Sal and Mookie's

BEST OF JACKSON... WOW!

See the entire results of the Jackson Free Press BEST OF JACKSON AWARDS 2008 for Sal & Mookie's and our sister restaurants BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar and Broad Street Baking Company by clicking here.

Things come full circle... Pi(e) Lounge is now open at Sal & Mookie's ... take a look!

Pi(e) is the name of the new bar at Sal & Mookie’s: the Pi(e) Lounge.

www.pi-lounge.net

The name Pi(e) is a play on two themes: 

• the mathematical value Pi which is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle; approximately equal to 3.14159265358979323846...
• the word Pie, as in pizza pie

The Pi(e) lounge is a rich, smooth, and sensuous environment, with a highly differentiated look and feel from the hustle & bustle of Sal & Mookie’s. Walking through the beaded curtains into Pi(e), guests are transported into another world—much like ducking into a hip nightclub on the upper East side of New York City.

BUT WHY THE NAME PI(e)?

"Pi" is a digital word.  So the Pi Lounge features “digital” components.  Flat screen tvs project old black and white movies and movies involving New York themes.  A second component to the digital side of Pi is the music soundscape.  A surround sound system plays a custom soundscape created for us by Chris Crothers, former owner of MusiQuarium.  The Pi soundscape, coupled with the thematic black & white movies, creates an “other worldly” ambience—the perfect environment to relax and connect with friend over great drinks and bar snacks.

Flying solo?  No worries!  Bring your laptop or i-phone and connect to our free Wi-Pi(e) network.  The intimate atmosphere of Pi(e) is the perfect place to get down to business.  Blazing fast wireless internet access inside and out on the covered patio.  But be careful—don’t tell too many of your co-workers, or you will NEVER get anything done!

We all know what the word "Pie" means, and this references all the great food available at Pi(e) since it is a part of Sal & Mookie’s.   Where else in Jackson can you dine on a South Street Seaport pizza (lump crabmeat, shrimp, & crawfish with a rich béchamel sauce base) while enjoying a Bada Bing cocktail or a pint of Hoegaarden White Ale? Join us!

Cheaper Make Your Own Pizzas - The Need for a Private Dining Room - How Can You Enjoy Some "Adult Time" at S&M? - and most importantly, WHY CAN'T WE GET ICE CREAM IN THE DINING ROOM?!?!

As Sal & Mookie's completes our sixth month of operation, we have learned a lot about what we have done right... what we have done not-so-right, what we have done flat out wrong, and what needs just a little bit of tweaking.  We have been so thankful to so many of you for your support, comments and criticisms.  If feedback is the breakfast of champions, Dan and I have had a country breakfast of huge proportions!

Here is what we have learned from you:

1. You love our pizzas, recognize the high quality and highly differeniated ingredients, but are concerned that you might need a second mortgage when choosing a half dozen ingredients on a build-your-own-pie.
2. You wish you could hold a private meeting at Sal & Mookie's and have a buffet set up for service.
3. You love taking your kids to the restaurant, but you stay away other nights because you don't want to be around a bunch of kids!
4. You would like us to deliver... at least to your office for lunch meetings.
5. You wish there was an "Adults Only" space... a bar and cocktail area where you can act YOUR age... not your kids!
6. And finally, you simply cannot understand how we could open such a fantastic restaurant with such extraordinary ice cream, and then NOT SERVE IT IN THE DINING ROOM!  You wonder "what are these guys THINKING!?!?!?)

OK, we hear you!  Here are our solutions:

