Ward 6

Visited on Saturday, June 15th

Ben's Review
For my birthday I was tasked with choosing a place to get dinner with Erin as her mom had offered to watch the kids while we went out. In typical fashion I had a hard time deciding and enlisted the help of my coworkers. I got several awesome suggestions and settled on Ward 6 in Saint Paul.

Ward 6 is on the east side of Saint Paul in an old saloon (apparently the bar is the same one that was installed in 1903) and has a retro feel to it, even though the place has obviously been spiffed up a bit. I could tell it had opened not too long ago since the paint on the trim wasn’t even dirty yet.

Pints of beer are $5, except for Hamm’s which is only $3, and the tap beers are a great collection of local beer: Summit, Fulton, Flat Earth, Steel Toe, Indeed, Pour Decisions, Surly, and Lucid are all represented. They also have a full bar and several cocktail suggestions on the menu. I started with a Lynchburg Lemonade while we were deciding on food and had a Steel Toe Size 7 with my food.

The food menu is not huge, but there are several good looking options. Erin’s reuben even looked good to me, and I’m not a reuben fan. The daily special that day was a pork loin with warm potato salad, which easily sealed the deal for me. The potato salad was just as much of a draw as the pork, I love that stuff!

I had my beer and my German food and I was all set. The portions of food at Ward 6 are refreshingly reasonable, not the gargantuan plates you get at many places these days, and the prices are proportional as well, which I appreciate.

The pork had good flavor, but was not as moist as it could be, but paired with the potato salad, it was excellent and I wolfed it down in no time, leaving me to finish my beer as dessert :) We were done so quickly that we had to figure out something to do, lest we get home to Erin’s mom too early! We went for a walk down Grand Ave where Erin had some ice cream and I got a cigar, great ending to a birthday dinner.

Erin's Review
For once, I left the dinner decision completely up to Ben! We are completely out of the loop on restaurant openings lately, so I wasn't too shocked to hear that his coworkers had recommended several places we hadn't even heard of! I did look at the website for Ward 6 before we went, but wasn't quite sure what to expect.

This is definitely an awesome place that I WISH was closer to us! It's not like it's that far away, obviously, but it would be nice if it was even within a few miles, or not on the other side of downtown St. Paul. We went to downtown St. Paul for a drink at Barrio prior to heading over to Ward 6, which is pretty close to The Strip Club. It's one of those places that is casual but feels nice, serves really great food, and is affordable. Definitely kid friendly, too, I'd like to go back for breakfast with the kids sometime.

I saw that the bar had some ties to Hamm's (apparently the actual bar itself used to be in the brewery which was next door or something) so felt it was my mission to have a Hamm's while we were there. Also it was $2 cheaper than everything else, and I think we ALL know that I don't care what kind of beer I'm drinking, and in fact the closer it tastes to water, the better.

The Reuben was calling my name - to think of my younger self, never even trying a Reuben because it sounded gross to me. Now I love them! They are pretty rich for me, so I actually only ate half but the other half reheated well for another meal. The fries were delicious as well.

Really loved this place - excellent service, friendly atmosphere and good food. Worth the few extra miles from Minneapolis even!!

Deets

Ward 6

858 Payne Avenue

St. Paul

Colossal Cafe

Visited on Friday, September 28th

Erin's Review

Our 7th wedding anniversary was September 24th, and because we had a few weddings in the weekends surrounding it that required babysitters for the kids, we chose to celebrate it by both taking a day off work and going to breakfast and then to the Ivy Spa Club to spend the day there (you can use their facilities all day by booking a service, it's awesome!).

When I sent Ben the list of breakfast options available, I realized just how slim the pickings are getting on our list. We have plenty of options should we ever want to have a nice dinner out, but very few for breakfast or a casual dinner. I guess it just goes to show just how many new places we've been to since we started this blog!

