizza place, the now-defunct Pino's Pizza.  

Frank and Helen's was a favorite hangout for U City policemen and when the brother and sister were ready to hang up their aprons, they sold the business to former U City police officer Scott DePolito, and his wife, Mary.  The DePolito's continued the tradition of Frank and Helen's thin crust pizza and their famous broasted chicken.  In 2008, the DePolito's sold out to Patrick Horvath and his wife, Rebecca.  Horvath had also been a former University City policeman and he became the manager of Frank and Helen's in 2002.   

It was close to 6 p.m. when I got into Frank and Helen's.  I was greeted by a young lady who told me that I could sit anywhere.  I took one of the booths along the wall.  My server for the evening, Ashley, dropped off a menu and asked if I wanted anything to drink.  I ordered a Budweiser.  When you're in St. Louis and in a 60's-style pizza joint, Budweiser is the beer you gotta have.  

It seriously looks like Pat and Helen's hasn't been updated since they moved into the place 46 years ago.  But it has a retro charm to the place - large glass-shaded lamps hang from the paneled ceiling.  Formica topped tables and curved-backed chairs were interspersed throughout the main area of the dining room.  In the booths, ornate fixtures with dimly lit faux candle bulbs hung from the wall.  

In addition to Frank and Helen's pizza and broasted chicken, they also feature sandwiches, soups and salads, appetizers - including the requisite toasted ravioli, and a handful of pasta dishes and entrees such as a top sirloin steak, chicken Spedini, and a lightly grilled grouper with your choice of lemon pepper, Cajun or garlic-butter seasonings.  

The pizza at Frank and Helen's comes in three sizes - 10", 16" and 18".  You can order the crust three ways - extra thin, thin and thick.  They have a choice of six different sauces that include a traditional red, a zesty marinara, and a barbecue sauce.  St. Louis-style pizzas feature provel cheese, but Frank and Helen's also gives you the choice of having mozzarella, cheddar, parmesan and gargonzola cheese on the pizza.  And they have the traditional ingredients to go on the pizza, but they also feature special ingredients such as artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, grilled chicken and meatballs.  

When Ashley came back with my beer - served with a frosted mug - I was ready to order.  I ordered a small, extra-thin crust, Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza with the traditional red sauce and mozzarella.  Ashley asked, "Is that a 10" or the 16" pizza?"  I thought that was sort of a weird question to ask.  I told her the 10" pizza was the size I wanted.  I was curious as to why she would ask that question, but it was soon answered when I got the bill after I finished.  The 10" is listed as a "midget" pizza.  So, the 16" pizza must be the "small", and the 18" must be the "large".  

As I waited for my pizza, the place slowly began to fill up.  I also noticed that I was - by far - the youngest person in the place, save for the young grandson of a man who came in not long after I arrived.  And the people in the place all seemed to be regulars with the servers greeting customers by their names when they came in the door.  Frank and Helen's was truly a neighborhood gathering place.

The pizza showed up about 15 minutes after I ordered it.  Ashley got me another beer in the meantime and brought out a new frosted mug to go along with it.  The pizza was served on a pizza tin and compared to the round shape of the tin, it was almost oval in shape.  It was topped with an abundance of sausage, pepperoni and sliced mushrooms, and cut into party squares.   

After letting it cool for a bit, I took the first bite.  The chunks of sausage were like little meatballs and had a nice fennel taste.  The pepperoni was spicy and salty, and the sliced mushrooms were fresh and flavorful.  The traditional red sauce was tangy and had a hint of sweetness to it.

The crust wasn't cracker thin as I expected, which was fine.  Sometimes a St. Louis-style thin crust pizza will get too mushy in the crust and become limp.  The crust at Frank and Helen's stayed crisp, but was light and flaky.  It was very good.  

As I was eating my pizza, I heard one of the other servers talking to some regulars seated behind me.  She said in passing, "You know, we used to make our own sausage here, but stopped a few years ago.  But I think we're going to start making our own sausage in house."  I thought the sausage they were using was very good.  It had that great fennel flavor with a bit of a spicy bite.  I was thinking that it would be tough to make the Italian sausage on their pizza even better than what it was.

I loved everything about Frank and Helen's - the pizza was excellent, as was the service, and the retro charm of the place was wonderful.  There are some pretty good pizza places in St. Louis, but something about Frank and Helen's jumped out at me for the old school feel to the place.  The place wasn't slick or contemporary, and that's almost a welcome change for me some times.  I have three or four favorite pizza places in St. Louis, but Frank and Helen's may have become my most favorite pizza in town.

Michael's Pizza - Des Moines, IA

Des Moines has a surprising number of very good pizza places to choose from.  I was talking with one of my dealers on a recent visit and he was telling me of a newer place in the Beaverdale neighborhood - Michael's Pizza.  Well, he said the restaurant was new, but the pizza was an old recipe from a restaurant by the same name that started in the 70's.  I had to go give Michael's Pizza a try.

The original Michael is Micheal Baier, an Exira, IA native who moved to Des Moines in the mid-60's after a stint in the Navy.  After getting off work from his job as a meat cutter at a local grocery store, one of the places that he frequented was a small bar in Beaverdale called the Gin Mill.  Previously known as the Golden Hawk, it was a favorite hang-out of politicians and regular folks.  When he bought the place in 1973 and renamed it Michael's, it was just a lounge that was manned by Baier, his wife at the time, and a single bartender.  Even though he had no experience running a restaurant, Baier turned to a friend in the food service industry, Sam Cohen, who taught him the ins-and-outs of the business operation of a restaurant.

In 1975, Michael's began to serve soups, salads and sandwiches at lunch time, then seven years later he expanded the restaurant and began to serve dinners.  In 1994, he added a pizzeria - Poor Michael's.  Michael Baier was there 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week.  Over the years, he was helped out by his son and daughter, but also had a staff of about 25 people that worked for him.  

In 2009, Michael Baier decided to retire and he closed the business.  A year later, two young guys who worked for him at Michael's - Drew Thelen and Jon Ingram, along with Ingram's mother, Patricia Hulting - bought the Michael's name and the pizza recipe.   After a couple of problems getting going, they opened the new Michael's in February of 2011 in a strip mall on the east side of Beaver Road in Beaverdale.  (see map).  The strip mall doesn't face the street and if you come from the north on Beaver Road, if you don't know where it is just past Urbandale Avenue, you can drive right past - like I did.  

Once I got there, I suddenly remembered seeing an entry on Slakingfool's blog site about Michael's Pizza.  I thought, "Ohhh, this is the place that I'd read about before!"  I was excited to give the pizza a try.   

Michael's is a small place.  It seats 24 people with 5 four-seater tables and 2 two-seaters up front.  Italian posters hang from the walls and contemporary industrial lights hang from the exposed ceiling.  It's cozy and very comfortable.  

I was greeted by a young lady behind the counter and I immediately ordered a small (10") pizza with my usual sausage, mushroom and pepperoni.  I got a beer to go along with it.  She immediately went into the back kitchen area and made up the pizza.  While she was making the pizza, I grabbed a menu to look over.  They have a number of specialty pizzas at Michael's including a number of different sauces to choose from including a basil pesto sauce, a Creole sauce and a Southwestern bean sauce.  They have 10 different types of meats to choose from including a spicy sausage and a garlic sausage.  I didn't specify what kind of sausage I wanted on my pizza, so I guessed that I was getting the garlic sausage.  Eclectic toppings included pineapple, artichoke hearts, and, interestingly, roasted apples and roasted pears.  Michael's Pizza also offers a handful of appetizers and salads, as well.

Just over 15 minutes after I ordered, she brought the pizza out to me.  The cheese was caramelized and looked creamy to me - sort of a cross between mozzarella and provolone cheese.  There were large chunks of sausage on the pizza - the way I like it.  Small discs of pepperoni and slices of fresh mushrooms were interspersed with the sauce, cheese and sausage.  

After letting it cool for a bit, I took my first bite of a Michael's pizza.  The cheese did have a creamy texture to it and had a great flavor.  The sausage wasn't spicy (it had to be the garlic sausage - they probably got it from Graziano Brothers) but it was very flavorful and held together well in its chunks.  The sauce was sort of sweet and tangy.  The crust was thin, crisp, but wasn't cracker-like in its consistency.  The pizza at Michael's easily passed my "Does it Taste Good with a Beer?" test.  It tasted great with a beer.  

I added some parmesan cheese and crushed red peppers to a couple of subsequent slices.  It helped zip up the taste without detracting from the overall taste of the pizza.  The pizza, on its own, was exceptional.  

I'm still amazed that a city like Des Moines has access to so many great pizzerias while my home area of the Quad Cities is woefully deficient in the number of good pizza places.  Des Moines is certainly a pizza town and Michael's Pizza is one that I'd put up against some of my favorites in the area that I've found over the years.  The dining area is cozy and quaint, and the pizza is top notch.  There's nothing that I could complain about my pizza at Michael's Pizza.  

The Original Red's Savoy Pizza - St. Paul

I'm starting to find some good pizza places in the Twin Cities.  Some of them are eclectic - Pizzeria Lola immediately comes to mind (click here to see the entry on Pizzeria Lola) - while some are old school, such as Fireside Pizza (click here to see the entry on Fireside Pizza). And then you have the fun places like Psycho Suzi's (click here to see the entry on Psycho Suzi's).  But a number of locals swear by the pizza at the original Red's Savoy Pizza in St. Paul.  On a recent trip to the Twin Cities, I sought out Red's Savoy in St. Paul to give their pizza a try. 

The original Red's Savoy opened on E. 7th Street in St. Paul in 1965.  Earl "Red" Schoenheider came up with a secret recipe for his pizza sauce that became a favorite of thousands of Twin City area pizza fans for years.  Over the years, fans of the pizza at Red's Savoy convinced him to open other locations around the area.  Not wanting to spread himself too thin, Schoenheider began to franchise Red's Savoy locations around the area and there are now 9 additional places to get Red's Savoy pizza in the Twin Cities (one is located just across the St. Croix River in Hudson, WI).  Interestingly, there is also a Red's Savoy Pizza in Omaha.  

In talking to some of the locals about Red's, I found that many think there is a distinct difference between locations.  There was some inconsistency between the different restaurants and Schoenheider brought in a franchise overseer a couple years ago to make sure there is a consistency between all the locations.  However, people still tell me the best is the original location on the east side of St. Paul.  

The original Red's Savoy Pizza is located at the corner of E. 7th and Lafayette Rd., just north of where U.S. Highway 52 meets Interstate 94, and just east of where I-94 and Interstate 35E meet.  (see map)  So, it can be said that all roads lead to the original Red's Savoy.  I found the place and parked in the parking lot directly behind the building (there's also a parking lot on the east side of the building.  Red's Savoy Pizza isn't much to look at - it's a squat building with windows that are dry-walled from the inside so no light gets in.  The facade features a wood shingle front that has "Liquors" and "Restaurant" flanking the Red's Savoy logo.  

When you walk into Red's Savoy, you encounter a low-ceilinged, dimly-lit bar area that looks like it hasn't been updated since 1970.  (All the interior pictures that I took of Red's Savoy Pizza didn't come out.)  The dining area at Red's Savoy is off to the side and features a colorful mural along the long wall of a Italian waterfront scene with gondola boats and a pretty Italian young woman holding a large pizza.  There were a couple seats open at the bar and I took a seat there.  They have a pretty good beer selection at Red's Savoy - both on tap and in bottles.  I had to get a Grain Belt Premium.  

The bartender, a nice middle aged lady with a bit of sass, got the attention of one of the servers and she brought me over a menu to look over.  They have two sizes of pizza at Red's Savoy - the regular (10") and the large (14").  In addition to their homemade pizza sauce, they also make their own Italian sausage at Red's Savoy.  In addition to pizza, Red's Savoy also has burgers and sandwiches at the 7th St. location, as well as your typical appetizers and salads.  

I ended up ordering my usual sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza - a 10" regular size.  My server said it would be about 15 to 20 minutes.  While I waited for my pizza I took a look around the bar area and noticed that they had about 6 to 8 flat screen televisions.  At least three of them were tuned to security cameras in the parking lot.  The area around Red's Savoy Pizza in St. Paul is a little iffy, but I didn't feel threatened in the least.  It could also be that the cameras are in place because the 81-year-old father of former Minnesota U.S. Senator Norm Coleman was caught having sex in the parking lot with a 38-year-old woman about 7 years ago. 

Sure enough, less than 20 minutes after I ordered, my pizza came out.  It was a misshapen pizza, topped with copious amounts of sausage chunks, pepperoni slices, large slices of mushroom, and crowned with a slathered mass of caramelized mozzarella cheese.  The pizza was cut into square party cuts and served on a piece of waxy paper on an old-style cafeteria tray.  I got a large kick out of the way it was served.  I sent a picture out via Road Tips Twitter account and the guy behind the Slakingfool restaurant and food blog site replied, "What a glorious looking mess!"  The pizza did look great.  

The first bite of the pizza revealed a nice tangy sauce that had a little spicy bite to it.  It wasn't sweet at all like some pizza sauces can be.  It had a nice balance between Italian seasonings and the spicy flavor.  The sausage had a nice taste to it, as well.   

The crust on the pizza was thin, but not crisp.  Actually, it was pretty bland in comparison to the sauce and sausage.  And the mozzarella was rather pedestrian.  For as much mozzarella cheese they put on the pizza at Red's Savoy, I would have thought it would have had a little more pizazz.  But it didn't detract from the overall taste of the pizza.  

As I was making a significant dent in my pizza, a guy waiting to pick one up sat down next to me and had a beer.  He asked me, "Is it good?"  I said that it was.  It was very good.  He said, "It's the zest from the old pizza oven that they use here.  That oven has had tens of thousands of pizzas cooked in it and it each pizza picks up that essence."  I'm a big believer in the taste of pizzas that are cooked in old pizza ovens.  Those are usually the best.    

I was able to eat all but about three or four of the party cut squares.  The toppings and cheese were so massive that it filled me up rather quickly.  My server got me a small box and I took the remaining pieces back to my hotel room.  I put them in the fridge in my room and had them for lunch after a morning meeting the next day.  They warmed up nice in the microwave, but the crust had gotten a little soggy.  

Overall, the pizza I had at the original Red's Savoy Pizza was very good.  The sauce is an acquired taste, but I liked it.  And I liked the neighborhood tavern feel to Red's Savoy.  I'd be a little gun-shy to try a pizza at any of the other locations after having the original in St. Paul.  But if they have truly gotten their franchises in order to be more in line with the original, it may not be exactly like the original Red's Savoy, but it could be close.

D'Agostino's Pizza and Pub - Park Ridge, IL

Venturing out from my hotel near O'Hare International Airport in Chicago one evening, I was on the hunt for someplace new to eat.  One place that I've seen and always wondered about is a pizza place on Higgins Road where the Cumberland North off ramp from the Kennedy Freeway ends up - D'Agostino's Pizza and Pub.  I decided to give that place a try that night.

It turned out that D'Agostino's is a small chain of five pizzerias in and around the greater Chicagoland area.  It began in 1968 when Joe D'Agostino and his wife, Jan, opened their first pizzeria in the Wrigleyville neighborhood just down the street from Wrigley Field.  It suddenly became a hoppin' place before and after Chicago Cubs games with many of those fans coming back to "Dag's" during the off-season.

