This is my friend Joe, Joe Todisco.
This is Joe's restaurant, JJ's Miss Syracuse Diner.
On Friday, Joe will start his day at the diner, a fixture at the corner of East Washington and Montgomery Streets, across the street from City Hall in downtown Syracuse. Then he'll shift gears and head over to Clinton Square, where JJ's will have a presence, once again, at Taste of Syracuse.
Joe is best known for JJ's, an Italian-American food stand at the New York State Fair. It used to be toward the far end of the Midway, a quick walk from the Native American Village. Then he moved to bigger digs along "Restaurant Row,'' near Baker's Chicken Coop.
Joe/JJ's took over the Miss Syracuse in March. The diner is a classic, a small, silver cylinder with an arched ceiling, a counter with six stools, a handful of tables and a row of booths along the Montgomery Street side. It's intimate and full of retro flavor. It has sat empty at times and had a succession of owners in recent years.
We settled into a booth and kept an eye on a side door of City Hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mayor Stephanie Miner, but no such luck. She's probably too busy to go out to lunch.
In addition to your usual diner fare, like eggs, omelets, pancakes, French toast, fretta, home fries and breakfast sandwiches, JJ's menu features club sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs and fish on Fridays (haddock, crab cakes and fried shrimp). It also includes some of Joe's regular State Fair fare, like chicken Parm, fried bologna sandwiches and spicy chicken Riggies.
We give "forks up" to JJ's French toast with sausage patties (not pucks; $5)...
And chicken Caesar salad ($5.95). The coffee was decent, too.
I met Joe the year he opened his stand, while working on a food story at the fair. It was 98 degrees and about 150 percent humidity, and I wasn't in the mood for food, especially hot, heavy food. But I saw a sign that said "Braciole on a Stick'' and had to investigate. Joe and his partners were serving braciole from Ascioti's meat market in Solvay, swimming in "gravy" (red sauce) and yes, speared with a stick.
I stopped back to see him another day and tried the braciole. Not only was it incredibly delicious, it was so tender you could cut it with the side of a fork -- and a plastic fork at that. Last year, one of my first stops at the fair was at JJ's, for a pot roast sandwich.
What's Joe serving at Taste of Syracuse this year? I'm not sure, but whatever it is I know it will be tasty, so stop by and see him. Tell him Margaret sent you. The JJ's stand is No. C82 and you'll find it in front of the Atrium building.
JJ's at the Miss Syracuse, meanwhile, is open 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Friday. The only thing it's lacking, in my opinion, is a neon sign with a blinking arrow that says "Eat at Joe's."
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