A Good Time for a Good Cause June 23rd at The Roadhouse

Last year I tried to get my friend, Fred Lopez, to go to the Eddie Money concert at Daley’s Cheap Shots. Since I was also friends with the show’s promoter, Joey Shaloe, and had helped him with marketing the event, he gave me tickets for Elaine and myself. I also convinced Joey to give me two tickets for Fred and his wife Melanie. Fred told Mel to go and have fun but that he was not into that kind of thing. Funny how things change.
The reason that I told Joey that he should give Fred the tickets was because Fred had just bought the old Hotties building and was busy with remodelling it into what would become the Roadhouse. Joey had worked for Scott Lane, the owner of Hotties, doing sound off and on for several years. Joey had always told me that the building at North 20 Farr ,which was once a Sea Galley restaurant, was the best venue in the Valley for concerts.
Having owned The Rock Inn, a Valley night club, for four years, I knew that concerts were a night club owner’s best friend. The biggest name that we ever got was blues artist, Curtis Salgado. The beauty of it was that all I had to do was let Dave Green, a local promoter, use my building for free. He advertised the show and sold the tickets and took the risk and I got to sell my food and drinks to his crowd.
Normally we had to fork out $400 bucks a night for local bands. I told Dave that he was welcome to use the Rock Inn any time he wanted. That is why I told Fred that he needed to attend the Eddie Money concert to see what kind of potential his new place was going to have. But Fred said he didn’t like crowds. Turns out that he missed a great concert but he figured it out anyway.
I sat just one table away from Fred and Melanie last Tuesday at the Roadhouse during the Lauren Alaina concert. The place was packed from 4 in the afternoon until after the concert which started at 7:30. Not bad for a week night. Alaina was runner-up a few years back on American Idol and she put on a great show that was free to the public and free to the Roadhouse. Not bad for any night.
I could tell Fred was having a great time like everyone else. Actually, I knew he was probably much happier than anyone else since his business was benefiting by great talent sponsored and promoted on someone else’s dime. It seemed he was glad to be there despite the fact that a year before this was not his kind of thing and despite the fact that Tuesday also happened to be his birthday, which he also claims to not be his thing.
Now on June 23nd, less than a year after Fred decided not go see Eddie Money, Eddie Money is coming to see Fred. The place will be packed again and so I know Fred will be happy to see him, though this will be a benefit concert for Eddie’s drummer Glenn Symmonds and so a portion of the Roadhouse profits will go to the cause of paying Glenn’s cancer treatment bills.
Joey, who is Eddie’s road manager, and now also a friend of Fred’s, will once again be running things. Another new friend of Fred’s, Sammy Eubanks, will be out on the patio tomorrow starting at noon. They got to know each the past few months because Sammy has been headlining the Roadhouse’s new Thursday night Blues night that came about just as Blues At The Bend closed it’s doors and left Sammy without his weekly night there.Talk about good timing.
With live music 5 nights a week and the occasional concert thrown in, Fred’s Roadhouse has become the Valley’s, if not all Spokane’s, premier purveyor of good timings to be had by hundreds if not by all. Not bad for a guy who claims to hate birthday parties and big crowds.

Belly Up to the Barbecue

Here I sit, keyboard under hand, at 1 pm on a warm Father’s Day afternoon conducting, perhaps, the most honest survey ever. There is only one judge, but he is honest and true. On this one day of the year I can eat anywhere that I choose and so far I have not eaten anything more than a couple of tastey malt balls from the quart gallon Whoppers box one of the kids gave me. I asked her to stop giving me such presents as they are helping to turn my belly into a whopper.
Actually, it is this whopper of a belly that I have been working on for many years that is conducting today’s survey. While it always leads out in front, it does not always get to choose which way we head. But today, my belly gets to eat wherever it chooses and the only thing my head has to do with the course of culinary events this day is to try and help stave off consumption for as long as possible. I reason that a hollow, howling belly is the most pure and unbiased judge. A belly is like a baby in that when it is hungry it is quite focused and just wants what it wants. Unfortunately, some bellies also act like babies in that they seem to grow on a daily basis whether you like it or not and they are never as cute as when they were little.
I live at Alki and Bowdish, the center of the Valley (the gut you might say), and I can head out in any direction. All four winds blow wonderful scents toward me, but I can feel my tummy tug me to the West. In that direction lies Charlie P’s, which I have for years claimed to be the most delicious spot in the Valley. I love just two types of food:seafood and barbecue, both of which Charlie P’s dishes out in an array of delectable varieties.
There is a worthy argument to be made that the seafood calizone on their menu is Spokane’s most indulgent sin. It is one that I have too often committed. Charlie’s seafood omelet itself has the power to suck my belly down there even as I attempt to write this piece. At this point in the day, I dare not get started talking about their seafood fettucine which might be the best I have ever eaten.
Then there is the smoke pit barbecue which has far too often lured me astray like the sirens of the Odysseus. I normally try to eat alone when I order the barbecue since I dine spellbound and cannot think of anything but the alluring food before me. But recently, I have become aware of a new bastion of barbecue, The Spit Fire Grill at 6520 East Trent.
While I think my belly might first lead me into Charlie P’s for their $5-two-rib-and-fries happy hour special, I have a gnawing feeling that I will be traversing a bit further west today. Barbecue, I realize, is a very personal area of each man’s life and I do not want to step on any tongues here, but too my increasingly boisterous belly, The Spitfire is Charlie P’s greatest rival and for this day appears to be the likely victor.
This place is so into barbcue that they have bbq pulled pork nachos and tacos. Their sauce is so good I would imagine they could also serve waffles and use it for syrup. The only drawback with the Spit Fire is that it is a neighborhood bar that is a tad short on the atmosphere. If only it looked as good as it smells. As for myself, I keep intending to do Take Out, but I can never imagine holding out long enough to get it home.
The thing that I find quite ironic is that just last month the Spokesman Review did their own barbecue survey that cast it’s reach all the way to Coeur D’ Alene and up north to Wandermere and downtown. Nine places were featured, with The Log Cabin drive-thru at Trent and Freya coming out on top. My belly took umbrage to this outrageous outcome. Only two Valley venues were mentioned in this survey, the Longhorn and O’Doherty’s, both good friends of my belly’s. But to leave off Charlie P’s and The Spitfire? My stomach did more than growl over that, it roared.
Not to take away from the noble efforts of these other purveyors of heavenly cooked meats, but leaving off Charlie P’s and the Spitfire from a Spokane survey of sumptuous barbecue is like leaving off Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds on list of baseball’s biggest batters, which would be balderdash at best. They should not only be included in any survey, they should be at the tippy top.
But I must stop writing because my tummy can’t take it any longer. It is after all, a big baby and so I’m off to see the wizards, the wonderful wizards of awes.

These are not your normal nachos. Never have I seen such a thing on any menu. Barbecue Nachoes, what a great idea.

“This is not Charlie P’s seafood fet. We happened to go there one night hey were having a Salmon Fet for the dinner special. It was to die for.