Best Pizza in Cincinnati

I'm going to date myself here. When I was a young girl growing up in Mt Carmel, east of Cincinnati, pizza joints were rare. We had one pizza place named Papa Gino's. Skyline was a little-known chili joint on the west side. The Hearth was the fancy restaurant in Mt. Carmel, which later became the strip joint, Deja Vu and is now gone altogether. And we jumped for joy when a Frisch's Restaurant was built on St. Rt. 32 complete with a dozen drive-in spots where you ordered and were served in your car.

Now we have pizza everywhere and there are Skylines in Kentucky and Indiana, as well as all over Ohio. Hail to fast food!

From the god-awful, cardboard crust of the Papa John's franchise to our own local La Rosa's, we have an abundance of choices when it comes to pizza in Cincinnati. On those days when my husband doesn't feel like cooking, we can get delivery from Snappy Tomato in New Richmond. If we want to step it up a bit, we'll drive the twenty miles to the Mt. Washington Mio's where they have a low-carb menu as well as great pizza.

Festive beer tap handles decorate the half-wall at Adriatico's

BUT if we really want to go pizza-palooza we head to Clifton for Adriatico's New York Style Pizza on McMillan Avenue. I LOVE Adriatico's pizza. I even loved it  when it was just a carry-out and delivery restaurant. Now they have a sit-down restaurant/sports bar. The venue is small and parking is iffy. Do not park in Pomadori's lot next door (which was empty last night) or your car will get towed (who needs burnt pizza crust anyway.) Although the inside is tight, it is well laid out with a front dining area that can be turned into an outside patio on a nice day. There are flat screen TVs in every corner and if you are a beer lover this is heaven. They have nearly fifty beers on tap.The patio and dining area are separated by a half wall decorated with a variety of festive beer tap handles.  And the pizza? Absolutely the best pizza in Cincinnati.

Last Dance With Klipsch Music Center

I love Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. His music is fun and takes me back to the days of my youth when I rode around in my red Vega hatchback listening to rock and roll on my eight-track tape player. Yep, I was cool.

We attended the Heartbreaker's concert a couple weekends ago at the Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana. Petty and his band put on a solid performance that night. They played many of their hits and we knew most of the words. Petty never missed a note and his back up was spot-on, a little grey in the beard, but spot-on nonetheless.

Unfortunately the superb performance by the band was over-shadowed by the poor performance of the Live Nation-owned Klipsch Music Center.

First there was no order to the lines entering the center. The crowd was dangerously crushed together conjuring nightmares from the Who concert tragedy years ago here in Cincinnati. And we stood in "line" for over 45 minutes. Then we were FRISKED at the gate. And I don't mean with metal detector wands. This was a hands-on frisk. I'm pretty sure it is illegal for a male to frisk a woman. Just saying.

After being crushed in line for nearly an hour and going through the embarrassing frisking we were parched for a cold beverage. We were shocked to have to pay $11 for a 24 oz. can of beer. Good grief you can buy a twelve-pak for that much money! Of course we could have spent $4 for a 99-cent bottle of water. Yeah, that's real festive.

Here in Cincinnati we are blessed to have the Riverbend Music Center run by local sponsors. We are looking forward to seeing Ian Anderson there next month. But beware of venues owned by Live Nation. Their concessions, including the $60 t-shirts, the dangerous crowds at the entrance and the embarrassing frisking did a real disservice to Tom Petty and his band. We will never attend another concert there again.

Ya Gotta Know When to Hold 'em...

and know when to fold 'em. Sage advice from Kenny Rodgers.

We visited the new Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati for the first time on Saturday. Yeah, we picked the biggest party weekend of the year, St. Patrick's Day, for our first visit to the casino, which had opened little more than a week before.

Timing is everything. It was an easy drive from the east side taking 275 to 471 to the Liberty Street exit. Turn left on Reading Road and the parking garage entrance is right there. We arrived around 7:00 p.m. and were able to quickly find a parking space in the 2,500-space, five-story parking garage. We were pleased to find out parking was free on the weekends as well as on week nights from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.

There was no line to get in to the casino. We walked right in without a wait. So far, so good.

