From A Woman Who Likes Food

Art Thomason has an editorial in today's AZ Republic that details the failure of Pizza Picasso:

Another Gilbert restaurant with a fare for higher income consumers has bit the dust, making one of its owners wonder why he believed in the town's appealing demographics and opened in the first place.

"I don't know what the heck is going on out there," said Dennis Daniel, director of operations for Pizza Picazzo, a pizza restaurant that quietly closed its Gilbert store at Baseline and McQueen roads. "If someone could figure it out they probably wouldn't have to work for a living."

I don't usually read Mr. Thomason's editorials because I find him so negative; but this article inspired some pondering about Gilbert's restaurant businesses.

I know that the restaurant business is incredibly risky; people are fickle, loving someone's place for a while and then moving on to the next new thing. Shoot, I'm fickle, and have engaged in that very behavior. So when a restaurant has staying power, you know that they have figured something out. Even Thomason admits that:

Restaurateurs such as Joe Johnston figured it with his successful Joe's Real BBQ in Gilbert's downtown Heritage District. So have Sylvia Hilligardt and her daughter, Milli Smith, owners of the Farmhouse Restaurant less than a block from Joe's. And they're open only for breakfast and lunch.

So what's my idea of what makes a restaurant good enough to return time and again? Good food, great service, and reasonable price, in that order. I am willing to call higher prices "reasonable" if the food and service match the price. Mahogany run had good food, horrible service and very high prices. They could never get over the hump on that. Joe Johnston has proved he is very savvy in this market by developing the Coffee Plantation chain, moving on to Joe's Real BBQ, and is now planning a restaurant on his homestead in Agritopia that will feature some of the produce grown right there on their farmland. My money's on Joe; and I hope he hurries it up, since it's so close to us Morrison Ranch residents.

Here's a list of some of the restaurants we seem to keep frequenting:

Nando's
This Mexican restaurant at Val Vista and Baseline has to go at the top of the list, since our office dines there at least once a week. These guys hit the trifecta perfectly - great food, great service, reasonably priced. The only bad thing that can be said is that those lovely suede seats on the booths just don't let one slide. But it's easily overlooked.

Joe's BBQ
The only thing that prevents us from eating here more often is our weight. Seriously, it is difficult to "eat light" at a BBQ place, but that's obvious. May I also say about Joe (full disclosure, I do know his family and we frequent some of the same social circles) that he is really a generous guy to the community? He gives away a ton of food, it seems, from his once or twice annual free lunch to gift certificates for charities to donating food for public events. His generosity hasn't seemed to run him out of business. He's downtown on Gilbert, near the Hale Theater.

Farm House Cafe
Also along Gilbert Road in the Heritage District, this is a great place to take out-of town guests for a flavor of Gilbert. Their success prevents us from eating there even more frequently; the Mister and I find ourselves impatient and generally unwilling to wait for a table. Though I will point out that when our winter visitors leave (and they have, for this summer), the wait time goes way down.

Temari's Japanese
Located in the shopping center at the northeast corner of Val Vista and Guadalupe, these folks provide good, authentic Japanese cuisine. The Water Expert was stationed in Japan for a while and has an appetite for sushi; this is where we go to fill that need.

Euro Cafe
Back to downtown Gilbert in the space where "Cafe Ah Pwah" resided for a while (the Mister and I liked that restaurant, but their portions were so small that we couldn't ever get anyone to go with us, especially our football-playing son). The folks from Euro Cafe moved a very successful operation from Mesa to Gilbert, and to a much smaller space. They are full every time we go, so I think they brought a lot of their former clientele with them. They also have about a billion choices on the menu.

I could actually go on for several more paragraphs, but I think I'll stop here lest you think that I never cook at home...

Maybe Art Thomason could write an editorial on all the successful restaurants in Gilbert.