Along with his son's, Jeff and Scott, Joe D'Agostino thought it would be good if they expanded their reach with new locations.  A second D'Agostino's was open in Chicago's River West neighborhood on N. Ogden, while a third location soon came in Glenview, IL near the Glen Town Center shopping and entertainment district.  Scott ran the River West location and Joe ran the Glenview D'Agostino's.  In 2010, D'Agostino's opened their Park Ridge location; and in 2012, the family opened their fifth pizza place in far north suburban Wheeling in a building along Milwaukee Ave. that had previously housed one of the Hackney's locations in the Chicago area.

It was after 8 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot at D'Agostino's Park Ridge location.  (see map) The restaurant was about half-full with a few people sitting out on an enclosed patio and others in the main dining room.  I opted for a booth in the well-lit main dining room that featured a small gauge train set that orbited on a suspended shelf along the perimeter of the dining room.  

My server for the evening, Tyler, came over to see if I wanted anything to drink while I looked through the menu.  I ordered up a Bud Light and took a look at what they had to offer.  Not long after Tyler walked away to get my beer, I looked up and saw that they had Lagunitas India Pale Ale on tap.  It was too late - he was bringing back the Bud Light in a tall frosty glass.  

D'Agostino's is supposedly famous for their thin crust pizza, but they also offered Chicago-style deep dish and stuffed pizzas, as well.  In addition to their pizza selections, D'Agostino's also features pasta dishes, sandwiches and burgers, appetizers and salads, and barbecued ribs, as well as broasted or grilled chicken.

I was up for a thin crust pizza, so I ordered my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom. Tyler said he'd get it right out.  And it didn't take long - about 15 minutes after I ordered he brought my personal (10") pizza to the table. And this time, I ordered up the Lagunitas IPA to go along with it.  

The pizza had the thin crust that is firm, but not too crispy - the kind I like.  It featured chunks of Italian sausage, lots of pepperoni slices and a fair amount of sliced fresh mushrooms.  After letting it cool down a bit - and Tyler bringing me my Lagunitas IPA - I took my first bite of a D'Agostino's pizza.  

And, you know, it was good.  It probably wasn't the most outstanding thin crust pizza I've had - definitely not in the Chicago area - but the sausage had a little bite to the taste, the pepperoni was salty and also had a good spiciness, and the mushrooms had a very good fresh taste and good consistency.  It was well better than average and I thought they acquitted themselves very well.  

My first experience at a D'Agostino's won't be my last, especially if I get a hankering for pizza and don't want to venture too far from my hotel near O'Hare.  The place was clean, Tyler did a good job of taking care of me, and the pizza was a B+ pizza.  I can easily see why D'Agostino's has been around for 45 years.  They make a fine pizza.   

Black Ram - Rock Island, IL

A few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon, a few of my neighbors got together at our house for a couple beers.  One of my neighbors suggested doing a road trip over to Rock Island's College Hill District to check out a nano-brewery that I'd wanted to go to for some time, Against the Grain.  As we parked in front of the small brewery, I looked over and saw a building that said, "Gendler's Wines."  I thought Gendler's had gone out of business years before and was amazed that it was still around.  My neighbor said, "I guess they reopened as a combination wine store and restaurant."  I was sort of intrigued.

For our usual Monday night date night two nights later, I told my wife about the Gendler's in Rock Island.  She told me that one of her co-workers had gone there for dinner with her husband and spoke highly of the place.  We drove over and parked in front of Gendler's, then walked around to the side entrance.  There we saw two doors - one, the entrance to Gendler's, the other, the entrance to the Black Ram restaurant.  After going into Gendler's to look around for a bit, we went into the Black Ram.  (see map)

I found that there's a history behind the Black Ram, but the restaurant has only been open since August of last year.  The gentleman who owns Black Ram, Dave Requet, Sr., is the son of a gentleman who owned and operated the old Italian Village restaurant in Rock Island.  The Italian Village in Rock Island was before my time, but I do remember an Italian Village in downtown Davenport.  Evidently, the two Italian Villages were related by family members - Dick Requet owned the one in Rock Island, and his brother owned the one in Davenport. We were told that there was a dispute between the brothers and Dick's brother moved over to Davenport.  

(I remember being in the old Italian Village and I kept telling Cindy that we had eaten there before.  But then I found out that the Davenport Italian Village closed in 1992 and Cindy and I didn't get together until 1993.  Oops!  Must have been another girl I was with!)

Dick Requet had worked at Eagle Supermarkets for a number of years before he opened the Italian Village in Moline in 1963.  He and his wife, Mary, and their children all worked in the restaurant with other family members.  In 1971, the Requet's moved their restaurant to the College Hill section of Rock Island, just up the hill from Augustana College.  In 1980, they added an ice cream parlor next to the Italian Village, then in 1986 they changed the name to ReQuette's.  Dick and Mary retired from the business in 1994, and their son, Rick, ran the place as R.T.'s Italian Village until it closed it in 2005.  

Dick's son - and Rick's brother - Dave Requet, Sr. bought the rights to the Gendler's Wine and Spirits name in 2007 not long after it closed its Moline location.  Gendler's was my place to go for wine and beer when I first moved to the Quad Cities in 1991.  Jerry Zeffren, the longtime owner of Gendler's before he sold to Tom Getz in 2001, used to get Capital Beers for me when the closest place I could find some would be up in East Dubuque.  They'd cost a little more at Gendler's than what I could get them at liquor stores in Wisconsin, but at least I wasn't driving an hour and a half to buy them.  

Dave Requet and his wife, Lynda, had been planning on doing something with the old Italian Village space for a number of years.  Requet was an entrepreneur/developer by day and a wine enthusiast at night.  Requet is a member of the American Wine Society and the Requet's have taken numerous trips to Napa Valley to sample wines.  They decided to do a massive upgrade to the building and put in a wine store with an upscale restaurant.  They spent over $700,000 in renovations and opened Gendler's/Black Ram in late July 2012.  

However, almost as soon as they opened, they had to close again.  A crushed sewer line shut down the business until they could get a company to come in an fix it.  After another two-week-plus delay, the restaurant reopened in August.  (Pictured left - Dave and Lynda Requet.  Photo courtesy Rock Island Dispatch-Argus/QC Online)

Now, one thing I did not know was that the Black Ram is actually in two parts.  They have their main entrance behind the building from 30th Street with a large parking lot near the entrance.  The entrance we went in took us into the Grotto Bar.  My wife was telling me that her co-worker's husband was feeling a little uneasy in the restaurant and asked to be seated elsewhere.  When I walked into the Black Ram, I thought this was the restaurant.  I thought, "What could be so pretentious about this place?"  I didn't know they had a formal dining room on the other side.  

The bar area had a great cozy feeling to the place.  It had a rather neat curved ceiling with exposed beams that bent in tandem with the top of the room.  There was a nice bar and a number of small tables and some high top tables along the wall.  A nice fireplace was on the wall to the right of the bar.  A hostess got up from the bar to greet us and asked us if we wanted a regular table or a high top.  Cindy is a little uncomfortable at high tops, but the hostess said, "The seats at the high tops are more comfortable."  Sure enough, they were.  They had some nice padding on the seat and back.  She dropped some menus off for us to look over.

Our server for the evening, a pleasant blond lady with the interesting name of Donai, came over to greet us.  Cindy wanted a glass of white wine and I wasn't certain if I wanted a beer or a glass of wine, or even any alcohol at all.   I had my back to the bar and I asked what kind of beer they had on tap.  She gave me a quick rundown of about five or six beers, then she said, "And we have a new one.  It's a Hawaiian beer, but I can't remember the name of it."  I asked if it was a Kona Brewery beer and she said, "Yeah, I think so."

I turned around and walked over toward the bar.  They had the Kona Longboard Lager on tap.  I couldn't believe it.  I have such an affinity for Kona beers that I had to have one.  It wasn't my favorite - the Big Wave Golden Ale - but it was close enough.   

Chef Dean McCollum features a full menu of steaks, seafood, pasta and the old Village Inn recipe for pizza.   Actually, we were both in the mood for pasta that night and they had fettuccine alfredo, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna and a couple other pasta dishes on the menu.  

We pretty much knew what we were going to get, but our waitress was nowhere to be found.  We noticed another young man who was a server who came into the bar area a couple times to get drinks, but that was sporadic.  Finally, our waitress showed up after we waited for about 10 minutes.  She was somewhat out of breath and ready to take our order.

My wife got the fettuccine alfredo with chicken.  Normal price on the fettuccine alfredo was $10.95.  With the grilled chicked added, it was an extra five bucks.  I also got the fettuccine alfredo, but with the shrimp added for an additional $8.  We both got the regular house salads - Cindy with oil and vinegar, I got the house Italian.

We waited patiently for another long stretch for our salads.  Finally, a man came over - it turned out it was Dave Requet, Sr. - to explain the delays for the evening.  "We have a big party next door, folks.  We're getting them served right now.  After that, things should get back to normal for us on the floor and in the kitchen."

I still hadn't put two-and-two together to realize there was another part of the Black Ram.  I expressed my amazement that I thought the bar area was the only part of the restaurant.  Dave Requet said, "Oh, no.  We have a formal dining room next door."  

Then my wife explained to me, "I was telling you that (her co-worker's husband) didn't feel comfortable in the dining room and asked to be seated in the bar."  OOOOHHHHH....  I see now...

(Skipping ahead - After we finished our dinner, we went back and took a look at the formal dining area at Black Ram.  Quite honestly, it looked more like a banquet room than a formal dining room.  I mean, it was nice in there, but it looked like it would be more suited for wedding receptions than fine dining.  I can see why the husband of Cindy's co-worker would be a little uncomfortable in the room.  I liked the lounge area much better at Black Ram.

 
Dave Requet, Jr., the restaurant manager, allowed us a look into the restaurant's wine cellar.  It was a climate-controlled room off the main dining room.  Dave, Jr. was a nice guy, giving us the run-down of the history of the Italian Village, the recipes that were handed down to the third generation of Requet's to work in the restaurant, and their short and long-range plans to develop the large outdoor area on the north side of the building.)  

Skipping back - Our salads did finally make it out and they were good, not outstanding.  And not long after the salads were finished, our server came out with our fettuccine alfredo.  Cindy's had a good amount of sliced grilled chicken breast on the top of her fettuccine.  There was also a good amount of fettuccine on her plate, so much so that she knew she wasn't going to eat the whole thing.  "I'll concentrate on the chicken and eat what else of it that I can," she said. 

 

Mine, however, featured just four morsels of butterflied shrimp scampi.  This was an extra $8 bucks?  Four pieces of shrimp?  You've got to be kidding me!  I buy shrimp at the grocery store and I know there's not way that four pieces of shrimp can cost a restaurant that much.  I was disappointed in the value of my meal from the start.  

The taste of the fettuccine alfredo was, well, different.  There seemed to be some sort of a chalky taste to the bite of the pasta and alfredo sauce.  It was like they had taken a handful of flour and added it to the sauce before it was served.  The overall taste of the sauce was OK, but I don't know if I've ever experienced this chalky texture on the tongue when I've eaten fettuccine alfredo in the past.  

The shrimp - what there was of them - were actually pretty good.  They had a nice chargrilled taste to them and were plump and meaty.  I just wish there would have been a couple three more for $8 bucks.  Cindy gave me a slice of her chicken breast and, it too, was good.  But the thing I liked most about the meal was the garlic bread- flat pieces of sliced Italian bread topped with garlic and herbs and toasted.  The bread was very good.  

We both couldn't finish our full helpings of fettuccine and when our server came back to check on us, she asked if we wanted the leftovers.  My wife explained that it's never as good when it's taken home and re-warmed.  

But our server didn't give up.  She said, "Any dessert tonight?"  I sort of groaned from being full and then she said, "We have homemade tiramisu, creme brulee..."  

Cindy stopped her, looked at me and smiled.  "Your tiramisu is homemade?  We'll take a piece with two forks."  

At first, I was upset with my wife for ordering the tiramisu.  But when it was brought out, whoa!  What a nice presentation!  It was a thick slice of tiramisu with the whipped topping sprinkled with cocoa powder.  From the first bite, I could tell it was one of the better pieces of tiramisu I've ever had - and I've had a LOT of tiramisu over the years.  It was just fabulous.  

Although I was disappointed in the taste and value of my fettuccine alfredo, I told my wife that I'd like to go back again sometime to get their Italian Village recipe pizza.  We were told that their pizza isn't like traditional Quad Cities-style pizza - which I don't care for - but a pizza that had a thinner crust and not the spicy-sweet style of sauce you find on pizzas all over the area.  They also grind their own blend of sausage for their pizzas at Black Ram.  We thought we may have found another alternative to the unbelievable number of Quad City-style pizza places in the area. 

We made our way back over to the Black Ram on a Saturday night about a month after we were there for the pizza.  Once again, we had a very nice young lady wait on us and we ordered up a pizza.  We figured we'd order up a large because we could take some home with us to snack on the next day when we would be out doing yard work.  

The only problem is that the large pizza (16") was $13 bucks - with only cheese on it.  For sausage it was an EXTRA FIVE BUCKS!!  I thought, "Wow!  Their homemade sausage must be REALLY good if it's that expensive to put on to a pizza.  For an additional $3.00 each, we could get pepperoni, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, etc.  So, if I got my usual sausage, pepperoni, and mushroom pizza it would have been $24 bucks.  I decided to save some money and just get the sausage and pepperoni.  For $21 bucks, it had better knock it out of the park.  

When the pizza showed up, Cindy and I looked at one another and sort of laughed.  It was cut in the manner of a Quad City-style pizza - long thin slices. And we could smell the pizza and we KNEW it was MORE of a Quad City-style pizza than not.  The sausage was ground up and the slices weren't more thin than a regular QC-style pie.  

From the first bite, we knew we'd been had.  It didn't taste very good.  I don't want to say that it tasted horrible, but it was one of the worst tasting pizzas I've had.  Nothing clicked on the pizza.  The sausage was dull in taste and it was mushy to the bite.  I had a hard time detecting any taste of pepperoni on the pizza, even when I would see a slice on the piece I was getting ready to bite into.  The sauce was "blah!"  I wanted to like their pizza, but I couldn't.  Did it pass my "Does it taste good with beer?" test that I use to measure against other pizzas?  This pizza wouldn't have tasted good with any kind of beer.

I know people who grew up in the Quad Cities who love this type of taste in their pizza, but I find it very unappealing.  I'm still amazed that there are only two or three places around town that do more of what I would call a traditional tasting pizza with chunks of sausage and a good tangy sauce.  The vast majority are Harris Pizza clones.  I still have a problem with the number of Quad City-style pizza places that are found throughout the area.  

Years ago, I tried a Harris Pizza and found it to be so disagreeable in taste that I threw out nearly 3/4's of the pizza.  (Even the critters who got into the garbage bag sitting on the curb that night didn't touch the pizza - it was that bad.)  That was the only time in my life I threw out a pizza.  Until now.  We had a little over half of the Black Ram pizza left and took it home.  We got it home and I tried another bite.  I couldn't handle it.  I told Cindy, "This will be the second pizza I've ever thrown out."  She didn't quibble with me when I took the pizza box out to the garage and threw it in the garbage.  

