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America’s Best Restaurants Roadshow
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caroline MacGregor: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Caroline MacGregor. And today, we are talking with the owner of a Saline restaurant, which is about to be featured nationally on "America's Best Restaurants Roadshow." And this show spotlights local, independently owned restaurants across the country. The taping of this episode is from 2 to 5 PM Friday at Oscar's Sports and Grill on State Street. And former Eastern Michigan football player James Scalzi is the owner of Oscar's, and he's thrilled to be featured in the show, and here he is with us today. Welcome to the show, James!
James Scalzi: Thanks for having me! I super appreciate your time and everything! Thank you!
Caroline MacGregor: Absolutely! So, before we get into the actual show that's going to be taping on Friday, tell me a bit about your background. You were a former Eastern Michigan football player, as I mentioned. Tell me how it came about that you came to own Oscar's in Saline here.
James Scalzi: Well, yes, I went to Eastern Michigan. I played football there. I came in right after Charlie Batch graduated and Walt Churchill was a quarterback. Jeff Woodruff came from Arizona. But, yeah, being in the area from Royal Oak, Michigan, and then playing in Eastern Michigan, the dream came true. And now to own a restaurant 15 minutes away from Eastern Michigan is just life-changing for myself and my family. When we saw it was for sale, we went for it. But it was funny because I was signing a paper for a restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa. And then, my broker called said, "Oscar's is open for sale!" I said, "No way! They're not going to sell it!" They ended up selling it to me. As I'm signing the paper for a sports bar in Iowa.
Caroline MacGregor: No. Really?
James Scalzi: Yeah, I didn't sign it. And 11 months later, I ended up getting Oscar's Sports and Grill. The funny part is Oscar and Maria are the previous owners, and they wouldn't just sell to anybody. I always tell the story. So, it's like I want to buy the restaurant, but they're interviewing you. So, we had to go to dinner, and they want to make sure the employees were taken care of, that the concept, the brand, the integrity was all left in place of what they built over 17 years. And they really liked what I brought to the table because I've been in restaurants my whole life, probably since 14 when I was a dishwasher at the Ground Round on Woodward in Michigan. And I've been doing this since then. And then, I've owned a bunch of restaurants in L.A., Las Vegas, and were all scratch kitchen. So. The scratch kitchen, the way to treat people, the way to love your staff, it all worked out for us. So then, I ended up buying Oscar's, and our one year anniversary is about two weeks away. We've changed really nothing, but we've added a lot of specials on the menu and remodeled a little bit with some paint and some new TVs. And we got the same staff. We have Chef Alfredo. He's been there 10 years. We got Jessica, one of my managers. She's been in there 10 years. Shelby 10 years, and so forth. I mean, no one really wants to leave because we love what we do. And it's all about the people piece: treating people right, you know? Come in for a burger and a beer or come in to have a soda and a quesadilla. We're here for the community, and that's what we love to do.
Caroline MacGregor: Excellent! So, from my understanding, the episodes look into not only the culinary cuisine, but the ambience and also community ties that set restaurants like yours apart. Is this correct? And tell me about that and when they approached you and how it all came about, if you would.
James Scalzi: Well, I bought it on 9-23-2024 is when I took it over. And about three months later, they had reached out to me, and said, "Hey, we were in town scouting locations. We want to eat. We came to your place and it was amazing!" They said the food was great. This show is a little different. They don't want to do a corporate chain restaurant, right? They want your mom-and-pop, family-owned, scratch kitchen-type kind of thing. So, we phoned it between two to five. It's literally about 30 minutes, but they try to condense it in between 10 to 15 minutes. And really, when they asked me, I said I was hesitant at first because I was like, "Let me research it." I researched it and said this could be a great opportunity. But I said, "OK, let's do it! Let's go!" And then they're like, "All right, great! We can do it August 29th." And I'm like, "What?" So, they were so booked up for like that period of time. We scheduled it for this Friday six months ago, which was funny, but I thought it would be great because I knew everyone was coming back to school, everyone's going back to college, so it would great to celebrate that with our one-year anniversary of myself owning it and my family with being on a television show. Plus, we were voted the best restaurant the last two years in a row in the area in Saline by the people. So, you put that together with that together. It's going to be a party, right? And we invite the community out from 2-5 to come film and be on TV with us. And that's what we want to do. And the funny part about it is we're going to go through three dishes. We're going do a vodka pasta. It's amazing! Vodka, shrimp, chicken. The shrimp is 25 by 30. They're huge, like tiger claw shrimp. We got a double hamburger that is 16 ounces, ground chuck. We get our meat from Knight's in Ann Arbor, the butcher, and we get our buns from Benny's Bakery. Benny's Bakery has been around 70 years, Knight's has been about 60 years. So, we're a scratch kitchen. And then, we got a couple other dishes that I can't tell you unless you watch the episode. But we're excited to showcase what we do because we love what we do, you know?
