Category: Food Business

Halftime Pizza Review

Yet another Upper Midwest  frozen “tavern pizza,” Halftime was launched out of a popular rural bar an hour NW of Chicago.  If you’re a regular reader here, you know how much I admire small business owners, and guys like this, trying to enter a very crowded field, with (presumably) a marketing budget that can’t possibly compete… Continue reading Halftime Pizza Review

Potbelly Sandwich Review

(Spoiler alert) I have missed out by not being a customer of Potbelly.I painted them with the “same brush” that I have used against a couple of their competitors that I truly don’t like, and that wasn’t fair. I was recently contemplating a visit when coincidentally the company invited me in for a taste. At… Continue reading Potbelly Sandwich Review

StoneRidge Andouille Sausage Review

Having lived in New Orleans for a decade, and Paris for a couple of years, I’m very fond of andouille (on-doo-ee) sausage, a U.S. transplant/evolution from France. The French version consists of very rough chopped organ meats, onions, wine, and seasoning. They usually have a fairly distinctive odor and are gray in color. The French… Continue reading StoneRidge Andouille Sausage Review

StoneRidge Natural Casing Wieners Review

I love hot dogs. In natural casings, please. The “purer” the better, IMHO. And I love to make them as “coney island style” hot dogs, which have nothing to do with the place Coney Island. A Coney Island hot dog is strictly an upper midwestern thing, popular in Michigan, Ohio, pockets of Texas, Minnesota and… Continue reading StoneRidge Natural Casing Wieners Review

StoneRidge Meats Chorizo Review

Chorizo is a type of sausage that originated in the Iberian peninsula (Spain/Portugal), made up of pork, spices, and smoked pimento peppers, which gives it a bright red color. It’s available in a smoked/cured version for eating or including in dishes, and raw, to be used as a cooking ingredient. There are variations of chorizo… Continue reading StoneRidge Meats Chorizo Review

StoneRidge Meat Snack Sticks Review

An affinity for all things butchered and old world sausage making brought together the principals that started StoneRidge Meat and Country Market, now known as StoneRidge Piggly Wiggly. Located in mid-Wisconsin, thirty minutes west of the Fox River Valley, the market serves grocery shoppers and sausage aficionados from a wide radius. Why sausage lovers? StoneRidge… Continue reading StoneRidge Meat Snack Sticks Review

Sasquatch Pizza Review

Somebody lit a fire under the management of Milwaukee pizza manufacturer Parlermo; in addition to their classic Palermo label, over the past year, they’ve rolled out another four brands. P’Mos, Screamin’ Sicilian, Mission, and now, Sasquatch, a WalMart exclusive monster, weighing in a 3 pounds for under ten bucks.  That’s a lot of pizza. That’s… Continue reading Sasquatch Pizza Review

Appleton Farms Fully Cooked Bacon Review

Appleton Farms is one of the in-house brands for the Aldi grocery chain.  I’ve written a lot of posts about Aldi products, which I generally find to be of good quality and terrific value.  Their fully cooked bacon is no exception, a package of which sells generally for less than two bucks.  I’ve become a… Continue reading Appleton Farms Fully Cooked Bacon Review

Zen Oriental Restaurant, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

When I lived in China, particularly in Guangzhou, it was before the flood of western restaurants showed up.  But there was one place we could go for a burger or ‘cue, and that was the Hard Rock, which was in a hotel owned by Singaporeans.  And the Singaporeans, they love their western foods.  (By the… Continue reading Zen Oriental Restaurant, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico