New spots from The Fifty/50 and Bleeding Heart Bakery slated to open March 2011

Greg Mohr and Scott Weiner, co-owners of Wicker Park upscale sports bar The Fifty/50, are slated to open two new adjoining spots in West Town (1916-1924 W Chicago Ave) in March 2011.

Roots will the first bar in Chicago serving hand-tossed Quad Cities style pizza. Roots (located at the corner of Chicago and Winchester) and will also feature other Quad Cities food specialties, a massive create-your-own salad menu, an extensive Midwest-only beer list, and both infused-liquors and housemade sodas on tap.

Mohr and Weiner teamed up with Bleeding Heart Bakery's Michelle Garcia and Vinny Garcia and will open Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café that will be located next door to Roots. This will be the first time Bleeding Heart will do sit-down dining and will breakfast and brunch items served all day. Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will also have a full-service bakery.

Both Roots and Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will feature open viewing kitchens.

Roots
Roots will be a casual neighborhood bar prominently featuring hand-tossed Quad Cities style pizza and will seat approximately 200 people inside the 6,500 square foot space. Roots plans to have a 50 seat outdoor patio as well.

Mohr - a Quad Cities native from Rock Island, IL - will bring the best from his childhood favorite Quad Cities pizza parlors and restaurants to Chicago in a comfortable bar setting utilizing simple, high-quality ingredients prepared fresh every day like he and Weiner do at The Fifty/50 in Wicker Park.

Quad Cities style pizza is of "regular" thickness; the pizza dough contains more malt than other styles and a unique spice mix; the crust is chewy yet airy from being hand tossed; the sauce is tomato-based with distinctive spices; toppings are served under the cheese; toppings like sausage are served crumbled instead of sliced; and pizza slices are hand cut into long strips with large scissors.

Roots' kitchen will be glass-enclosed in will feature angled mirrors so patrons can have a full view of their pizzas being hand tossed and prepared.

Roots will feature about six Quad Cities specialty pizzas including two huge regional favorites like Taco Pizza (crumbled pork sausage, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, tortilla strips) and another with ground beef, Louis dressing, cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, onion, lettuce, and pickles.

Pizza at Roots will come in three pie sizes and patrons can build their own pizzas utilizing about 20 different traditional meat, veggie, and cheese toppings.

Roots will also prominently feature made-to-order salads where patrons can choose from 40+ ingredients (lettuce mixes, vegetables, nuts & berries, cheeses, proteins, etc) and about eight different dressings. Patrons will be also able to view the salads being prepared in the kitchen due to the glass enclosure and angled mirrors as well.

The Roots food menu will also feature other Quad Cities pizza parlor favorites like calzone sliders (aka pizza puffs), larger soft and doughy calzones, gourmet sausages, housemade mozzarella sticks, and desserts like Rock Island Tiramisu (mascarpone and Kahlua flavored marshmallow fluff) and ice cream sandwiches in the vein of the famous "Chippers" from Whitey's.

Roots will feature at least 16 craft beers on tap that will be exclusively from the Midwest. Roots will also have an extensive Midwestern-only bottled beer list. Look for Roots to also feature infused-liquors on tap, house-brewed sodas like root beer on tap, and specialty drinks that will be soda-based and spiked with alcohol served in classic pizza parlor 32oz Pepsi cups.

The food at Roots will be available for delivery and carryout. Roots will also have a late-night window serving pizza by the slice and whole pies.

Please note: Mohr, Weiner, and The Fifty/50 withdrew their involvement from The Cedar Hotel project last year.

Bleeding Heart Bakery & Cafe
Mohr and Weiner have teamed up with Michelle Garcia and Vinny Garcia of Bleeding Heart Bakery to open Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café that will be adjacent to Roots.

Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will be a two-story, 8,500 square foot organic breakfast & lunch spot and organic bakery that will seat about 125 people. There are also plans for outdoor patio seating.

Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will prominently feature a storefront studio window where patrons can view Vinny designing and decorating cakes that helped make Bleeding Heart Bakery (voted the No. 6 bakery in the country by TLC) nationally known thanks in part to their in participation in 12 Food Network Challenges. Also in the storefront studio window, patrons can prominently view Michelle creating chocolate, truffles and ice creams from scratch daily.

Also the entire kitchen of Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will be glassed-in and will be fitted with angled mirrors. Patrons can sit at a counter outfitted with stools and view everything going on in the kitchen from bread baking, to breakfast and brunch cooking, to cake making.

Michelle - who cooked and trained around the world from Chicago to San Francisco to Amsterdam - is excited to get back into the kitchen and create breakfast and brunch items that will be traditional American-style diner food with the Bleeding Heart twist.

Expect deep friend donut breakfast sandwiches (with choice of eggs, meats, and cheeses), hibiscus pancakes with warm lemon custard, Toad In The Hole (homemade breakfast sausage, Yorkshire pudding, tomato cofture), vegan smores pancakes, and about five different Eggs Benedict riffs (from a Fried Green Tomato Benedict with bacon hollandaise to a Mushroom Polenta Benedict with persimmon hollandaise and roasted red peppers).

Also, Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will also allow patrons to select certain favorite Bleeding Heart cake and cupcake flavors (think Red Velvet & Vegan Chocolate) and turn them into waffles or pancakes.

While Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will create and sell the traditional organic baked goods they're well known for, they will focus more on finer American pastries utilizing French techniques incorporating seasonal and locally-sourced organic ingredients into the likes of macaroons, tarts, petit fores, French-style mouse cakes, French candies, barks, brittles, donuts, and more.

Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will also in-house bake about 12 different kinds of breads daily utilizing old school pre ferments and very few commercial types of yeast to develop a better depth of flavors. Expect Half Acre-infused beer bread, baguettes, cheddar bread with Organic Valley cheese, and brioche among many others. The breads from Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will be available for sale to patrons and wholesale to other restaurants as well.

Bleeding Heart Bakery & Café will feature a full Alterra Coffee bar and will turn some of its favorite cake and cupcake flavors (think the salted caramel "Veruca Salt") into coffee drinks. Also expect farm-fresh and organic housemade sodas, organic beers, and fresh-squeezed organic juices that will also appear in Bloody Marys and mimosas.

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