Both of my grandmothers were strong, smart, sassy, stubborn broads who lived l-o-n-g lives. I take this as a sign that I’ll likely live to see nine decades on this planet. I’m also fairly confident that I’ll develop an affinity for bingo; lose my hearing but refuse to wear a hearing aid; and store my pills in one of those fancy days-of-the-week pill dispensers. Since I do have a little bit of an old soul, I’m already embracing many of the facets of senior citizenship. These include but are not limited to the following:
- Bad driving (technically, it’s parking that I struggle with but my hubby claims that my driving reminds him of what it would be like to watch elderly persons doing something x-rated.)
- Memory problems (if I had a nickel for every time I lose my car keys in an average day, I’d never pay for pizza again)
- Early to bed. There might be stuff going on in the real world after 8:30 PM, but I don’t want any part of it if it doesn’t involve me and my pillow.
- Mean and crotchety demeanor. Have you met me? ‘Nuff said.
- Grandma hair. If you’re not familiar with this concept, allow me to enlighten you. Grandma hair is the coiffure of choice for those whose natural hair has turned white, gray, or some combination thereof. Grandma hair also requires the kind of care and maintenance that only a professional beauty parlor can provide. Neither of my own grandmothers were in possession of a drivers’ license and therefore, required a ride to the beauty parlor on a regular basis.
Since I recently received my own AARP cards in the mail, I’m embracing my inner elderly person these days. I mean, who are we kidding? I’m not getting any younger, smarter, or better at driving, right? Thus, when it came time for my own “routine maintenance” at the beauty parlor recently, I did exactly what my dearly departed Grandma Mary taught me. I bullied my husband into driving me to the salon for my 1 PM appointment. (For those keeping track of my parking ramp incidents, my most recent debacle occurred about 90 days ago at the parking ramp near my hair salon and it left me humiliated and my car grossly disfigured. I cannot in good faith put in yet another insurance claim so I’m stuck looking at a daily reminder of my failures. I was so traumatized by this incident that I failed to keep up on my grooming!)
“What’s the point, Princess?” I hear you asking. Well, I’ll tell you. What gets dropped off at the hair salon (me) must also be retrieved from the hair salon. And on our 16th consecutive week of pizza consumption, I left the salon with a glossy mane of hair and a grumbling tummy. Of course, it was only 3 PM, making it too late for lunch and too early for dinner, so we were faced with a conundrum. What to do?
I had it on good authority that our week 16 pizza destination, Black Sheep Coal Fired Pizza in Minneapolis’s warehouse district , is a hard place to get a table on a Saturday night. Since we were starving, lacking a formal reservation but lacking no reservations about a 3 PM pizza date, we made an executive decision to again embrace the senior citizens within and dine early. Mind you, this is only 30 minutes earlier than last week’s pizza date, continuing the frightening trend toward “pizza for breakfast”.
Pre-Pizza Moods:
Princess D: How can you be in a bad mood when your hair looks this good? Well, let me tell you . . . you can, but it’s tough. I was not a perfect 10, in spite of my good hair day, and here’s why. My hair salon is located in the part of Minneapolis I most loathe driving through; uptown. It’s a vibrant area with lots and lots of great restaurants, retailers, and of course, hair salons but it is more of a pedestrian zone. Narrow streets, lack of available parking, and traffic are only part of the reason why I loathe driving here. In the rare event I find a street wide enough to hold my compact car, it typically has a pothole so deep that I can see all the way to Shanghai. There are hipster doofuses everywhere, typically jaywalking or lollygagging or something else that is annoying to me in my car because I have to slam on my brakes to avoid crippling them. Eco-friendly bicyclists zip around me, following the rules of the road when it’s convenient and doing whatever they want the rest of the time. I really love it when a biker cycles so close to my car that he clips my mirror. I could go on but I won’t. See also: mean and crotchety. Being a passenger in what felt like a cross between a game of Atari Frogger and a game of Pole Position did impact my pre-pizza mood, good hair notwithstanding. Thus, I clocked in around an 8.5.
Hubby: While he was happy to be getting a pizza out of the deal, his idea of a great Saturday does not, in fact, include playing chauffer to a demanding old lady. (Who knew?) Not only did he have to drive my sorry arse around town, he also had to navigate the worst of the worst parts of Minneapolis in his expensive German automobile. He was a solid 7 pre-pizza.
