Really! Great Food in Openings & Roc City Ribfest
Mark Leenhouts named his new restaurant, Shea’s, after his grandfather. But he could have just as easily called it destiny. “We were looking for a name, and I really wanted to give it a family name,” says Leenhouts. “So when I thought of Shea – my grandfather’s last name – I called my brother, excited, to tell him, and he looked into the history of the building. And it turns out my grandfather opened a bakery in 1918 at this exact address called Shea’s Family Bakery. It was fate.”
Leenhouts, who says he has been involved in the restaurant and food industry virtually his whole life (notably, he was integral in creating the Market Cafe at Wegmans during his 12-year tenure with the company), purchased the restaurant last year while the space was still inhabited by restaurant and wine bar The Social. According to Leenhouts, he was talking to then-owner Donna DiMarzo about his desire to start a restaurant, and she asked him what he would do with the space if it was his. When he answered, she offered to sell it to him since she was busy with her many other projects, including Veneto Wood-Fired Pizza and Pasta, just up the street.
After months of remodeling and menu research, Shea’s officially opened on May 9. The restaurant’s menu and decor both ooze comfort with a hip, affordable twist. Leenhouts, who has a background in architecture and design and formerly owned Fabrics and Findings on Anderson Street, has brought his keen sense of style to the interior, which is poshly decorated with rich red walls, beige leather booths, and two ornate dining room tables that overlook the East Avenue scene. Executive Chef Shamus Gibney has given the same attention to the menu, which focuses on a wide variety of comfort foods.
“During harder times, people go back to comfort food,” says Leenhouts. “They want something mom used to make. We’ve done that, but given it today’s flavors – we didn’t want it to be the dried-out, old meatloaf that we all hated.”
Gibney says his menu’s signature items are the stuffed meatloaf, which is filled with prosciutto, spinach, and mozzarella and then baked in marinara sauce, and the six varieties of macaroni and cheese, including Carbonara mac and cheese (with bacon, peas, asiago, and parmesan), stroganoff mac and cheese (with chunks of London broil, egg noodles, and gruyere) and macaroni con queso (with black beans, chorizo, and lime tequila). Other noteworthy menu items include Buffalo pierogies (traditional potato and cheese pierogies tossed in Buffalo wing sauce), and the lazy noodle chicken soup, filled with handmade dumpling noodles, fennel, and a homemade chicken broth.
Shea’s also offers desserts provide by local bakery Creme de la Creme. Currently, no wine or beer is offered, but Leenhouts expects the liquor license in about six weeks.
To find Shea’s in City Newspaper’s online Restaurant Guide – including a map, user reviews, and more – click here.
Shea’s is located at 330 East Ave. It is open Tuesdays-Thursdays 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Fridays-Saturdays until 1 a.m., and Sundays for brunch 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Entree prices range $6-$15. For more information, call 325-6595.
The whole half
Attention salad aficionados: Half Moon Creative Salads opened late last month, offering a wide variety of healthy fare. The menu offers nine specialty salads, including classic Caesar, Cobb, Greek, and Asian salads, plus the ability to create your own. If you choose the latter, you can select your lettuce (Boston, romaine, spinach, iceberg, or mesculin greens) and then choose four items from the list of 30 toppings (including artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, edamame, and sundried tomatoes, to name a few), 12 “chews and crunchers” (items like apples, almonds, and tortilla chips) and six cheeses (notably asiago, feta, and smoked gouda). Then top off your creation with one of 18 salad dressings, like cucumber mint or wasabi sour cream. If you’d rather not eat with a fork, you can put your creation in a wrap instead. Prices range from $6 to $11.
Fired up for ribs
The 3rd Annual Roc City Rib Fest will be held Friday, May 28-Monday, May 31. Last year’s festival was held in Avon and featured six vendors and 13 competitors. This year’s festival will be held at Ontario Beach Park in Charlotte and has doubled the number of vendors and more than tripled the competitors, with more than 50 pit masters squaring off for more than $6000 in prizes.
The competition portion of the festival is sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society and will be split into two parts: pork ribs on Saturday and chicken, pork, and brisket on Sunday. On Monday, the festival will hold the “Buck-a-Bone” people’s choice competition, where attendees can pay $1 for a rib and select their favorite to win. There is also live music scheduled throughout the festival.
Openings
Bertino’s Italian Food To Go has opened in the space formerly occupied by Rookie’s Express Pizza and Pasta at 649 Monroe Ave. It offers pizza, pasta, subs, calzones and a variety of finger foods.
The Rochester Marriott Airport Hotel held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, May 18, for the redesign of its EJ’s Restaurant. The newly revamped eatery is the final phase of the hotel’s $13 million renovation project. The restaurant’s menu has also been updated by Executive Chef Matt O’Connor, and includes a variety of classic comfort food as well as more unique dishes.
Cam’s Pizzeria has opened its 12th store (the fourth in the Rochester area) located at 336 East Ave, in the space formerly occupied by Daisy Duke’s. The new location offers the same popular menu choices as their others, including New York-style pizza, calzones, sausage rolls and, popular with families, the ability for your kids to make their own pizza.
Tags: ability, address, anderson street, Annual, architecture, artichoke, asiago, attention, background, bacon, bakery, bar, Barbeque, beer, beige leather, Bertino, brisket, broil, broth, brother, brunch, Buck-a, building, Caesar, Cafe, call, Carbonara, cheese, Chicken, choice, chorizo, click, Cobb, comfort, comfort food, company, competition, cream, creation, Creative, Creme, cucumber, decor, design, desire, destiny, dimarzo, dining room tables, edamame, egg, Entree, exact address, executive chef, Express, Fabrics, fabrics and findings, family, family bakery, fare, fate, fennel, Fest, festival, feta, Findings, Fired, flavors, Food, food industry, Friday, Fridays, gibney, gouda, grandfather, Great, gruyere, guide, Half, harder times, hip, history, homemade, iceberg, industry, information, interior, Italian, Kansas, keen sense, latter, leather, Leenhouts, lettuce, license, life, lime, liquor, list, mac, macaroni, map, marinara, Mark, market, May, meatloaf, menu, mesculin, mint, mom, Monday, Monr, month, Moon, mozzarella, music, name, Newspaper, noodle, number, online, ooze, Openings, palm, Park, parmesan, pasta, Pit, pizza, Pork, portion, potato, prosciutto, queso, research, Restaurant, rib, ribfest, romaine, Rookie, room, salad, Salads, Saturday, Saturdays, sauce, scene, sense, Shea, signature, Social, Society, something, soup, space, specialty, spinach, Street, stroganoff, style, Sunday, tenure, tequila, Today, tortilla, Tuesdays, twist, user, variety, wasabi, Wegmans, Wine, wine bar, wing, wood, wrap, year