Pie is for pizza
Stateside Pie & Beer brings the magical combo of pizza and craft beer to hungryMesquite
Stateside Pie & Beer is a new concept featuring pizza and a long list of semi-crafty beers, served in a sports-bar environment. The restaurant is slated to open in the next week or two in Mesquite.
Stateside comes from Fired Up Inc., the Austin-based restaurant group founded in 1997 that owns the Carino's Italian chain.
The new restaurant-bar takes over a former Carino's Italian space off IH-635, which closed this summer, according to a manager at the location, who describes Stateside as a "real sports bar."
The list of beers on draft goes beyond generics like Bud or Blue Moon, and nearly all of the Dallas breweries are on it.
"We'll have beer and TVs and be open late, until 2 am," she says.
The company chose Mesquite after an evaluation of the demographics in the area. "Mesquite doesn't have anything like this," the manager says. "And the fact that this was a Carino's didn't hurt."
The menu consists of American basics: wings, stuffed jalapenos, Frito chili pie, chicken tenders, and cheese fondue with soft pretzels. There's a burger, a hot roast beef sandwich, and a quartet of salads that includes a wedge and spinach. Desserts include s'mores; a root beer float made with St. Arnold's root beer; and something called bacon-wrapped Snickerpops, described as "funnel cake batter-dipped bacon-wrapped Snickers."
The pizzas are named for states and boast corresponding toppings. The "Louisiana" has Andouille sausage and hot cherry peppers, while the "Texas" has brisket with barbecue sauce. You can also build your own pizza by choosing your sauce — tomato, spicy, spinach Parmesan or three-cheese onion — and toppings.
The list of beers on draft goes beyond generics like Bud or Blue Moon, and nearly all of the Dallas breweries are on it, from Lakewood Brewing to Deep Ellum to Peticolas to Rahr & Sons. (No Franconia, however.) The selection is broad, though not as broad as some of our more fully stocked beer destinations such as Common Table, Goodfriend or Strangeways.
UPDATE: Creed Ford IV, of Fired Up, Inc, called to offer more details, saying that Stateside was an opportunity to do "something different" from Carino's Italian. Ford is also involved with two restaurants in Austin, The League Kitchen & Tavern and Tony C's Coal-fired Pizza, with partner Tony Ciola.
"With Stateside, we decided, 'Let's come up with something different'," he says. "We're big history buffs. If you check out The League, you'll see that it's all based off the Prohibition mindset, with modern and vintage cocktails. For Stateside, one of slogans we've always joked about is that 'The Italians brought us pizza, but the Americans perfected it.' We wanted to do some fun, exciting pizzas. Also, I'm a beer nerd -- not a beer guru but I'm into the beer trend. We thought we could offer some of these beers that suburban places don't have access to, beer that's brewed in their backyards. That was basis of it.”
Although they do have a brick oven, it will be used for appetizers and special dishes, not for the pizza, which they'll bake in their deck oven. The food will be fresh and from scratch, but not expensive.
The idea for the name came from his father, Creed Ford III, who got into a conversation with a WWII veteran who reminisced about how much he wanted to get "stateside" during the war. "We knew we wanted a patriotic driven theme -- we didn’t want it to be an Italian theme, we already had that with Carino's, but we wanted to do pizza," Ford IV says.
They've already started the hiring process, and plan to open the week of October 22.
Designed by local artists at Decotron, the front-porch sign at Trapèze offers a taste of what's inside. Photo courtesy Trapèze/Peter Novotny