Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Disappointment...

As we travel around the country, we always take our 'hot list' of restaurants with us. This list includes tips from friends, magazines, the Roadfood newsletters & books, and of course, the list from Guy Fieri's TV show, Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. A positive appearance on Guy's show led us to Melt Bar & Grilled in Lakewood Ohio.

To say that this place is popular is an understatement! At 12 Noon on a Tuesday, we waited 45 minutes for a table. When we left at around 1:30 PM, there was still a 20 minute wait! This place is jumping...lots going on...with an interesting mix of customers. So, by the time we were seated, we were ready!

Laurie is always more adventurous than I am... In addition, the sandwich that she ordered, the Tokyo Tuna Melt, had been featured on the show! What a disappointment! As you can see, it looked great... But it had almost no taste...no flavor of any kind. On the menu, it's described as consisting of marinated grilled yellowfin steak with ginger wasabi dressing, lettuce, tomato and muenster cheese. Unfortunately, we couldn't taste any marinade or ginger wasabi dressing...pretty much just the muenster and the tomato. Laurie was so disappointed in her sandwich that she gave half of it to me and, feeling bad about her food, I gave her part of my sandwich.

I ordered the Hot Italian. It was described as containing grilled salami, honey ham, pepperoni, sun-dried tomato pesto, roasted garlic and provolone. As you can see, it is a handsome sandwich. I expected that my taste buds would just 'pop' at the first bite...to no avail. Not that it was a bad sandwich...it was a decent creation...and it had decent flavor, but it didn't live up to what I'd expected. It wasn't something that I'd miss if I never had it again...

The sandwiches all come with fries and a sweet slaw. The slaw was quite nice but the fries were too greasy.

So, maybe we ordered the wrong sandwiches. There are 25 'cheese melt' sandwiches to choose from...plus a half-dozen burgers and 2 steak sandwiches. The problem is that I'm not sure that we'd wait 45 minutes again to find out if we just happened to miss the good stuff!

For those that are into beer, this may be a terrific place to wet your palate! The Melt Bar & Grilled has 20 beers on draft plus 117 other beers, ales and ciders. There are 2 locations...the original in Lakewood and a new restaurant in Cleveland Heights.

The Lakewood location is at 14718 Detroit Avenue. Hours are from 11 am to 11 pm, Monday Through Thursday, from 11 am to 12 midnight Friday & Saturday, and from 10 am to 10 pm on Sundays. The bar is open until 2 am every night. Phone: 216-226-3699. Website: http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com/. In addition to Guy Fieri, Melt Bar & Grilled has been featured on TodayShow.com, and On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. The owner has a real knack for getting a lot of positive publicity.

More Treasure from Cleveland!

Here's another peek at the Crawford Auto Collection at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland Ohio.

This is a 1923 Ford Depot Hack. These vehicles are the equivalent of today's hotel vans that pick up passengers at the airport. The 'Hack' and it's related models, (Express Wagons, Wagonettes & Depot Wagons), were developed for use by hotels and resorts to carry passengers back and forth from the railway depots.

In 1958, Chrysler produced 618 of these Chrysler 300D Hard-Tops. This car developed 380 HP with it's 392 cubic inch "Hemi" engine. A 300D set a new speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats, topping out at 156.387 mph. Despite it's size and weight, the 300D could hit 60 mph in less than 10 seconds.

In the early days at Sears-Roebuck, you could order almost anything through the mail-order catalog. From 1908 - 1911, Sears offered this Model "H Motor Buggy", a bargain at $395.00! It was a durable 'high-wheeler", built for rough country roads. The Motor Buggy had a 2-cylinder air cooled 12 HP engine. There were 5 variations built along with a light truck version.



Sears stopped selling these automobiles in 1911...when they discovered that it cost more to build than they were charging for it. Sears got out of the automobile business until 1952, when, for an 18-month period, they marketed the Kaiser-Frazer made "Allstate". For information on the "Allstate", go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allstate_(Automobile).



