RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
This Week News wrote Pie-maker gets his pizza hand ready again
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
By Gary Seman Jr.
Bill Yerkes is at it again. After a brief hiatus from making traditional Napoli-style pizzas, Yerkes is again ready to put a pie in your face.
Yerkes is subletting Eleni-Christina Bakery in the evenings for his latest pizza enterprise, bonoTOGO (as in “to go”) — just in time for the Gallery Hop on Saturday. Although the place’s address is 641 N. High St., the storefront actually faces Russell Street, about 60 feet west of the main drag.
What a great idea- bakery during the morning/afternoon and pizza joint in the evening. Menus for this place were taped above the mailboxes where I live last night. Selection and prices look great. I hope it works out for them.
Do you have your own table there yet? ;)
Can you imagine if Bono actually had to go BYOT on the weekends? They’d have to set up tables in Goodale Park!
I’d have no complaints, I’ll even carry the pie to the table!
So I thought I should mention another anecdote that underscores what cool folks Bill and Peggy are. We have a couple of friends who have been having a rough couple of months, in part because they never have time to treat themselves to an evening out. So before Colleen and I left for an out of town trip I dropped Bill a note, asking whether we could treat these two to a surprise dinner on our tab. His reply:
They were, in fact, the couple Bill was serving on the night that catnfiddle wrote,
In fact, she was kind enough to give me a call to let me know that they had arrived. (In Columbus, you never know who’s watching….)
Their hospitality was first-rate, according to our friends the next morning:
Not just great pizzas, but a class act to boot.
We’ll be there tonight, probably earlyish (partly because I’m in hock for a lovely dinner, and partly because I went into pizza withdrawal in Michigan). Hope to see some of you there.
What a lovely story, Bear.
Oh, now I get it…bo NO-TO-GO.
As in 8:30pm, Friday night. NO-TO-GO boxes available. NO Pizza.
NO feelin’ all the love for the place. Sorry. :(
All the more reason to simply plant yourself on the curb and eat there! Or, you can ask if you can walk to the park for an impromptu picnic with the promise of returning the plate. The box dearth is simply a sign of how amazing their product is.
and to think I may have had the first pizza from this spot.
Yum
Would have been happy to have a picnic. Even had a blanket with me for such an occasion. But a 45 minute wait for a pizza with a 5-yr old nephew and out of town guests made it not possible. Besides, they only had enough ingredients for the next 10 pizzas. Our order had not been taken as they discussed running out of boxes and ingredients in front of us. Didn’t feel like they really wanted us to stick around.
and as for “box dearth”…um, the place is called TO GO.
NO?
YES!
that pizzanazi sign is awesome.
glad i hired those proxies :P
Having worked in a pizza joint, 45 minutes on a Friday night is not unheard of. I’ve had hour and half times quoted from major chains.
I look forward to trying Bono one of these days. We can either have another GFS special that backs the truck up with 3 weeks worth of food, leaving you with the chance of a stale product or sub-par product on occasion. Or we can have, what is said to be, a wonderful, high quality and orginal product. There is enough in that area I would happily patronize as a second choice if I am ever turned away from Bono.
I’ll take a place that is so rigid on buying and using good, fresh ingredients that they occasionally run out ANY DAY. I’m sure there were about 250 places in town that had an unlimited supply of frozen pizza dough, giant packages of pepperoni like material, and gallon drums of “tomato sauce-like goop” still open.
It may have been an inconvenience, but I’ll never hate on a place for doing it right.
+1
I’ve actually started noticing how common this is while watching Bourdain and others on the television, they go to these fantastic small restaurants who purchase and prepare for what they expect from the day- when they run out they close the doors. I appreciate this much more than a place which buys too much and either has to store or dispose of food, or start buying things because they are better preserved and stored instead of being a tastier or healthier ingredient.
who said anything about hatin’? love to support local. love to support fresh. been looking for a local, fresh pizza place that actually serves pizza like the places we frequent in cleveland. one that cuts pizza in a pie-shape. real dough. real ingredients. real cheap. nothing fancy. i have read so much about the place, but i was let down.
just wanted to enjoy a pizza. last night. that’s all.
Not an unreasonable interpretation of
As in 8:30pm, Friday night. NO-TO-GO boxes available. NO Pizza.
NO feelin’ all the love for the place. Sorry. :(
methinks….
But semantic quibbles aside, I’m sorry you didn’t get to enjoy a pizza. I just got back, and it was a pretty slow night so far, so if you’re still in the mood my guess is they’d be well-stocked. The Bianca and the San Giorgio totally rocked my world.
As far as shortages — realize that this is a genuine mom-and-pop outfit, run by mom and pop and a couple of friends. It doesn’t take much reading between the lines of the misfortunes that plagued the previous two ventures (malicious landlords and capricious city building standards, respectively) to figure out that they’re running this one on a shoestring budget. So please extend to them whatever benefit of the doubt you’re able, and realize they’re doing the best they can with what’s available.
Oh, and Drew –
– hats off. Most inspired.
I sent Cr0m and his friends from Cleveland here tonight- rave reviews!! It’s nice to have somewhere like this to take people from out of town. Great food, good location, and very cool owners. It’s a win for Columbus.
Dear whitespace,
Any wait time with a five year old is too long! Bono apologizes for any miscommunication that may have occurred Friday night. Around 8:30 we noticed pizza boxes running low, and a neighborhood customer with a private supply met our needs seamlessly. Pizzas were served until at least 10 PM and we never ran out of boxes.
We hope you’ll try us again and have PM’d you a secret word that you can exchange for the pizza of your choice, on us.
Hope to see you soon!
Team Bono
OK finally tried Bono last night! I loved the whole thing, the owners was great and we sat and talked for quit a while has anyone seen the Barbie head? Well any way played trivia and came home with a prize! Now the pizza it is thin crust which I didn’t mind I can’t remember the names of the three but I did get the Cherry Bomb I didn’t think it was to hot I love anything hot. The flavors were raw and fresh and it was a nice alternative from the pep and cheese pizza’s that I get in German Village don’t get me wrong the pizza at Planks on Parsons has great pizza and the owner is just as nice but I did enjoy myself, relaxed and ate some damn good pizza.
Going to wander down tonight around 6:30-7:00p if anyone cares to join me.
For any Bono fans out there, we managed to capture some audio of Bill the other night and it just went up on our site.
http://www.columbusfood.tv/index.php?post_id=372702