THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 18, 1995 TAG: 9505160132
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Restaurant review
SOURCE: SAM MARTINETTE
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Downtown workers might want to sample the food at Ty's Pizza (433 Granby St., 623-7444), an unpretentious little place that opened for business last week, in a vacant space that had been a peanut shop for as long as I can remember.
I recall Mr. Peanut himself lounging in the doorway back in the days when the shop was a retail outlet for Planter's Peanuts in Suffolk. With his top hat and cane, tights and peanut body, he resembled a sort of goober-shaped Fred Astaire.
But I digress. I was mentioning Ty's Pizza, which offers light breakfasts (doughnut, Danish, or bagel for $1), and lunch, and is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Offering delivery service to a limited area, Ty's has pizza and subs, along with hot dogs, knockwurst with sauerkraut, chili, Italian sausages, and salads. There are just a few tables, situated across from a deli case stocked with the basics needed to build the likes of a Super Hoagie (ham, salami, onions, green pepper, mushrooms and cheese). Most of the subs are $4.95, or $2.95 for a half. There's nothing fancy about Ty's, but the service is friendly, and I'm always glad to see another new business downtown.
Celebrity's sorrows: I try to help the Hampton Roads Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse each year during their annual Celebrity Night, which took place last month (by the way, the good folks met their goal of raising $17,000 to go toward educating people on the prevention of child abuse). For the last half-dozen years or so, I have worked behind the bar at La Galleria, where I'm less likely to spill anything on a customer. In years past, my pals Jan Callaghan and Joe Flanagan have joined me, but most years it's just me and the real bartenders. This year Jane Gardner and Les Smith were among the names of note working as wait staff at La Galleria.
I was long ago disabused of any notions of celebrity when autograph-seeking youngsters in for dinner would squint their eyes and study me, as if to determine whether I was worth asking for my signature, which my banker would say isn't worth much anyway.
But things reached a new low this year when a television anchorperson joined us behind the bar. There were three bartenders (or is it barpersons?) and yours truly. I had done a guest spot on her talk show years earlier, promoting a travel book I co-authored, so I welcomed her behind the bar and went about my business.
A bit later she said to me, ``I don't know how you guys make any money back here with so many bartenders.''
``I don't think they have this many bartenders on a normal weekday evening,'' I said.
``You guys must get paid a whopping hourly salary,'' she added.
``I don't really work here,'' I said, finally realizing that she had mistaken me for someone who actually worked for a living. ``I only pull a two-hour shift a year,'' I mumbled, but by then she was signing an autograph. Ah, fame is fleeting at best.
Later that night we stopped by the Sports Page Restaurant on Colley Avenue for some oysters. Even since Julie returned from spending a week in New Orleans a year ago, she has been just nuts about oysters on the half-shell, and every chance she gets, she'll down a dozen. The cooks at Mike Hall's Bienville Grill grimace when they see her coming at the thought of all the shucking work they'll have to do. (Oysters are a quarter a pop at the Bienville from 4:30 to 6:30 Thursday.)
We knew that oysters were a quarter each every Thursday evening at the Sports Page, from 6 to 10 p.m., so we stopped by for a couple dozen.
Maybe they didn't like my tie, or the fact that I was wearing one, but no one seemed inclined to serve our table. Tables were bussed and cleaned on each side of the booth we chose, but no one came near us. Having already tended bar once that night it was easy enough for me to buy a pitcher of beer over the bar and ask for a bar rag to clean the table. It was only when I tried to order two dozen oysters over the bar that it seemed to dawn on them that the reason we were at the booth to begin with was that we wanted to buy something. Some nights it just doesn't pay to go out. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by SAM MARTINETTE
With his son Alex at work behind him, Gary Kotlarz, co-owner of Ty's
Pizza, offers up a few slices.
by CNB