1. We recognized the error in our ways, and we have dropped the prices of all our ingredients significantly... now you can build your own pizzas without the fear of a credit check. Click here for a full copy of the newly priced menu.
2. We have installed plush, velour curtains in the small side room.  When drawn, you can enjoy complete privacy from the outside world and show all the powerpoint slides you want while sipping on a cocktail and eating portobello fries.
3. Guess what?  Families don't take their children out to eat on weeknights!  This means Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights are the PERFECT time to take your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend out for one of our fantastic pastas, world class NY style pizzas or grilled paninis.  We've got the candles, we've got the low lights, we've got the caraffe of wine.  You just need to bring your game... and we aren't talking about scrabble!
4. We now deliver lunch time catering orders of $100 or more.  We have all the tricks of the trade:  sandwich trays, hot pastas by the gallon, plates, serving pieces, ice, iced tea, dessert trays.  Download our catering menu here.  Give us a call.  It's that easy.
5. We are working on a major change to our physical plant... soon, we will convert the scoop shop area to an "Adults Only" space... a bar and cocktail area with plush furniture, a sit-down bar, access to the front outdoor patio and a cocktail hostess to see to all your needs.  And, since the front patio is far, far away from the rest of the restaurant and the dining deck, guess what?  We will allow smoking in this space.  See?  Now everyone is accomodated!
6. The second half of the change is moving the scoop shop back to what is currently the main bar.  Everything is going... and getting BIGGER.  The back bar will transform into a full blown soda fountain/scoop shop.  Barstools will accomodate the youngest of fans as they watch ice cream confections being made for the dining room.  WHAT DID WE JUST SAY?  THE DINING ROOM??  Yes, the dining room.  With the scoop shop in the center of the large dining room, we will be able to offer the full array of tasty ice cream treats to the entire dining room.  Finally, you can have your ice cream, and eat it at the table too!  Wow.  Seems so simple... yet the original layout of our restaurant, just didn't provide for it... but soon we will!!!

We hope you can see that we have been listening and have been busy ACTING upon the information you have shared.  It is our sole desire to be responsive, supportive restaurateurs, focused on the big picture of giving our guests what they want... and having some fun along the way.

Dan, Jeff, Jon, Andrew, Max, Tanya and all the Sal & Mookie's staff look forward to sharing these new features with you over the holidays... some are done (price changes), some are coming (bar/scoop switch) but all were made with you in mind.  Thank you.

Yes -- we deliver now -- CATERED LUNCHES AND DINNERS

Planning a meal for a group can be a challenge, but not when working with us... because now WE DELIVER CATERING!!

What could be easier than a few of our authentic brick-oven baked New York PIZZAS with a big SALAD bowl with our homemade dressings and an assortment of our freshly baked DESSERTS?  Want SANDWICHES?  We offer a selection of our grilled PANINI sandwiches on focaccia bread cut into easy to handle quarters.  Our full menu of hot PASTAS is available in bulk, with vegetarian, beef, chicken and seafood alternatives.

>>>>> Download and print the full Catering menu by clicking here  <<<<<

ATTENTION PHARMACEUTICAL** & MEDICAL EQUIPMENT SALES REPS**!!!

Show your business card when placing a delivered or pick up Sal & Mookie's catering order and we will give you 10% of your purchase as a gift card!  So, if you treat a doctor's office to $200 worth of Sal & Mookie's for lunch, you will get a $20 Sal & Mookie's/BRAVO!/Broad Street gift card (good at ALL THREE LOCATIONS!)  What could be nicer?  The doctor's staff will enjoy great food from Sal & Mookie's, and you can take your friends out on the town at your choice of any of our three restaurants! 

**this offer is good for pharmaceutical and medical equipment sales reps only, and is valid for Sal & Mookie's catering only.

____________________________________________________

Call Sara Anne, Sal & Mookie's Catering Coordinator to plan your next event!  601.368.1919

Watch What You Eat: Exhibition Kitchens are all the rage...

Clarion Ledger Southern Style reporter Sherry Lucas discusses the growing trend of exhibition kitchens in restaurants in this week's Weekend Section edition of the newspaper. 

She notes: "It's dinner and a show at Bonsai, but also at Bravo, Sal & Mookie's, Pan-Asia Restaurant, Marble Slab Creamery and other hot (or cool) spots where exhibition and eats go hand in hand.  The trend, which has been around for a while, got its most recent boost locally when Fondren's Sal & Mookie's opened with windowed wall and an observation deck, complete with handles for curious kids."  View Entire Article Here

Thank you Sherry, for featuring Sal & Mookie's and our special window made just for the kids!  We are having a great time taking care of our "pint-sized" diners, and we urge them to bring their parents on a regular basis for great pizza and gourmet ice cream!

