Italian Pie Shoppe Review

Review for
Italian Pie Shop on Grand

1670 Grand Avenue

Saint Paul, MN 55105

(651) 221-0093

Two and a half stars
Price for a family of 2.5 $25 dinner

Food: Pizza and pasta.  Pizza was fairly good, nice stringy cheese, sweet tasting sauce, and nice crust.  Toppings are definitely fresh not from the can.  Pasta don't bother - you could do better with a box of cremette and a bottle of ragu, my toddler who loves all pasta was perfectly happy.  Milk was available for kids although served in a large mouthed canning jar - which is probably someone's idea of a joke (what's the worst possible container you could serve a drink to a toddler in - heavy, glass..)

Service: Indifferent and slow.  Do not show up hungry.  I think they had to go milk the cows to make the mozzarella or something.  We were there over an hour.  Maybe I'm a spoiled New Yorker but I've been to plenty of pie shops that make great fresh pizza and don't take that long.

Price: Ridiculous.  A basic pizza is roughly $15, each topping is $2.50, so if you like to add veggies or meat tack on an extra $5-10.  What?  When did mushrooms become so expensive?

Kid Friendliness: Medium to moderate.  It was noisy so no one will notice your noisy kid.  Requisite crayons and coloring menu provided.  Usual children's menu choices of high carb, high fat, high protein meals, no healthy options at all.  They do have high chairs.  NO CHANGING TABLE.  Also they play sports on TV so my son was squirreled around in his chair half the time trying to see the TV instead of paying attention to his dinner.

In summary - would I go out of my way? no.  Would I go back if I was in the area and felt like a slice of their pizza instead of PUNCH? yes.

Izzy's Ice Cream

Izzy's Ice Cream on Marshall Ave in St Paul is a fantastic place to go for ice cream

2034 Marshall Avenue  Saint Paul, MN 55104 (651) 603-1458

Here's why
1. The ice cream is great
- just don't order vanilla - their only dissappointing flavor yet
2. They provide small and kid friendly portions - an izzy scoop which is about 1 oz of ice cream, and a kiddy scoop which is about 3 oz, as well as various other regular sized ice cream scoops.
3. They have a family friendly and neighborhood friendly atmosphere, you can even sit at the tables outside and eat your ice cream, what could be better than that?
4. They are located just a few doors down from Choo-choo bob's.  If you have a kid that likes cars or trains and have not been to choo-choo bob's you need to seriously drop everything and go right there.
Why go anywhere else when Izzy's has it all?
Cheers
Minneapple Mom

Lifespan Treadmill Desk

Have bought a Life Span Treadmill desk at Second wind in Roseville
Total cost was just under $1600, which included delivery and set up plus a pad to keep down static electricity.
Pros are that now I am getting exercise where before I was not.  Stopped riding my bike when it got cold and dark.
Treadmill is quiet.  It tells me how long I've walked, how far, and how many calories burned.
It goes quite fast if you use it while you're working I can only really walk about 2-2.5 and still type.
Cons are that it is big and takes up a lot of space.  The whole point of the thing is to use it while you work which presumably means internet, and i could not access internet from my basement.  Also my basement is very cold in the winter.
Also you have to reach down to the base of the treadmill to turn it on and off, which you have to do if you want to reset the pedometer/calorimeter function.

I also have a complaint directed at the man who sold me the treadmill.  He says "this is not to replace your regular workout".  You know what dude step off.  take my toddler and my 40+ hour per week job and then talk to me about a regular work out schedule.  And PS this is exercise, I get all hot while I'm walking and my legs tingle afterwards.
Is it as good as jogging - no.  Is it better than sitting on your ass and only walking to and from your car all winter - yes.

If you can afford it and have the space I recommend it.