I really wanted to like the Black Ram.  I mean I REALLY wanted to like the Black Ram.  I loved the bar area and the fact that they had Kona Longboard Lager on tap.  The service was very good and the people were extremely friendly.  And their tiramisu was some of the best we'd ever had.   But I didn't think my fettuccine alfredo was all that great and the pizza was - to us - inedible.  And the value of the meals weren't very good at all.  $21 for a pizza - even if it would have been one of the best I'd ever had - was still a little steep.  $18 for pasty tasting fettuccine alfredo with four measly grilled shrimp was sort of outrageous, as well.  I don't know if they're going for more of an upscale crowd at the Black Ram or what, but they've lost a couple of customers who didn't think much for the food or the prices they were charging for it. 

Backpocket Brewing - Coralville, IA

My neighbor, Greg, is a big beer aficionado.  He brews his own beer - and he does a pretty good job of it, too.  We have quaffed many a beer over the past few years hanging out at each others house.  Although our tastes vary a bit, we also have some ideas as to what both of us like.  For over a year, Greg has been raving about a new brewpub over in the Iowa City suburb of Coralville - Backpocket Brewing - telling me he knew that I'd like the place.  We've both been talking about heading over together at some point, but we haven't done it.  However, on a recent Sunday trip to Iowa City, Cindy suggested that we head to Backpocket Brewing to give it a try.  She knew that Greg and I had been talking about going to the place and he talked so adamantly about the beer and the pizza at the brewpub that she wanted to give it a try, as well.  

The background story of Backpocket Brewery is sort of interesting.  Well, to me, at least.  It starts out in the picturesque Northeastern Iowa river community of McGregor.  In 2007, McGregor natives Dave and Marci Strutt decided they wanted to build and develop the finest brewpub in the state of Iowa.  Dave Strutt was working with the Weitz Company - a large Des Moines-based construction company - as Sr. Vice-President/General Counsel.  Along with a Des Moines friend, James Simmons, the Strutts bought the somewhat famous "Diamond Jo" building in McGregor.  Built in 1888 by "Diamond" Jo Reynolds, an entrepreneur who owned steamboats, mines, grain elevators and other properties in a number of states, it housed his offices for his steamboat operation that ran up and down the Upper Mississippi River.  The Strutts and Simmons transformed the old building into a state of the art brewpub complete with a brewing operation that was built in Austria by the Salm company.  At the time, there were only two other breweries in the Western Hemisphere that were using Salm equipment - one in Canada and the other in Brazil.  

It so happened that James Simmons' son, Jake, was looking to get his start as a brewmaster.  Jake Simmons had a degree in microbiology and was going for his PhD at a college in St. Louis.  About three years into his program, he decided that he didn't really need his PhD, so he went to work in the private sector in biotech work.  The money was good, but his first love was homebrewing beer.  Simmons quit his job and worked as an intern for a couple years on the quality control team at Schlafly Brewery in St. Louis. He left there in 2007 and went to work for a brewery out in Maine.  When the Strutts and James Simmons opened the Old Man River brewpub in January of 2008, Jake Simmons was named the brewmaster.  Focusing on German-style beers, Jake Simmons wanted his beers to have a signature taste that wasn't overpowering.  

Jake Simmons still had ties at the Schlafly brewery and that company was looking to outsource some of their beers to help increase Schlafly distribution in the Midwest and Southeast.  In the summer of 2011, Schlafly signed an agreement with Simmons to produce some of their beers.  The only problem was that the Old Man River brewery was running at capacity and couldn't produce any beers for Schlafly.  Simmons knew he had to build a new brewery from scratch. 

Simmons looked at the Iowa City/Coralville area, as for a city with a major college - the University of Iowa - it had a large beer drinking population, yet no active brewpub.  With his father and the Strutts financing the venture, Simmons built a 15,000 brewery with a 25,000 barrel capacity complete with a tap room and a beer garden.  

Backpocket Brewing opened just over a year ago.  To help run the tap room, Simmons hired Bob Wagner, an Iowa native who had been running the Piece Brewpub in Chicago.  The concept for Backpocket - pizza and beer - is similar to what Wagner was doing in Chicago.  

The regular beers at Backpocket Brewery all have names of unique items that people have put in their backpockets over the years.  Their Slingshot is a German dunkel beer that is dark in color, but has a light lager taste.  The Wooden Nickel is a Scottish-peated ale with a German definition.  The Pennywhistle is a wheat-based beer with the spiciness of cloves and cinnamon.  The Jack Knife is a hoppy German-style of beer that is reminiscent of an India Pale Ale.  And the Golden Coin is a lighter German pilsner.  They also make seasonal beers at Backpocket including an Oktoberfest.  All the beers at Backpocket follow recipes based on the German Beer Purity Law that has been in place since the 1500's.    

Backpocket Brewery is located in the Iowa River Landing development at the end of East 9th Street in Coralville, in front of the Marriott hotel.  (see map)  There's a pay parking lot off to the side, but we went around the roundabout and parked on the street on the side of the brewery/tap room.  It was a warm, yet, windy day and the umbrellas for the tables in the beer garden in front of the brewpub were all put away.  Two young ladies didn't mind the wind as they enjoyed their beers in the warm Spring sunshine. 

There weren't too many people in the tap room at Backpocket.  As my wife always says, "Why would you want to be inside drinking beer on such a beautiful day?"  It looked like many people shared her philosophy.

 
We took a seat in one of the booths that were along a low brick wall that separated the dining room area from the bar area.  There are floor-to-ceiling tinted windows that let in a lot of natural light during the day.

The brewery was very visible with the large fermenting barrels in the back area of the tap room.  Backpocket bottles their own beer and has a large bottle capping machine.  A number of their beers are available at bars, restaurants and grocery stores in Eastern Iowa.  

Our server, Alex, came over to great us.  He asked if we'd been to Backpocket before and we told him, no, but we'd heard good things about the place.  Right off the bat, he told us that they were out of their Slingshot Dunkel and the Jack Knife German pale ale.  "We had a pretty good Friday night and Saturday," he explained.  

I ended up ordering a Wooden Nickle while Cindy got an iced tea.  "Iced tea," I asked incredulously.  "I thought you wanted a beer."

She said, "I know.  But they don't have a real pale ale on the beer menu.  Besides, I'm a little tired and if we get a pizza and I have a beer I'll get sleepy."  (Actually, they did have the Schlafly American Pale Ale on hand.  I'm guessing they're brewing it for Schlafly's.) 

The menu at Backpocket is pretty limited - pizza and salads.  They had something about a burger that is grilled on their outdoor patio circular fire pit, but Alex sort of explained, "Uh, yeah, that's not even going on yet.  We're gonna do that sometime, but we're not doing it today."  The pizza is a Neapolitan-style 10" pizza that is baked in a special oven that is heated to 900 degrees (F).  They have five or six signature pizzas including a margherita pizza and something called the "Meatza" - sausage, pepperoni and bacon.  We decided to get a "build-your-own" pizza - sausage and pepperoni.  It's $7 bucks for a plain cheese pizza and 50 cents for each ingredient.  $8 bucks is pretty cheap for a pizza.

Because the oven is so hot, it certainly didn't take long for our pizza to make it to the table.  The hand-tossed pizza had a thick and chewy edge-crust with slight charred marks.  But the inner crust was thin, but not crisp.  

I got to looking at the individual slices of pizza and I thought, "Wait a minute...  Where are the toppings?"  The sausage chunks were pretty small and there wasn't many of them.  And there were only two - or possibly three - slices of pepperoni per slice.   The pizza, itself, tasted very good.  It certainly passed the "Does it taste good with a beer?" test that I use for every pizza.  But we were sort of laughing over the paucity of any type of toppings.  I said to Cindy, "Well, I see how they can get away with pizzas for $8 bucks.  They don't put any toppings on them."  It could have been an excellent pizza had they stepped up and put some more toppings on it.  

We had no problem finishing the pizza and realized that we probably could have gotten two pizzas if we were really hungry.  But a half-pizza each was fine with us for a somewhat late lunch that day.  

Aside from the skimpy toppings on their pizza, I was impressed with the whole experience at Backpocket Brewery.  We had good service from Alex, the pizza did taste good as did the Wooden Nickel beer that I had.  Well, I guess I would have liked to have tried the Slingshot Dunkel, but I can do that on my next visit.  Or I can pick some up at a store or try some at a bar that has it available in the Quad Cities.  Backpocket Brewing is doing well and I think they'll be doing well for a long time.  

North Branch Pizza and Burger Company - Glenview, IL

Staying in the northwest suburbs of Chicago on a regular basis, I'm always on the look out for new restaurants to try in the area.  I was talking to a couple guys at Abt Electronics about a new restaurant that popped up over the past year - North Branch Pizza and Burger Company.  They said the food was pretty good.  I decided that before I wrote about the place, I had to go there twice - once for a pizza and once for a burger. 

North Branch Pizza and Burger Company opened in the early summer of 2012 in a building that housed the former Gulliver's Pizza.  I had a Gulliver's Pizza a couple times and was wanting to do an entry on the place.  But when I went back in late 2011, it had shut down.  Restaurateur Nick Philippas - who along with his wife, Connie, ran Moon Wok in Glenview - took over the location and spent a lot of money updating both the dining and bar areas, changing the floor plan to make it more open in the place.  He hired Dan Mataragas as the general manager of the new restaurant and Raul Gutierrez was brought on to be the head chef.  Mataragas comes from a restaurant background - his family owns the Old Bridge Cafe in Schaumburg; and Gutierrez was associated with the Lettuce Entertain You umbrella of restaurants in the Chicago area.   

The restaurant gets its name from the nearby west fork of the north branch of the Chicago river.  North Branch Pizza and Burger Company has no connection to a former restaurant in the area - North Branch.  And even though they have "pizza" and "burger" in their name, their menu has much, much more to offer.  Raul Gutierrez stresses freshness in his cooking, using only fresh and no frozen in his foods.  Every meal ordered at North Branch Pizza and Burger is made fresh to order.  

In addition to pizza and burgers, the restaurant also has pasta and seafood entrees, as well as a skirt steak entree and chicken dishes including housemade Louisiana buttermilk chicken that has a little bit of bite to the taste.  They also feature a number of appetizers and a number of "two-handed" sandwiches including a pastrami sandwich, a French dip sandwich, and something called "the Snooki" that features housemade meatballs topped with a housemade marinara sauce and three types of cheese on a toasted French bread bun.

It was at night when I first visited North Branch Pizza and Burger just east of the corner of N. Milwaukee and W. Lake (Euclid) in Glenview, right next to the Courtyard Inn (see map).  Since the last time I'd been in - which was nearly two years previous - I could tell that they really did open up the place.  A couple walls had been knocked down to open up the dining room, and they changed the bar area around a little bit.  I decided that I wanted to watch some basketball in the bar and I the hostess if I could get food in the bar.  "Sure," she exclaimed as she led me past a motorcycle parked near the entry way and into the bar.  She said, "Pick out any seat that you like."  I found a high table and plopped down there.  

It had been awhile since I had pizza, so I was kind of zeroing in on that.  North Branch features both deep dish and thin crust pizzas with about two dozen different types of fresh toppings to choose from.  My server for the evening - Sandra - came over and asked if I wanted anything to drink while I looked through the menu.  I saw that they had Burning River Pale Ale from the Great Lakes Brewing Company out of Cleveland on tap.  I ordered a glass of that and when she brought it to me, she said, "That's a unique name for a beer, Burning River."  I asked her if she knew the origin behind the name and she said she did not.  I proceeded to tell her of the multiple fires over the years that they had on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland eminating from industrial pollution.  The last fire, in the late 60's, triggered a social consciousness across the United States to clean up waterways across the nation and to spur environmental acts such as the "Clean Water Act" and the creation of the "Environmental Protection Agency".  Sandra said, "Whoa!  I didn't know anything about any of that!  Now I have something to tell people when they order a Burning River!"   

I was ready to order up a pizza and I got a small, thin crust with my reference sausage, mushroom and pepperoni. She said it would be out in a jiffy.  About 20 minutes later she brought out the pizza.  It was cut into party slices and being pretty efficient, she scooped a couple pieces of the pizza off on to my plate before I got a chance to take a picture of the full pizza.  

The crust was definitely thin, but was somewhat fluffy, as well.  It had a nice, airy texture to the bite.  The pizza was topped with copious amounts of large sausage chunks, pepperoni slices and sliced fresh mushrooms.  It had an ample amount of mozzarella and the sauce was, well, it was pretty sweet.  In fact, almost too sweet for my taste.  The overall taste of the pizza wasn't my favorite, but it was far from a bad pizza.  I just wish the sauce wasn't so damn sweet.  I know it's personal preference, but I like a sauce that is more tangy than sweet.  It almost overpowered the taste of the other toppings.  

I stopped back into North Branch one afternoon a few weeks later to try one of their burgers.  They feature a dozen different types of burgers on the menu including some signature burgers as the Hilly Billy that was topped with pulled pork and barbecue sauce; the Double Napkin and Bib burger that had a blend of four cheeses, roasted jalapenos, pico de gallo and crushed tortilla chips; and the namesake North Branch burger that had rosemary aoili, gruyere cheese, and caramelized onions.  I was leaning toward getting the Farmer Brown - a burger topped with a fried egg, smoked bacon, crispy onion straws and cheddar cheese.  Then I saw under the burger menu that I could take a "plain 'ol burger', and add my choice of cheese and toppings.  I ordered up a pepper jack, mushroom and bacon burger.  I had my choice of a regular bun or a pretzel bun.  I got the pretzel bun.  Fries came with the burger on the side.  

 

My burger came out about 15 to 20 minutes after I ordered and it was this huge, thick 1/2 pound patty under a pretzel bun crown topped with a fried pickle slice.  That was a nice touch, I thought.  The bun had been grill toasted and the burger was swimming in melted pepper jack cheese.  The same mushrooms they use on their pizzas were on the burger, and the bacon slices on the burger crisp and flavorful.  The only problem is that nothing else came on the burger.  I guess I didn't ask for onions, ketchup, pickles or mustard.  Some people think ketchup is overrated on burgers, but I like the sweet taste from time to time.  I had a little container of ketchup that came with the fries and I scooped some out onto the bun.  

The burger was juicy, yet lean.  The overall taste of the burger was very good with the pretzel bun being a big part of the taste.  It was airy and a little chewy, but had a great taste.  I still maintain that the key to a good burger is the bun.  The bun on my North Branch burger was very, very good.

I do want to mention that the fries were, by far, the weakest part of the meal.  They were pretty nondescript and somewhat cold when served.  But that's all right - the burger was huge and there was going to be no way I would have been able to make any type of a sizable dent in the fries.  

So, my experiences on both of my visits to North Branch Pizza and Burger Company were positive.  Service was good and the pizza was good.  As I say, I wish the sauce wouldn't have been so sweet or it would have been an outstanding pizza.  The burger was also very good, but I need to order condiments with my burger next time.  For a family friendly experience, or a place to go with some buddies to grab a pizza and some beers to watch the game, North Branch Pizza and Burger Company is a good choice in the Glenview/Northbrook area.   

