thePULSEHot & Now: 2/2004
Hot stuff! Local entrepreneurs create Dr. Gonzo’s Hot Sauce and MJ’s Pepper Jelly
Degrees of culinary excellence: Amore Café and the Salter School are partnering to open a restaurant school at Amore’s Shrewsbury Street location. The school will utilize Amore’s restaurant facilities and students will be trained in all aspects of the restaurant business. The students will cook and serve luncheon entrees. According to our sources, the school will teach around 16 students at a time with on-going enrollment. This unique partnership promises to be a bonus for local eateries that are constantly on the lookout for good help!
Good things in small packages: Asian Taste, a small but cosy restaurant offering Thai food, has recently opened its doors at the corner of Norwich and Mechanics Street in downtown Worcester. The limited menu offers several tasty Thai dishes, as well as some curry and vegetarian entrees.
Tex-Mex Moe-mentum: Moe’s Southwest Grill, an Atlanta-based chain of Tex-Mex restaurants, is opening a store on Route 9 in Shrewbury, across from Burger King. The most expensive item on the menu will be a burrito for six bucks. Moe’s has about sixty stores, all south of the Mason Dixon line.
Hot stuff!!: A couple of tasty food products made in the Worcester area have come to our attention lately. The first is Dr. Gonzo’s Buffalo Balm Hot Sauce which is only sold at a few local places including Austin Liquors, The Living Earth and Tatnuck Bookseller. Dr. Gonzo, AKA John Esty, who is a former hi-tech guy gone legit, started the company in his kitchen up on Vernon Hill with tomatoes and peppers he grew in his back yard. His first product was salsa. Since then the company has created a great pepper mash that Gonzo says is supreme on pasta.
The second product is MJ’s Pepper Jelly produced by Grafton resident and Jamaica native Joanne Padgett, wife of Grafton selectman Brook Padgett. This superb hot jelly is made with Jamaican Scotch Bonnett Peppers and is highly addictive – it is great on pork, lamb, beef – also look for MJ’s Cranberry Pepper Jelly to spice up turkey or chicken. Joanne’s jellies can be found at the Grafton Country Store, The Cheese Shop in Wellesley and in several other shops in the Worcester area. You can also order the jellies on-line at www.ronainc.com.
Upscale Greek: It appears that the old Lawless Cadillac Showroom on Shrewsbury Street, which has been vacant for years, will be the site of a new upscale Greek restaurant. Worcester, which has a large Greek population, has been without a restaurant specializing in Greek food since the Odyssey on Summer Street closed several years ago. No word yet on a name or an opening date.
All that jazz: The Union Blues jazz club at Union Station will open its doors on Valentine’s Day. The newly built club will have great views of Worcester and will seat about 200.
Bergson’s 1790 has new chef: Earl Lahna, late of Harry’s Too on Route 9, has moved about a mile down the road, becoming the new chef at Bergson’s 1790 House. Bergson’s specializes in updated New England fare.
Olive Garden to open in Marlboro: The area’s first Olive Garden Restaurant is under construction and will open shortly in Marlboro on the access road leading to the Solomon Pond Mall.