We settled on the new-ish outpost of Colossal Cafe that opened in St. Anthony Park, which is one of my favorite neighborhoods in St. Paul, and happened to be somewhat on the way to downtown from our house anyway. It was a beautiful fall Friday, and we were both in good moods with the anticipation of our spa day.

I was somewhat surprised to see that this was the type of place where you order at a counter versus table service. I'm not sure if that is always the case, but it was for the weekday breakfast. This to me makes it a good option for kids, since the food tends to come a lot faster. I made a quick decision to order an omelet with bacon, green onions and cream cheese as well as a mammoth cinnamon roll which they heated up for me. They are "famous" for their pancakes, but I was told by 2 people to avoid them, so I did just that :)

We sat down, got ourselves some coffee from the self-serve coffee station, and I enjoyed a few bites of my cinnamon roll before I started to lose my appetite and feel a little ill. I had a slight cold and headache going into the day, and unfortunately it was only getting worse. Ben and I seem to be plagued with these random bouts of flu-like feelings that only last a day, and always seem to happen at the exact same time.

By the time our food came, I had zero appetite and started to even feel queasy so I just nibbled at my toast while I downed some coffee to see if caffeine would perk me up. I did end up feeling okay for awhile, but not well enough to eat my food. Luckily, it kept well (the toast was amazing actually), and when I finally regained my appetite later in the day, the omelet really hit the spot. The combination of green onions, cream cheese and bacon vaguely reminded me of one of my favorite absolutely not authentic sushi rolls, the Philly. Delicious! Far too rich to enjoy while feeling icky though.

Colossal Cafe in St. Paul is a cute little cafe - it looks like they probably have remodeled the whole place, and I really liked the completely open kitchen. We'll definitely be back, especially since I love the neighborhood and it's so close to our house!

Ben's Review

For our anniversary we had planned to go to the spa at Hotel Ivy in downtown Minneapolis, with a stop for breakfast beforehand. My getting LASIK delayed our spa day by a few days, but the day finally arrived a few weeks ago. We dropped the kids off at daycare and headed to Colossal Cafe in Saint Paul for breakfast.

I wasn’t feeling too great that morning, it felt like a cold was coming on, but since we had the day off with breakfast and a day at the spa planned, I figured it would still be a good time.

We arrived at Colossal Cafe around 8 and headed in. You order at the counter, about halfway into the restaurant, and they give you a placard for your table to identify you with your order. There was no line, though plenty of other diners, so we quickly made our decisions from the blackboard menu. I opted for a sausage breakfast sandwich on a biscuit with a cup of coffee.

I like the model of ordering at the counter and having self serve coffee. I’m not much of a breakfast guy in the first place, and I would just as soon be in control of my own coffee refills rather than wait for the server to come back around.

We got some coffee and just enjoyed being out to eat without two little kids :) Colossal Cafe is a cutesy place in a cutesy neighborhood, so hanging out waiting for food among the laid back crowd isn’t a bad place to be on a Friday morning.

Our food came out rather quickly and my sandwich looked delicious. However, what I had noticed in the minutes between ordering and the food arriving is that my headache and ill feelings had gotten a bit worse and my appetite was literally non existent.

It’s rare when I can’t even bring myself to have a bite of food, but that’s how I felt at this moment, and I was really sad about it :( The sandwich looked so good and I WANTED to enjoy it, but at that moment the thought of eating it made me feel even worse. Erin hadn’t felt great either and HER appetite was minimal at best as well.

Having never ‘failed’ at breakfast before, we were pretty bummed. Luckily we thought that our food would keep ok, so we drove it home before going to the spa to enjoy later.

Eating my sandwich later in the day, while still not feeling well, was certainly better than having it in the morning when I felt awful. I’m happy to report that their breakfast sandwiches stand up well to being refrigerated for a couple hours and reheated in the microwave :)

We’ll be back to Colossal Cafe so we can give it a real try in the near future, if for no other reason than to erase the bad memories of the day when I couldn’t stomach breakfast.

