Recent Comments

From Chicago

Sausage City: Local in New Buffalo, MI

EXCELLENT! Thanks for posting, now I have a new weekender to plan!

From Serious Eats

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Korin Knife

A poor, beat-up, nameless paring knife. It was my grandmothers and that's what makes it priceless to me!

From Drinks

Have You Ever Tried to Quit Diet Soda?

I usually give leave my Diet Pepsi on the shelf every Lent, but come Easter morning, the first thing after my last Mass is to suck all the last drop out of that 2L bottle. I'm so thankful my addiction isn't something worse, but man...an addiction is an addiction. When we bought our restaurant the first thing that was hooked up was, yup...the Pepsi fountain. sad.

From Serious Eats

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Southside Market Sausage, Chicken, and Steaks

Other than my own backyard...the very best was some unnamed little used to be gas station along a dark and lonely section of state highway one night in Georgia. It was beyond fantastic!

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Recent Posts

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Recent Favorites

From Serious Eats

Our Favorite Fried Chicken in America

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Recent Polls

From Serious Eats: New York

DeaconVolker answered "I'd scope the place out first to see if it seemed clean." to Would You Eat at a 'C' Restaurant?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker answered "Yes" to Did you take home ec in high school?

From Slice

DeaconVolker answered "No. Pizza über alles!" to Do you stop eating pizza when it's hot outside?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker answered "Yes" to Do you toast your Pop-Tarts?

Recent Quizzes

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 25% correct on Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Soda?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 55% correct on How Much Do You Know About Peanut Butter?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 80% correct on How Much Do You Know About Barbecue?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 50% correct on Quiz: How Much Do You Know About French Fries?

See more polls and quizzes by DeaconVolker »

Recent Comments

From Chicago

Sausage City: Local in New Buffalo, MI

EXCELLENT! Thanks for posting, now I have a new weekender to plan!

From Serious Eats

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Korin Knife

A poor, beat-up, nameless paring knife. It was my grandmothers and that's what makes it priceless to me!

From Drinks

Have You Ever Tried to Quit Diet Soda?

I usually give leave my Diet Pepsi on the shelf every Lent, but come Easter morning, the first thing after my last Mass is to suck all the last drop out of that 2L bottle. I'm so thankful my addiction isn't something worse, but man...an addiction is an addiction. When we bought our restaurant the first thing that was hooked up was, yup...the Pepsi fountain. sad.

From Serious Eats

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Southside Market Sausage, Chicken, and Steaks

Other than my own backyard...the very best was some unnamed little used to be gas station along a dark and lonely section of state highway one night in Georgia. It was beyond fantastic!

From Serious Eats

SE Staff Picks: What's Your Favorite Food Smell?

Every morning we make fresh dough, bake off fresh bread & rolls, and cook off sheets of bacon in the oven...it's got to be the bacon!

From Slice

Poll: Ranch Dressing on Pizza - Way or No Way?

We see very few folks ask for a side of Ranch for dipping, however our 2nd best selling pizza is our "Chicken Bacon Club" which is built on a base of Ranch dressing instead of the regular red sauce. Ranch, cheese, grilled chicken, bacon, then topped off with shredded lettuce, diced tomato, and a drizzle of Ranch across the top....don't knock it till you've sold it!

From Serious Eats

Should Restaurants Allow Substitutions?

All of our salads are served "DOTS"...it's one way we control costs and the customer has the option of how much is enough. The simple request of "on the side please" should have been a non-issue.

Actually, we're pretty liberal in honoring our requests, in fact when we recognize a trend on a given dish it's a clue perhaps we've misjudged the plate. Repeated requests for the same thing have led to "new" menu items!

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'Roadfood'

There was this little, probably un-named gas station in the nowhere part of Georgia that I came across one Saturday...yeah, lost (pre-GPS), These guys were turning out the most amazing BBQ I've ever found though! My roadtrip would be most likely an "in vain" attempt at finding them again!

From A Hamburger Today

AHT Weekend Book Giveaway: 'Hamburger America' by George Motz

Big swing through Texas for the Whatta-Burgers, then up through California to put the In N' Out mystic to rest once and for all.

From Slice

Pizza Obsessives: Norma Knepp, Experimental Pizza Maven

Great interview Norma! I remember you very fondly from the days when I was hanging out on the pizzamaking.com myself.

From Slice

Chain Reaction: Pizza Hut's New Ultimate Cheese Lover's Pizza

@digital...we have several folks that will regularly order our "Mama Meata" 5-meat pie and swap the red sauce for our alfredo base. it's actually become my own preferred pizza lately and I have the whole kitchen to pick from. Our best selling pies use no red sauce but rather a ranch dressing, a BBQ, or a simple olive oil and garlic base.

From Chicago

Chicago: Monk's Pub Does Enough to Get By

It's kind of sad though in a way because there is SO much good quality beef available out there for those of us desiring to put out an above-par product.

From A Hamburger Today

Chain Reaction: Ruby Tuesday

Pretty much my reaction as well. We gave them a couple of visits to make sure it wasn't just a bad day....sorry nope.

From Drinks

Beer Pairings: What to Drink with Corned Beef and Cabbage

Our's will go out with either a Guinness from the tap or a nice Smithwick's. We've still got a bit of Rouge's Kell's Irish Lager on tap as well but I'd bet that will disappear before tomorrow does!

