You guys, you’re about to witness history. When we speak of this night in the future, it will forever be known as the night that the WTGW guys won the most prestigious award ever bestowed upon this collective group.
This will make more sense by the end of this post. Trust me.
So if we’ve actually been inside the building before, but it was under a different name and the menu was different, should this be considered a new place or a revisit? I’m a little sketchy on the rules here. Which, being that I’m usually the one that makes said rules up, is saying something.
I’m not sure what exactly it is that it’s saying. But something.
Anyway.
So the last time we set foot in this establishment, it was 2016 and the place was then called The Pit Stop Bar & Grille. We learned then that the place was good for sides but not main meals, they didn’t know how to bring appetizers out ahead of dinners, the lighting left our photos looking like we lived in an Instagram filter, and the server didn’t care much at all for small talk.
Sounds delightful, no? Amazing that we didn’t go back at all until now. Also, spoiler alert, a few of those things haven’t changed at all in these past few years.
But of course once we heard the new name, we knew we had to give is another try. If nothing else so that Shane could dress appropriately.
Upon looking at the menu, Cassi immediately announces that she wants the Dilly Dills – which, if you can’t figure out the witty code words, are fried pickles. Jason objected under the pretense that they had been ordering fried pickles at various places a lot lately, and he would like to try something else.
Cassi: Well when someone orders them I want to have one
Consider the gauntlet thrown.
I actually didn’t believe they were really called Dilly Dills until I looked at the menu. But yep, that’s the real name.
See also: Dilly Nachos, the Dilly Philly, and something called the Dilly Dang Hot Burger.
I’m sensing a theme here.
Of course we asked the server what was good – because, well, that’s Shane’s favorite question. Her response was that it was literally her first day, and she admitted that she hadn’t yet tried anything on the menu. Well, OK then. Props for honesty, dear server. Believe it or not we prefer that answer to the alternative of just smiling at us and saying “Everything. It’s all good. Yep, eat anything, you’re sure to love it all.”
So since she was no help in our food selections, we had to resort to asking about the daily specials. Turns out Wednesday is pizza night – which equates to a 12 inch pizza with one topping for the bargain price of $7.99.
And just like that she’s Shane’s new best friend again. He ordered the pizza special, along with six wings.
I opted for the BLT with tater tots. And of course we ordered the prerequisite Dilly Dills, lest Cassi be disappointed.
Ted ordered breaded mushrooms. And Cajun wings. AND the lake perch dinner. To which the server couldn’t contain her amazement at the sheer volume of food. Or maybe she was trying to gently suggest that Ted’s imaginary friend couldn’t possibly be hungry enough to help him finish all that. In any case, we all reassured her that this is really nothing unusual. I mean, come on. We’ve seen worse. Need I bring up the the giant sheet pizza incident?
Exactly.
Cassi ordered the Hot Italian Sub, with fries. Jason, meanwhile, did a twinsies order with Shane – the pizza special and six boneless wings.
Shocker, I know.
Our server arrived back at our table a few minutes after taking our order, a move we’ve all come to realize means one of us has spun the roulette wheel and ended up on “disappointment.” This time it was Jason, whose order of six boneless wings was an illegal substitution, and he had to either move to six bone-in wings or up the order to 12 boneless.
Twelve it is. Challenge accepted.
Speaking of challenges, Ted claimed to have read this entire blog after Shane once again began teasing him relentlessly about his penchant for choosing a second or third location of a chain that we had visited prior (a conversation started by the news the South End Tavern is opening a new location in Akron), and claimed he only found two instances where he chose someplace of the same name after someone else picked the original. If anyone cares to fact check this statement and take the “I’ve Read Five Years Worth of These People Talking About Eating Lots of Food” challenge, please let me know.
I’m sure we can come up with a prize. I mean, beyond the obvious useless party conversation knowledge of what all of us prefer on our pizzas or how many times Ted has asked for something without cheese.
Or how many times we’ve been out on Wednesdays and it happens to be trivia night at the place we’ve picked, and we’re all extremely excited to join in on that little game.
OK, I’ll give you a head start and answer that last one for you … because it’s only happened one time, and this night would be it. I blame the food taking a hella long time to reach our table. The guys were worn down by hunger, and thought it would be super fun to form a trivia team … then feel way stupid when the questions involve things like world geography and metaphysical science, and you’e not allowed to ask Google or Siri for help with the answers.