Service: The service was good and everyone was friendly.
Food: We need to go back, but what I had was pretty good.
Drinks: Small list of beer, but it’s got several local options and a couple on tap.
Ambiance: This is a low key breakfast spot in a low key neighborhood.
Convenience: Plenty of street parking and bus routes. Didn’t see any bike racks, but they can’t be too far away.

Deets
Colossal Cafe
2315 Como Ave
St. Paul

Sun Street Breads

Visited on Friday, December 23rd

Ben's Review
For Erin’s birthday she wanted to go out for breakfast, unsurprisingly, and decided on Sun Street Breads in south Minneapolis. Since I still had to work that day we headed over there relatively early and found an already busy bakery.

The entrance to Sun Street Breads is a little confusing if you haven’t been there before. First, there is a curtain that blocks a view of the restaurant from you so you don’t know if you need to queue up, wait to be seated, or grab a table. Secondly, since you can either order food to eat there or simply stop by for a loaf of bread to go, it’s unclear if you wait in the same line depending on what service you need.

It turns out that the line is for everyone, though I certainly could see a second line being useful for those people that are not eating in. Erin probably made a faux pas by going in and grabbing a table with Annie while I got in line to order for us, but with limited seating we didn’t really care :)

Actually, another family came in after us with three kids and the dad took the kids to grab a table. Someone who was in line commented to him “Uh, I think you’re supposed to order before taking a table”, to which the dad replied, “Well, we’ve got three kids, so......I’m sorry if this inconveniences you.” I can see both sides of it, but still funny to overhear :)

Anyways, on to the food. We knew we’d be getting their breakfast biscuits, it was just a matter of what combination of meat, cheese, and eggs we’d be getting. In order to differ from Erin’s order I got ham with pepper jack cheese and a basted egg. I also got an americano to drink.

After ordering at the counter and getting a number for our table, we had a short wait and our drinks were brought out. The americano was better than I had expected for a place that focuses more on their bread than coffee. Our food also came out quickly while at the same time appeared to be freshly prepared. I happened to notice a bottle of sriracha sauce at the coffee station so I made sure to doctor up my sandwich a bit. The sandwich was fantastic, with the homemade biscuit being the highlight. Being that they have several combinations, and the prices are reasonable, I would for sure come back just to try several styles.

In addition to having great food, the ambiance at Sun Street Breads is cool because the kitchen is in plain view so you can see their large scale baking operation at work. It’s interesting to compare the tools and methods they get to use compared to what I see Erin doing at home when she bakes. We picked up a loaf of sourdough for a family get together that was also delicious.

I had a great time at Sun Street Breads and will be back this spring, probably on Erin’s maternity leave for a sandwich and perhaps a walk around the lake :)

Service: The line was long, but it moves quickly. All the people I encountered were friendly and attentive.
Food: Excellent breakfast and fresh bread.
Drinks: They have beer and wine and the beer selection is small but diverse.
Ambiance: I liked the ambiance a lot on the weekday morning we were there. I was shocked how busy it was, but it was the start of a holiday weekend.
Convenience: They do have a shared parking lot with the strip mall they’re in, but I couldn’t find a spot there. Plenty of bus options on Nicollet as well.

Erin's Review
After asking a few people for recommendations for a good new breakfast spot, I decided on Sun Street Breads for my birthday breakfast. Since my birthday was on a Friday, and some places only serve brunch on weekends, my options were a bit limited. After getting this recommendation, I saw Sun Street in many "best new restaurants" lists, so I figured it must be a good choice!

Ben and I drove separately, so when I got there I immediately got one of the only tables left, bypassing the long line. I'm sure I angered a lot of people by doing this, but it turned out that tables turned over fairly quickly, so everyone got a spot without incident. Ben got inside shortly after me, I took Annie and we got settled at the table. It took probably 10-15 minutes or so for Ben to get to the front of the line and order - it was WAY more packed than I had anticipated for a Friday morning.