From Serious Eats

Crop Freezes in Mexico Affect Grocery Prices in the U.S.

We are going to be forced to make a tough decision at our restaurant here in this next two weeks. Raise our prices on salads and veggie laden items, or simply temporarily drop salads from our menu and cease using tomatoes on sandwiches etc.

I'll be in disagreement with the article's findings that we've seen the highs on produce pricing. A bushel of green peppers (chopper grade) has moved from the mid-$20's to near $40 in the last two weeks. Ripe XL tomatoes have skyrocketed from $18.00 a bushel to an obscene $59.00 this week!

The plus, if there is one, is I can now better "afford" to purchase from a local hothouse who previously, despite my desire to purchase as local as I may was off-limits at $60+ for the same bushel of tomatoes.

From Serious Eats

Gripe of the Day: Reservations Are a Two-Way Street

Reservation management is one of the more frustrating pieces of the restauranting puzzle. Given that you had made the attempt to keep the restaurant informed of your later arrival, and that evidently they acknowledge that with a "no problem" sort of response, as an owner of one, I'd say there is near zero excuse to be forced to wait that length of time to be seated.

That you appear to have then ordered with their advice the quicker to prepare items should have been the 2nd red flag to not only the server, but the floor manager as well as the kitchen. Having to quick prepare 12 meals is only a problem if the kitchen is under-staffed, under-trained, or extremely unprepared.

Were this my place, a polite mention of your concern to the server had better have been all it took to see me or the manager who then would have at the minimum comped at least the meals for those who had to leave the table early.

We have groups of 12-20 every weekend and our smallish kitchen hasn't a problem getting out hot plates on time. BTW, we do everything from pizza that would be well different than what you were dining on that evening...to fresh pastas, chops, steaks, etc. so I'd suppose we're still able to make a suitable comparison.

From Sweets

Edible DIY: Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Toffee

I've done the saltine "toffee"this year but THIS one with the pretzel is a must try now too! And, uh..."It will keep for two or three weeks...."? Really? Why? :^)

From Serious Eats

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Southside Market Sausage

Well the honest answer is, my house off our own smoke, but the "next best" was a little unnamed gas station of all places in the backwoods of Georgia one Saturday afternoon. I seriously have zero idea where it was which is a shame b/c this guy knew how to make magic at 200 degrees!

From Drinks

What to Drink at Thanksgiving: Beer

Sofie and Matilda are hardly "...extreme bomber beers...", you must have them confused with something else. These are both quite smooth and approachable Belgians. We serve both in our Pub to beer drinkers of every stripe...and many who thought they weren't beer drinkers at all.

From Slice

The United States of Pizza: Illinois (Beyond Chicago Edition)

I'll toot my own horn here. We do a righteous pie at "D.G.Sullivan's" Family Pub in Gibson City, just 30 short minutes north of Champaign. Our "Pub Crust" is a rolled, ultra-thin and crispy style, and we do a nice hand-tossed and our specialty, a butter-crust deep dish that is might fine.

Fresh ingredients, our own sauce and dough recipes just like it should be.

From Drinks

Taste Test: Root Beer

We tasted tested a BUNCH of different root beer offerings in our area when searching for the best for our new Pub. Fitz out of STL led the pack by far, but sadly...not distributed here. Barq's though? Really? Not so much.

From Serious Eats: New York

Poll: How Would You Deal With Restaurant Error?

Each and every server in our restaurant has full authority to "make it right", with the understanding that the kitchen manager is made aware of the situation. I've been to places where I didn't want to make a scene over a foodflub, only to mentally mark it off my list of places to dine when the server failed to notify management of the situation so they could attempt to make amends.

As for plastic, or anything in our food...unquestionably removed from the bill, a suitable replacement offered, in short we do whatever it takes. Period.

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Recent Posts

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Recent Favorites

From Serious Eats

Our Favorite Fried Chicken in America

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Polls

From Serious Eats: New York

DeaconVolker answered "I'd scope the place out first to see if it seemed clean." to Would You Eat at a 'C' Restaurant?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker answered "Yes" to Did you take home ec in high school?

From Slice

DeaconVolker answered "No. Pizza über alles!" to Do you stop eating pizza when it's hot outside?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker answered "Yes" to Do you toast your Pop-Tarts?

From Slice

DeaconVolker answered "Depends on what kind it is. (Feel free to elaborate in the comments.)" to Dessert Pizza: Way or No Way?

From Slice

DeaconVolker answered "Way!" to Chicken on a pizza: Way or No Way?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker answered "Nope" to Would You Eat the KFC Double Down Sandwich?

From A Hamburger Today

DeaconVolker answered "Let me choose my own toppings!" to Who Should Choose the Toppings: You or the Chef?

From Slice

DeaconVolker answered "Uncooked (cooks on pie in oven)" to Your Pizza Sauce Preference: Precooked or Uncooked?

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Quizzes

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 25% correct on Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Soda?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 55% correct on How Much Do You Know About Peanut Butter?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 80% correct on How Much Do You Know About Barbecue?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 50% correct on Quiz: How Much Do You Know About French Fries?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 87% correct on How Much Do You Know About Beer?

From Serious Eats

DeaconVolker got 70% correct on How Much Do You Know About Hot Dogs?

From Slice

DeaconVolker got 37% correct on Slice Quiz No. 1

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