Pizzeria Antica - Bloomingdale, IL

Out of habit, I find myself staying from time to time at the Hampton Inn in west suburban Addison when I go into Chicago for meetings.  It's sort of far out of the city, but it's easy to get to and away from.  It's sort of centrally located for the dealers that I have around the Chicagoland area, plus there's a number of restaurants in the vicinity.  For the past number of years, I usually head east into Addison or Elmhurst to get something to eat when I'm staying there.  On a recent overnight there, I decided to look toward the west to the Bloomingdale area to see what they have to offer.  I found a little Italian/pizza place called Pizzeria Antica. 

Pizzeria Antica is a small family-owned restaurant that opened in the fall of 2007.  Gaetano Ancona is the principal owner/chef at the restaurant, but other family members are involved in the restaurant.  Pizzeria Antica is located in a small building on W. Lake St., just past Bloomingdale Rd (or Roselle Rd north of Lake).  (see map)  There is only one way in to Pizzeria Antica from the westbound lane on W. Lake.  And you can only go west out of the place when you leave.

It had been a long day of meetings and driving around the Chicago area when I decided to head west on Lake to Pizzeria Antica.  It is, indeed, a very small place seating only 26 people.   There were two other people in the place finishing up their meal when I got in after 8 p.m.  I was greeted at the front counter by a young lady and I thought that you actually ordered your food there.   But it turns out that they do have sit down service at Pizzeria Antica. 

I took a seat at a table and took a look through the menu.  Pizzeria Antica specializes in thin crust pizza and they have a number of specialty pizzas such as the Antico - a pizza topped with Italian tuna, capers, mushrooms and onions; the Frutti de mare - octopus, shrimp, calamari and crab meat are on that one; and the Wurstel - it has hot dogs, mushroom, basil and extra virgin olive oil on it.  None of those sounded appealing to me in the least.  

Since Pizzeria Antica opens at 11 a.m. for lunch, they also have a number of sandwiches, salads and appetizers.  But I was there for the pizza that evening. 

My regular reference pizza of sausage, mushroom and pepperoni was what I was looking for.  And that's exactly what I ordered when my server came over to take my order - a small (10").  (They also have a 12" medium, a 14" large and a 16" extra-large.)   I also noticed that they had Peroni beer on the menu.  I ordered up a bottle of Peroni to drink while I wanted on my pizza.    

It took less than 20 minutes from the time I ordered to the time the pizza made it to the table.  The pizza featured ample amounts of pepperoni, chopped fresh mushrooms and chunks of sweet Italian sausage on the top mixed in with caramelized mozzarella cheese.  It was cut into triangles.  

The crust was crispy and a little crunchy.  It easily held the toppings without drooping.  Parmesan cheese, ground oregano and red pepper flakes were available on the table to put onto the pizza.  However, I tried the first piece without any additives.  The flavor was very good.  The sausage was a little bland, but the pepperoni slices had a nice spicy and salty bite.  The mushrooms were also very good on the pizza.  It passed my "Does it taste good with a beer?" test that I have for every new pizza that I try.  

Because the toppings and cheese were so plentiful on the pizza, I was able to eat five of the eight slices of the pizza.  I asked the young lady for a to-go box as I had a fridge and a microwave in my room back at the Hampton Inn.  Pizza for breakfast is always a treat.  

When I was getting ready to leave, the server asked me how my pizza was and I told her that it was very good.  It wasn't the best I've had in the Chicago area, but it was still very good.  She gave me a printed menu to take with me and I didn't notice until I got back home that it said on the front, "Moving soon!"  Honestly, I don't know if the menu was printed up two months ago or two years ago.  I'll keep checking back with them to see if they finally moved and I'll be sure to update this entry.

While I do like finding these small gems of a restaurant in my travels, I can see why they probably would like to move.  The place is small and you can't get into the place if you're coming from the west on Lake St.   I'm hoping that wherever Pizzeria Antica moves to, they'll keep the same pizza ovens that are obviously seasoned with thousands of pizzas they've cooked in them over the past five plus years.  I'll definitely follow them, as long as they're close to the hotel when I stay there.  I'll be sure to let you know when they move and where.  

SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza - Overland Park, KS

Almost a couple of years ago now, the Kansas City Star sponsored a contest called the Casual Food Chowdown where they pitted 16 restaurants against each in four categories - barbecue, burgers, pizza, and tacos - and put them each in a bracket-style tournament where people voted on-line for their favorite places.  Once the Final Four were picked, they finished up voting for their favorite overall casual restaurant in the Kansas City area.  The winner - and not to my surprise - was Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue (see my entry on Oklahoma Joe's here and here), but the other Final Four participants were Westport Flea Market for burgers (click here to see my entry on Westport Flea Market - the third best burger on my Best Burgers - 2012 list), Ponak's Mexican Kitchen for tacos (click here to see my entry on Ponak's), and a place that I wasn't familiar with called SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza.  Since I'd eaten at three of the four category winners in the past, I decided to try SPIN! for a pizza on a recent visit to Kansas City. 

Pizza isn't usually on my radar when I go to Kansas City.  With so many world class barbecue and steak places in the town, I really haven't sought out any pizza places for a number of years.  I remember eating at a Minsky's a few years back, but it wasn't all that great.  With a strong Italian heritage in the city, I figured there had to be some place that had good pizza and I was hoping SPIN! would be just that place.  

SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza has been around the Kansas City area since 2005.  Gail and Dr. Richard Lozoff had started a chain of bagel places in the Kansas City area called Bagel Bagel.  The local chain had grown to nine locations before the Lozoff's - and partners/in-laws Mitchell and Debra Swaden - sold off the chain in 1994 to Boston Market who then developed Bagel Bagel into the Einstein Bros. Bagels chain.  Gail Lozoff, whose grandfather and father were bakers in the Kansas City area, worked on the executive staff for Einstein Bros. in Denver before returning to Kansas City to work for Houlihan Restaurants as their chief concept officer.  

The Lozoff's would go out to eat quite a bit and they found that most casual places were either expensive or repetitive in their choices of food.  Gail Lozoff left Houlihan Restaurants and worked on a casual pizza place concept with her husband and a business partner, Edwin Brownell.  The group opened their first SPIN! pizza place in Overland Park in 2005.  Today, there are five SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza locations in the greater Kansas City area (they are looking at opening a sixth location very soon), and they recently began to sell franchises of the concept.  Their first franchisee, Craig Hofman, the owner of the Lucille's Barbecue chain in Southern California, plans to build about 35 SPIN! locations in SoCal.   

It was the original Overland Park location that I visited one evening during a trip to the Kansas City area a few weeks ago.  It's located in the Leawood Plaza strip mall on the south side of 119th Street behind the Cheesecake Factory.  (see map)  It was around 8 p.m. when I got into the place.  When you walk in, you are greeted by a guy who is standing underneath the menu for SPIN! on a board.  You place your order for pizza and drinks right then and there.  It was similar to the concept I encountered at Punch Neapolitan Pizza in Minneapolis a couple years ago.  I hoped that the pizza at SPIN! would be better than the one I had at Punch.  

In addition to pizza at SPIN!, they have a number of salads, grilled panini sandwiches, flatbreads and spreads, and other sandwiches on the menu.  The menu at SPIN! was developed with local Kansas City chef Michael Smith, a James Beard award winner who is the owner of - naturally - Michael Smith, an upscale restaurant in downtown Kansas City.  

I was going to get a pizza and they have a number of specialty pizzas including their margherita pizza that was named one of the top dishes of the year a couple years ago by Restaurant Business magazine.  SPIN! regularly wins local awards for best pizza in the Kansas City area.  Their pizzas are one size only and I ended up getting a pepperoni pizza and asked if they could put some sausage on it.  I also ordered a couple Boulevard Pale Ale's to go along with the pizza.  He gave me a table card with a number on it and I went to find a place to sit. 

The pizza at SPIN! is baked in a large wood-fired oven in true Neapolitan fashion.  They use locally sourced and fresh ingredients for their pizzas.  They get their Italian sausage from Scimeca's Sausage,  a longtime local meat market that caters to Italian restaurants in the greater Kansas City area.  

I found a table with a bench seat along the wall in the dining room. There were two large groups - a group of 20-somethings at one large table, and a smaller group of middle-aged ladies across the industrial/contemporary dining room.  SPIN! has won a handful of awards for its decor.   Not long after I sat down, a young lady brought over my two beers with a glass.

Since wood-fired Neapolitan pizza doesn't take long to bake, I got my pizza about 10 minutes after I ordered at the front counter.  It featured large slices of pepperoni with chunks of sausage across the top of the pizza.  Fresh mozzarella was used for the cheese with a light tomato sauce mixed in.  The crust was thin in the middle, but more thick on the outer edges.  The misshapen pizza was probably around 11" inches in diameter.

The overall taste of the pizza was very good.  The crust had a nice chewy texture, but it wasn't doughy in the least.  The pepperoni had a nice spicy and salty taste, and the Italian sausage was sweet and spicy.  But it wasn't greasy, at all.  It easily passed the "Does it taste good with a beer?" test that I always use as a determining factor whether a pizza is good or not.  It was an excellent pizza.    

I did my best in trying to finish the whole pizza, but I ended up a couple pieces short.  I got a box from one of the servers to take the remaining two slices back to the hotel for breakfast in the morning.  

So, I've now tried all four category winners in the KC Star's Casual Food Chowdown.  I have to concur with the readers who voted Oklahoma Joe's as the best, but it was certainly tough to chose between the other three.  For pizza, SPIN! acquitted themselves very well and it is no wonder they win many "Best Pizza" awards in the Kansas City area.  Now that they're on my culinary radar for restaurants in K.C., I'm sure I'll be back again at some point.   

Fireside Pizza - Richfield, MN

A place that I had driven by on a few occasions on my trips to the Twin Cities was a restaurant on Penn Ave. in suburban Richfield by the name of Fireside Pizza. (see map) I did a little checking up on the place and decided to put it on my "Restaurants to Visit" list that I keep on my computer.  On a recent trip to Minneapolis, I decided to give Fireside Pizza a try.

Fireside Pizza has been a staple with the locals in and around Richfield since 1960.  Original owner Dave Miller started a tradition of hosting jazz music a number of years ago.  A number of Twin Cities area jazz musicians have played at Fireside Pizza over the years.  When Rich Thompson bought the business in 1996, he continued the jazz music tradition with performances on Monday and Wednesday nights.

(The official name of the restaurant is Storm's Fireside Pizza.  I couldn't figure out or find out the reference to Storm as nothing came up in looking around that a guy by he name of Storm ever owned the business.) 

It happened to be a Wednesday night when I was there recently.  Performing that evening were former school teacher Denny Malmberg on accordion and local jazz vocalist Charmin Michelle.  About a dozen people were in the place which looked like it hadn't been updated since Dave Miller opened the doors over 52 years ago.  But the dining area was kept up very nicely. The interior had a kind of cozy retro look to the place.  I took a seat a booth and a waitress came over with a menu.  In addition to pizza at Fireside Pizza, they have a number of pasta entrees, sandwiches and salads.  On the weekends, Fireside pizza serves a full breakfast menu from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

It was a pretty easy decision for me - I was going to get a small Fireside's thin crust pizza with my regular sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.   After I placed my order it took about 20 minutes - and a couple cold beers - for the pizza to show up at my table.  

The pizza was served on a round cardboard base - rather strange, I thought.  Usually, you'd get a pizza on a plate or a metal platter.  But this was the type of cardboard base that you'd find with a frozen pizza.  The cardboard absorbed the grease which was fine, I suppose, but I like my pizza served on a plate or platter.  

The crust on the Fireside pizza was thin and crisp, but not cracker thin.  It had a nice snap to the bite and was easy to chew.

The toppings were very fresh.  The mushrooms were large and cut thick.  The Italian sausage had a great flavor, although I thought they could have put a little more on the pizza.  And the pepperoni was spicy and salty.  I liked the tangy somewhat sweet pizza sauce on the Fireside pizza, and the combined romano and mozzarella cheese made for a great cheesy taste.  As I've said before, if a pizza tastes great with a beer, it's a good pizza.  The Fireside pizza tasted great with a beer.  

I'm starting to find a few more pizza places in the Twin Cities, but the pizza I had at Fireside Pizza was very good.  Their pizza has won many awards over the years and remains a favorite of the locals. The jazz music was a nice touch during dining that evening.  Fireside Pizza is not far from the hotel I stay at when I go to the Twin Cities and it will be a place that I'll go back to when I want just a good ol' thin crust pizza from a little neighborhood joint when I'm in town.  

Oley's Pizza - Fort Wayne, IN

On a couple previous visits to Fort Wayne and taking the drive out to the wonderful Joseph Ducuis restaurant in nearby Roanoke, IN (click here to see my entry), we've passed a pizza place along U.S. Highway 24 south and west of Fort Wayne by the name of Oley's Pizza.  Last summer during a dinner party at Joseph Decuis with some people from Sweetwater, one of the largest mail-order/Internet pro music dealers in the nation, I asked a guy and his wife about Oley's.  They both gushed about the place.  "Oh, yeah.  Oley's is the real deal," the guy told me.  His wife said she wouldn't eat any other pizza in Fort Wayne.  "And that's a problem," he explained to me.  "We live about 25 minutes away from Oley's on the north side of town."  While in Fort Wayne recently to meet with a consumer electronics dealer I've been working with, I decided to try out Oley's which was only a couple miles down the road from my hotel.

The original Oley's Pizza was opened in 1980 by Stephen "Oley" and Carol Olinger in the small town of Ossian, IN, directly south of Fort Wayne.  The Olinger's had visited Chicago on a number of occasions and wanted to bring the taste of Chicago-style pizza to the Fort Wayne area.  After opening their first restaurant, they developed a "double-crust" deep pan style pizza using a homemade sauce made from three different types of tomatoes with low citric acid, a blend of four cheeses, sausage that was sourced from local meat purveyors and cooked daily with Oley's special blend of Italian spices, and a special homemade pizza dough made with four different types of flour, malt powder, natural honey, fresh yeast, and extra virgin olive oil.  

Over the years, Oley's grew to multiple locations and some franchises were sold in Indiana and Western Ohio. Today, there are two Oley's in the Fort Wayne area - the "original" family-owned Oley's on Highway 24, and an Oley's Pizza Shoppe on North Coliseum Blvd. owned by Jim Parnin.  Steve "Oley" Olinger died in 2006 and his son, Kevin, took over the family operation.  

When the couple from Fort Wayne was telling me about the original Oley's, the woman said, "There's an Oley's that about 20 minutes from our house on the east side, but it's not the same as the one on Highway 24."  They both said the original Oley's is better than the franchise Oley's in Fort Wayne.   

I was staying at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fort Wayne for the evening and it had been a long day.  I thought for a moment about heading downtown to find a place to eat before I decided to drive the short distance down the highway to Oley's Pizza.  It was a two minute drive from the hotel to Oley's, situated at the corner of Homestead Rd. and U.S. Highway 24. (see map) 

There's ample parking in front of the building which is in a sort of mini strip mall with a couple empty spaces.  I saw the "Open" sign in the window and found a door to walk in.  To my surprise, I walked into the kitchen at Oley's.  Actually, it's also the area where people come to pick up "to-go" orders.  There are two swinging doors behind the counter and that takes you into the dining room.  