Once Ben finally joined us, he brought a scone for our "starter" - it was quite good, and was in a different style than most scones I've had. We all enjoyed it. Since Annie is not so skilled in eating biscuit sandwiches just yet, we got her granola with yogurt. When it came out, the pieces of granola were huge and pretty hard, so I took most of them out and gave her just the yogurt with some of the littler pieces of granola. I did try a few bites and it was very good - just not so easy for a nearly 2 year old to eat with the large very crunchy pieces.

I got a pretty standard biscuit sandwich with fried egg, cheddar cheese, and sauce. It was absolutely delicious! I loved the sausage, and especially the biscuit. It filled me up for quite awhile too. There is nothing fancy at all about the food here, but it is very well prepared, and comes out with everything hot, including the biscuit, which is crucial. They have lunch and dinner too, and I'd really like to come back to try those meals as well.

As with all places in south Minneapolis, this is not convenient to us at all, however, if we have an open morning it's a fun outing, especially in the summer. Annie and I made the most of the trip by hitting up Heartfelt and Wild Rumpus in Linden Hills after breakfast when Ben went to work. Sun Street Breads is delicious and I'm glad we made it over there!

Deets
Sun Street Breads
4600 Nicollet Ave
Minneapolis

Cheeky Monkey Deli

Visited on Saturday, November 19th

Erin's Review
Cheeky Monkey Deli is definitely one of those places that I'm surprised we haven't been to earlier. I think now that I realize it is so close and tasty, we'll be back more often! We took advantage of Ben's parents offer to watch Annie for the weekend, and despite me having a pretty nasty cold, braved the elements not once but TWICE on Saturday to go out to eat. While Annie does enjoy eating out, our options are a bit limited with her in tow. Lately we've been loving places like Chipotle, smashburger, Longfellow and Highland Grill simply because Annie likes the meals on their kids menus and they are often loud (side note - I actually had NO idea Chipotle even had kids meals, but they do and they are reasonably healthy and cheap!).

Despite the fact that WE were without a toddler, everyone else at Cheeky Monkey had theirs with them! It was still nice to be able to know that we didn't have to deal with one, even if it did get a bit loud in there. So now we know - this place is definitely kid friendly, at least for lunch and brunch! On weekends from 10-2, they have a brunch menu in addition to their typical lunch menu. At night, it turns into more of a bistro. I'd definitely like to try this place for dinner as well.

It was a little before noon when we got there, so I was debating between brunch and lunch. In the end, my sweet tooth won out, so I went with the brioche french toast topped with berry compote and mascapone butter. This was divine - I got the smaller order and honestly think I could have polished off the large order myself! It didn't come with anything, and I had a hankering for some meat so I got bacon on the side. Sausage would have been my first choice, but that wasn't an option. I actually am not usually a fan of plain bacon, but theirs was a perfect mix of chewy and crispy, and not too greasy.

I also got a cup of decaf to sip on before and after I ate my french toast (I'm not a fan of hot drinks while eating a hot meal) since I'd already had my caffeine allotment for the day at home. The coffee was good, but they didn't bring out nearly enough sugar for me, as usual :)

I decided to leave the big camera at home and try out Ben's new iPhone 4s for photos for this review - all of these are without any editing. While obviously my DSLR does a better job, the iPhone camera has left my point-and-shoot camera in the dust, as long as there is sufficient light available!

All in all, I really liked Cheeky Monkey - the ambiance was pleasant and the staff was friendly. My food was delicious and I definitely would like to come back to try more!

Ben's Review
My parents offered to take Annie for the weekend, so Erin and I made use of our time without Annie by going out to lunch on Saturday, right as the snow was starting to move in.