Sal & Mookie's is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday.  We are open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays.  Sal & Mookie's is closed on Mondays.  Take out is available whenever the restaurant is open!  The scoop shop hours are identical to the restaurant hours.

The Trenton - NYC - Jackson Connection

Dan Blumenthal, Chef and Co-Owner of Sal & Mookie's has family in the Northeast, specifically in Trenton, New Jersey.  Anyone who has eaten at Broad Street Baking Company probably knows the family story - there is Dan's grandfather, with the Challah bread he just baked, smiling down on all of us from the various pictures which adorn the Broad Street walls.

Well, Dan has many family members still up in Trenton, and here is a recent e-mail exchange which is quite enlightening as to where we got the name for our new restaurant:

Danny:    Your mom sent me the PR on Sal and Mookie's.  Weezie and I wish you and your partner the best of luck with the venture.  As a lifelong New York baseball fan I can only assume that the name came from two NY greats---Sal Maglie and Mookie Wilson.  Any other explanation would be unacceptable.

In retrospect it's too bad your parents left Trenton before you were born and had a chance to savor the world's greatest pizza-----Trenton pizza.  It was the staple of our diet as kids until Philly cheesesteaks came along so that we had a culinary choice.   And I can tell you that in Trenton culinary excellence was just that and no more.  But who knew better---we thought we had the best of all worlds. 

-Carl

Dear Carl,

Actually, the name was not quite derived in that way, but maybe it was in a backdoor sort of way.  Being of a different generation, and not a New Yorker, I actually got the name from director Spike Lee's 1989 hit movie, "Do the Right Thing".  I don't know whether you have seen it,  but the movie was set  in a Brooklyn pizzeria owned by an middle-aged Italian-American named Sal (Danny Aiello) whose delivery boy, Mookie, was played by Spike Lee himself. I am not sure if Spike actually lifted his character's names from Sal Maglie and Mookie Wilson, being the avid NY baseball fan that he was.

I will be doing a Philly cheesesteak sandwich on my menu, as well as an ode to the Trenton an "upside down pizza pie. 

In re to the Trenton culinary experience, what counts is that at the time you believed the food was good, even if that may not has actually been the case.

Thanks for the support and maybe you'd be willing to give us a reality check by making another trip to Jackson when we open and trying it out first hand.  My partner and I made a trip to NYC a month ago to check out some of the famous pizzerias there, so I feel like we have done our homework.

DB

In Search of the Perfect New York Pizza…

“So, just what is New York style pizza?”

If we have heard this once, we have heard it a thousand times since announcing our plans for Sal & Mookie’s. Simply put, New York style pizza is known by its:

1. Size (big!)
2. Sauce (San Marzanzo tomatoes – low acid, sugary flavor)
3. Cheese (fresh mozzarella)
4. Crust (thin but not crackery-crisp)
5. Cooking technique (coal fired ovens, wood fired ovens, deck ovens)

Like most things in life, there are opposing views on who has the best pie, what attributes a perfect pie should have, what type of oven should be used, etc.

In preparation for opening Sal & Mookie’s, Dan, along with Jon Pixler (Sal & Mookie’s chef and “Head Pizzaiolo”) have performed countless hours of research and development all in the hopes of recreating the perfect NYC pie. They have tested dozens of recipes for dough and sauce. They have tinkered with different hydration ratios for the dough. They have played with varying retardation times for the dough (the amount of time the dough sits before being formed and baked). Jon has made so many batches of red sauce we have lost count! They have polled friends and acquaintances who have lived in NYC or are currently living in NYC. They have spent hours on the internet.

After all this, we decided that now - with just a few months to go before opening – now is the time to go to New York and compare and contrast all the styles. And so we did!

This past weekend (Jan 12 – 15th), Dan and Jeff (along with Jeff’s wife Debbie, and Dan’s little sister, Susan, who joined us from her home in Boston) took a trip to New York in search of the perfect pizza. You may wonder why Jon was not included? All we can say is that we did everything in our power to get our #1 man to board the plane with us, but the simple fact is this: JON WON’T FLY. PERIOD!

