Urban Gourmet no more

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

Today is a very sad day. My favorite pizza place Urban Gourmet in Ball Sq burned down last night. The weird thing is that I had pizza there just last night.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Burned down? The whole building is gone??

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

not burned down, but burnt to a crisp. Even the Urban Gourmet sign outside is all burnt. I think the neighboring businesses were affected too. If they ever rebuild, it's going to be a while before I can get my favorite Buffalo Chicken pizza again.

[ron_newman]

That's awful. By the way, Kelly's Diner is there because it replaced another block of burned-down businesses, years ago.

[dj-daeva.livejournal.com]

i got one just last week! :(

<3

[autumnsshadow.livejournal.com]

Mama Lisa's (don't know the number off the top of my head) makes a pretty good buffalo chicken pizza.

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

I tried Mama Lisa's tonight. Their buffalo chicken pizza was good!

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

Good grief! We're in the middle of moving to the Ball Sq. area and just ate there last night! Oh, I do hope they were insured. What a loss!

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

Until they rebuild, Pini's in Magoun Sq has really good pizza too. It's different from UG, but a good alternative for buffalo chicken pizza.

This really sucks though. I eat at Urban Gourmet 4-5 times a week.

It's a little coincidental that Urban Gourmet was just recently bought by the crazy Soundbites owner.

[georgy.livejournal.com]

Seriously? What is he trying to do, create a Ball Sq. monopoly?

That's a shame. It was a nice alternative to your standard pizza/sub shop. Hopefully they'll come back.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

He lives next door to me. He's nicer outside of the restaurant(s). But yeah, a bit loony.

So sad about Urban Gourmet nonetheless.

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

Nice food at the original location, but the BBQ ~sucks~ - even their sandwiches.

[dangerousface.livejournal.com]

oh no..how awful.

[watchamacallit.livejournal.com]

Whoa. I had no idea. That sucks.

I hope everything nearby survived with minimal damage.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I hope no one was hurt!

I love that place, too. I hope they will rebuild. They make my favorite pizza around here, the City Slicker pie with gorgonzola, caramelized onions, and sliced portabella mushrooms. It was the thing I always ordered from there. *sigh*

[rigel.livejournal.com]

That was my favorite pizza too.

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

that sounds divine. I wish I had heard of it sooner.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

It totally is. I never order any other kind of pie from there, it's so good.

worked there

[maru-mari.livejournal.com]

They were recently purchased by the owners of soundbites. The owner wasn't a bad guy, but he had some sketchy practices wrt to his employees. I had to leave because he never paid me on time, and his son couldn't keep his greedy fingers out of the register drawers, which i later got blamed for (unjustly).

I feel worst for the people i know there who are out jobs. ...and for the customers that liked the food, i guess.

Re: worked there

[maru-mari.livejournal.com]

oh, and the time clock we were asked to use was jipping us out of hours, and i never got compensated for my loss.

Re: worked there

[kglue.livejournal.com]

Off topic, but just a quick comment regarding using the term "jipping", which I'm guessing has the meaning to cheat, like the more commonly spelled gypping.

In any case, it's origin is from the perception that Gypsys cheated people ... and considered by many to be disparaging and an ethnic slur.

Re: worked there

[maru-mari.livejournal.com]

i am aware, and meh. I've seen it legitimately spelled as i spelled it, and it's far enough removed through long term overuse that i'm not too concerned about it - just as i still use the word 'gay' and 'sucks' to mean i'm displeased with something, even though i am known to be gay myself from time to time, and i'm not especially adverse to sucking anything in particular.

Thanks for your concern, in any case. I do apologize if i offended you personally.

gay people can be homophobic too

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

So that indicates a lot more about you than about what you are delivering an opinion on - thanks for perpetuating racism and homophobia in colloquial speech.

Re: gay people can be homophobic too

[maru-mari.livejournal.com]

:yawn:

Let me know if you decide to complain about anything of substance. There are real problems in the world. My falsely disparaging vernacular doesn't really count as one of them. Perhaps you could exert your energy in more profitable ways, o holy one?

Or, as mom used to say, choose your battles.

Everybody's an activist. Sheesh.

Re: gay people can be homophobic too

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps you could exert your energy in more profitable ways, o holy one?"

Actually, I have for years, and I continue to - both as a volunteer and a professional.

Feel free to spend some of your gay time listening to the gay kids who get kicked out of their homes for being gay, having been beaten up in schools by other kids who thought that they were, yes, "gay." BAGLY (http://www.bagly.org/) is often looking for adult advisors - but they are picky.

But yeah - thanks for the advice. Feel free to shake some of it onto your next slice of pizza.