First of all, a disclaimer: I am not a gambler. Gambling does nothing for me. On the other hand, my husband was raised reading a racing form at River Downs. So he gambles and I wander around with my Bud Light in hand and people watch. And there is no better place to people watch than a casino.

Blue ice cubes surround the Rock Bar

The first thing that attracted my attention was the really cool Rock Bar and Lounge right smack in the middle of the 100,000 sq. ft. casino floor elevated slightly above the 2,000 slot machines and 85 gaming tables. The bar was packed with patrons rocking to Anna and Milovan, a local father daughter team plus one. The bar area is oval-shaped walled by tall columns with generous open space between each column. This allows gamblers, wandering from one slot machine to the other, to see and listen to the music from outside the bar area. The surrounding architecture of the bar area includes columns of what looks like giant blue ice cubes that you can peek through as well.

The food venues are all accessible from inside the casino floor and include Bobby Flay's Bobby's Burger palace (a two hour wait that night), Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville (a three hour wait), Jack Binion's Steak (didn't even attempt it), Starbucks, and The Spread Buffet with the Cafe Italia (20 minute wait). We settled for pizza at the Cafe Italia, squeezing six of us into two small round tables with only three chairs available.

Electronic roulette. Bets are placed on a touchscreen.

The Horseshoe offers a good variety of electronic games in addition to the zombie-inducing slot machines. In addition to the traditional roulette tables, that dole out chips to play, there is electronic roulette. There are also multiple choices of video poker games,  including Bonus Poker, Deuces Wild and All Star Poker. There is a separate 31-table World Series of Poker room for the more serious poker player. Total Touch Technology allows you to order drinks from the slot machine so you won't have to interrupt the crucial concentration it takes to play slots.

What I didn't see that night was the 33,000 sq. ft. second level slotted for meetings and events. The second level includes The Pavilion for live performances with seating for 1,400.  Joel Mchale will perform stand up comedy on April 20 and IL DIVO, a classical crossover quartet, will perform on April 27. But wait, there's more! The Horseshoe is planning a summer concert series as well. These concerts will take place on the outdoor event plaza, The Shoe, located at the front entrance of the casino. The Grammy-nominated rock band, The Killers, will kick off the summer concert series on May 16. Now that's what I'm talking about. Give me live entertainment any day over a slot machine.

Let's Go Krogering...

...the happy way to shop!

Having lived in Cincinnati all my life I've taken "going Krogering" for granted. Kroger has always been around with a store in every Cincinnati neighborhood and suburb. So I was more than a little "Cincinnati Proud" when I found out the first Kroger store originated right here in our Queen City. 

Bernard Henry Kroger was born in 1860 to German immigrants living in Covington, Kentucky. When Barney was 16 he took a job selling tea and coffee door to door in Cincinnati. A couple of years later he took a job at the struggling Imperial Tea Company. The owners offered him 10% of the profits if he could turn the company around. After successfully moving from clerk to manager and turning the unimpressive company for a profit, Kroger wanted to invest his share of the profits in one-third of the company. The owners refused so Kroger struck out on his own.

In 1883 Barney Kroger, with $350 borrowed from a friend and $372 of his own money, opened his first store on Pearl Street in Cincinnati. The Great American Western Tea Company was 17 feet wide and three blocks from the river. He also bought a horse and shiny red wagon, for back then groceries were delivered to the customer. He ran his business with a simple motto: “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.”

Despite a couple of setbacks; losing his horse and wagon in a train wreck two weeks after opening and then a few weeks after that, losing his entire stock of groceries in a flood; Kroger persevered. Within a year Kroger was doing so well he bought out his partner and within two years he owned four stores.Today with nearly 2,500 stores in 31 states under two dozen banners and annual sales of more than $70 billion, Kroger ranks as one of the nation’s largest retailers.

Barney Kroger not only started a chain of grocery stores he was an innovator of the times. He advertised more regularly in the newspaper than any other grocery in town. By 1902, the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company was organized and was the first grocery in the nation to bake its own bread. He was also the first to sell meats and groceries in the same store.

Kroger saw an opportunity to increase his income by manufacturing some of the products he sold. When farmers came to town with their produce, he bought far more cabbage than he could expect his customers to buy. He took the cabbage home to his mother who, following her favorite recipe, turned it into tangy sauerkraut that proved hugely popular with his German customers. Today Kroger operates 40 food processing plants producing over 14,000 private-label items.

The company introduced another innovation in 1916 with the beginnings of self-service shopping. Like today, customers went to the grocery store, chose their own merchandise, and brought it home themselves. Many customers appreciated having the opportunity to select their own items. Other stores quickly adopted Kroger's innovation. In 1972, Kroger became the first grocery retailer in America to test an electronic scanner.

Sources:
Cincinnati Then and Now - Iola silberstein
Pleasant Family Shopping
Kroger Website
Ohio History Central

Today is Martin Luther King's Actual Birthday

...and I feel the need to speak out about the state of racism in our country today. It makes me sad, but not surprised, that one of the end results of having Barack Obama, President of the United States, a black man, in the White House, is the ugly muck of racism rising to the top of our American society.

Out of the Mountain of Despair A Stone of Hope

We have Sarah Palin using racist terms like "shucking and jiving" and John Sununu making allusions to the denigrating racist description of African Americans when he referred to our President as "lazy." The complete description so popular among racists is "lazy, shiftless n.....r." Then there are the Photoshopped posters with the President's face super-imposed on an ape or with a Hitler mustache. I am embarrassed when I hear or see these things.

When I was growing up in the eastern suburbs of Cincinnati in the 60s and 70s there were no African Americans living in my neighborhood nor attending my school. It wasn't until I started working at Swallen's in Fairfax at the age of 16 that I met and worked alongside African Americans. I became friends with many. I was fortunate to be raised by a mother who never allowed the n word to be said in our house and taught us to respect people who were different than us. Over the years I have had the privilege to know many African Americans and have the honor to call them friend.

The fact is, many people don't think they are racist.

Some years ago I was in a restaurant having lunch with a African American female friend. When the waitress left our checks on the table, I laid down cash and my friend laid down her credit card. When the waitress returned with the card and change she gave me, the white woman, the credit card and my friend the change. It was a teachable moment for me and my first exposure to what is called subconscious racism.

An innocent mistake by the waitress? Sure. But it illustrated the underlying perception of some white people that people of color are "less than" and could not possibly own a credit card or a house or a car. For many white folk it is an automatic subconscious reaction. Like women who hold their purses a little tighter when they pass a black man on the street.

Usually white folk who behave this way have never had any kind of relationship with a human of different skin color or ethnic background. So they believe the stereotypes and the misconceptions they see or hear from sources like Fox "News" or the ravings of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. My challenge to them is to make an effort to really KNOW someone of a different skin color, a different religion, a different culture. You will be surprised how much your own life will be enriched.

To many in our country Martin Luther King's birthday just means an extra day added to the weekend. To me it is a reminder that we still have a long way to go in America to eliminate racism.

Post Script: In the January 19, 2013 issue of the Enquirer journalist Mark Curnutte shares some startling statistics on racism nationally and locally. The following are some excerpts from that article:

"A majority of Americans now express prejudice toward African-Americans, even if they don’t recognize those attitudes, according to an Associated Press survey released in October 2012. Conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and University of Chicago, the survey showed that the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments increased to 56 percent in 2012, up from 49 percent in 2008, when measured by an implicit racial attitudes test."

"The U.S. prison population comprises 40 percent African-American males, though they make up just 14 percent of the overall population. In Hamilton County, 70 percent of the jail population is black men, even though the overall black population – male and female – is 26 percent."

"The number of hate groups – which includes neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads, black separatists and others – has increased 69 percent since 2000 and now has reached 1,018 nationally, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery, Ala. Since the end of 2008, the number of anti-government groups, including armed militias, grew 755 percent, from 149 to 1,274 in 2011."

"Despite advances in workforce integration, Cincinnati remains one of the nation’s most racially segregated cities. Cincinnati ranked eighth in residential segregation of the nation’s 22 most racially divided cities, according to an analysis of 2010 census results by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. It reports that 66.9 percent of one racial group would have to move to other census tracts to integrate Cincinnati."

Here's the full article On MLK Day, 2nd Obama inaugural sign of progress