Erin had picked Cheeky Monkey Deli and after I checked out the menu and location, I was on-board. I’m always more inclined to go somewhere close, especially because you knew the roads would be ridiculous with the first messy snow of the season (and that turned out to be true).

We rolled into the parking lot just a few minutes before noon and grabbed one of the many tables that were available. It wasn’t very full there yet, but it was heavily slanted towards families for some reason. Moms and dads with two or more kids mostly, so it was surprisingly hectic. I had not realized they had beer and wine and being that we had a day of absolutely nothing going on, I ordered a beer (Sweet child of vine) at 11:50.

In spite of all the kids there, I enjoyed the ambiance. By this time there was a nice looking snowfall through the large windows out front and the decor inside is clean and cozy. I especially liked their blackboards as they had some art on them in addition to the menu.

Having looked at the menu before we went, I knew they had a Cuban sandwich and I KNEW that’s what I was going to order. I’m totally addicted to these sandwiches, they’re so f-ing good. The sandwiches don’t come with a side, so I reluctantly decided to add on some homemade potato chips, even though I knew I wouldn’t be that hungry for them.

Our food came out soon enough and I was pleasantly surprised at how hot my sandwich was, it nearly hurt to hold onto. It didn’t feel like a “heat lamp” heat either, it seemed genuinely hot off the press, and it was just as delicious with a great mix of pork, ham, cheese, mustard, and pickles. The homemade potato chips were just OK, they had a bit too much oil on them so some of them weren’t crispy at all. While they were called “salt and pepper chips”, I didn’t taste any pepper and hardly any salt. I prefer fries anyways and the sandwich certainly filled me up, so it was no big deal.

Being that it was just lunch, Erin managed to hold off on dessert for now :) We hung around for a bit and reveled in the fact that we had no schedule today. On the way out we snapped some photos with my phone (the whole review is from my phone, in fact) and then braved the 1” of snow to get home.

Service: Service was just fine, it looks like sometimes it might be counter service as they had a place for a line to queue up, but we received full service.
Food: Excellent Cuban sandwich and so-so potato chips.
Drinks: Beer and wine, with a decent list of each.
Ambiance: It was a mix of families and older couples today and not much in between. Other than some loud kids it was pleasant.
Convenience: They have a parking lot with a few spaces, which is great, otherwise you’ll be parking on Selby. Probably plenty of bus service too.

Deets
Cheeky Monkey Deli
525 Selby Ave
St. Paul

Black Forest Inn

Visited on Friday, May 27 with Jake and Allison

Ben's Review

Erin heard about spargelfest at Black Forest Inn and wanted to check it out. Her parents took Annie up to the cabin one day early on Memorial Day weekend, so we took the opportunity to meet our friends Jake and Allison for dinner before heading up ourselves on Friday night.

I had heard that Black Forest Inn had a great patio, but I wasn’t really excited to try this place out. After having what I considered to be bland, uninteresting food in Germany during our honeymoon, I had written off their food entirely. Spargelfest sounded cool, and I do like asparagus, so we headed over after work.

It was cold out the day we went, so the patio wasn’t going to happen, which was unfortunate. The inside of Black Forest Inn reminded me of the beer halls in Germany with the high, painted ceilings, the woodwork, and the customers and staff.

We had arrived early which gave us plenty of time to look over the menu and consider our options. I started with a beer (Erin insisted that I get a German beer, which I was going to anyway) and got the Paulaner Salvator.

I was surprised at how much of the food actually seemed good, not what my prejudiced mind was expecting, which was nice. I actually didn’t end up getting any spargelfest specialty, but I made sure to try Erin’s asparagus soup. I went traditional and got the bratwurst dinner which consisted of two bratwurst links, hot German potato salad, sauerkraut, and rye bread. I also noticed that they had a maibock mentioned on the spargelfest menu that was not on the beer list, so I got a maibock with my meal as well (can’t recall the brand now).