Walking through the dining room at Oley's, I found the main entrance down a hallway between the dining room and the bar area.  The bar area featured a small bar and a handful of booths and tables.  A boisterous bunch of middle aged women were at a six-seater table in the bar and they were pretty loud.  I decided to go back to a booth in the dining room to try and escape their cackling laughter.  

The dining area had sort of a cozy and warm atmosphere.  High back booths were along the north and west walls with a handful of sturdy wooden tables and chairs in the middle.  Can lighting gave off a subtle glow in the room.  I took one of the booths and it wasn't long until my server for the evening, Karmen, showed up with a menu for me.  She asked if I wanted anything to drink and I ordered a Bud Light in a bottle.  She came back moments later with an 18 oz. bottle of Bud Light and a frosty mug.  That was a nice surprise and a nice touch.  I poured the beer into the glass and took a drink.  There was some sort of weird taste in the glass.  It tasted sort of like a detergent that hadn't been fully cleaned out of the glass.  I figured my taster was probably off, but the second glass that I got when my pizza was served had the same taste.  Oh well - at least the glass was clean and cold.

In addition to pizza at Oley's Pizza, they also feature a number of appetizers, oven baked submarine sandwiches, Italian food entrees such as lasagna, fettuccine alfredo, and spaghetti dishes, and even barbecued ribs.  Well, they aren't really barbecued, according to the menu, but baked in a homemade barbecue sauce.   

I pretty much knew that I was going to get a pizza, but the only question was what size.  They have four sizes at Oley's ranging from small to extra large.  The only problem is that they didn't list the size of the pizzas in inches.  They had about a dozen specialty pizzas on the menu, but none of them really tripped my trigger.  A couple of them, I think I said, "No way!", out loud.  One of them was the Bulldog Steak and Cheese pizza.  It's basically Oley's Philly steak sandwich on a pizza, with the dough basted with a homemade creamy mayo sauce, topped a blend of their cheeses, Philly-style steak, green peppers, onions and red peppers.  Then they put A1 steak sauce on top of all that!  Ugh!  

Then there was the chicken club pizza - the sauce is a blend of ranch dressing and Oley's homemade house dressing.  Then they add their cheese blend, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and finally chicken and bacon.  Nooo!!!!  That goes on a sandwich!  Not a pizza!  

Karmen came back around and I asked her how big a small pizza was.  She said, "10 inches.  A medium is 12 inches."  I thought a small would do me fine, so I ordered my usual sausage, mushroom and pepperoni.  A thin crust, not the double crust they're famous for.  She asked, "What kind of sausage?"  

Oh!  I get my pick between the Italian sausage and the American sausage.  Karmen said the Italian sausage was a little more spicy than the American sausage.  "It's basically the same sausage," she explained.  "Only we add some spices to the Italian sausage to make it a little more zesty.  It's not all that spicy, though."  Of course, I took the Italian sausage.  

When Karmen brought my pizza out, I was ready to eat.  It was late - around 8:45 in the evening and I was hungry.  I noticed before the pizza came out that there wasn't any parmesan cheese on the table - only shakers of red peppers and dried oregano.  However, the parmesan cheese was delivered with the pizza sitting in the middle in a small container.

At first look, the crust looked thick, but it was just the rolled up edges that made it look that way.  The base of the crust under the toppings was thin.  The Italian sausage was in small chunks, but not ground up like Quad City-style pizza.   

Pulling the first piece off the pan and putting it on my plate showed a pool of grease under the pizza on the pizza pan.  And my first bite yielded a wonderful flavor of the combination of the cheese, tangy sauce, mild Italian sausage, and the spicy pepperoni.   The mushrooms - although called "fresh" in the menu - looked like they may have come from a can.  Not a deal breaker, for sure, but I didn't think they were fresh.  The bottom line question that I ask myself about any pizza I have - "Does it taste good with a beer?" - and the answer was "Absolutely!"  It was a very good pizza.    

Because the topping were so heavy on the pizza, I was able to finish four slices and asked Karmen for a box to take the remaining two pieces back to my hotel for breakfast in the morning.  When she came back, I asked her how many Oley's were still around.  She said, "Well, the one on Coliseum and this one are the only ones that I know of.  I went to the Oley's on Coliseum a while back to give that one a try and it's not the same as our pizza. I like our pizza better."  I told her that I'd heard that from some other people in Fort Wayne.  

I will have to say that Oley's was a great value.  The bill with tax came to $16.50 - that was for the pizza with three toppings and two 18 oz. beers.  The beers were $2.75 each.  Thank you very much!  I signed the tab at an even $20 bucks with the tip.  I tried to get a couple pictures of the bar area and the kitchen before I left, but it turned out that I had a grease smudge on the lens of the camera on my phone and the pictures came out blurry when I downloaded them on my computer.  Oh well.  One of the hazards of having an excellent pizza from Oley's, I guess.  I can certainly see why the locals think Oley's Pizza is the best Fort Wayne has to offer.  (Picture courtesy The Pizza Fan.com)

Barbiere's Mama Mia's Ristorante - Milwaukee

I've found a number of pretty good pizza places in Milwaukee over the years.  One of the first that I tried nearly 10 years ago came upon the recommendation of a dealer I used to call on years ago at a place just across the street from his store with the decidedly Italian name of Mama Mia's.  It had been some time since I'd treated myself to a pizza on the road and I decided to give Mama Mia's a long-awaited revisit one evening on a recent trip to Milwaukee.  

Actually, the full name of the restaurant is Barbiere's Mama Mia's Ristorante.  And to confuse you, there are actually two factions of Mama Mia's that share the same DNA, but not the same ownership.  The Mama Mia's story starts in 1954 when Alvin Fernandez and Tony Barbiere opened the first Mama Mia's restaurant at the corner of 49th and North Ave. in Milwaukee's Uptown neighborhood, right near the present day location of McBob's Irish Pub.  Business flourished and Fernandez and Barbiere opened a location in the Kops Park/Cooper Park neighborhood in West Milwaukee.  The third location - the one on Silver Spring Dr. that houses the Mama Mia's I went to - opened in 1963.  Somewhere along the way, Tony Barbiere and Alvin Fernadez split up with Fernandez taking two of the Mama Mia's and Barbiere taking the Silver Springs location.  There is still a Mama Mia's restaurant owned by Alvin Fernandez's daughter in suburban Wales, WI, thus the "Barbiere's Mama Mia's" for the one on Silver Spring.    

Pictured right - Tony Barbiere on the right in the original Mama Mia's restaurant in 1954. 

There are also some Barbiere family-owned restaurants in the immediate Milwaukee area.  Up in the picturesque lakeside community of Port Washington, Tony's son, Jude Barbiere, owns the Mama Mia's Italian Restaurant, while Tony's brother, Sal, started the Barbiere's Italian Inn on West Bluemound Road in 1963.  Sal's son, Steve, took over the ownership of that restaurant when Sal retired in 1973.  And in 1997, Steve retired and sold the restaurant to longtime employee Mark Dempsey.  A second Barbiere's Italian Inn opened in South Milwaukee about three years ago.  

There was also a Barbiere's Mama Mia's in suburban Shorewood, north of Milwaukee, but that has since closed up.  Tony Barbiere is still listed as the owner of the Mama Mia's in North Milwaukee.   

It had been a long day of travel that started out in Madison with stops in Appleton, Green Bay, Manitowoc and north suburban Milwaukee.  It was around 8:30 when I pulled into Mama Mia's located at the border between Milwaukee and suburban Glendale.  (see map)  As you walk into the restaurant, there's a large dining room off to the right and a bar off to the left.  I decided to eat at the bar and watch some sports on TV.  Directly beside the bar is another dining room that looks like its used for a lunch buffet or overflow dining.  I was the only person in the bar and I got a menu from the bartender/server.  Even though they have a number of Italian entrees on the menu, I knew exactly what I wanted.  I ordered a 12" Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza with the Mama Mia's original thin crust pizza.  My server asked me, "You want some butter garlic bread with that?"

I had heard that Mama Mia's butter garlic bread is to die for, but I knew I probably wouldn't be able to eat the whole pizza, let alone a pizza and butter garlic bread.  I declined her offer.

Another couple had come in to pick up a pizza to go.  It wasn't ready yet, so they sat at the bar near me and had a drink.  I heard them talking to the bartender about a trip to Hawaii they just came back from.  I politely interrupted their conversation and asked where they went to in Hawaii.  The lady said, "Maui!"  

I told her that we had spent a week on Maui about two and a half years ago.  "I'd swim back to Maui, if I could," I told the couple.  They agreed with me that Maui was the bomb.     

Works of art take time, so it was 20 minutes and into my third beer when the pizza showed up in front of me. The misshapen corn meal crust showed that it was made from scratch.  There were ample amounts of fresh mushrooms, pepperoni slices and chunks of Italian sausage on top of the pizza.  I waited awhile to let the pizza cool down for fear of burning the top of my mouth.  The first bite was a crunchy, flavor-filled explosion in my mouth.  I'm not big on corn meal crust pizza, but this wasn't bad.  I did think the crust was a little too stiff and crisp for me, but it wasn't a deal breaker. Another minor quibble is that I thought the pizza sauce was a little too sweet for my taste.  Some parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes helped take some of the sweetness out of the taste.  But the toppings, including the mozzarella cheese, were fresh.  It was as good of a pizza as I remembered from my first visit years ago.

I was able to finish just over half the pizza and had the young lady box up the final three pieces for me.  I had a refrigerator and a microwave in my room and I had the remaining pieces for breakfast the next morning.  The crust had soaked up the grease and sauce, and was not as crunchy and stiff as the night before.  I remember liking it better with a softer crust.

I may want to try the other Mama Mia's restaurants to see if their pizza is similar to Barbiere's Mama Mia's in North Milwaukee.  I don't think it's the best pizza I've had in Milwaukee, but it is still very good.  It's different from many others in the area, a sort of pizza signature, if you will.  Some people probably prefer the corn meal crust and the sweet tomato sauce over the others, but not me.  Still, past that, I certainly can't say anything bad about the pizza at Barbiere's Mama Mia's.   

(Update - After 60 years in business, Mama Mia's closed their doors in the fall of 2014. Their location in Mequon is still open.)

The Ritz - Arnolds Park, IA

On our last night on vacation in the Lake Okoboji area of Northwest Iowa this past summer, our friends, Craig and Kathy Evert, came and picked us up at the Pioneer Beach Resort where we stayed.  They took us around to a couple bars in the area - the Softail Saloon in Superior, IA, a large biker-friendly bar in a small town just to the east of Spirit Lake, then to The Gardens in Arnolds Park.  For dinner, we ended up at a place called The Ritz in Arnolds Park.  I had inquired about The Ritz earlier in the week and I heard they had both great pizza and a top-notch cheeseburger.  The dilemma - can I have both for dinner?   (Photo courtesy Sioux City Journal)

The Ritz is a long time institution in the Iowa Great Lakes area. For over 30 years, the bar/restaurant has sat on the south side of East Lake Okoboji, next to the bridge that connects the north side and the south side of the little bay where East Lake Okoboji meets West Lake Okoboji. (see map) Prior to becoming The Ritz over 20 years ago, it was known as the The Hunter's Inn.  Taylor and Rich (aka "Coyote") Genrich are the owners of The Ritz (below left).  (Photo courtesy Sioux City Journal) 

The Ritz is popular in the summertime because of its large outdoor patio that overlooks the lake.  It can easily accommodate over a hundred diners and is well-lit at night.  The indoor bar area of The Ritz features a long bar, a number of tables and chairs, and a pool table area on the far end.  The sliding doors allow for easy access to the patio, or, when they're closed during colder weather, a nice view of the lake.  The place ain't too fancy, so don't expect fine dining at The Ritz.  

It was just before 9 p.m. when we sat down at a table on the patio.  The sun's dwindling light was casting a dark red hue across the sky over the lake.  It was a beautiful evening to sit outside and have dinner.  

Our server for the evening, Kara, came over to greet us and drop off some menus.  She took our drinks order and we took a look at what they had to offer at The Ritz.  The menu features your usual bar-type food - appetizers, salads and sandwiches - but they're also famous for their homemade pizzas and their famous "Lue's Cheeseburger".  The cheeseburger is what caught my attention as it was a finalist for the Iowa Beef Industry Council's  3rd Annual Best Burger in Iowa contest held earlier this year.  The burger is named after Rich Genrich's mother, Lue Bradshaw, who used to run a place called Lue's Driftwood Inn in Okoboji for a number of years.  

Lue Bradshaw's burgers were famous for years around the lakes area.  She used fresh ground beef for her hamburger patties with toasted buns, two differenty types of cheese and ran it through the garden with the usual veggies.  She served thousands of them during the time her establishment was open.  

When Rich and Taylor Genrich introduced Lue's Cheeseburger to the menu at The Ritz, it was clear it was not the same as what his mom served at her little place.  A couple years ago, the Genrich's changed the way they made the burger going from a pre-formed patty to using fresh ground beef like Lue Bradshaw used to do.  Suddenly, what was a good burger became a great burger, so much so that it was nominated by customers of The Ritz to be one of the top burgers in Iowa.  A couple of judges came into the place in March and had a burger.  They must have liked it as it turned out that the Lue's Cheeseburger missed being the Best Burger in Iowa by only 2/10ths of a point!  (The winner this year was the burger at the Coon Bowl III in Coon Rapids, IA)

While we were deciding what to get, I looked over at a table of middle-aged ladies who were having a good time.  On the table was this huge bowl of margaritas that served as a community drinking vessel with long plastic straws.  I went over to the table and asked the ladies what it was.  One of them said, "Oh, this is the fish bowl!  The is the margarita and the other one over there has Long Island Iced Tea in it!"  The fish bowl is a 64 oz. size and The Ritz estimates they sell between 800 to 1000 fish bowls each summer.  I have to say, the ladies at the table were feeling no pain.

When it came time to order, we each decided to get a burger, but Craig said we needed to also order one of The Ritz's "Garbage" pizzas - it has a little bit of everything on it.  That was a great compromise for me as I was really wavering between the burger and the pizza and I wasn't certain I could wait to come back and try one or the other.  

While the others got the regular Lue's Cheeseburger, I got a Lue's cheeseburger with Swiss cheese, sauteed mushrooms and bacon.  When Kara brought out the burgers and the pizza, we were ready to eat.  The burgers came with a boatload of fries that I knew I wasn't going to eat.  A festive toothpick held the top bun to the burger and it was loaded with mushrooms, ample amounts of cheese and couple pieces of bacon.  

The burger, itself, was very, very good.  It was good and juicy with a great flavor.  The bun was soft and chewy, while the mushrooms, cheese and bacon all helped excite the taste buds.  It was very worthy of its lofty standing as a finalist in the Best Burger in Iowa competition.

The pizza at The Ritz is a thin crust, party cut, caramelized plate of lusciousness.  Looking at the pizza, I thought they possibly left it in the oven too long, but it wasn't burnt on the bottom at all.  The toppings were all fresh, the sausage they use had the big chunks with a ton of flavor, the pepperoni was salty and had a nice spicy bite to it, and the sauce was a sweet and tangy mixture that tasted great with a beer.  I had a couple three pieces of the pizza and it was just fabulous.  

