Feb. 14, 2022

The owners of Papa Woody’s Wood Fired Pizza can’t wait to see customers’ reactions to their new restaurant, which opens tonight.

The restaurant has grown out of the first-floor marketplace of the Jones421 Building to its own 4,300-square-foot space on the north end of The Cascade, another mixed-use building just a few blocks north on Phillips Avenue.

“We were kind of tucked back in the corner, and I loved it,” Lisa Esser said of the couple’s first storefront in Jones421. She and Steve Blumke started Papa Woody’s as a food truck in 2016 and moved into Jones421 in 2019. “People used to joke that we were kind of a little hole in the wall that nobody knew about. And I feel like we’ve made it out of the corner.”

Now, their restaurant has windows on the east side, looking out over Falls Park West at the area that will become Jacobson Plaza with an ice skating loop and an inclusive playground. The wall of windows on the north side looks at the patio that will be filled with tables once warmer weather arrives.

“The glass windows all the way around and the view, I feel like we’re watching what’s going on in our community now and being a part of it too.”

Customers can sit at a high-top counter along the east wall.

“So the idea is that the ice skating rink is going to be right there, so you can sit and watch people ice skate and be cozy and warm and have a good time,” Esser said.

A half wall separates that area, which has several tables and booths, from the other side of the restaurant, which includes the bar. Papa Woody’s gained a liquor license in the move, so it now will offer cocktails in addition to beer and wine.

“This side’s got more of the family feel,” she said of the north half. “You can come in with a couple of girlfriends or your kids or whatever. And the other side, we’ve got the higher wall dividing that so that if people are having a really good time over there, they can without interrupting a family meal.”

The restaurant seats about 90, and the patio likely will have room for 50, Esser said.

The kitchen also is much larger than Papa Woody’s previous home. It’s not a completely open kitchen like before, but customers still can catch a glimpse of the wood-fired pizza oven — originally from France — which made the move down Phillips Avenue on a forklift a couple of weeks ago. Its rotating deck can hold up to 20 large pizzas.

The wood-fired pizzas, which come in two sizes with three crust choices and three gluten-free or vegan crust options, will continue to be the highlight of the menu, but there are plenty of appetizers, burgers, sandwiches and options for the kids.

“Right now, we’ve started basically with the same menu. We did that because of all the changes that we’ve got going on we wanted to make sure that there was not a change in our food,” Esser said. “So our food menu is almost exactly the same. You might see a couple of new items. … I would say in probably two to three weeks we’ll be rolling out a revised menu, and on that we’ll have more choices.”

New offerings to come include a grilled chicken sandwich, possibly ribs and a salad or two, and more desserts, Esser said.

Residents in The Cascade’s apartment units and customers at Severance Brewing Co. on the other end of the boardwalk will be able to have Papa Woody’s food easily delivered to them.

“If you order from your apartments upstairs, then we’ll just run it up, essentially like room service,” Esser said. “And then the same thing with Severance. They’re going to have actually tablets on their tables that you can order, and it’ll just send us the order, and when it’s done, we’ll run it down.”

Severance has created an exclusive beer that will available only at the taproom and in the restaurant. It’s called Phillips Avenue Pale Ale, or PAPA for short.

Papa Woody’s will carry other local brews along with domestic and imported beers on tap and in bottles and cans. The liquor stock includes spirits from Watertown-based Glacial Lakes Distillery, which also has a tasting room downtown.

Esser is excited about the restaurant’s lead bartender who spent most of her career bartending in Las Vegas. “She is super knowledgeable in anything related to the bar, so our bar menu is awesome. We’ve got some things that you don’t see very often.”

A specialty menu for cocktails will change seasonally. A smoked old-fashioned, classic mojito and Cascade Cosmopolitan are just a few of the initial offerings.

To start, hours for Papa Woody’s at 775 N. Phillips Ave. will be 11 a.m. to midnight Tuesday through Saturday. Opening tonight on a Monday is special for Valentine’s Day.

“The food side will stay open until 9, probably 10 o’clock in the summer, and then we’ll have bar food and drinks until midnight,” Esser said of regular hours.

Once they’re comfortable with staffing, the restaurant might open for dinner on Monday nights.

“And then we’re working on trying to do maybe a Sunday brunch.”

Papa Woody’s has added staff and is still hiring.

“I feel really good about our team right now, but we’re always looking to hire good people that bring something to the team.”

The staff has grown to about 20 and includes help from the couple’s six kids and Esser’s mom.

“It’s always a family affair. And I say this not to be funny, but our employees have become our family as well. So we definitely have a phenomenal team, and it’s growing, and the people that we’ve added to it, I think are already family in a very short time.”

All of it is a big change for the couple, who have extensive restaurant experience – they met through Texas Roadhouse – but had never cooked wood-fired pizza before starting with the trailer.

“We wouldn’t be here without the love and support we’ve gotten from people. … Steve and I were riding together to work this morning, and he kind of grabbed my hand, and he says, ‘Man, we’re blessed, aren’t we?’

“It just feels really good. We’ve come a long way, and there were a lot of times when we weren’t really sure if we were going to make it because of everything that was so out of our control. And here we are, and we’ve got all these people that have followed the dream with us.”