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Petrow’s Honored by the Food Network
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July 1, 2010, at 02:41 PM
Soon on the menu at Petrow's
Nick Petrow
Nick Petrow doesn’t know and doesn’t care to know.
Did a vagabond food critic suggest it? Did it start with a comment someone submitted to the website? Did someone blog about the dish and it got picked up from the ethers of the Internet?
Just how did his Petrow’s Belgian Waffles with black walnut ice cream and maple syrup become Nebraska’s entry on the Food Network’s “50 States, 50 Breakfasts” list, a gastronomical trek across America that features some of the best ways to start the day?
“I was contacted by the Food Network out of the blue a couple months ago and they asked me if I could get them a photo of our Belgian Waffle with black walnut ice cream,” said the man who, with his wife, Shelly, owns the legendary spot near 60th and Center streets that is Nebraska’s oldest continuously operating family-owned restaurant.
He wasn’t curious? He didn’t have any number of questions for the Food Network representative?
“When somebody like the Food Network calls, you just don’t say no. All I knew was that they wanted a photo and I wasn’t going to say no. I was just hoping that maybe the Petrow’s name would be mentioned somewhere with it.”
How does the restaurant’s newest honor rank in the decades of proud moments at the Omaha fixture that has been serving great food since 1903?
“This is huge for us,” Petrow beamed, “but I’d still have to count serving Warren Buffett and Bill Gates as … well, how often do you have two of the world’s richest men dropping in for a bite?”
One would think that the towering treat would be selling like … uh … well … hotcakes.
“The funny thing is that we’ve run that maybe a dozen times as a special. It’s not even on the menu,” Petrow said of the ever-deepening mystery of how the Food Network ever caught on and who warbled about his waffles in the first place.
“Sure, we have Belgian Waffles on the menu, but this particular combination, this special, has only been available maybe 10 or 12 times,” he said of the plate that the magazine article describes as one that “gets better with every bite as the ice cream melts into the waffle's nook and mixes with the warm maple syrup. Vanilla seems like the obvious flavor choice, but black walnut is an even better pick -- and more fitting, too: Nebraska is covered with black walnut trees.”
Petrow talked to Neighborhood News on his cell phone somewhere west of Des Moines on a return trip from picking up his kids at summer camp in Wisconsin. He was anxious to get back to work so he could tackle the two biggest things on his “to do” list.
“Get a copy of the Food Network piece framed and up in the restaurant and get that thing on the menu!”