Parking Situation: We got no reprieve from the lousy uptown” life and death driving situation” in the warehouse district. When you go to Black Sheep, prepare to park on the street. At a meter. This is a great opportunity to practice your parallel parking skills. One of my favorite things about parking meters in Minneapolis is the variety. According to their website, the city operates about 7,000 parking meters, all of which have different time restrictions and rates to keep it interesting. My favorite thing is when rates and restrictions vary on different sides of the same street, because that’s just super logical and intuitive. (Note the dripping sarcasm). One thing I do appreciate, however, is the new electronic parking meters. Being able to use a credit card is a great convenience, especially for gals like me who don’t carry cash and who can’t remember their ATM PIN numbers to be able to access any cash anyway.
We did find a parking spot about a block away from Black Sheep and hoofed it (pun intended) to our pizzeria.
Exterior Appearance: Black Sheep is located below ground (kind of) in a “blink and you’ll miss it” building in the Warehouse district. Not much to look at from the outside and I’m ashamed to admit I was unclear on where the door was. I’d like to say it was poorly marked but I blame myself. I think I was busy admiring my fabulous hair in a window reflection. After figuring out where the door was (not as hard as I just made it sound), we opened it and headed in.
Entrance/Welcome: I’m pretty sure our appearance woke up the host, who was probably taking a nap when we arrived. When you show up at 3 PM, there’s no wait. However, my hair stylist mentioned to me that she’d tried to eat at Black Sheep four separate times and was never able to secure a table, so I say, better to arrive in the off hours! After he yawned, stretched, and wiped the sleep out of the corners of his eyes, he gave us a hearty welcome and showed us to a table. Honestly, figuring out where the door was and navigating the small flight of stairs down into the restaurant were the hardest part of this transaction.
Clientele/Overall Vibe: Well, I was there and my hair looked great, in case I failed to mention that. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet so I can’t comment on the clientele or vibe except to say that I feel like this is a place that gets busy and is likely full of great people-watching opportunities.
Wait Staff: Our server was pleasant, although surprisingly missing-in-action for most of our meal. Had I been in a rush to receive my bill or if I required a beverage refill, that would have been problematic.
Menu Selection: Black Sheep’s menu is as simple as a child’s nursery rhyme. If you’re not in the mood for pizza, you’re in the wrong darned place. If you are in the mood for pizza, you’ve got a couple of options. Black Sheep features 12 and 16 inch pies, some offered without cheese and others without sauce. You can choose from their pre-planned menu or you order the number one (cheese and sauce) and add toppings from their ala carte menu to design your own pie.
And if you’ve got a gangsta sized hunger, you might be interested in their signature pizza, the Sicilian. This is a 16 inch square pie topped with mozzarella, sauce and extra-virgin olive oil. Black Sheep bakes these pies first thing in the morning before the oven gets too hot and no substitutions are permitted.
Food Wait Time: We ordered a 16 inch number five, which is a thin crust pizza topped with fennel sausage, hot salami, onion, and cracked green olives. It arrived hot from the coal-fired oven within about 20 minutes of ordering.
Drumroll, please . . . the food itself: If you’re asking, “What’s so darned special about coal-fired pizza?”, I can’t help you out. I’m not sure myself. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy my experience at Black Sheep. Our 16 inch pizza was the perfect size for two hungry pizza lovers, and it was crispy with fresh ingredients and a zesty bite. Coal-fired crust isn’t all that different than the Neapolitan wood-fired crust in taste, and in a blind taste test, I’m not sure I could tell them apart. For the record, I’m a fan of both.
As a devoted Mother Goose fan, our dining experience reminded me more of Jack Sprat and his wife than the black sheep baa-ing with his many bags of wool. If you remember the old nursery rhyme, Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean . . . so they were perfectly matched to go out to dinner together because they could lick the platter clean. The hubby and I are just like the Sprats, except that our particular idiosyncrasies don’t involve fat and lean but rather, sauce and cheese. More specifically, I’m a saucy gal who likes a bold, generous helping of sauce on my pizza. Hubby? Not so much. Conversely, my hubby likes a load of cheese whereas I prefer my cheese on the lighter side. We were able to lick the platter clean but neither one of us was fully satisfied with the sauce and cheese allocations.
Price & Value: We enjoyed a generously sized pizza, iced tea for the hubby, a glass of house white wine for the princess, and a fresh spinach salad. Because my family is awesome, we also happened to have a $40 gift card. Our total bill (pre-tip) was $39.50 . . . not a bad deal!
Post-Pizza Mood: We left Black Sheep in good spirits with full bellies, and we still had plenty of evening left over! Post-pizza moods were around an 8 for all parties involved.
Bottom Line: Would I make a special trip downtown for this pizza? No way. The parking would kille me. But . . . if I’m on my way to Target Field to cheer on the Minnesota Twins; if I’m catching a Wolves basketball game at Target Center; or if I’m attending a musical, cultural, or sporting event in the area, I would definitely do my pre-gaming at Black Sheep. But don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.
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