I was amazed at how good this food was. I don’t know if I just happened to get bad food in Germany, or if my tastes have changed in the past five years. The bratwurst was excellent, and I even slightly enjoyed my sauerkraut. The best part though, was the hot potato salad. I had breezed over the word ‘hot’ in the menu and was expecting the cold variety that we know and love. This potato salad was phenomenal and I fully intend to try making this at home because it cannot be that difficult.

Jake and I also got to have the lion’s share of Erin’s pork because she had ordered a ridiculously sized portion for herself and found herself not really needing her third slab of meat. Needless to say we left incredibly full and with leftovers for the cabin.

Service: The service was just OK, it took awhile to get our drinks and orders taken. Our server changed halfway through, so there must have been a shift change or something going on.
Food: The food was excellent and the portions were huge.
Drinks: Small beer list, but they have light and dark German beers and a couple macro brews.
Ambiance: Kind of loud and boisterous, while also friendly, which also reminded me of Germany.
Convenience: Black Forest Inn actually has a parking lot, which I did not realize. We parked on the street, and we’ve always managed to find a close street spot when we come to this area.

Erin's Review

Like many places on our list, I'd been wanting to go to Black Forest Inn for many many years. German food just isn't high on my wish list, however. The patio was the biggest selling point for me, so I was pretty disappointed that it was cold and raining on the day we planned to go. I do definitely think we'll have to go back sometime to sit on the patio, because it looks beautiful!

Ben and I took our honeymoon, now 5.5 years ago, to Germany, and Jake and Allison just went on a trip to Germany last year, so it was fun for all of us to reminisce about our time in the FATHERLAND (not Motherland as I sometimes have been known to mistakenly say).

I was having a REALLY hard time figuring out what to order. I started off with a refreshing root beer, and then stared at the menu for a good 20 minutes while we waited for Jake and Allison to show up. I knew I wanted SOMETHING with asparagus, and wanted a pretzel. Those were my basic requirements.

Finally I decided to order the asparagus soup as a starter - it was creamy and delicious, with mostly pureed asparagus but with enough chunks to make it interesting. It brought back pleasant memories of the asparagus soup I had in Amsterdam on the last night of our vacation in Europe 2 years ago.

After MUCH deliberation, I decided to go with the hausplatte - it was described on the menu as "A generous sampling of rippchen, bratwurst, polish sausage, red cabbage, sauerkraut, and potato salad. Served with a fresh-baked pretzel and homemade mustard". I mistakenly thought that this would be a "sample" plate - which is what it said on the menu. But no. This was FULL portions of EACH of those meats, PLUS a pretzel and full orders of each of those sides. Um. A bit much for me, you could say. I did think this was DELICIOUS - especially the pretzel. The only thing I wasn't a fan of was the "rippchen" which was some kind of huge slab of pork. No thanks. Anyway - my advice is that this plate is PLENTY for two people. I made good headway with the brat and potato salad, and some saurkraut but that was about it. Far too much for one or even probably two people. Despite the solo pretzels not being anywhere that I could see on the menu, you can just order one on the side. Probably a better idea than ordering an enormous meal just because it came with a pretzel. Oh well, live and learn.

Black Forest Inn was friendly and inviting - everyone seemed to be having a great time. Upon looking at their website, they have a kids menu and I saw plenty of high chairs too. We might have to go back with Annie in tow for a patio visit later this summer.

Deets

Black Forest Inn

1 East 26th Street

Minneapolis

Pizzeria Lola

Visited on Saturday, March 19th with Jake, Allison and Newman

Ben's Review

Since our friends Jake and Allison live three blocks from the new pizza place in south Minneapolis, Pizzeria Lola, we had been meaning to make it over there to try it out. Last Saturday we finally got together, and Newman was even in town for the WCHA playoffs, so he joined us in trying it out.