It was a fun night hanging out at The Ritz with our friends.  It was a great close to a wonderful vacation.  We've already talked about going back up to Lake Okoboji in late August again next year and we know that we may have to go to The Ritz a couple times, once to get another burger, then again for a pizza.  Both were top-notch and superb.  The Ritz is truly a bar (emphasis on the "bar") and restaurant.  It's not fine dining, but it's certainly fun dining.  (Photo courtesy Iowa ABD.com)

(Papa) Georgioz - Colfax, IA

My niece was getting married back at the family farm near Kellogg, IA over Labor Day weekend.  The night before, my sister and the mother of the groom had a reception for both families, but woefully under estimated the amount of food needed because of the number of people from the groom's family who showed up.  I didn't eat, but Cindy did a little bit.  I told her, "Hey, don't eat too much. I've got an idea for dinner."  I'd heard about a place over in Colfax called Papa Georgio's and wanted to try it out.  We left around 8:30 and high-tailed the 20 miles over to Colfax to find the place. 

Georgioz (they have appeared to dropped the "papa" and changed the spelling) is a little pizza/sandwich place just as you cross the railroad tracks coming from Interstate 80 on the north side of Colfax on Highway 117 at Front St. (see map)  The building in which Georgioz is housed used to be various bars and even a strip club a number of years ago.  Pam and Andrew Weigle bought the building, fixed it up and opened for business in 2003.  Pam's father, George Dickerson, whom I knew years ago, helped out with financing on the place, hence the "Papa Georgio's" name when it first opened.  From all indications, it's simply known as Georgioz these days.  

(Pictured right - the front of Gergioz.  Photo courtesy Waymarking.com)  

Not knowing how late they stayed open, we pulled into the parking lot just before 9 p.m. a few cars including a couple larger boats behind pick-up trucks were in the parking lot.  As we were getting ready to walk in, I looked in the window and a long line of people were approaching the door to leave.  We stood as about a dozen of them came out.  One of the guys held the door for us and said, "There were 18 of us, so you may be running into a few more on your way in."  

Sure enough, the rest of the people were coming toward us as we turned the corner.  A young waitress, Brooke, came up with the final people leaving the place and I asked her, "Are we too late to get some food?"

She said, "Oh, not at all!  We're open until 11!"  She grabbed a couple menus and took us down a narrow passage that also had some tables along the wall, past the open kitchen on the left that housed a large Baker's Pride pizza oven (below left) and into a larger dining area.  She said, "You can take your pick.  You guys are the only ones here!"  We took a table opposite the side where the large party had just finished.  


The dining room at Georgioz could be categorized as "industrial chic".  The walls were a bright red with what appeared to be metal truck liners (that's what Cindy said they were) about three feet up around the walls. Contemporary art work adorned the north and west walls with windows along the east side.  All the tables had metals tops and padded metal chairs.  

Brooke asked us what we wanted to drink as we looked over the menu.  I got a beer, but Cindy was surprised to see that they offered a number of wines by the glass - including a malbec that she promptly ordered.  Frankly, I was sort of surprised with what they had for wines, as well.  It appeared that Georgioz had their own private label house red and house white wine available.    

Pizza, sandwiches, and appetizers and salads are the main fare at Georgioz.  They have a number of specialty pizzas including a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza that's topped with ground beef, onions, dill pickles, bacon, and mozzarella AND cheddar cheese; a Bleu Cheese pizza that is topped with a garlic butter sauce,  seasoned chopped chicken, red onion and garlic, then finished with bleu and feta cheeses with olive oil and a blend of mozzarella; and the Rueben pizza - instead of a pizza sauce, they use Thousand Island dressing, then it's topped with corned beef, sauerkraut, and mozzarella.  It sort of sounded equally disgusting and interesting to me.  

Cindy was looking hard at their salads and determined that she wanted to get one of their Greek salads.  The only problem was that the 1/2 Greek salad was only a buck cheaper than a full one.  When she asked Brooke how big the half was, she said, "Well, I certainly have trouble finishing one."  Cindy asked me if I'd help her eat it, but I was set on getting a pizza.  

Georgioz has a "create your own pizza" segment on their menu and you can choose between over two dozen toppings including mandarin orange, breaded chicken, fresh spinach and yellow peppers.  Going back to my standard sausage, pepperoni and mushroom, I ordered a medium - 14" - pizza, figuring that we'd have a refrigerator in our room for leftovers back at the hotel that we hadn't checked into as of yet.  (Note - we didn't.)  I was also pleased to see that Georgioz used Graziano Brothers sausage, some of the finest Italian sausage in the Midwest.  I asked Brooke if the pizza crust was thin and she said, "Well, it's not cracker thin, but it's more thin than other pizzas around here."  

About 20 minutes later, Brooke brought the Greek salad and pizza out to the table for us to dig into.  I would have hated to see what a full Greek salad consisted of because the half was pretty big on its own.  For a buck more we could have gotten the full Greek salad just to see, but it would have been a waste of a lot of food.  Cindy's Greek salad had ample amounts of feta cheese, chopped black olives, red onions and tomatoes.  Cindy had their homemade Greek salad dressing served on the side.  After the first couple of bites, Cindy said, "Oh, this is very good.  Exactly what I wanted!"    

The pizza was cut into party squares, exactly how I love a good thin crust pizza.  The toppings were thick and plentiful.   Most places that use Graziano Brothers sausage usually finely grind their meat before they put it on the pizza.  It appeared that the sausage on the Georgioz pizza is not quite as finely ground as there were some larger chunks of meat on the pizza.  After letting it cool down for a bit, I bit into the first piece.  The sauce had a tangy sweet taste, the cheese was heavy and stringy, and the toppings were excellent.  Georgioz uses fresh mushrooms on their pizzas and these mushrooms had a wonderful taste.  The hallmark of a good pizza to me is if it tastes good with a beer.  Georgioz pizza tasted GREAT with a beer.  

We finished what we could and Brooke came over and asked if we needed boxes for the leftovers.  Cindy said, "No for the salad, but yes for the pizza."  When Brooke came back with the pizza box and the check, we got to talking to her about Georgioz and about her life.  It turned out that her aunt and I went to school together over in Newton from junior high through high school.  She told us how she had lived in Italy for awhile, then in New York before moving back to Iowa to finish her schooling.  When Cindy asked her where she lived in Italy, she said, "I lived in Florence."  When Cindy went to Europe to meet up with her daughter who was studying in Spain about four years ago, the most favorite place she visited was Florence.  So, those two carried on for about 15 minutes talking about Florence.  

I'd heard from others who told me Georgioz had good pizza and I had to find out for myself.  Let's say I wasn't expecting much from the place and I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the restaurant, the service and the pizza. I told Brooke that Georgioz would beat anything any of the pizza places in the Quad Cities had to offer.  She said, "We hear the same thing from people who come over from Des Moines."  And Des Moines has some pretty fine pizza places.  But Georgioz can stand up to any of them.   

Mulligan's Brick Oven Grill and Pub - Cedar Falls, IA

Starting off on our journey to Northwest Iowa and Lake Okoboji for our summer vacation this year, we worked our way up the Avenue of the Saints and stopped for lunch at a spot I had once eaten at a few years ago, Mulligan's Brick Oven Grill and Pub in Cedar Falls, IA.  Located near the University of Northern Iowa, Mulligan's has become one of the more popular places to grab a casual lunch or dinner in the area.  It's also one of the more popular sports bars in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area, as well.  We got there just after 2 p.m. after the bulk of the lunch time rush.  

Mulligan's is owned and managed by Cindy Bramblett and her partner, Nick Zubak.  Zubak also runs a construction company in Cedar Falls, while Bramblett was also the General Manager at My Verona, an upscale restaurant in downtown Cedar Falls.  My Verona was forced to close in July when owner Russ Wasendorf, Sr. tried to commit suicide after losing nearly $200 million of investor money from the collapse of his Peregrine Financial Group.  Wasendorf had opened My Verona after moving his company's headquarters from Chicago to Cedar Falls about three years ago.  It's apparent that there is no tie between Wasendorf and Mulligan's as the place was still open and serving lunch when we were there.  

Mulligan's is located just off the 18th St. exit of the Iowa Highways 27/58 expressway (see map).  It is also right next to one of the many miles of bike trails that criss-cross the Cedar River Valley in the area, making Mulligan's a popular stop for bikers.  A couple bikes were locked up on the bike rack in front of the restaurant when we pulled up.  

Since it was well past the lunch time rush, we had our choice of sitting in the bar area to right as you come in, or in the dining room to the left, or outside on the patio.  It was a little breezy and very warm, so we decided to sit inside in the dining room.  The dining room was double tiered with high-back booths on the upper level, and a lower level with tables and chairs. The room had huge floor to ceiling windows - actually they were more like doors - that looked out onto the bike path.  With a lot of sun that day, the room was well lit and we opted to sit in the comfortable high-back booths on the upper level.  

Our server for our visit, C.J., was a pleasant girl in her 20's and she dropped off a couple menus for us to take a look at.  Mulligan's is famous for their brick oven pizza.  They have well over a dozen specialty pizzas to choose from (two sizes only), or you can build your own pizza with the choice of honey wheat or traditional white dough, sauces that include a basil pesto, olive oil or traditional tomato, over 15 different types of herbs, veggies or fruit toppings, 8 different types of meat toppings, and 8 different choices of cheeses including fresh mozzarella.  We were seated near the pizza oven and the fragrant smell of a pizza cooking inside the oven almost made me pull the trigger on getting one.  But I really just wanted a sandwich more than anything else.  

Mulligan's lower dining area above left - Mulligan's stone oven above right.

I was looking at a couple sandwiches that they had under their "Brick Oven Subs" header on the menu.  The Meatball and Marinara sub featured homemade meatballs topped with smoked provolone and romano cheeses and then finished off with their homemade red sauce.  The other one that caught my eye was the Sicilian sandwich that consisted of ground Italian sausage, pepperoni slices, sliced prosciutto, then topped with mozzarella, romano and parmesan cheeses.  The toppings are finished off with fresh oregano and basil after it's baked in the brick oven.  

Another thing that caught my eye was their roasted garlic and blue cheese Cajun burger - a blackened hamburger patty topped with a melted roasted garlic butter and blue cheese.  That made my stomach do jumping jacks, but the wonderful smell of the pizzas and sandwiches from the brick oven was overwhelming.

Cindy was having trouble figuring out what she wanted from the expansive menu at Mulligan's.  She wasn't certain she wanted anything heavy, nor did many of the sandwiches sound appealing to her.  She began to look over Mulligan's appetizer menu and decided upon getting the Santa Fe spring rolls - crispy, deep fried wraps filled with cilantro-lime chicken along with black beans, shredded lettuce, corn, roasted red peppers and what was described as a "hint" of jalapenos.  Pepperjack cheese also were in the Santa Fe spring rolls.  She also got a side salad with oil and vinegar dressing with a side of creamy blue cheese dressing.  

The Sicilian sandwich was calling my name and I ordered that.  I got my choice of sides including fries, cole slaw, potato salad or cottage cheese.  I ordered fries.  The waitress asked me what kind of bread I wanted on my sandwich and I had my choices between white, multi-grain wheat or ciabatta.  I took the white hoagie bun.  

Cindy got her salad first and it was a good sized bowl of greens with some veggies mixed in.  She said she thought the blue cheese dressing was homemade as it was very good. 

The spring rolls and the Sicilian sandwich came to the table not long after Cindy finished her salad.  Quite actually, the spring rolls were enough for two people with three spring rolls sliced in half.  They were filled with the chunks of grilled chicken and a medley of veggies.  Cindy took a bite of one and said they were very good. She said, "I can't tell if these are homemade or if they're from a food distributor.  Either way, they're good."  She offered me a bite later on and while I thought they were good, it wasn't anything that I'd crave in the future.

My sandwich had an ample amount of ground Italian sausage, pepperoni and cheese on top.  I couldn't really see much of the prosciutto on the sandwich, but with all the things on the Sicilian sandwich, it was pretty busy to begin with.  The first bite yielded a wonderful taste sensation of spicy sausage and pepperoni with a nice cheesy taste.  The bread was crunch on the outside, but chewy under the crown of the outer crust.  It was a very good sandwich.  The fries, however, were a little pedestrian and very salty.  I didn't concentrate as much on those as I did on my sandwich.  

Before we left, I needed to use the restroom to wash the excess cheese and sauce off my hands.  I walked through the bar area at Mulligan's and it featured a square bar with a number of tables and booths around the room.  A large number of flat panel televisions were interspersed throughout the bar area making it look like Mulligan's was THE place to go to in the area to watch a sporting event.  A number of articles on UNI athletic teams were hanging on the walls of the bar area, as well.  

We were both very happy with our meal at Mulligan's.  Our server, C.J., was attentive and friendly.  The dining area was bright and inviting.  And I was impressed with the bar area with the sports motif and multiple televisions.  I would like to get back to Mulligan's to try one of their pizzas.  It's not far from my dealer in Cedar Falls so maybe I'll have to go back there at some point. 

Crust Stone Oven Pizza - Bettendorf, IA

A new Neapolitan-style pizza place opened in the Quad Cities earlier this year - Crust Stone Oven Pizza over in Bettendorf.  They had a soft opening in May with a grand opening in early July.  My wife and I were both very intrigued by this place as it sounded like it was an upscale, gourmet pizza place - something that probably won't go over well with the vast majority of Quad Citians whose pizza preferences are 180 degrees out of kilter as to what real pizza is all about.  On a recent Monday evening - our weekly date night -  we decided to take a trip to Bettendorf and try a pizza at Crust.

Crust is the brain child of Quad City developer Mark Roemer and chef/managing partner Brian Olsen.  Roemer is no stranger to the restaurant business in the Quad Cities.  He once owned the Startling Line in downtown Davenport - then Brady Street Pub - then he opened and co-owned Harrington's Pub in Bettendorf.  He also owned the Jimmy John's sandwich shop located next to Harrington's, as well as a Jimmy John's location over in Moline.  In 2008, he opened the popular Pints bar on Utica Ridge Road in Northeast Davenport.  He subsequently sold his interest in Harrington's Pub and opened Pints locations in Iowa City and Elmhurst, IL. 

Roemer recruited Olsen to work with him at Crust.  Olsen is the former chef at the upscale Red Crow Grille, just across the street from Crust's location on 53rd Street in Bettendorf (see map).  Roemer bought what was the old Country Style ice cream/Hawaiian Style coffee shop on 53rd Street, then eventually it turned into a restaurant called Seeds that didn't last long.  The place has ample parking to the west of the building.  

It was about 7 p.m. when we got into Crust.  We were greeted by a young hostess who took us into the main dining room to the right.  (It had rained heavily about an hour before and even though it had cleared off and was a pleasant evening, they had the outdoor seating area closed.)  The combination of the tin ceiling, wooden floors, and wooden walls adorned with old time pictures of Italy made for a rather echo-y and loud sound environment.  A number of flat screen televisions sort of dressed down the dining area.  The room was about half full when we were there and we were having trouble hearing one another from across the table.  I can almost imagine how loud the place is when it's packed - and I understand that it has been packed many times during its first few months of business.  

The bar area is to the left as you come in.  It features a nice dark walnut bar that seats about a dozen people, along with a number of high tables and booths.  The decor is similar to the dining room with the same tin-tiled ceiling, wooden floor and walls, with pictures and flat screen televisions on the walls.  But the focal point of this area is the large oven in the corner.

