Why I Oughta...

I have to tell you:  something just *had* to give in terms of St. Joe's Michigan restaurants.  I mean...the wait at Silver Beach Pizza sometimes gets to be like 2 hours on non-holiday weekends and sure...the pizza is great(!!!), but it also tells me that there's a huge unmet demand for eats in town. Couple that dynamic with the craft beer movement and what pops out the other end is the new Silver Harbor Brewing Company that has opened recently in Downtown St. Joe's.   Silver Harbor has a taproom that opened up in a 100 year old building and is located on the 'other side' of the main drag through town.  You can comfortably park anywhere in town like near the bluff and still walk to Silver Harbor.   We decided to bring all three kids and give this place a try on a Friday night.  They have a system of texting you when your table is ready, so we were given a 45 minute wait and we went to town to walk around and check out the public art.  Once we were texted, we

Recently, I found myself in Southern California for some meetings and as one is wont to do, we ended up at a pizza place.  This place wasn't a local outlet, however.  It was one of the outposts of the Grimaldi's Coal-Fired Oven 'chain'.  I say 'chain', because I didn't know it was a chain. I've read and heard all about Grimaldi's and Patsy's (and presumed they were one and the same!) and have recently dug around to understand the current dynamics and who *exactly* is behind this current Grimaldi's.  Turns out Patsy Grimaldi founded Grimaldi's, but then sold that place to a dude back in 1998.  Patsy is still in the pizza biz, but under another name.   From GrubStreet : Christening a restaurant is never simple. But the question of what Patsy Grimaldi would call his new pizzeria was further complicated by the fact that he was legally barred from following the long-standing tradition of just naming it after himself. He couldn’t call it

For the past threeish years, whenever I missed my train in the city and had to wait around for a bit until the next UP-West Metra train, I usually 'poked' around in the French Market at Olgivie in the lower level.  I've bought and brought home various foodstuffs from the stands there, but recently I came across this place that was new to me:  Aloha Poke Co. Based on the line waiting for their Poke, it must be pretty great stuff.  I sent Nat this photo and she's already put her order in for takeout one night.  Have to time it *just right* to hit this place after the lunch crowd and before the rush hour crowd so there isn't a huge line.

I don't know about you, but I love me some rools.  Almost as good as some gardiner .   But, we should probably get takeout because we have to get home to run our O Gage trains , right? You can get this sweet deal in the Elmhurst City Centre on the west side of York Street at the Elmhurst Sushi Nest.  See you there, dudes!

It was just back in April that I chronicled the closing of Goalie's Goodies on the east side of York Street, just south of the tracks in the Elmhurst City Centre.  Well....there's some good news:  if you walk past the site today, you'll see this brand new awning up that welcomes a new business:  Guac-n-Tacos.   They have a new site up , but there (currently) isn't any info up there yet besides their new logo - which I've included below. Think this will be a great addition to the City Centre.  The place isn't big, so it won't be a full sit-down place, I don't think?  Probably a counter to order and maybe a counter to eat facing out the front window? We have a Chipotle in the core of the City Center and The Salseria nearby and those two seem to co-exist with Chipotle being the quickserve that (increasingly!!) seems like it is being overtaken by Teens/Tweens/E-Coli???? and the Salseria, which is a full-service sit-down place. Where will Guac-n-Taco

Just a couple of weeks ago, I posted about the apparent closing of Mimmo's in the Elmhurst City Centre here on the blog .  Mimmo's was in the spot just south of Starbucks on the same side of York as the York Theatre.   At the time, it looked like Mimmo's was closing, but it was rumored to be slated to be replaced by another Italian eatery.  Turns out...that rumor was pretty close to being right. If you walk by the location today, you'll see these new signs in the windows announcing:  Coming Soon:  Bacci - Home of the Jumbo Slice.  If you go to the Bacci site, you'll see that they really play up the Jumbo slice angle .  Over there on the site, you'll also see a listing of 11 locations at the bottom.  One of them already is Elmhurst! I've been to Bacci before and I don't have a strong memory of the place other than it was a slice shop.  I was working on a campaign out in Aurora for Bob O'Connor for Illinois State Representative.  And right ne

If you walk by Mimmo's pizza place on York Street in the Elmhurst City Centre today, you'll see the front window covered in black plastic wrap.  Are they closing?  It is pretty odd because they have a 'Drivers Wanted' sign still up in the window and the menu and other promotional posters all hung between the glass and the black plastic. Anyone have the details? (**Update on 4/19/16:  Heard from a source who is in the know that it looks like Mimmo's is being bought-out by another 'smallish family-owned pizza chain'.  So...it looks like this place will keep serving pizza and salads and such.  That's good for the City Centre.  Once it reopens, I'll be sure we give it a shot!) I don't think it is a remodel because the place was gutted and cleaned up right before they opened not all that long ago.  Unfortunately...we've NEVER been there.  Yep...maybe that's part of the reason for the black plastic.  Blame people like us who never patr

This Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd Skipper Canteen coaster is now the 3rd Disney-related coaster in the collection here on the blog .  The other two are both here and are broadly parks-related.  I took another photo or two from the Skipper Canteen and will post those soon along with more details about the place and the menu. This coaster is just out of the box and has just a little bit of a glass 'ring' on it that you can see curling right through the 'i' in Skipper.   That faded font choice is purposeful and looks good on the coasters. I have a few more that I'll post from our recent excursions, but I think this one is the best of the bunch.

If you walk down York Street by the train tracks today in the Elmhurst City Centre, this is what you'll see:  a boarded up building on the west side. There's a transformation of sorts taking place there.   Check out this post that shows how they're creating a unified exterior over those 3/4 previous store fronts .    What was once a combination of a super-weird nail salon, Meeder Industries, Polay's Interiors and a kid's clothing store is now going to be just two spaces:   Suite 100 and 101 . Last I heard, there were rumors of a Rosebud restaurant coming to the space.  Have no idea if that is real or not.  They have an outpost in Naperville's downtown, so it isn't totally unrealistic to think that they'd come to Elmhurst.  We do, however, have A LOT of Italian places up and down the restaurant spectrum.  From full-service/higher end places like Pazzi di Pizza and Francesca's to fast casual places like Mimmo's and dozens of pizza joints fro

I've mentioned a bunch of our 'repeat' activities when we go up to Michigan and a lot of them have to do with food.  From Silver Beach Pizza to Uncommon Coffee Roasters in Saugatuck to Crane's Pie Pantry in Fennville  to Sherman's Dairy Bar in South Haven to Grampa's Cider Mill in Coloma , we identified over the years a number of places and experiences that we like and continue to go back to each time we visit southwest Michigan. But, I think we've found a new place that we're going to be adding to the rotation:  La Chula Mexican Market in Downtown Watervliet.  The first time we came across La Chula was last summer when we went to the Arclight Brewery in Downtown Watervliet .  Arclight is a BYOF (Bring your own food) place that focuses just on the beer.  They had a bbq guy going out in the parking lot and a few menus scattered on the tables.  One of the menus was for La Chula and was your typical tacos, burritos, chips + guac stuff.  Because the ki

 That right there is the Cheesecake Factory in Old Town Pasadena.   CalTech is located in Pasadena.  That makes this the place that Penny from Big Bang works, right ? At least, that's what my father-in-law says.   So, of course, I couldn't walk by it without taking a photo.  Alas...while Pasadena was pretty great, we avoided this place and instead spent our lunchtime at Slater's 50/50 and had some very excellent Vampire Dip.

Just a bit over one year ago, I posted a photo of the new expansion at Silver Beach Pizza in St. Joseph Michigan here on the blog .  They were said to be adding 70 new seats to this place that is ALWAYS packed. On our trip earlier this year in January up to Coloma, we - of course - made a trip to St. Joe's for a little Garlic Greek goodness. While there, I took some time to peek up at the new upstairs addition.  It is a 21-and-older area, which...I'll be honest...I'm not sure what it means. As I said, this place is always packed.  Tuesday afternoon.  There's a wait.  Saturday night.  There's a wait.  So, the new 70 seats will certainly help, but I'm uncertain of the impact on us.  And..since this is *my* blog, this post needs to be about me, right? Well, since it is a 21-and-older section, that means we're not going up there.  We're only ever at Silver Beach Pizza with our kids, so we're not allowed.  But, I'm hoping that the hostesses at

Add this front/back to the Coaster Collection here on the blog.   It was just late last month when I posted the Ted's coaster featuring a John Wayne quote .   This is the second or third time that we've been to the brewery and the beer and food were great.  I got the wings - and have added them to the [YES] column for my new app (more on that later.  Maybe.  Just maybe.) and we shared the hot pretzels, which were delicious.  We drank a flight of beers including one cider and the kids misbehaved as they always do at restaurants, amirite?!?

Here's the first Ted's coaster that I posted as part of the collection back in March of this year .  This one (above) is courtesy of John Wayne and was taken as part of the Babe's birthday celebration before Christmas.  I also happened to have the best burger of my life ( The George's Cadillac ).  

