Alex's One Dish Challenge with The Eatery of Wallingford!

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I heard communities. Thank you somuch for listening. It is another culinary
round of fun. We're back,baby, yes, with our friend Alex
pe Taylor from Yelp, Connecticut aswe travel the state tasting the best of
the best of small businesses and wonderfulfood really in our stay. So please
welcome Liam Masella, who is fromthe eatery of Wallingford. Thank you for

(00:22):
being here. Absolutely, thanks forhaving me. Absolutely you know, um,
I do as you know, Alex, like to start off and remind
people who you are and what youdo. But first and foremost I want
to know how you got Leah tocome here to bring all of this.
Listen, this is just the waylife works sometimes, right, And so
the last week I was at thiswonderful thing called the wall Wallingford Hop.

(00:45):
Okay, Leo, tell me whatthe Wallingford Hop is. So the Wallingford
Restaurant Hop is just a bunch ofrestaurants in town will give out sample sized
food and you get a wristband andyou can just hop around from reth literally
hop around from restaurant to restaurant andtry hop. We did I did with

(01:06):
my foodie friends. And that's howyou got connected well. She was actually
the first stop on the foodie hopof the wally Furt Hop, the first
stop on food and literally I wasdoing shots of her buffalo pasta salad out
of the little ramikans that they weredoing because everyone was doing samples and I
was just popping them back like youknow, oh my God, needed for

(01:29):
me. And you were there becauseof Yelp Connecticut and your roll. I
mean, it all ties together.I feel like I have a lifestyle job
at this point now where I legitimatelyam supporting local and celebrating local every day
of my life and rightfully so Ithink that's just a wonderful way to go
about it because we're building community,which is amazing. But yeah, Yelp

(01:49):
Connecticut has been this wonderful experience forme for the past two and a half
years now, and I really getto meet awesome people and connect them with
other awesome and people. It's socool, amazing. And tell me a
little bit about the eatery and howit got started. Obviously this is your
baby, so tell me it fromthe beginning, and you know you wouldn't,

(02:10):
honestly, Like, here's the thing, I didn't even know it was
there, like I've driven probably passivea million times. Oh my god.
And that's why I'm like, let'slet's get some awareness going. Yeah,
well, we don't have a signright now, so that's probably part of
the struggle. It's coming in thenext few weeks. So we're a little
bit of a speakeasy right now.UM. So if you find us,
you're one of the lucky few.Really lucky. I got lucky. Um.

(02:35):
So the eatery. So my husbandstarted it right um and he,
you know, basically was in aband. It didn't work out, went
to culinary school, and then umdecided to just start making food. Started
with a catering business, added alittle takeout counter, just to be more
of a face in the community,in the neighborhood. And when he and

(02:59):
when he made a menu, itbecame popular so quickly that it felt like
the catering was now getting in theway of the sandwiches. Oh yeah.
So then we cut the catering menudown to just sandwiches and salads, just
our cafe menu, and it justlike kind of exploded and took off in
a way that was unexpected. Itwas kind of an fortunate accident really that

(03:21):
what it is now. I lovethat. I mean, we're looking at
some wonderful things right now, whichwe're going to get to in a little
bit. But really, again,I feel like it's like these unique dishes,
Yeah, that really get my attentionsometimes. And what was the inspiration
behind some of the menu items becausethey they don't look typical. Yeah,
I think it's just um just notwanting to have a like a typical food

(03:46):
experience. And my husband and Ijust kind of traveling around experiencing a lot
of different flavors and taste and thinkinghow can we put those flavors in taste
onto a sandwich? Like how canwe combine it all in sandwich form?
So really, like when we putspecials on the board or make sandwiches,
do we think they're delicious? Whatdo we want to eat at home at
night after a long day, Andthose are the things that kind of make

(04:09):
it to the menu. I Ilove this and I'm looking at some of
these. I'm looking at some ofthese dishes and I'm thinking, oh my
goodness, I would eat this atany time of the day. This is
amazing. I'm so excited right nowmyself, like this is wow. Yeah,

(04:29):
we try to just we try tokeep it interesting and switch it up
for our customers, and also justkeep food really fresh, making things from
scratch in house, trying to popopen the least amount of cans or open
the least amount of bottles possible,and just really try like make sure you
can taste the freshness in our food. It's really important to us. All

(04:53):
Right, Alex, It's time foryou to do your thing, the one
Dish Challenge challenge. I have tosay that I feel like the one Dish
Challenge is a fantastic name. Ifeel like it's a fantastic hook. We
might have to rebrand is out,but I think so because no one does
the one dish. I feel likethat everyone that comes here brings us every