The stainless-steel clad oven is part of the pizza prep area at Crust.  They had two prep chefs and a pizza chef working the area the night we were in.  The oven has a domed temperature of 900 degrees (F) with a hearth temperature of 625 to 720 degrees (F).  Even though it is gas-fired, the stone oven design mimics the heating qualities of a wood-fired oven. They hand form the thin-crust pizzas at Crust - no rolling pins or pizza presses.  And in order to be considered Neapolitan-style, the pizza must cook in no more than 90 seconds.  I could really feel the heat of the oven just 15 feet away from it when I took this picture.  

We were seated at a table in the middle of the dining room.  Our server for the evening, Ryan, greeted us.  OK, I have a disclosure I need to make on this one.  Ryan was the son of the late wife of my good friend who owns Creekside Bar and Grill.  Ryan was one of the cooks at Creekside who came up with some pretty good sandwich combinations while he was there.  (Click here to read about his delicious "Two-Tone Sandwich".)  Before his mom passed away earlier this year, Ryan decided he wanted to get out from behind the bar and away from the grill and became one of the first waiters hired by Roemer and Olsen at Crust.  I had seen Ryan on a handful of occasions since he had been hired at Crust and we talked about the pizza there.  He had  filled me in on the style of pizza and what the restaurant was like before we went.  He did a good job of selling us as we were eager to give the place a try.  

Ryan playfully played it up as if we were just other customers that he didn't know coming in off the street.  He asked if it was our first time to Crust.  Why, yes, young man!  It certainly is!  He then pointed out a card that was on the table that explained what Crust Stone Oven Pizza was all about.  And it was in deep detail because this was definitely not Quad Cities-style pizza and it needed to be explained.  

The card talked about how they prepare and serve a traditional Neapolitan-style pizza at Crust.  They adhere to strict guidelines set out by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (they had it wrongly spelled as "Vera" on the info card), a world-wide organization that trains and certifies chefs and restaurants for Neapolitan-style pizza.  The flour they use for their homemade pizza dough is a "00" quality - superfine, that is - wheat flour from the Antimo Caputo flour mill in Naples, Italy, one of the most highly regarded flour mills in the world for pizza dough.  They don't use any blends with the dough, and use only fresh yeast, water and salt when they make it daily.  

The high heat of the oven gives the crust a light and airy texture, with a slightly charred top and bottom to the crust.  The description card also said that Neapolitan-style pizza is also designed to be somewhat "soupy" in the middle.  That's caused from the moisture of the fresh sliced (not grated, shredded or processed) mozzarella, the thin pizza sauce, and the 90 second baking time. 

Speaking of the pizza sauce, Crust uses San Marzano plum tomatoes that are imported from the Mount Vesuvius region above Naples in Italy.  I've bought San Marzano canned plum tomatoes in the past for my homemade marinara sauce and they are very good.  A little bit of tomato paste is added to the San Marzano tomatoes to give the pizza sauce at Crust a little sweeter taste.  But other than that, you get the fresh taste of the tomatoes in the sauce.

After looking through the information card, we picked up the menu to look it over.  In addition to Neapolitan-style pizzas, Crust also featured a number of unique appetizers such as grilled asparagus, house marinated olives and something called 312 Beer Battered White Cheese Curds - cheese curds covered in a beer batter made from Goose Island Brewery's 312 Urban Wheat Beer.  For people who were just looking for sandwiches, they also had a black angus burger, as well as a grilled chicken homemade pita.    

They had a number of specialty pizzas on the menu and the first thing that caught our eye was that they were not cheap.  We've had Neapolitan-style pizzas before, and we know that because of how thin the crust is usually one person can easily eat a 10 to 12 inch pizza.  While we weren't surprised on the cost of the pizza - $10 to $16 dollars depending on the toppings - it surprised one family who came in with their two children.  Almost as soon as they sat down behind us, they got up and left.  My wife told me, "The lady took a look at the menu and said to her husband, 'We can't afford this place!' " I'm sure they've had more than one episode like this at Crust since they've opened.  

Ryan came back to take our drink order.  They have a nice wine list - both by the glass and by the bottle - and a nice eclectic beer list, as well.  My wife ordered a glass of the Kenwood Jack London cabernet ($11 bucks a glass - ouch!), and I ordered a Bell's Two-Hearted Ale.  Ryan came back moments later and said, "I was afraid of this.  We sold out of that over the weekend and we haven't gotten any more back in."  He suggested a Founder's Ale Dirty Bastard beer and I told him I'd give it a try.  "For two bucks more, I can put it in a big mug."  I signed up for that.  

When Ryan came back with the drinks, my wife had already made up her mind that she was getting the margherita pizza - fresh mozzarella and basil with the San Marzano tomato sauce.  I saw that they made their own Italian sausage in house.  Ryan said, "They grind up the pork butt in the back, add seasonings and make it in house.  It's good."

I asked him if I could add anything to the Italian sausage pizza, like pepperoni and some of their wild mushrooms.  He said, "Absolutely!  In fact, the mushrooms we use are three different types of mushrooms."  Interesting.  Ryan told me that any pizza can have added toppings and that the Spinach calzone on the menu "is more or less a suggestion."  He told me that you can build your own calzones with any of the toppings they offer on the menu.  The only problem is that the menu A) doesn't have a list of toppings other than what is offered on the pizzas; and B) they don't tell you how much extra in price each topping will be.    

Ryan then entered the orders on an iPod Touch embedded in a folder he was carrying. I'd seen this before at restaurants in the Chicago area and up in the Twin Cities, but never at a place in the Quad Cities.  They were definitely high-tech at Crust.  (The iPod Touch could also scan credit cards, as well.)

Because of the high cooking temperature, we knew it wouldn't take long to get our pizzas to the table.  In fact, it was well less than 10 minutes from the time we ordered to the time a young lady brought our pizzas placed on large ceramic plates to the table.   

My wife's margherita pizza (above left) had a pretty dark-edging around her crust.  Large leaves of fresh basil were laying on the top of the slices of melted fresh mozzarella with the pizza sauce swirled in.  It really was a good looking presentation for a pizza.

My pizza (above right) had an OK amount of toppings.  There could have been more pepperoni and mushrooms on the pizza, but I was OK with it.  The sausage was sort of chunky and ground at the same time - no doubt pleasing those who prefer the ground sausage style of Quad Cities-style pizza.  

The pizza was certainly Neapolitan in style.  The outer crust was light and had air pockets with a slightly charred taste to it.  The inner crust was thin and a little limp - not soggy, but rather a sort of moist texture with a charred flour taste.  Once again, I thought they skimped a little on the toppings, but I liked what I was eating.  

One thing that I thought they needed to do at Crust was provide a little dish of the pizza/marinara sauce to dip the outer edges of the crust into.  When Ryan came around to check on us, I suggested that to him.  He said, "That really sounds like a great idea!"  He left and soon came back with a small bowl of the sauce.  Ryan said, "Here, try this. No charge." The crust in the sauce was a nice little touch.  The fresh tomato taste with a hint of the tomato paste was wonderful.  It was about as fresh of a tomato pizza sauce I've had on a pizza.   

Ryan also said, "You know, real Naples style pizza isn't cut into pieces.  People in Italy usually just pull off the bites like you would with a loaf of bread.  Or some people just sort of fold it over like a calzone.  But we decided that people around here wouldn't understand, so that's why we cut it into pieces."  No, I'm sure they probably wouldn't.  Just having this style of pizza in the Quad Cities was probably enough to make some people's head explode.  

My wife thought her pizza was a little overcooked.  She wasn't certain she liked the stone-charred taste of her pizza.  She looked at the bottom of one of her pieces of pizza, then folded one of mine over to see if was the same.  When she saw they were similar, she sort of shrugged her shoulders and said, "I'll eat it."  It wasn't like it was completely burnt on the bottom.  It did have dime to quarter-sized char spots on the bottom, but it was far from being totally burnt.  

We traded pieces of pizza, even though my wife doesn't care for mushrooms (but she's getting better, especially if they're fresh).  Her margherita pizza was pretty good as far as a margherita pizza goes.  I asked her if the wood-fired margherita pizza over at Pagalo's Pizza in Milan, IL was better.  She thought for a moment and said, "Yeah, I think I like that one better."  The crust is thicker over at Pagalo's and I think she didn't like the charred taste at Crust.   

Thanks to the thinness of the crust, we both easily polished off our two pizzas, but we'd clearly had enough.  When Ryan came around to try to entice us into either a caramelized marshmellow pie with white chocolate and fresh raspberries, or a root beer float made with real vanilla bean ice cream, we had to pass.  "Hey, I have to give it a shot," he explained.  Suggestive selling at its best.  

The bill at Crust was a little bit of a shocker - $48 bucks before tip.   My wife's wine was the same price as her pizza.  And my beer - at 8 bucks for a 20 oz. mug - was a little on the high end of my scale.  The other thing was the hidden cost of the extra toppings - $2.50 each.  My $12 Italian sausage pizza suddenly became $17 dollars.  Now, I'm not saying that is all bad.  The pizza was very, very good.  Ryan's service was great, but I'm sure it's not just because we were there.  We watched Ryan operate his other tables and his interaction with the other customers was just as smooth and friendly as if he knew all of them as well as he knew us.  It's just that we know a lot of people in and around the Quad's are going to bad-mouth this place, primarily because of the style of the pizza and the price.  We decided that Crust Stone Oven Pizza is one of those "special occasion" types of places where you only go there for birthdays, to impress a date, or for a business dinner.  It's not a family restaurant, nor is it a neighborhood pizza joint.  I'm just hoping the concept goes over well and they're able to get people in the Quad Cities realize this is about as authentic of a Neapolitan-style pizza you can get without having to go to Italy.  

Update - Fall 2020 - Like many restaurants caught in the pandemic, Crust was forced to close its doors in early December.  As I said in the blog post, Crust was sort of a special-occasion place for us as it did have a tendency to be on the higher end of the price spectrum when it came to the cost of dining there.  But Crust had expanded into Chicago-style deep dish pizza and thin-crust tavern-style pizza over the years.  Although expensive - which probably helped its demise - it was quite possibly our favorite place to get a pizza in the Quad Cities.

Rhombus Guys Pizza - Fargo, ND

A couple years ago when I was up in Grand Forks, ND for a meeting with a prospective dealer, I was looking for a place to eat one evening.  I found a place called Rhombus Guys Pizza that looked interesting, but it was also packed full of people.  I ended up eating at the Toasted Frog that evening (see my entry here) and had a pretty good meal.  But I always had Rhombus Guys Pizza in the back of my mind.  When I was up in Fargo earlier this summer, I was talking with my dealer about food options for the evening.  He was telling me, "Oh, man!  We've had about seven really good pizza places open up in the past few months."  He named a couple of them and then he said, "Rhombus Guys is a good pizza."  

I said, "Wait! There's a Rhombus Guys in Fargo?"  

He said, "Sure!"  I immediately said I want to go get one of their pizzas.  He said, "That's good!  It's walking distance from my store!"  He wasn't kidding.  We went down an alley, walked up 7th St. to Main Ave. and walked down the block to Rhombus Guys (see map).  Even though it was close to 9 p.m., the place was packed.  That's usually a good sign. 

Once again, the back story to how Rhombus Guys got started is pretty interesting.

Back in the spring of 2000, two friends from the Thief River Falls area of Northwest Minnesota - Arron Hendricks and Matt Winjum (pictured at right - Hendricks in the red shirt and Winjum in the blue.  Photo courtesy WDAY.com) - decided to make some money on their own before they went off to college.  Winjum had a job working for the parks and recreation department in his hometown, but wanted to be his own boss.  Along with Hendricks, their idea was to build a smoothie cart and take it around to some events and gatherings around the lake vacation areas of Northwest Minnesota.  They had an old snowmobile trailer as a base and began to build the shell for the smoothie cart.  Finding out that their carpentry skills weren't quite up to snuff, when they finally finished what they thought would be a 8 foot cube box, young Arron Hendricks exclaimed, "This thing isn't a square at all.  It's more like a rhombus!"  The name stuck and they painted the structure in a myriad of colors and called it "The Mystery Rhombus Machine".  Their business - Smoothie Rhombus - was born.  

The first summer of business, they traveled to fairs, luncheons, lake beaches - wherever a crowd gathered in Northwestern Minnesota or Northeastern North Dakota, they were there.  The first year was a learning experience for both boys, they made a little money, and they knew they had something good going and wanted to do it again the next year.  

After a year of college (Arron at University of Minnesota, Matt at Arizona State), they reunited and brought in a partner, Levi Kraft, to help out with the smoothie stand.  That particular summer, they tripled their sales and gained a lot of knowledge and confidence in running a business.  

Matt's family had a cabin on Maple Lake outside of Mentor, MN and that's where the three lived during that summer.  Lamenting that no place in the area would deliver pizza, the three came up with an idea to open a pizza place in Mentor that would deliver to a surrounding area full of lake and vacation homes in Northwest Minnesota.  They found an old building in Mentor and even though financing was a problem, they ended up buying it on contract from the owner.  They then bought all the pizza equipment from a Godfather's Pizza restaurant that had gone out of business down in Moorhead, MN, just across the Red River of the North from Fargo.  Then they learned how to make pizza.

Actually, Hendricks was the only one who had no experience in making pizza prior to the trio purchasing the pizza equipment - Kraft and Winjum had worked for Domino's Pizza in the past - but he jumped in learning how to make different pizzas with unique toppings.  One of the first pizzas they came up with was a pepperoni, green pepper, onion and bacon called the Levitricks, a combination of Levi Kraft's first name and Arron Hendricks' last name.  Not long after that, Rhombus House of Pizza opened their doors in late May of 2002.

The three continued to sell their smoothies, not only in their mobile "Rhombus" cart, but in their pizza place.  They all worked long hours (each took one day off a week) and employed girlfriends and family to help in the restaurant to help keep costs down.  While business at the restaurant was a little lean at first, they quickly built up a local following with their unique pizzas and their high visibility at local events.  The first summer of business was a success.  But school called again and the three shut the doors of the seasonal pizza place and put the smoothie cart back in the garage for the winter.    

After graduating from college (Winjum with a degree in economics and marketing, Kraft in political science and economics from North Dakota State, and Hendricks with a degree in philosophy with a minor in economics) the three went full time into the pizza business in Mentor.  They found a small space in a strip mall in their hometown of Thief River Falls and opened Cafe Rhombus in the fall of 2004.  In addition to their pizza and smoothies, Cafe Rhombus also served entrees, burgers and sandwiches.  

In the spring of 2005, Levi Kraft announced that he was leaving the business to start a family with his wife - previously his high school sweetheart.  Hendricks and Winjum carried on running both the House of Rhombus pizza business in Mentor and the Rhombus Cafe in Thief River Falls.  The two alternated between the two restaurants working two weeks at a time at each place before trading off.  

After a couple of years of tinkering with the Rhombus Cafe model, the two decided to make the next step and looked for a year-round Rhombus Pizza location in the college town of Grand Forks.  They found a great little building in downtown Grand Forks and did the build-out and renovations on their own.  In 2006, Rhombus Guys Pizza opened for business. 