We found this out the first time last spring when we went to the huge National Restaurant Association trade show in Chicago. Jon wouldn’t fly, so he drove the entire distance… even picked us up at the airport!

This wasn’t an option this time, so Jon stayed behind, but we kept him in the loop with daily e-mails with pictures of the food, movies taken in the various kitchens, and a full carry-on cooler of pizza slices from every pizzeria we visited! (13 slices in all! And no problems at baggage check! It would have been only 12 pieces, but we met some very nice natives at Lombardi's, who, after hearing the story of our quest, offered to donate a slice of their meatball pizza to the cause! What great luck!)

Below, you will find a sampling of the pictures and videos we took during our three-day gorge-fest. We hit a minimum of three pizzerias each day, and broke up the cycle by eating Vietnamese one night and some Chinese in Chinatown one afternoon. Other than that, it was nothing but pizza, pizza, pizza for the four of us!

Where did we go?

Lombardi’s – Little Italy, Manhattan

Full Moon Pizzeria – Arthur Avenue, The Bronx


Giovanni’s – Arthur Avenue, The Bronx


Grimaldi’s – Directly Under the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn


Joe’s Pizza – Carmine Street, Manhattan


John’s on Bleecker – Bleecker Street, Manhattan


Una Pizza Napoletana – Manhattan

So, what did we discover?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What we found was that each place has its own character and its own following. It’s almost like professional sports; everyone has a favorite team! From the black turtleneck crowd at Una Pizza Napoletana, to the working class folks at Grimaldi’s, the one constant was the quality of the pie. All were excellent in their own ways and all were worthy of the acclaim.

Now, our work is cut out for us… it is OUR job to recreate that New York Pizzeria experience for our guests here in Jackson, Mississippi. It will be tough, but we think with the right ingredients, the right equipment, and the right attitude, we will pull it off. After all, we were successful at getting those 13 cold slices through the X-ray machine at Newark!

Clarion Ledger Newspaper Features Story on Sal & Mookie's

Central Mississippi's Daily Newspaper, The Clarion Ledger ran a wonderful article on our venture on the front page of Wednesday, December 20th's Business Section titled "Jackson duo cooking up plans for 3rd restaurant".

The article includes an audio piece recorded on site of Jeff rambling on (and on) about Sal  and Mookie's... his favorite subject these days!   Take a listen... if you dare!

Background

In this mass production world of pre-made, uninspired, quick assembly products, the artisan side of food preparation has been lost, and with it much of the “soul” of the products. As the co-owners of two of metro Jackson’s most popular restaurants -- BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar and Broad Street Baking Company & Café -- Dan Blumenthal and Jeff Good have worked tirelessly to provide exceptional experiences, authentic food offerings and well thought out service, all hosted within facilities where the décor matches the theme, and the experience is cohesive from start to finish.

Now, Dan and Jeff have developed a third dining concept for our market: a New York-themed full service pizzeria with an integrated ice cream scoop shop! Our market research suggested that the metro Jackson marketplace, particularly the mid-town areas of Belhaven, Fondren and North/Northeast Jackson were underserved for such a concept… a concept that would appeal to a broad market and would encourage repeat visits … sometimes even in the same day!   

We are pleased to say that Sal & Mookie's New York Pizza & Ice Cream Joint has surpassed our wildest expectations since opening on April 24th, 2007.  Thank you for your support!

Sal and Who???

Sal & Mookie’s New York Pizza & Ice Cream Joint incorporates the best aspects of café style dining in a very casual, visually appealing atmosphere.

The centerpiece of the restaurant is the kitchen and the four custom-manufactured brick pizza ovens being imported from a family-run oven manufacturing plant in New Jersey. These brick-lined, gas-fired parabolic ovens produce a crust and texture that no other pizzeria is able to match.

Hand in hand with this, Executive Chef/Owner Dan Blumenthal, working with Chef/Pizzaiolo Jon Pixler, have perfected both a pizza dough recipe and a basic sauce recipe which differentiates a Sal & Mookie’s pizza from any other in our state. Jon’s goal is to create and deliver an unparalleled product – something to be clearly regarded as best in class.