Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, contributed video.
Last night, I was hanging out with several friends and enjoying the good life in NoMi. We decided we needed something to eat, and from our last foray to the Olympic Cafe, we knew they delivered. There aren't too many establishments in NoMi that deliver, by the way. Pair o' Dice Pizza is about the only one I can think of offhand.
This brought forth a rather interesting discussion about neighborhood amenities, but first, an explanation is in order for why the above video is associated with this post. You see...
...some of us had gotten it in our heads to go down the Farview Hill in a Radio Flyer wagon. Why, exactly? As Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes' fame said, "I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul. My mandate also includes weird bugs."
Also, I've heard a story that RT Rybak rolled down Farview Hill in a barrel, and that experience was somehow so amazing that it led to his support of the Hawthorne EcoVillage. Can anyone confirm this? Ideally with links to a story?
So after I put in the order to Olympic Cafe, I made a point to everyone gathered around that I wanted to get a picture of the delivery so I could blog about it. Unfortunately, no one had a camera with them and my Blackberry was, as you can see, otherwise occupied.
Which brings me back to the original point of this post (yes, there was one). Olympic Cafe delivers. I'm beginning to like their gyros more and more, and the fried okra is good too. I've had better chicken gizzards elsewhere, but it's nice to know they've got 'em. And their gyro cheese fries unfortunately look like something Jackson Pollock would cook while on a particularly bad acid trip.
So Olympic Cafe isn't high-end cuisine, is all I'm saying. But darn it, the place IS an AMENITY. Having places that deliver decent food late in the evening is a positive thing for NoMi. If you want them to deliver, the order has to be $20 or more, and the number to call is 612-522-2300. Enjoy!
21 comments:
This is actually good to know because I was wondering about places that deliver here.
Do they have a paper menu that you can take home with you (or a website for that matter)? I'm terrible at remembering what a place has to eat when I call to order.
I don't think they have a website or FB page but they do have paper menus you can take home with you.
Fire and Ice , Hooks, and Joy Luck also deliver here.
T Jaramillo
I'm sorry John to see that you and the Hawkman are backsliding. This business still needs to be shut down. It NEVER should have been allowed to operate at night. It is simply a place for thugs to congregate.
Any business can be a place where thugs congregate. What do we do? Shut them all down? So much for jobs on the northside, let alone "amenities." If there are problems, they should be addressed by the owner and the city but a restaurant is not an inconvenience store that sells drug dealer supplies and it ought to be easier to fix it.
Margaret,
Have you ever been to Olympic Cafe? You think you can't buy drugs at Hawthorn(e) sic. Crossings? I hope you're not that naive. When Olympic Cafe wanted to extend their hours there was a unified front on this blog, but a few chicken gizzards later some of NoMi's top movers and shakers are willing to open their arms to the thugs. This is despicable!
Fire and Ice sells plain white t's for cripes sakes!
You think these thug businesses belong in NoMi?
I stand by the position that Hoff and Hawkman once took and argue that the hours of this "business" need to be curtailed. I even take it a step farther and argue that the whole darn business needs to be SHUT DOWN.
Do your thug hugging someplace else.
JH
John Hanks--
We are forced to deal with the fact the place is there, the hours have been extended. Our best tactic is to actually GO THERE. In a perfect world, I'd rather see this place replaced with a business that doesn't cater so much to thugs.
Some of this is a damned if you do and damned if you don't proposition in the eyes of "John Hanks." If we don't patronize the business or talk to the owner then we're not supporting local businesses or being objective enough. When we do those things, this is the response.
More importantly though, I want to push back somewhat on John's "cater to thugs" statement. In my several times buying food at Olympic, I've seen clientele that is working-class and of various races. But these people haven't seemed thuggish to me. Fire 'N' Ice, on the other hand, had that vibe even BEFORE they started selling the long white T's.
Hawkman,
I hate to break it to you but thugs come in "various races", not just the darker ones.
I went there ONE TIME and I saw two guys in the classic plain white tees, bling, backward ball caps who were the same guys who hang around and deal all day right across the street at Hawthorn (sic) Crossings strip mall. Actually, I went in there several times in the past year before the Olympic Cafe issue hit anybody's radar, I freaking LIVE near there, after all.
And I see thugs, thugs, thugs patronizing that place. I'm not talking about working class and I'm sure not talking about race. I'm talking about these are the VERY SAME PEOPLE who are openly dealing across the street at Hawthorn (sic) Crossings strip mall.