Running three restaurants proved to be too much for the duo and they ended up closing Cafe Rhombus in 2008 to focus their efforts on their growing full-time pizza place in Grand Forks.  The two continued to run the House of Rhombus in Mentor as a seasonal business.  But they weren't finished expanding - they opened their second Rhombus Guys Pizza in Fargo just before Labor Day in 2011.       

The Fargo location is in a long, narrow building that was built back in the early 20th century.  There's a big bar on the left side of the building with a row of booths opposite.  There are a number of tables up front and in back.  Also in back is a game room area, as well as a place to put live music.  Artwork from a local Grand Forks artist and beer signs adorn the walls.

We waited at the hostess stand for a couple minutes before a young lady came up to greet us.  They were extremely busy in Rhombus Guys that evening and there was only a small two-seater table up toward the front or seating at the bar.  We opted for the small table.  She dropped off a couple menus and we waited for someone to come over to take our beer order.  

The menu at Rhombus Guys is definitely eclectic.  In addition to their artisan pizzas, they offer a number of interesting appetizers, fresh salads, sandwiches and wraps.  They also have a number of local and regional microbrews to choose from - about two dozen on tap and another three dozen or so available in bottles.  We were thirsty.  We were hungry.  No one was waiting on us.  

It was finally after about five minutes when a young waiter - Adam - who was cleaning off a nearby booth looked over and saw us sitting there.  He came over and said, "Has anyone waited on you guys yet?"  We said no.  He said, "Ah, OK.  Miscommunication, I guess.  I told someone else that you guys were sitting there and they must have misunderstood."  Or forgot about us, more likely, as it was very busy in there.  Anyway, we ordered up some beers - I got the Alaskan Amber they had on tap.  

Rhombus Guys Pizza has nearly 3 dozen different types of pizza on their menu.  Of those pizzas, about 8 of them are of a vegetarian variety.  The original Levitricks pizza from their Mentor location is now called "Aaron's Little Miracle" on the menu in Fargo.  Their "Pacific Northwest" pizza has smoked salmon, feta cheese, black and green olives, chopped tomatoes and garlic infused olive oil.  The "Louisiana Saturday Night" has Cajun-spiced marinara sauce, shrimp, andouille sausage, red peppers, pepperocini and caramelized onions.  "Jonny Wasabi" featured chicken, teriyaki sauce, onion, green and red peppers, pepperocini, peanuts, and a wasabi drizzle over the top.  The "Americana" was basically a bacon cheeseburger pizza with beef, bacon, cheddar cheese, marinara, mozzarella and - of all things - pickles.  I got a nice laugh out of some of the pizzas. 

My dealer was telling me that he'd always wanted to try the Rockefeller - roasted garlic-infused white cream sauce, shrimp, spinach, onion, cream cheese, tomato and mozzarella, but he said he can't when he and his wife show up with their little boys.  He said, "They have to have the basic pizza when we come here.  They like the T-Rex."  The T-Rex is Rhombus Guys signature pizza - pepperoni, sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon and beef with marinara and mozzarella.  The T-Rex has won the "Best Pizza in Grand Forks" for five years running.  His wife couldn't dine with us that night and he wanted to get a large to be able to take some extra home with him.  I told him that I no problem with that.

When it came time to order, I decided upon the Big Dogz pizza - sausage, pepperoni, black olives and jalapenos with mozzarella and marinara sauce.  I got a small one (12") and I got it with the thin crust option.  (Gluten free crust is also available.)  My dealer did order a Rockefeller with the regular crust.  And he said, "We have to get this one appetizer."  He ordered the mushroom buttons - bacon/cheese stuffed mushroom caps that are then baked to what the menu described as "ooooey gooooey perfection".  Those had caught my eye earlier and I thought the pizza would be enough for me. But I welcomed the fact that we were getting those, as well.   

The stuffed mushrooms came to our table about 10 minutes after we ordered them.  And they were as good as advertised.  The cheese/bacon filling was caramelized on the top and were oozing over the sides of the caps.  The cheese ran out of the cap when I cut into one.  My dealer showed me the proper way to eat them. "Just put the whole thing in your mouth."  Yeah, and hope that the cheese has cooled enough so that the roof of your mouth doesn't receive 2nd degree burns.  They were absolutely wonderful. 

We still had some mushroom to finish when the first pizza - the Rockefeller - made it to the table.  It was huge and the server who brought it out to us had to use a pizza holder to give us room on the table.  The outer crust was misshapen and bubbly, the hallmark of a good hand-tossed pizza.  The toppings were plentiful and swimming in the white sauce on the pizza.  The shredded mozzarella was caramelized on top of the pizza.  My dealer said, "Oh, boy!  I've been wanting to try this for a long time!"

Adam then brought out the Big Dogz pizza and we did our best in trying to find a place for it on the table.  Smaller and with a noticeably lack of thickness around the edges, it too had plentiful toppings, not an over-abundance of black olives or jalapenos - which was fine with me.  

I pulled the first piece away from my pizza and took a bite.  The crust was thin, not crisp, but not moist or droopy.  The overall temperature of the pizza was, well, sort of cold.  At least colder than what I would expect a pizza to be when it's brought to the table.  I don't know if they let it sit in back for awhile before they brought it out.  The cheese was sort of rubbery, sort of like they kept it under a heat lamp too long.  I would have expected it to be like this if the pizza where delivered, but not served at a restaurant.  It was edible and the toppings were good, but I can't say that I was very impressed with my first Rhombus Guys pizza.  Frankly, I've had slices of pizza from a Casey's General Store that were better than the pizza I had at Rhombus Guys.  

Nonetheless, I made a significant dent in my pizza.  But it was disappointing to me as I'd heard so many good things about Rhombus Guys.  I don't know if it was an off night or if the pizza suffered because they were so busy so late in the evening.  I finished what I could and let my dealer take home the remaining three pieces with the rest of his Rockefeller pizza which he declared as "Good!"  

Given the popularity of Rhombus Guys Pizza, I'm hoping that I was there on an off-night.  My pizza was disappointing, but the bacon-cheese stuffed mushrooms were to die for.  Service was a little shaky at the start, but it picked up considerably as the night went on.  And the place was pretty expensive - our bill for two pizzas, an appetizer and a handful of beers was just under $87 bucks.  For that kind of money I would have hoped the pizza would have knocked my socks off.  I'm sorry, but it sure didn't.

Pizzeria Lola - Minneapolis

I've been on the look out for pizza places in the Twin Cities area that I haven't eaten at and one that popped up on my radar (thanx to my buddy, Rob Boyd) is a place that opened in the late fall of 2010 by the name of Pizzeria Lola located at the corner of Xerxes Ave. and 56th St. in Southwest Minneapolis (see map).  I've been going to the Twin Cities more often because of an uptick in business and I decided to seek out Pizzeria Lola when I pulled into town one evening.

I'm always interested in the back-stories behind the development of a restaurant and Pizzeria Lola's turned out to be somewhat interesting.  The first person in the picture is Ann Kim, whose family immigrated to the Twin Cities from Korea a number of years ago.  Ann Kim was a good student - no, a great student - and she eventually was accepted into Columbia's prestigious law school. But Ann was also an actress and she became disenchanted with the law business.  She eventually moved back to Minneapolis to work at the Children's Theater Company.  Her mother wasn't too happy with this development in her life and there was some friction in the family.  But Ann Kim was happy with her decision and with her boyfriend and partner, Conrad Leifur, they decided they wanted to do something even more bold with their lives.

Ann Kim at right - Picture courtesy of Maine Wood Heat. 

Leifur was a Yale graduate and a former hedge fund manager.  Leifur would talk about missing the great pizza places in New Haven, CT, while Kim would lament about the days of great pizza in New York City.  They decided to chuck everything they had into a venture that would eventually become Pizzeria Lola.  But not before they went back to New York City and New Haven to sample some of the better pizza places there.  The two decided that if they did open a pizza restaurant, it would be a wood-fired pizza place. 

Kim then decided to move to San Francisco and enroll in the International School of Pizza, headed by 11-time World Champion Pizza Maker Tony Gemignani.  The International School of Pizza was - at the time - the only pizza-making school in North America recognized by the Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli, the first accredited pizza-making school in the world. (Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli now has a Scoula Italiana Pizzaioli USA in New York City.)  After becoming a certified pizzaioli in January of 2010, Ann Kim worked as an apprentice for Tony Gemignani before moving back to the Twin Cities a few months later to further her pizza venture with Leifur.  

Knowing the oven would be the key, Kim and Leifur imported a Le Panyol wood-fired oven, one of a handful that are in the United States.  Le Panyol wood-fired ovens are made from clay from a small town in the Rhone-Alpes in Southern France by the name of Larnage.  The clay around Larnage is known as Terre Blanc, or white land clay known for having exceptional thermal properties that allows for even cooking temperatures throughout the oven.  The Le Panyol clay oven that Kim and Leifur bought for Pizzeria Lola is covered with a copper sheath.  It's the center visual and focal point of the restaurant.  

Kim and Leifur settled upon the name of the restaurant - Pizzeria Lola - which is named after her much-loved weimaraner - a German hunting dog. They opened the doors in December of 2010.  Their unique gourmet pizzas were an immediate hit with critics, food bloggers and the general populace.  

I got to the restaurant around 8:30 one evening and parked in the last available parking spot on the north side of the building.  Then I made a rookie mistake - I went around the building and went in the first door I came to.  It turned out it was the entry way to Cafe Vin, the restaurant next door to Pizzeria Lola.  Both places had outdoor dining and I figured it was one and the same.  Nope.  I looked aimlessly around the interior of the quaint little restaurant before I finally figured out that this was not a pizza place.  No one had any pizza on their tables.  

I walked out of Cafe Vin and into Pizzeria Lola's exquisite modern designed dining area.  Spokes with hanging can lights came out from the large copper clad clay oven.  The tables and seats had a sort of retro French auberge look to them, but were still modern in their look.  The hostess asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar since many of the tables and booths in the place were filled.  She ran me back to the bar and let me take a look.  A television with a Minnesota Twins game playing was on the wall at the end of the bar.  I told her that would work for me.  Just like the large oven in the kitchen area, the bar had a copper top to it.  Very classy.  (Picture at right courtesy Kerry Klun)

The hostess left off a menu and I was soon greeted by my bartender/server for the evening, Liz.  I asked her if she had any Surly products on tap and she gave me a beer menu to look over.  They did have the very forward and hoppy Surly Furious on tap, but they also had a Surly Hell seasonal lager available.  I hadn't tried that before, so I ordered one of those.  It was actually pretty damn good - but I don't think I've had a Surly product that was bad.  

In addition to their pizza at Pizzeria Lola, they also had a number of unique appetizers that sounded pretty good.  Many of the appetizers featured farm-to-fork items such as roasted baby beets with arugula; roasted cauliflower; and an organic mixed green salad with pancetta, sherry vinaigrette and topped with award winning Hook's Blue Cheese out of Mineral Point, WI.  A couple of 20-something girls were seated next to me and they were sharing an order of the homemade meatball platter.  It looked like that was a meal in itself.  And they both got pizzas after that!

The pizza kitchen was right in front of me and there was a flurry of activity with a team of pizza makers hand-tossing dough, laying it out and passing it along the line to add the fresh toppings, homemade pizza sauce and fresh mozzarella, pecorino or provolone cheeses.  They make their own Berkshire-fennel sausage at Pizzeria Lola and they serve natural casing pepperoni.  I was getting hungry looking over the menu.  

Many of the pizzas are overly unique.  For instance, they have a Korean barbecue pizza that plays up to Ann Kim's heritage.  It features grass fed beef short ribs, mozzarella, arugula, scallions, with a sesame and soy-chili vinaigrette.  I wasn't quite that adventurous.  Another Korean-style pizza is the Lady Za-Za - house-made kimchi and Korean sausage, serrano peppers, scallions, and a sesame and soy chili glaze.  Once again, I'm sure it's pretty good, 

Another interesting pizza on the menu was The Boise - potatoes, gruyere and fontana cheeses, caramelized onions, topped with olive oil and rosemary.  Potatoes on pizza?   Um, not for me.  They also had a pizza named The Iowan on which they use prosciutto from La Quercia artisan meats out of Norwalk, located just south of Des Moines.  I'd heard about La Quercia meats before, but had never had any of their meats.  I understand their Tamworth bacon is to die for.  In addition to the prosciutto, The Iowan featured ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, garlic confit and arugula.  Sounded good, but not quite what I was looking for.

They have a pizza called the Old Reliable that features their homemade pizza sauce, mozzarella and pecorino cheese.  From there you can anything from the homemade fennel sausage, fresh basil, roasted wild mushrooms, up to over a dozen different choices of toppings.  I had my eye on the My Sha-Roni with the fennel sausage, the natural cased pepperoni, homemade pizza sauce and mozzarella.  When Liz came back around to take my order, that's what I ordered.  Only I added some of the roasted wild mushrooms on top.  There's only one size pizza at Pizzeria Lola - about a 12" size.  

Because the wood-fired clay oven heats up to about 800 degrees (F), it doesn't take long to bake a Lola's pizza.  In fact, it probably took longer for them to toss and lay out the homemade dough, then add the toppings before it went into the oven.  I had my pizza about 10 to 12 minutes after I ordered.  

The dough had bubbled up on the edges and had a slightly charred look to it.  There were ample amounts of the pepperoni, sausage and the roasted mushrooms on top with the mozzarella and sauce mixed in.  The crust wasn't thick, but it wasn't thin, either.  I pulled off one of the natural-cased pepperoni slices while waiting for the pizza to cool down and popped it in my mouth.  Oh, man!  I had a slightly salty and spicy taste to it.  The slices weren't big - about the diameter of a good sized hot dog.  But they were very good.  

Once the pizza had cooled down sufficiently - at least cool enough that I wouldn't get 2nd degree burns in the top of my mouth - I had my first bite of my Pizzeria Lola's pizza.  It was - in a word - fabulous.  The taste sensations that came together with the homemade fennel sausage, the pepperoni and the roasted mushrooms were exceptional.  The pizza sauce was light and tangy, not too sweet - the way I like it.  The pizza crust was crisp, yet chewy.  It was a pizza that looked like it would be very filling, but the crust was very light.  It was a very easy pizza to eat.

I had noticed a number of people coming to the bar and ask Liz for tokens.  And I really hadn't noticed behind me that there were hundreds - maybe thousands - of three-shot pictures on the long wall going back toward the restrooms.  People were getting tokens for $3 bucks to go back to a photo booth in the back to get their pictures taken.  You got two sets of pictures for the money and you could keep strip and put the other on the wall.  If you wanted to have more pictures taken, it cost an additional $2 bucks.  There was a steady stream of people that went back to the photo booth while I was there. 

Pizzeria Lola suddenly jumped to the top of my list of good pizzas in the Twin Cities.  Granted, I haven't had many pizzas in the area, but if someone were to ask me where to get a great pizza in town, I wouldn't hesitate and say, "Pizzeria Lola."  Although it was a little expensive (the pizza was $17.50 and the two beers I had were $6 each), it was tough to beat.  It was one of the finest pizzas I've ever had, anywhere.  Maybe on my next visit at some point I'll be a little more adventurous.  I'm sure any pizza at Pizzeria Lola would be wonderful.