(05:14):
dish. So this might be Alex'sEvery Dish Challenge, because I guess,
I don't know. I'll let yousay it was it hard to pick one
representation. Oh, absolutely, LikeAlex gave was kind of like a guyline
for something that was something He definitelysaid, what was interesting, what would
be the most popular, right,And so again I think it boils down
to there's a lot of popular things. Maybe it's Alex's restaurant challenge. There
you go, I think ve Hifive restaurant challenge. But I'll tell you

(05:41):
what, you know, if wewere coming in, if we were lucky
enough to find you without that soundthat sign out there, what is the
one thing you'd want us to tryfirst? Or maybe what's your one go
to? Okay, so the mostpopular thing is the Buffalo chicken bacon sandwich.
It's Vermont cheddar, applewood bacon,grilled chicken in Buffalo sauce and chipotleoli.

(06:02):
And I think we just make themall day. Sometimes I feel like
we should change our name to likethe Bcberie, which is the name of
the sandwich, because that's all likemostly what we do. Well, that
would be the top. I'm avegetarian, so I would have other ideas,
so I think so when I whenI married my husband, I really
brought in sort of a different perspectiveon things being a vegetarian my whole life

(06:26):
and coming into the restaurant. I'mmarried into it. It's my step child,
we say, so I brought inmore vegetarian things that are interesting.
Well, I have to say,and I'm kind of like takeover for a
second. Is that the one thingI saw on your menu that I did
not ever try yet, And youknow I do love the buffalo Aposta salads.
Coincidentally, on the same play,you like spicy Stop. Do you

(06:49):
dare to be different? I comeon, let's do this. So for
what I'm saying, I really feellike the sweet potato case a d yuh.
We had some sort of like specialcalling to me. Yes, it
calls to you, It calls tome. I feel like, could you
pass me that? I swear Ican pass you this right now. It's

(07:10):
real close to me over here.But what's the inspiration behind that? Um?
We like sweet potatoes, right andso, and we really like quesadillas.
And when you're just hanging out ina restaurant, you're like, how
can I turn this into a causidia? How can I turn into my favorite
thing? So we just we mapleroasted the sweet potatoes. It has spinage

(07:30):
to pull a oli, mozzarella,Vermont cheddar, and we're just like,
what would we just figured out whatwould taste good? We kept trying it
and then m yeah, so sowas bird the sweet potato quesadia. We
put it on the special's menu.It was never supposed to be a menu
item. It became so popular soquickly that like our customers were begging us

(07:54):
not to take it off. Theywere like, this has to be available
every day. So then eventually leftit on the special word for I think
two years, and then finally gavein and adopted it, just as Alex
gave in right now and is eatingit. How was it okay? And
I love this because it's it's gotlike a sweet taste to it. Like
again, it's almost like a dessert, if you will, like really fun

(08:18):
and different, really like happy peopleare dancing in your mouth right now,
you know. I feel like ifyou make things the right way and treat
the ingredients the right way, youdon't miss the meat, or you don't
even care if it's vegan betch.I mean, obviously you care if that's
your what you follow. But ifyou're a person who eats a little bit
of everything, you don't miss meator you don't miss anything if it's prepared

(08:39):
with love in the right way.Absolutely, So yeah, my husband is
definitely like the meat heavy sandwiches allcome from him, and we have a
lot of meat at theatery. Butthen I try to bring in, you
know, something a little different andI try to I mean people, not
that people don't put chicken on theswep potato Kasidia, that's a good idea,
but I try to, like,you know, bring in something a
little different, give people another option. So there's a couple of things,

(09:03):
a couple of things that I wantedto ask, So Wallingford itself, the
Wallingford hop that I just did.I saw so many cool things going on
that I had not known about Wallingford. How do you feel being in that
Wallingford community. It's just really itwas such a surprise to me. It
had this old school Americana vibe toit, to put it, which I

(09:26):
just felt like I was, ina way stepping back in a time machine
slightly, but to a more peacefultime or to some sort of happy time
of life. Yeah, pleasant Bill, exactly right. Yeah, Wallingford is
amazing. Like so, I'm I'mvery obsessed with our town. So I
can't imagine right now living anywhere elseor doing business anywhere else. So we've

(09:50):
had other opportunities or other location opportunitiesor people saying hey, come put one
here or here, and we justcan't get past the fact that Wallingford is
our spot. And it's where wewe like love the people, the faces
everyone who comes into the eatery.So it's also, by the way,
the cheapest electricity. Oh yeah inConnecticut. Did you know this? I

