Courtesy of Guy Fieri and his TV Show, Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, Laurie and I made a visit to Geraci's Restaurant in Cleveland Ohio. Geraci's is an old style Italian Restaurant that's been operated by the same family since 1956. Founders Michael (87) and his wife (90) have now turned over the operation to their daughter Fran. Fran has been working here since she was 10 years old.
We are always looking for the next 'best' pizza...and this is our new best thin crust pizza! It had a crispy crust, nice 'clean' tasting tomato sauce with small chunks of tomato, good sausage and terrific Margherita pepperoni!
The menu at this Italian restaurant is huge. So are the meatballs! We watched a woman devour a platter heaped with pasta and topped with 2 huge meatballs. The menu has are 3 dozen pasta dishes plus 9 veal, 3 steak, 14 chicken and 10 seafood selections...plus 27 sandwiches and subs and 4 or 5 omelets.
The problem is that we may never have the opportunity to test the menu...the pizza is just too good! Maybe we can order a small pizza and share an entree.
We had a chance to visit with Fran and one of the cooks... It was very interesting to learn about what goes into the filming of an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. In addition to many phone calls with the producer and her assistants, the actual filming involved 3 days of filming! The restaurant actually had to close for a day in order to complete the shoot. Guy was actually there only for the 3rd day of filming... Despite the challenges, Fran told us that it was well worth the effort!
After dinner, when I passed the kitchen on the way to the front of the restaurant, I noted an older...much older...gentleman working in the kitchen. I asked Fran if he was her dad. She told us that it wasn't. She said his name is Harold, he's 87 years old and he's been working for her for 14 years. He never misses a day, he takes 2 buses to get to work, he doesn't like to take breaks and Harold even lugs 50 lb sacks of flour up the stairs by himself. He won't accept any help!
Geraci's Restaurant is located at 2266 Warrenville Road on the east side of Cleveland. Phone: 216-371-5643. Geraci's Website with link to the Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives episode: www.geracisrestaurant.net/.
Sounds like my kind of place, especially with so many pasta dishes, but I can't imagine a reason to ever go to Cleveland - unless it would be to visit the neat places you've blogged about.
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