There's nothing low-carb or low-fat about the foods featured in today's Worth the Trip, but we couldn't help ourselves. We found a funky place for hot sausage sandwiches in Armstrong County and fabulous chocolate chip cookies just down the Monongahela River.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette
Sasha Tarnek displays a hot sausage sandwich she made behind the bar at Stanley's Bar-Grille in Ford City. Tarnek, the fourth generation of her family to work at Stanley's, is the niece of Jim and Julie Tarnek, who operate the bar.
Click photo for larger image.

This is part of an occasional series that takes a look at bars, restaurants, delis, coffee shops, bakeries and other small food-related businesses competing against big box grocers and chain restaurants. They are in small towns throughout the region, and locals know them well, usually for a particular product.
To suggest a Worth the Trip, e-mail food@post-gazette.com or write Post-Gazette Food, 34 Blvd. of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. Please include the name of the business, address and phone number.

Hot sausage sandwich

Part of the fun of Worth the Trip is the reconnaissance, and for a trip to Armstrong County, we sent Bob Scorzafave, Fuhrer Wholesale's Budweiser beer man. Bob happened to be working in that area and, because he had to eat lunch anyway, we sent him off to find Stanley's Bar-Grille in Ford City. Bob is Italian and, given that he spends his day going in and out of bars, we figure he knows a tasty hot sausage sandwich.

The early reports were good, so a few weeks later, we put Stanley's on the Must Try list and headed up Route 28. What we found is a darn good hot sausage sandwich at a neighborhood bar operated by the same family for three generations. It's filled with history and a display of plates from around the world.

Polish immigrants Frank and Katherine Szalankiewicz started in the 1920s by making root beer and other soft drinks on the family homestead. Eventually, the pop-making business gave way to a full-scale dry goods store through Prohibition and the Depression, pictures of which are on display. (If you look closely you can see that the existing walk-in cooler, with its wooden door, is same one in the bar today.)

By the mid-1940s, after the couple's son Stanley had returned from World War II, the store was converted to a bar. Stanley eventually turned the bar over to his sister and brother-in-law, Ann and Bernard Tarnek, who in turn passed it on to their son Jim and his wife, Julie, who now run it.

Part of Stanley's charm is that it's so uncharming, typical of industrial town neighborhood bars. The glass-block bar is lighted from behind by colored lights, the same soft Christmas-type lights that ring the ceiling. There are a half-dozen tables along one wall. A single long Naugahyde booth, replete with duct tape, provides the seating. Wall art ranges from pictures of the Beatles to cheesecake beer posters.

Stanley's uses specially blended hot sausage sold at Kevin's Meats in Kittanning, where owner Kevin Kronen has made his own sausage for 14 years using whole hogs and a secret recipe.

At Stanley's, the sausage is cooked on the original grill that's been behind the bar for decades and served smothered in either American or provolone cheese with grilled onions. The sausage comes on lightly toasted buns from the Ford City National Bakery, which has been around for three generations. The sandwich is served on squares of wax paper. Condiments are optional, but regulars swear by Siracha hot chili sauce.

As much as 10 pounds of sausage is delivered daily, as are the buns. Though 10 pounds of hot sausage may not seem like much, Kronen says some of his larger clients might sell only 10 pounds of hot sausage in a week. For a small bar to sell that much each day says something.

"We've been making the sandwiches this way for over 40 years," Jim Tarnek said. "Everybody swears it's the grill."

While you're waiting for your sandwich you can enjoy a 75-cent draft or wander around the bar and look at the collection of plates from around the world that family, friends and customers have been buying for Stanley's for decades. If Jim Tarnek is working, he'll tell you the history of each plate. At any given time, nearly 80 plates from a collection numbering several hundred are on display. Look closely and you'll see one from Air Force One (circa the Carter administration), the 1980 Olympics games in Moscow, which the U.S. boycotted, and several from Poland donated by monks who lived at the nearby monastery.

Stanley's Bar-Grille, 507 Fourth Ave., Ford City, is open daily from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. and, depending on who's bartending, you can get sausage from 11 a.m. until closing or they run out. Phone: 724-763-9774.

Kevin's Meats, 451 Grant Ave., Kittanning. Open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Phone: 724-545-7877

Ford City National Bakery, 821 Fifth Ave., Ford City. Open from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 4 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays. Phone: 724-763-7684.

Chocolate chip cookies

When Shady Side Academy students Hadley Pratt and Maggie Dieseroth showed up at the Post-Gazette planning to shadow a reporter for the day, they had no idea we'd actually put them to work.

V.W.H. Campbell, Post-Gazette
It's Worth the Trip to Nancy B's bakery in Homestead for Nancy Runco's hot freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
Click photo for larger image.

But who better to taste test cookies than a couple of teenagers? And when the cookies are chocolate chip, well, let's face it, teenage girls know chocolate.

Cookie-tasting day takes us to West Homestead, which sits in between Pittsburgh's city limits and the historic borough of Homestead, home of the Waterfront.

We make our way to Nancy B's Bakery where Nancy Bertram Rutco and her son, Michael, have been baking chocolate chip cookies since 1989. They work in a converted garage at the bottom of an apartment building that he's renovating.

Hadley, 13, and Maggie, 14, look skeptical, given that Nancy B's doesn't look like a traditional bakery from the outside. But bunches of brightly colored silk flowers stuck in the ground spruce up the parking lot, and 20 feet from the door, the air is filled with the smell of freshly-baked cookies.

Inside, there's a small counter to display cookies, a case with Avon products (yes, they're for sale, too) and the usual array of small-town kitsch, plants and displays of business cards. But it's spotlessly clean and there's a certain amount of charm about buying cookies out of an old garage, albeit a converted one.

"Hey look, that's the garage door," one of the girls says, pointing to the ceiling.

Nancy admits she was never the baker in the family. But when her late father got sick with diabetes, she began to experiment with sugarless cookies and went into business. She's been baking ever since.

And while she still makes diabetic-friendly products, the ultimate success has come from the traditional chocolate chip cookies (lots of sugar) that are five inches in diameter, an inch thick at the highest point and oozing with chocolate.

The only part of the recipe Nancy willingly shares is that they're made with "a lot of love and attention."

Maggie and Hadley decide the cookies are "puffy" and "chunky" and "mmm, so good." (Later, the PG Features staff consumes another couple of dozen in record speed, groaning approval.)

Nancy and Michael work out of a space with two ovens and three mixers. On an average day, mother and son make 37 batches of dough and approximately 630 dozen cookies. For the most part, they're all pre-sold, so you take your chances if you drop in unannounced looking to buy cookies by the dozen, chocolate or otherwise.

"We're like a pizza shop. We tell people call and order," Michael says. "As long as you give us two hours, we can do it."

The chocolate chip cookies are sold individually (75 cents), by the half-dozen ($5), or by the dozen ($8). White chocolate chip cookies are $9 and are sold only by the dozen.

There are 16 other kinds of cookies and speciality items including cakes and pies.

Nancy B's, which is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, is at 415 W. Seventh Ave. in West Homestead, just minutes from Kennywood, Sandcastle and the Waterfront. Phone: 412-462-6222.

First Published: July 1, 2004, 4:00 a.m.