The server commented on our "diverse" table because of our varying state shirts

We walked to Lola from Jake and Allison’s as it was a rather nice day out, and after the winter we’ve had, it felt good to be outside. Annie enjoyed using the Ergo again after a long hiatus. [Editor's note: Not really that long of a hiatus since we used it in some stores and in Mexico, but whatever - she still enjoyed it]

Since Lola doesn’t open until 5pm, Jake had called around 4:45 to try to get us on the list, since there were five adults and one toddler. It is amazing to me how busy this place gets so early in the evening. We arrived a few minutes before five and they were already open and I would estimate that one third of the tables were full. Fifteen minutes after we arrived the place was packed and people were starting to line up behind the bar. Jake mentioned that the bar/waiting area resembles Al’s Breakfast in Dinkytown; people awkwardly have to stand directly behind someone sitting at the bar. Not the best environment for the people waiting or the people at the bar, but what can you do? It will certainly be better in the spring/summer/fall when people can wait outside instead.

They serve wood fired pizza at Lola and the oven is right in the middle of the restaurant. It’s a beautiful centerpiece as it’s lined with soft looking copper that fits in well with the wood-lined walls. The can lighting is interesting as well, they used tomato sauce cans to house the bulbs, and I thought I heard someone say that Lola got the cans from Punch Pizza.

The pizzas at Lola are on the small side, so for five adults we ordered four pizzas to share. We got a plain margherita pizza, the Lady Zaza, the Boise, and the Sweet Italian. The pizzas came out in a reasonable amount time, enough time for us to chat a bit and enjoy our beverages (they had Furious on tap, always a plus). Newman was excited about the Mexican coke, but then proceeded to order a regular fountain coke, justifying it because he was going to have several refills (he drank probably three cokes).

Lady ZaZa

Sweet Italian

I tried the Lady Zaza first which has kimchee sausage, peppers, and green onions. This was surprisingly spicier than I thought it would be, but it was delicious. The crust is excellent and reminds me of Punch Pizza, which is to be expected. Next I had the Sweet Italian, which looked like a more traditional pizza with red sauce, sausage, onions, peppers, and cheese. These two were definitely my favorite, though none of the pizzas were bad. The margherita was good, but they are too sparse for my liking, Annie seemed to enjoy it. The Boise is a potato pizza, as the name implies, and it was tasty, I actually had several of these pieces because we all ate our fill and they were still on the table. That was my cue to help out.

By the time we had finished our pizza it was even fuller than before, with a large line of people at the bar and people milling about outside. Jake, Allison, and Erin all ordered dessert while Newman and I watched them eat it. I tried a bite of Erin’s vanilla ice cream (Mexican vanilla, not that inferior Madagascar vanilla) and it was absolutely fantastic. I was amazed at how good it was, and now I’m reminded to seek some of that out at the store sometime.

We headed out the back entrance to give the photo booth a try. You can buy a ticket for $3 which gets you a photo booth session. The booth takes three pictures and then prints them on a strip for you to take home, or you can cut it down the middle and hang one of the sides on the wall, where they have a sizable collection growing. We opted to leave one of ours, we’ll have to find it next time we go back.

I enjoyed Pizzeria Lola very much and I intend to go back this summer when it’s nicer out, since we have friends that live so close anyways.

Service: Service was great, the manager stopped by to check in on us as well.
Food: Great pizza, excellent vanilla ice cream.
Drinks: The bar is just beer and wine, but they have a good selection of beers. I’m not sure how they got to have Surly, I had heard there is something like a three year waiting list or something.
Ambiance: Certainly a family place, as it’s located right in the middle of a residential area. People were friendly and welcoming.
Convenience: Lola is located right on Xerxes, so there is some bus service. Plenty of parking in the blocks right around the restaurant and easily walkable.

