Saturday, May 17, 2014 • Page 1B
Barbecue with Staying Power at Pizzitola’s Pizzitola’s wasn’t always known for its spareribs. In fact, Pizzitola’s wasn’t always known as Pizzitola’s. While the banner currently draped outside the restaurant touts a recent thirty year anniversary, its history began many decades before that. “This was some of the best brisket in town,” said current owner Jerry Pizzitola, who inherited a love of barbecue from his father. “My dad couldn’t pass up any barbecue place. He’d stop anywhere.” Eventually his father’s hankering for pit-smoked meats led them both to an East Texas-style barbecue joint run by John Davis and his wife, Leila. The place had garnered quite a following since its inception in 1935, though imminent domain and the construction of Interstate 10 threatened to put an end to the Davis’ dream for good. Transportation advancements notwithstanding, the good people of Houston still wanted their brisket, and so John Davis obliged by relocating his barbecue restaurant – and the pits he cooked on –
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to its current location at 1703 Shepherd Dr. “[Davis] just broke [the pits] down and rebuilt them,” said Jerry.
From all accounts, including Davis’ daughter’s – whom Jerry leases the business from – the bricks in the two hickoryfired pits are remnants of the
betsy@theleadernews.com
LA Crawfish Opens Third Location
The popular Vietnamese-style crawfish joint, LA Crawfish, is definitely moving into the neighborhood soon. A recent post on their Facebook page announced they would be opening a 3,600square-foot location (their third), mid-May. The address is 6439 W. 43rd St. - the space formerly occupied by Fornos of Italy. A sign on the door is soliciting employees for the location. Interested parties should call 832-964-4489 for more information.
Beer Market & Co. Now Serving
Thirsty residents in the Wash-
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original location. They are also the only open pits of their kind located inside a commercial establishment in the city. They were grandfathered in, and so
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NOW OPEN
Sat. May 24 • 2-6PM East River - Classic C&W
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708 E. Parker Rd.
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Oak Forest residents Christina Logan, left, and Kelli Johnson wanted sweetFrog to be the kind of place their kids Caden and Evan would enjoy. (Photo Betsy Denson)
committed to leading this community. We wanted to do something for them and their children. It was important to us that people could walk here after dinner if they wanted to.” The 2,100 square foot store scheduled to open the end of May was designed to be a neighborhood hangout. Inside capacity is 50 and because they have the anchor location at The Shops at Oak Forest, there will be a patio area outside with big and little Adirondack chairs. There’s a separate room with a television and Wi-Fi for birthday parties or children’s
story hours. Logan envisions students – like son Caden – coming to do homework there after school or local groups using it for a meeting space. “Because we live here, this is what we would want,” said Logan. “We’ll have the Texans playing on Sunday.” Details like changing stations in both the men’s and women’s restrooms and a big sink outside the bathrooms for washing hands and faces were important for the two moms. “We want people to come as a family,” said Logan. The hired staff are almost
ington Corridor and beyond now have a new watering hole to wet their whistles. Beer Market Co. Kitchen + Bar is now serving up a huge variety of craft brews, wine and food in their space at 920 Studemont. Houstonia Magazine had a first look at the gastropub and found it “turning out some impressive food” as well as attracting a wide variety of clientele.
Ninja Ramen Slinging Ramen on Washington Ave
Though ninjas are supposed to be stealth, presumably the owners of Ninja Ramen (4219 Washington Ave) want their restaurant to be more visible than its namesake now that it’s officially open. The restaurant recently posted a not-so-secret announcement
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See sweetFrog, P. 2B
Nibbles More crawfish to come amber@amberambrose.com
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Carlton Gould, Christine Lewis, Jerry Pizzitola and David Reynosa are all part of the Pizzitola team. (Photo by Amber Ambrose)
By Betsy Denson
By Amber Ambrose
See Pizzitola’s, P. 2B
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This sweet spot is hoppin’ For Oak Forest resident and Assistant Harris County District Attorney Kelli Johnson, her role as co-owner of the new sweetFrog Premium Frozen Yogurt at 1214 W. 43rd Street, will be a nice counterbalance to her job prosecuting criminal cases. A self-proclaimed sweets addict, she jokes, “I love that my biggest decision here will be helping somebody choose between Oreos and Cookie Dough.” Co-owner Christina Logan, a vice president at Mac Haik Realty LLC, considers herself a connoisseur of frozen yogurt and a staunch believer in the Garden Oaks/Oak Forest neighborhood. So once she and Johnson visited a sweetFrog Yogurt franchise in Johnson’s hometown of Sulphur Springs – and learned of their community-minded business model - it was not a big leap for them to undertake the joint endeavor. “We sold a house and had some money,” said Logan. “We’d rather invest in ourselves than in the stock market.” Their location was a no-brainer for Logan, who’s been in the area with Johnson for six years. “We think that 77018 and 77092 are the best zip codes in the city. Everywhere we go we meet people
soned – so to speak – by years of building a relationship with his predecessor, John Davis (who has since passed away). “I would come here in the time of day when there wasn’t much going on and sit and talk to him,” said Jerry. “I’d ask questions, but there was no way he would show us the kitchen. It was like a secret in there.” While that secret was eventually exposed, there’s no
the legacy of John Davis’ original handiwork lives on. Pizzitola’s still cooks briskets on those historic pits, but when Jerry took over the business in 1983, he added some of his own touches. “The ribs and chicken that we’ve put together here were my great grandmother’s,” explains Jerry. “All we use to season them are salt and pepper, but over a period of time, the bricks built up seasoning from all those generations of hickory smoke.” Pizzitola himself was sea-
By Amber Ambrose amber@amberambrose.com
on their Facebook page (May 9) stating “It’s a secret, but we are open!” In subsequent comments, they also divulge dinner service ends at 2 a.m. on weekdays and 3 a.m. on the weekends and are closed Mondays.
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Lillo & Ella Getting Close
Chef Kevin Naderi’s second restaurant - his first is the critically acclaimed Roost in Montrose - Lillo & Ella at 2307 Ella Blvd has scheduled a friends-and-familystyle lunch and dinner this week. The casual invitation-only meals are traditionally used by staff as a trial run before the official opening, which means it won’t be long until the public will have access to the restaurant.
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1308 W. 20th Street | 713-230-8352 houstoncorkscrew.com
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