The Cleveland Motorcycle Manufacturing Company was founded by several officers of the National Screw & Tack Company, a major supplier for the auto industry. It began operations in 1915, building single cylinder 2.8 HP light weight motorcycles. They weren't meant to compete with the heavy duty Harley's or Indians. This 1918 model was one step above a bicycle, at the lowest end of the price range for motorized transport. Under new management, Cleveland Motorcycle did build a 4-cylinder version from 1923 until 1929 when the company closed.

This is one of Ford Motor Company's first station wagons. They were were the successors to the "Hacks", replacing them at the railroad depots...hence, 'station wagon'. These vehicles were built in Iron Mountain MI in the upper Peninsula, then shipped to the Murray Body Company in Detroit or the Baker-Rawlang Company in Cleveland to be finished. The body was made out of oak, it had removable rear seats and was powered by a 40 HP engine. Even though this model was introduced midway through the 1929 Model Year, they sold 5,000 of them at $650.00 each, one of Ford's most expensive autos at that time.

More photos will follow in future blogs. The Crawford Auto-Aviation Collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society is open from 10 am to 5 pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Parking is $5.00. Admission is $8.50 for adults; $7.50 for seniors; $5.00 for those 17 or younger; $6.00 for veterans and; half-price for active military personnel. The collection is located at 10825 East Boulevard in Cleveland, Ohio. Phone: 216-721-5722. Website: www.wrhs.org/index/php/crawford.

Hot Wings!!

So, the other night we decided to have some hot wings... We started with 20 sections of smoked chicken wings that our friend Larry, aka 'Big Dude' had barbecued/smoked for us. As per his instructions, we put them on a cookie sheet, sprinkled them with apple juice, covered them with foil, and put them in the oven at 250 degrees for 50 minutes.

Once they were warmed up, I took them out to the grill and zapped them for about 2 minutes on each side.

They came out looking pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

Then I took them in the house and we tossed them with Wing Sauce...looking even better! Tasted great... with a nice blend of the smoke, the crispy texture of the skin and, the sauce!

On this occasion, we used Moore's Buffalo Wing Sauce. It had a decent bite but it had a bit too much of a vinegar taste to it for me. We've also tried Frank's Red Hot Wings "Hot Buffalo" sauce and I liked it a little better than Moore's. Our favorite wing sauce to date is Hooter's Wing Sauce (Hot)! Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

All Aboard! Last Stop, St. Louis

These are the last of the locomotive photos, (plus one airplane), from our visit to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis Missoui.



This is a 2-8-2 USRA Light Mikado type freight locomotive that was built in 1928 by the Lima Locomotive Works. Thousands were built. This was considered the Workhorse of the railroads. During WWII, since Japan was our enemy, they were renamed to "MacArthur".


This 0-6-0 switching locomotive was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1896. In 1923, it's appearance was changed by adding a new boiler. In 1941, it was sold to the East St. Louis Junction Railroad, serving the stockyards. In the early 1950's, it was purchased by St. Louis Material & Supply...remaining in use moving hopper cars full of gravel until 1963. It was the last conventional steam locomotive to operate regularly in the St. Louis area. Hard to believe...67 years of service!



This is a Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy". It was built in 1941 at a cost of $265,000 by the American Locomotive Company. This is one of only 25 built. The "Big Boys" were the largest successful steam locomotives ever built. They weighed 600 tons and measured 132' 9 1/4" long. They carried 33 tons of coal and 25,000 gallons of water.

This is the "Daniel Nason". It was built in the Boston & Providence Railroad Shops in 1858. This is the only surviving example of a locomotive that has the steam cylinders inside the locomotive. This style of wood burning engine was popular before the Civil War.

Many of the locomotives at the Museum of Transportation are sheltered in shed like the one shown here. While this is very good from a preservation point of view, it does mean that there were many locomotives and a lot of rolling stock that couldn't easily be photographed. I have good photos of a dozen or so engines, but this is just a fraction of the 70 locomotives that this museum owns.

At the entrance to the museum, they have a WWII vintage C-47. (The military version of the DC-3) There is also a river tow boat that used to operate out of Kansas City MO. Another building contains a small collection of automobiles. Of course, there is also a gift shop.

The Museum of Transportation is located at 3015 Barrett Station Road in St. Louis, Missouri. Phone: 314-965-6885. Web Site: http://www.museumoftransport.org/.