Good times. We’ll come back to that little experiment in a bit.
So back to our dinners, someone who is allowed to use Google and works in the in the kitchen at Dilly D’s may want to inquire about the meaning of the word “appetizer.” Because while I can’t tell you offhand what the actual definition is … what I can tell you is that it’s NOT “stuff that comes out alongside a meal just to add more food to the table.” I mean, if that was the case then why make it a whole separate section on the menu and all.
Weird, I know.
Also, this has apparently been an issue for two restaurant names and menu changes now, so maybe it’s time to start looking into this issue a little further?
Just a thought.
So here we are with ALL THE FOOD on our table – which, sidenote, was thankfully an appropriate size this time around so we could actually hold it all at once without having to balance plates on our laps.
And, OK, all the food except for Shane’s pizza, which we were told was “going to take a bit,” because “there was a mistake and we have to remake it.”
Translation: They never put the order in.
It’s not our first day, kids. Please. We may not be good with trivia questions about which mammal lives in camoflague in a river in Southeast Asia, but we’re pretty quick to decode server lingo when it comes to food delivery.
But alas, at least Shane still had our pickle appetizer to eat while he waited, right? Yeah .. about that …
That would be three pickle spears … disguised by a whole vat of batter. Which I know sounds delightful. But, well, no.
Oh wait, that wasn’t the full order. They “ran out” as they were making our app, and would bring us a full order to go later. We weren’t clear if they ran out of batter (which would make sense, seeing as it was an insane amount, especially when you also take into account it was also used on Ted’s order of breaded mushrooms) or the pre-cut pickle spears … which, I’m guessing, was maybe more so the case, and they just sent someone next door to the convenience store to pick up a new jar.
Newsflash: they could’ve saved themselves the trouble, because we really didn’t want to finish the three pickles in the “incomplete order,” much less the *ahem* FOUR that arrived at our table in the to-go box later in our meal. But it’s the thought that counts?
In contrast to the apps, Ted said that the batter on his perch was surprisingly light. We’d suggest they use whatever recipe that is for all things battered and fried from here on out. But that’s just us.
Moving on to sandwiches. My BLT was just OK. The “B” was really good, very crunchy without being burnt. Trust me when I say that’s kind of an art form to perfect. And while the bread was OK as far as taste, it gets a lesser grade just because the texture of it caused me to lose a layer of skin on the roof of my mouth from biting into it. Meanwhile Cassi’s Hot Italian had a mushy bottom. Which is something you definitely don’t want in a sandwich … or really life in general, I would think.
The pizza was the clear winner of the evening. Despite being cut into strangely non-uniform pieces (as Jason pointed out when he picked up the tiniest piece ever to be called a “slice”), it was tasty. Shane loved that it was super cheesy (something that certainly wasn’t lost on Ted, as he had to sit nearby and watch Shane pull the gooey slices apart) and he said the flavor was excellent. Cassi tried Jason’s and I think was ready to try to trick him into a trade for his meal – but was clearly at a disadvantage when all she had to offer was a mushy bottomed hot Italian.
This post has taken an odd route.
Ted hit the nail of this experience on the head when he pointed out that usually our downfall when we go places is that the apps are great but the rest of the food not so much … but this place was the complete opposite.
So, future us, when reading this while seated at a table during our eventual revisit, heed this warning: skip the appetizers. Aside from the fact that they will just arrive with your dinners anyway, they won’t be worth the extra calories or money. Just go straight for the pizza.
And the reason I know we will eventually be back at this place is … well … refer back to the photo at the top of this post.
Yes, that’s a gift card back to this very establishment. And why, you may ask, would we have this?
Because the guys won trivia.
That’s right, the team that knew virtually zero of the answers and were at the very bottom of the scoreboard following every round, somehow managed to come back at the very end and take the lead by going “all in” on the final question.
Life is strange, folks.
And so was the team name.
If this were an article in the “most insane news you really don’t care about” department, the headline would be “The Moist Towlettes take the trivia world by storm with a come-from-behind victory in their first ever competition.”
So that happened.
In other news, we actually remembered to take our pictures this time, so you get to see our smiling faces and attempt to decipher our thumb position rating system once again. I know you’ve missed it.
Picked by: Shane
Where To Go Wednesdays 