(10:11):
had no idea. I was like, how is this possible? Because they
generate their own elect Yeah, theyhave their own grid. It's unbelievable.
The plus you know, and well, you know the other part of the
show is community access. But Ifeel like I would alex is turning me
into I just want to do foodshows. I think these are my favorite

(10:31):
shows. I have to be honestwith you, and it's nice to be
able to promote a small business withinour state because you put out top quality
product. You're busy, you're workinghard every single day. So you know,
even though we're saying a small business, that's not how you operate,
right, I mean, I guess. I mean we're we're you're slam.
We're slam, We're busy, andwe're doing it in between having a three
and a half year old, youknow, just so she's at the eatery

(10:54):
sometimes with me while I'm just kindof quick do a post. I'm social
media for the eat so we mightbe posting while she's I don't know,
playing right there stamping bag. Soyeah, definitely a very very family owned
business at the Eatery. For what'ssuper cool is also the cause that you're

(11:15):
associated with. Tell us about thecause that you support in your business.
Yeah, so we are really passionateabout supporting anti human trafficking efforts. It's
something that we're just personally passionate aboutas a couple and just just goes into
a lot of how we run ourbusiness is just with this idea. We

(11:35):
have a tagline at the Eatery whichis I'll tell you nothing is common as
our tagline, and that's just yetthe idea of that nothing we do is
common, we believe that it haseternal weight and value. Everything everything we
do in every human that we interactwith is not just a common person right.
They have like this innate value tothem. And we want to treat

(12:00):
people, our employees, our customersin that way. And so that pours
over into the fact that we thinkevery human deserves to be free right and
have a right to that and soum and should be valued and never trampled
on and never used. So weactually give a portion of our money and
ten dollars if you buy a Tshirt. You ever want a T shirt

(12:20):
to International Justice Mission, Yeah,I JM. And they plan mission.
They plan missions to take people outof those situations, which are incredible,
and they just work with local legislatorsto to help and they're in traff work
they do is unbelievable because they goin in the middle of the night,
they have all these missions. They'vebeen on this program before. They have

(12:41):
done so much great work, notonly in this country but elsewhere. The
missions that they go on and thelives that are saved and changed. And
I think, you know you're goingto get me off the food topic.
Here we go. I'm sorry,but but but here's the thing. I
think people would be very shocked andsurprised to learn that that goes on right
under our noses right here, andcan etiquette, and there's a lot of

(13:01):
things that go on under beneath ournoses in Connecticut that don't get enough airtime.
And the fact that you're making thisa part of your business because it's
not sexy to talk about that.Now, sure you know what I mean.
It is. It's it's a hardthing for people to hear because you
don't want to acknowledge that that's inyour own back y are. But sex
trafficking does happen here in our state, and trafficking of humans of all ages
happens here in our state for differentreasons, and it can all be tracked

(13:26):
and followed in that group is absolutelyfantastic. So I applaud you and your
husband and Alex flapping right here.I mean, that's amazing. That's the
thing about the businesses that we're bringingon the show, multifaceted, just bringing
full dimension to not only the businessesthat they're doing, but the causes they
believe in. And I feel likethat's just such such an amazing, awesome

(13:50):
human thing to be doing. Sothank you. This was I mean,
it's amazing to hear you know whatyou what you're standing me here. We
feel honored to be able to andto have a business, to work for
ourselves and have a business that allowsus to choose where we put our money
and to be able to put itin causes that really matter. I've heard
it said like when something breaks yourheart, that's your why, that's why

(14:11):
you do what you do. Ifif it makes you cry, if it
breaks your heart, then make ityour why, and so I feel like
that's you know, human trafficking isone of those things that it's made it
our why and we're always balancing likeso we're also very silly people. The
eater is a very silly place,so it's like balancing, like, you
know, we want to let peopleknow about this and also serve them as

(14:31):
sandwich. We don't want to makethem feel guilty of the sandwich, but
we want to, like, butwe want to bring it to the forefront
and say, like, buy asandwich and support this really great cause.
Makes me want to buy a sandwich. Now, listen, let's talk about
the music part of the business.Your husband's not to be anymore, but
can we find performances there? Doyou support performance? Whag? Is there
a lot a lot of live musicthere or what? So? Right now

(14:54):
we're take out only in our currentspace, Okay, we don't love that.
We love having people come and andeat our food and spoiling them.
Since the pandemic, we've gone totake out only. We never went back
after that. I think a lotof businesses had that. I think you
realize some things, and we realizewe have no parking, which we already
knew, but at one when thepandemic kind of hit, we took away

(15:16):
seating. We got exponent like wegot really busy all of a sudden,
and we found out a lot ofpeople had stopped coming because they couldn't find
parking for our space. Um,so seating was kind of detrimental for us.
So we've gotten rid of it,which is so sad. So well,
hopefully someday there'll be another space.So we did have live music back
in the day. Um, rightnow we're just playing music through our speakers.