Re: gay people can be homophobic too

[maru-mari.livejournal.com]

Not sure what you're trying to say, exactly. I mean, it seems as though you've implied i'm some sort of hypocrite, but that doesn't add up since i wasn't cruising 3 day old LJ topics trying to change the world by censoring people's language.

Honestly? I've argued this point before, and i've heard some good arguments in reply. I still behave this way for reasons that are clear to me, and you may do so as well or not - it's not my business. I'm more or less done with this conversation, but thanks for playing.

You can obviously reply to this if you want, i'm just letting you know that i'm unlikely to respond whether i have some witticism for you or not. I don't see this going anywhere.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Pizza is delicious!

Re: worked there

[ron_newman]

are you referring to the new owner or the former one?

Re: worked there

[maru-mari.livejournal.com]

new owner, or rather the guy running it, Mike, who is the brother of the guy who owns soundbites

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

Wow. Last night I couldn't sleep because I could smell smoke of something that obviously wasn't supposed to be burning coming in the window. That's so sad, but at least now my mystery is solved.

[philbot.livejournal.com]

Is Soundbites OK???

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

soundbites if fine

[philbot.livejournal.com]

Sweet.

Update

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

I just talked to the new owner (brother of crazy soundbites guy). Apparently the fire inspector thinks something went wrong with the freezer last night (which was fairly new I guess). The bakery delivery guy showed up at 3am last night and saw smoke. If he hadn't called the fire department, the whole building may have burned down. But the good thing is that no other businesses there were really affected, except for by smoke.

He says they will rebuild very soon, which is good news. He's just been standing outside all day, and everyone keeps walking by upset that their favorite pizza place is gone.

He also commented that it happened on Friday the 13th. Which is weird.

Re: Update

[billharnois.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the City Slickers and Urban Cowboy were good too.

Thankfully I have leftover Urban Gourmet from last night in my fridge.

I will really have to relish it tonight. I reminds me when Bobby from the Sopranos relished his deceased wife's baked ziti.

Re: Update

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Wow, I never saw that episode. Dead wife's ziti -- that's sad in a really big way.

And so is Urban Gourmet burning!

Re: Update

[larksdream]

Thankfully I have leftover Urban Gourmet from last night in my fridge.

Ironically, so do I.

This sucks. :-/

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Noooo! I didn't order from them often but I was thinking about getting into the habit. Fabulous carmelized onion with goat cheese pizza.

So sad.

[mattdm [typekey.com] (from livejournal.com)]

Where were all of you people in the previous threads about Davis-Square-area pizza shops? :) I'm pretty happy with Angelina's for the basics, but I've been missing a carmelized onion / goat cheese / gorgonzola / portabella mushroom / pesto chicken pizza kinda place.

[nowalmart.livejournal.com]

Ehh, we cannot give away all of the secrets!

[clauclauclaudia]

Well, I'm glad it happened in such a way that (it sounds like) nobody was hurt. I hope they're back in business soon!

[rmd.livejournal.com]

oh no!

i'm glad it got discovered as early as it did, though. somerville's a very densely packed town, and any fire that gets going at a good pace puts a lot of buildings and particularly houses at risk.

and glad to hear they'll be rebuilding.

[shinxy.livejournal.com]

WHAAAAT?

:-(!
I loved urban gourmet!

[ad-lib.livejournal.com]

boooo. i loved their pesto chicken panini!

scary that i now know i can sleep through a fire since i live right behind there and didn't hear or smell anything.

[yagagriswold.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know what Jen and Rich, the former owners, are doing now?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I'd like to know too. I was disappointed there was no warning about the change in ownership, there was just a new set of faces behind the counter and a sudden precipitous drop in quality of service. Jen was always very friendly and I enjoyed making small talk with her while waiting for Rich to make my chicken caesar salad. Which I guess I'll be getting from True Grounds from now on... if I can make it there before 7pm! :(

[farwing.livejournal.com]

holy shit. that's a block away from me and i heard *nothing*. of course, it's ball sq., so it's block away from lots of people.

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy to find this thread, I joined livejournal! I spoke to Yasser today, and he said 3-4 mos. to rebuild "but there's no telling for sure." One of the firefighters who worked the fire (kudos SFD!) said that they contained it so quickly, the pub next door was open that very night. I sleep well in my wooden house, thanks to those guys.

In the meantime, I'll repeat here the same question that's confounded chowhound.com: how do you make that delicious pizza crust? Some folks suggested tart crust, but I tried it and it didn't work. Or, really, ideas on re-creating any of their stuff while they're gone.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/315661