As for Shamika, you are an inauthentic troll voice who shows up to make trouble and adopts various names, "Shamika" being only one of them.
John,
I agree with you 100% that Shamika is a silly troll, however I'm troubled by the implications of Hawkman's comments.
He's trying to argue that Olympic Cafe isn't a thug hangout by pointing out that people of various races were there when he went there.
The other side of that coin is, of course, that if there were just people of one race there it would be more of a thug hangout.
Which leads to the question of which race Hawkman means?
I think I can guess his answer.
I have kind of bit my tongue a bit on the Olympic Cafe issue for a while, but now feel like speaking my mind on this matter. I must say, there are many reasons to like Olympic Cafe. It is the only business along West Broadway that I routinely see someone outside sweeping the sidewalk and picking up litter. Do they do this because the city is on their backs? i really don't care. They are doing it. They also have large windows with an eyes on the street presence. They also are one of the store fronts who have made aesthetic improvements to their facade. They also are one of the businesses that actually have upbeat, attentive and FRIENDLY customer service. Their food is regular, short order, greasy food. But no one is claiming that they are going there for fine dining anyhow. It is what it is.
Olympic does not sell any paraphernalia that caters to thugs. I do not doubt that some thugs go in there because of the location. It is a reflection of that particular stretch of Broadway. And maybe it would not be a "decency dead zone" if more and more regular, law abiding NoMi residents were to frequent that block. That is actually what led me to start patronizing Olympic to begin with (before realizing all of the positive points I made above).
If a particuar area has problems, those problems only become magnified when decent, law abiding folks begin to avoid that area. The void quickly fills with negative elements. It's not fair for decent folks to say that they would never go to a place and then in the next breath complain that no decent people are there and only thugs are found there. If one is really concerned about revitalization of W Broadway and the Northside in general, then the position to take is to SUPPORT and FREQUENT those locations (as long as they are not directly catering to the problems of their location). I STRONGLY encourage all decent NoMi revitalizers to SUPPORT Olympic Cafe. To do otherwise is to contribute to that void of decency (and amenities) that has been pulling West Broadway down for so long.
In regards to places with a thuggish atmosphere, I have felt that much more at Yuan Yuan, the Chinese take-out spot in Hawthorn Crossings. Literally every time I have been there somebody has tried to sell me SOMETHING illegal. I wish the owners of the business (and Sherman Associates, owners of the property) were more aggressive in dealing with things like this, but I don't think that Yuan Yuan is openly catering to that clientele.
In regards to Olympic Cafe and the race comment, my point was that I've seen African-Americans, Caucasians, and others patronizing the place, and I haven't been approached about bootleg DVD's or whatnot, by ANYONE.
It's too bad this discussion fails to recognize the complete insanity and hair raising fun captured in that video. Thanks for posting it for my enjoyment. Troll- dude, get a life. You sure waste a lot of time, both yours and ours... and btw, you really bring nothing to this blog. You're a cinch to spot and your tiresome characters are boring. I don't even read your comments anymore, and I'm not alone. Troll, buddy, you are a loser.
LEL, the video has resulted in some Facebook discussions among NoMi friends about getting a bunch of us together for Radio Flyer races down the hill. If that happens, it will surely be covered here!
Yes, the video rocks. I was one of the lucky few who got to watch it live too!
I just drove past Olympic Cafe at 12:50am and it was closed.
This is the second time I've wanted to go there and it's been closed. I was really looking forward to some chicken wings...
Maybe if you folks were more accomodating to neighborhood businesses they would actually keep their doors open. I remember when they first wanted to stay open late the general opinion was 1: We're going to do everything we can to prevent this. 2: Shut them down. Now that they are approved and yet have not excercised their ability you complain. Sheesh!
anon 8:55...
Excuse me but isn't a desire to visit a business "accommodating"?
Also, they HAVE exercised their ability to stay open late... I just haven't had the right timing to actually go there.
I'm guessing they close early when business is slow... or perhaps don't even try to stay open late on Monday nights.
You complain about my complaining. Sheesh!
You are lumping together the "general opinion" of this blog with the complaint of one particular commenter... putting words in my mouth. Sheesh!
smells like a ...
TROLL!
I still don't think they should be open until 3 am, by the way.
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