September 29, 2004
It’s About Time!Great food. Great wine. A focused and well-reasoned wine list with very reasonable prices. I’m talking about American Flatbread in Los Alamos. Wake me up. Is this a dream? All this and all within walking distance from the house!
A real pet peeve of mine is a wine list-even a good wine list-where the wine prices amount to highway robbery. I’d rather see a humdrum wine list with fair prices, especially if the restaurant let’s you bring in your own wine with a modest corkage fee. By a modest corkage fee, I mean $2 to $6.
Outrageous pricing on what I call “cookie cutter” wine lists amounts to taking the wholesale bottle price and doubling it, or tripling it. Even worse, taking the retail price and doubling or tripling that! This amounts to highway robbery! So when a bottle of wine from Costco, Dino’s or my retail store, for example, sells for $20 and ends up on a list for between $40 and $60, there is something dreadfully wrong.
It discourages wine consumption.
When I see this, I say “let me have a Boodles martini up with an olive and twist, or a Makers Mark sweet manhattan in a bucket, thank you!” Restaurants that engage in such pricing shenanigans aren’t going to get my money. They shouldn’t get your money either.
The cynical side of me says, a good cocktail for $7 to $8 gives you “a lot more bang for your buck anyway,” and that’s better than being ripped off on a bottle or glass of overpriced wine!
With the assistance of marketing consultant and Los Alamos resident, Karen Readey, the wine list at American Flatbread features a tasty array of red white and pink. White wines on the list come from such producers as Au Bon Climat, Costa De Oro, Zaca Mesa, Sanford, Palmina, Curtis and Cold Heaven.
Red wines come from the likes of Vita Nova, Zaca Mesa, Longoria, Qupe, Carhartt, Vandale, Makor and Palmina.
Dry roses (some of my personal favorites) are Sanford’s pinot noir vin gris, and Louisa Lindquist’s Verdad rose, a wine made from predominantly grenache.
All the wines on the list are local. All are very reasonably priced, compatible with the pricing of the artisan food. The pizzas come in two sizes-ten inch, great for one person and 15 inch, generous enough for two people. This delicious fare ranges in price from $5 to $14.
American Flatbread owner, Clark Staub, does right by the locals-wines by Lucas & Lewellen, and wines from Stephan Bedford who has his own tasting room just several blocks away on Bell Street in Los Alamos. Then, too, there’s mighty tasty ale from the Santa Maria Brewing Company (along with Firestone’s Double Barrel and Island Brewing from Carpinteria).
I believe Wolfgang Puck said at Michael Bonaccorsi’s memorial service at Spago earlier this year, that Michael had made him realize that wine was part of the meal and every bit as important as the food. Clark’s philosophy at American Flatbread embodies that spirit, I think.
When Clark Staub sold his organic, artisan bakery in Claremont, California in 2002, he moved to Vermont to become vice president of marketing for Burton Snow Boards.
Although no stranger to the corporate world, having worked at Capitol Records for 17 years, “the corporate scene didn’t cut it for me at that time,” Clark told me.
About that time, Clark ran across George Schenk at American Flatbread. The company had been in business for 20 years selling frozen pizzas up and down the east coast, and owning two very successful restaurants as well.
George Schneck licensed Clark Staub to produce American Flatbread out west. Clark settled on the new gray building on Bell Street in Los Alamos that had been destined to become a winery. The flatbread they produce there is now available in 200 stores in ten western states. Locally you can get the frozen American Flatbread pizza at Los Olivos Grocery, El Rancho Marketplace, New Frontiers in Solvang and San Luis Obispo, Foods for the Family in Santa Maria, Spencer’s Fresh Markets, Lazy Acres in Santa Barbara and Whole Foods.
“This is a hybrid bakery,” Clark told me. “By that we do wholesale baking five days a week. Friday and Saturday we change out our production for a restaurant. This gives our staff a chance to experience customers first hand eating our pizzas.”
Most everything in the building is recycled, Clark told me. The bar was made from fence post in Los Olivos. The tables inside have been fashioned from old barn wood in Los Alamos. The chairs are antiques from a Free Mason’s guild in Phoenix, Arizona they found on eBay.
American Flatbread will no doubt have its regulars, and I think I’ll be one of them. On wine prices, Clark told me, “we want to keep them reasonable. The plan is to get people to try different things.”
American Flatbread is located in Los Alamos at 225 West Bell Street. They serve dinner Friday and Saturday nights from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. The fixed menu is pizza, salad, dessert, beer, wine and soda. Phone (805) 344-4400. Check out their website: www.foodremembers.com
Bon appetit!
Wine and pizza lover and Santa Maria Times Wine columnist, Bob Senn, lives in the bucolic Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