Erin's Review

I am a big fan of pizza, and would eat it for most meals if I could. I kept hearing about how great Pizzeria Lola was, but it being completely across town from us, we hadn't gotten over there yet. We finally set a date to go over and visit Jake and Allison and their pups Bella and Lola and then to go on to Pizzeria Lola. Jake has met the owner of Pizzeria Lola, who named the place after their dog. The owner apparently did not care at all that Jake also had a dog named Lola and lived 3 blocks away, which made Jake a wee bit sad, but not sad enough to not go there.

The walk over was pleasant on that nice spring day - now if only the temps would creep up to the 50s again so this dang snow would all melt! We got there RIGHT at 5, so thankfully got a table right away. Waiting a long time at restaurants really isn't an option for us anymore with Annie, so I'm glad we had the intel to get there so early and avoid what looked like very long waits later! We were seated in a booth, and placed our drink orders quickly. I asked if they had kids cups for milk, and the server said yes - they aren't little cups though, they are just full plastic cups with lids and straws - this worked ok but I had to watch Annie and help her hold the cup lest it go everywhere. We had a sippy cup but forgot it in Jake and Allison's fridge, of course! I am going to add a "kids welcome" label to the blog so people can click that to see the places we've been that I would consider toddler appropriate. Obviously you CAN bring them anywhere, but these are the places I think are better suited to the wee ones.

I really loved the decor at Pizzeria Lola - it was very centered around their pizza oven, which kept the place toasty warm. Hopefully they have powerful A/C for summertime! The oven had some fancy birchwood in the bottom, but we discovered their secret stash of oak in the back when we left through the back exit near the photobooth. Along with a few other places we've visited lately, Lola uses mismatched plates which lends a homey vibe but seems to be not that unique anymore.

Ben details which pizzas we ordered above - Annie ate mostly the Margherita, which she seemed to love, and some of the Sweet Italian. I also ate these 2, along with one piece of The Boise, which was actually my favorite of all of them. The pizza tasted completely different than it looked - cheesy and almost sweet from the thinly sliced potatoes and carmelized onions. I loved it! Annie had one bite of that one and liked it as well. She'll eat pretty much anything, though, so isn't too tough of a critic. I didn't even try the Lady Zaza because of reports that it was spicy - I figured I'd leave that one to people that would actually enjoy it.

The Boise

Margherita

Jake told me about the ice cream sandwich they had gotten on their last visit, so I was already planning on giving that a try. They now offer it as a "deconstructed" ice cream sandwich, so the cookies and ice cream are separate - Jake mentioned that the one he had tried before was nearly frozen solid, so this is a great move on their part so they can keep the cookies somewhat warm and the ice cream soft. They have 2-3 ice cream flavors daily, I went with the vanilla and I believe Allison went with hazelnut. Ben mentions above that they were very specific that this was MEXICAN vanilla. I previously haven't been picky about my vanilla ice cream, but perhaps I should be??

The ice cream was great, but I was disappointed in the cookies. I don't know why I bother to ever order cookies at a restaurant, when the ones I make at home are absolute perfection in every way, AND I can get them fresh from the oven since we keep the dough balls in the freezer. The cookies weren't warm or chewy, which is a cookie fail in my book. The ice cream sandwich was fine, but with crunchy cookies, you're basically just getting ice cream everywhere since you can't successfully bite through both cookies AND ice cream without squeezing the sandwich completely together, thus you don't get much ice cream in a bite. It wasn't all bad, just not what I prefer.

On the way out, we had to try the photobooth, since Ben worked on the software for it. At $3 a pop, it's a bit pricey, but was a fun souvenir for us to have, and we are now forever immortalized on Pizzeria Lola's wall o' photos.

Despite the disappointing ice cream sandwich, I really liked Pizzeria Lola. The pizza combinations were unique and tasty, and the atmosphere was fun. Because there are a number of similar pizza places much closer to our house, I don't know that we'll be back too often, but it is a welcome addition to the skimpy SW Minneapolis restaurant scene!

Deets

Pizzeria Lola

5557 Xerxes Ave

Minneapolis