Earlier this fall, we went to MOD Pizza right on St. Charles Road in Elmhurst as it was the first of the 'fast' pizza places that had opened around here.   I posted about the experience here on the blog .  I really liked it and would recommend trying both the pizzas and the salads.  Right across the street - and I mean *RIGHT.ACROSS.THE.STREET* is another of the pizza joints called Pie Five Pizza Co. Earlier this week, after a bit of Christmas shopping, we took the kids to try Pie Five.  The girls ordered kids pizzas (one had pepperoni and the other had bacon), while Nat had one of their pre-made combos (a Tuscan-something with sun-dried tomatoes) and I created my own (sausage/pepperoni/peppers).  I also ordered a salad.  But, unlike MOD Pizza, the salad selections are pre-made.  Meaning, you get either a garden salad (with pre-set ingredients) or an Italian (with pre-set ingredients) or a Caesar (with the normal Caesar stuff). The place is HUGE.  Like 40 tables huge.  W

There's a BIG set of scaffolding up around the Plass Appliance building this week as it appears that it is about to turn into a giant construction site.  As part of that process, it appears that the much-maligned Nu Crepes signage issue has a solve of sorts:  They have this sandwich board sign up right on the sidewalk.  Will it last?  Who knows! If you're trying to figure out what is going on with the Plass store, check out this post that shows the rendering of the new structure .

Last night we packed the kids up and went out to try Mod (or is it MOD?!?) Pizza on St. Charles Road near Route 83 in Elmhurst .  It is located in the same plaza as Total Hockey and Potbelly's on the south side of St. Charles. Mod Pizza is best described as "The Chipotle of Pizza"; meaning you walk along the line with the pizza maker as they assemble your pie based on your choice of ingredients.  Nat and I both got the 'Mod size', which is the normal size, but they also have a kids size that is a bit smaller. What's interesting is that DIRECTLY across the street from Mod is a newly opened PieFive Pizza - which, I think, is the exact same concept.  What happened with burgers three years ago (lots of burger places opened) and fro-yo two years ago (four fro-yo places opened in town!), appears to be happening with the quick-serve pizza concept.  We decided to try Mod first.  And it was pretty good - considering that they're just getting started with th

Whaaaatttt what!?!  After poking around on the PizzaMaking.com forums , I just learned that Aurelio's ( My pizza touch-stone ) is now selling their sausage retail.  I went looking for more details and found this story from a few years ago that shows where they're selling it : Aurelio’s has been manufacturing its famed sausage in Chicago’s South Suburbs for more than four decades. Aurelio’s only uses the highest quality, all natural ingredients. In addition to producing fresh sausage daily for its bestselling pizzas across every Aurelio’s location, in 2010, the company began selling the sausage links to over 70 independent grocery stores throughout the Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana, including Walt’s, Stack and Van Til, Berkots, Ultra foods, FreshLine Foods, Fairway foods, Rio Valley Market, Express Wholesale Grocers, Mario’s Market West, Central Market, Edmar Foods, Spring Valley Supermarket, Fair Share Fine Foods, Halsted Foods, Wiseway Food Center, Super Save, El Ray F

I spotted these booths laying on the sidewalk outside of 100 South Chop House and Grill this morning.  Coupled with the re-doing of the writing on the black awnings on the place has me wondering if they're doing one of those 'restaurant/bar rescues' where experts come in and overhaul the place and put in a new look/feel for restaurants. Have to admit...I've NEVER been in 100 South.  I also didn't think it wasn't in any trouble in terms of people patronizing the place.  So, I didn't think they'd *need* one of those 'rescues', right?  My sister and my nephew love the place.  I think they sit at the bar and love the service and food.  But...me?  Never been in there.  Just doesn't look like the type of place that we'd spend time in.   I'm probably wrong!  But, now with - what looks like - a new set of booths and furniture in the restaurant, maybe we need to visit? Does anyone know?  Was this taped for one of those 'rescue'

Back in 2011, we discovered the 'original' Pequod's Pizza up in Morton Grove.   I posted about it here on the blog . Nothing has changed at the place. But, plenty has changed on our side.  We went from a family of three to a family of five.  And we arrived in style in our minivan.  Yeah...that's right.  A van. I went with the usual sausage and pepperoni combo and it was delicious.  I have no idea what Nat and the kids ate because I was so focused on my part of the order and shoveling this tasty stuff into my piehole. Those of you who have been to the Pequod's in the city wouldn't be surprised by the pies dished out in Morton Grove.  They're basically the same.  But...for those of you who like to make pizza pilgrimages (like me!), the OG Pequod's is worth the trip.  Just to say you've been to the place where it all began. Look at that beautifully caramelized crust.  Burnt?  Not one bit. It wouldn't be a pizza post without the