(15:37):
But John still does play on theside at our church and other things,
so he does still get to likehave that outlet for sure. So
if we hire you for a cateringjob, we can hire you from dinner
ants music. Right definitely, Alex, they see a party, I think
that's going to happen. But alsotoo, I want to focus back in

(15:58):
on this amazing donut um sandwich thatI'm looking at. Tell me what,
tell me what I'm looking at?Yeah, so, um, ever since
we started the eatery, you've beengetting these really incredible glazed donuts from New
York City and you know what theysay, like there's something in the water
like there literally is something of waterbagels and you know they're so good,
so um. You know, peopleoften come in and they're like, oh,

(16:18):
do you make donuts here? I'mlike, you don't want us to
make donuts, but you want NewYork to make your donut and you want
to eat the donut. So um. There was a guy who used to
work for us, and he putchicken bacon shatter on a donut and he
grilled it like a glazed donut,grilled so that it like melts and gets
a little charred and just like tasteslike a camp fire. Wow. Um.

(16:40):
And he tried the sandwich. Itwas so good, and occasionally we'd
put it on as a special andthen eventually a friend of ours was like,
this sandwich just needs to be amenu item, Like it's so ridiculous.
So this is an egg. Ibrought a bacon, egg and cheese
on a donut or version of thesandwich. R. Now you know what
this does remind me of some funfair food. It's very decadente looking and

(17:00):
it looks really well made as welland executed. And I am I have
been staring at this plate for fartoo long, but I think I'm seeing
macaroni and cheese. I think I'mseeing mashed potatoes. I think I'm seeing
a sandwich. What is my lookingat? So it's a mashed potato grilled
cheese And this was specifically requested byAlex allowed to throw you under the viral
alportunity. Yeah, I can tellyou it has It has Chipotle sour cream,

(17:27):
it has cheddar. My husband makesthe most amazing mashed potatoes. And
I'm not even a mashed potato person, but i love his mashed potatoes.
And then green onions. And youcan add bacon if you want, which
is all right, we didn't dothat for you, but wow, that's
fun. It's fun because it's mashedpotatoes and mac and cheese on a sandwich
with cheese and I'm getting right now. This is amazing. We can't thank

(17:52):
you enough for your time today.How can we follow you on social media
and support you? And how canwe get T shirts? Yeah? So,
um we're at Wallingford Eatery on Instagramand you can find us on Facebook
as well. Um where I'll locatedat sixty five South Colony Street and walling
Drive slow because what do you wantto suggest? What are we looking for

(18:15):
give us some landmarks. Okay,after you passed, and here's another one
up some day, the Pailetta Pileteria, like l after you passed that plaza
it is shortly after and by theway, Pailetta's someday We're okay, thank
you amazing but um yeah, andthen so you can come in buy a
T shirt. We're only us areopen Monday through Friday. Okay, seven

(18:36):
thirty to three. We kind ofhave bankers hours a little bit um,
but you know, family stuff.We're just to close on the weekends,
and that's how we stay excited aboutit and not burnt out. We just
love we love what we do,so we're like, we're going to do
it within these hours. I caughtthe energy and the vibes the second I
walked in. And again, thiswas just last week, but it was
so much fun. I had ablast being a part of the Wallingford Hop

(18:56):
and you being the first stop.So thank you for opening my eyes to
how awesome your business is. Absolutelywell, hopefully we've opened a lot buys
today with our Alex's one Restaurant Challenge. One Challenge Challenge. Yeah, rebranded
the Eatery of Wallingford. Thank youfor being here, and we really appreciate
you Leah Masella and your family andall the food you brought and the drinks,

(19:19):
the lemonade, the lime made,the salads, the sandwiches, the
cookie. What's that bar? Thankyou? That is a granol So we
just launched a baking programs granola bar. We have a gluten free vegan cookie,
chocolate chip cookie which is hard tomake it gluten free and vegan.
That's so good. You're such agold mine. You're a gold mine.
Oh my god, you need tocome back. We need to wrap it.

(19:41):
Always bring food. But we're notdone. We were wrapping this interview.
Part two is coming and we thinkyou're more healthy stuff next time.
So no, no, no,no, no, don't don't. Don't
do a good thing here, Alex. Thank you very much. Right,
thank you for joining us. Anothertradition of Alexs. What restaurant child?

(20:03):
Okay we're changing the name, butthank you for being on iHeart Communities. Thank you