New Best PIzza!!

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/.

Railway Depots Along the Road

As I've mentioned previously, one of my retirement hobbies involves the search for and photographing of old railroad depots. This ties nicely into our fondness for traveling the back roads of America...and elsewhere.

From a trip in September, this is the renovated Chicago & Alton passenger depot in Glasgow Missouri. It now serves as a museum. Of interest to railroad buffs, the nearby Glasgow railroad bridge over the Missouri River is the site of the first all-steel railroad bridge. It was built in 1879 and it allowed direct rail connection from Chicago to Kansas City. The current bridge was built in 1899.

The first Missouri Pacific railroad depot in Washington Missouri was destroyed in a Civil War raid in 1864. This depot was built in 1865 and it was used until January of 1924. It had separate waiting rooms for men and women. This is the oldest railroad passenger depot still adjacent to active railroad tracks in Missouri.

This is the Craftsman style depot in Washington MO that replaced the one shown above in 1924. Washington still has passenger service, with the Amtrak 'Missouri River Runner' providing service to Kansas City and St. Louis. There are 2 westbound trains and 2 eastbound trains each day.

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas (KATY) Railroad built this Boonville MO Mission Revival/Spanish Revival style passenger depot in 1912. At the peak of passenger service, 25 - 30 trains per day stopped in Boonville. Passenger service ended in 1958 and the last freight train chugged by the depot in 1986. It now serves as the office for the Chamber of Commerce, the district office for the State Park System and as the Boonville Tourist Information Center.

This handsome passenger depot is located in Jefferson City Missouri. It was built by the Missouri Pacific railroad, (MoPac), and it's now owned by the Union Pacific Railroad.

For those that might be unaware, Jefferson City is the Capitol of Missouri. It is located roughly in the middle of the state between St. Louis & Kansas City.

This is the rail side view of the former Jefferson City passenger depot. Note that I said former passenger depot...

Yes, Jefferson City still has passenger rail service, but no, service isn't based in this building. Apparently, the building just serves as offices for the Union Pacific.

This is the 1855 building in Jefferson City that was the former Union Hotel. It now houses a restaurant and, yes, on the first floor, we found the Amtrak waiting room. This new 'depot' is just a short distance along the tracks from the Union Pacific's offices.

Amtrak serves Jefferson City with 2 trains eastbound and 2 trains westbound each day. Members of our family use the trains to and from St. Louis on a periodic basis. In 2008, a total of 45,032 passengers boarded a train via this 'depot'.

Back To Willie's!!

Back to Willie's, an Italian Restaurant in Seymour Tennessee, that I've written about on 2 other occassions... As prevously mentioned, Willie's is run by a true New Yorker, and he truly knows good Italian food!


This time we went with other 2 couples... We ordered a small pizza as a appetizer but once it hit the table, we'd eaten almost half of it before we remember to take a photo! Maybe next time.



Here we have the Baked Spaghetti with Ricotta & Parmesan Cheeses, marinara sauce and melted Mozzarella! A cheese lovers dream!

All three ladies, Laurie, Karen & Holly, ordered the same thing, Lobster Ravioli, Laurie's favorite. There were no leftovers! For a photo of the Lobster Ravioli, go to my earlier blog on 8/12/10, which is titled "Real Deal Italian".

This is "Willie's own recipe" Lasagna. It's all about layers of pasta, meat sauce, ricotta & parmesan cheese with marinara sauce and topped with melted Mossarella cheese. None of this dish went home either!

Prices at Willie's are very reasonable...and dinners include a salad and garlic knot rolls.

This is my dinner... I decided to keep it simple. Penne pasa with meat sauce, along with a side of 3 meatballs in marinara sauce. I politely consumed only about 2/3's of this feast...taking the rest home for a nice little lunch.

The sauce at Willie's nice and 'clean' or 'fresh' tasting...with just the right amount of seasoning.

Willie's is located at 11612 Chapman Highway in Seymour Tennessee. Closed on Mondays. Open for lunch & dinner Tuesday - Sunday. Phone: 865-773-0170. For more information and to see Willie's menu, go to http://dininginthesmokies.com/_seymour/willies_restaurant_seymour_tn.htm.