Caroline MacGregor: Gosh! Well, I'd certainly like to stop by and try your food sometime for sure. Where can people find the episode once it's taped or how long will it take til it's available for viewing?
James Scalzi: So, we had a production meeting yesterday. In a nutshell, it's going to be streaming on quite a few different avenues: YouTube, Facebook, some other things as well. And then, they're going to let us know when it airs for everyone else to watch. But the good thing about this is if you go to our website or our Facebook, we're going to have a preview party. Once I find out when that preview party is, I will let you know, and I expect you to be there because I want to feed you and let you enjoy our great food. And you got to come! Because the listeners got to see you there and I want to see you there because I think this would be such a great experience for you. Trust me!
Caroline MacGregor: I'm going to plan on it. I think this will appeal to a lot of people. Tell me a bit more about a scratch kitchen. What do you mean by that term?
James Scalzi: That's a great question! So, most restaurants, to save food costs and to make more money, profitability, they have frozen products, right? Frozen patties, frozen fish and chips, like everything is frozen, frozen fries, processed ranch, processed Caesar salad dressing--not at Oscar's. We grab a potato and we cut it up and we make hand-cut fries. We make our own ranch. We got Maria's famous salsa. We roast the peppers. We put it in the blender. Our burgers, we buy it from a butcher, and then, we prep it: eight-ounce regular burger, 12-ounce smash burger, and then the 16-ounce the major burger. So, we're 99.9% scratch. The only thing we don't make is our ketchup and mustard. So, think about that. You go to most of these restaurants, and you get a hamburger, it's frozen. Like, when you go to the grocery store, you grab it, you put it on the grill and you cook it. Not us! Ours is fresh from a butcher. Our buns are made from a bakery. And everything that we have is like that. So, yes, we spend more money as the owner to give a better product. So, we're very proud of being a scratch kitchen and Oscar and Maria were very proud to be in scratch kitchen. And I'm trying to take it to the next level because we're doing so many great things right now. We have a special--one to two specials--every week. Right now, we're doing a Chicago dog. It's a huge Chicago dog. We run it through the pizza oven, then we grill it on the grill, tomatoes, relish, sports peppers, green peppers, onions, huge, huge, and then with homemade onion rings. Most places would do frozen onion rings. Most people would do frozen buns. So, we're just super proud of what we do because we feel like if you come in our doors, we want you to feel VIP. If it's you, if it's me, if it's anybody. We just want everyone to feel the same, like they're appreciated, which we're very appreciative of them coming in. So, we just want to appreciate all of our guests with the food and then the family atmosphere. I tell people this: we're not a sports bar. We're a restaurant with a lot of TVs because that's how good our food is.
Caroline MacGregor: You know, I'm getting hungry listening to you describe your recipes, but it sounds like the food is fresh, as you say, it's not frozen. Sometimes, that kind of food takes a long time to get to its destination and ultimately to eaters. You apparently did work with Michelin-starred chefs across the country before returning to Michigan. Is that correct?
James Scalzi: I did. So, I've lived in 17 states. After I was done with Eastern Michigan, I said, "Hey, you know what? Where can I go to become great?" And I went and worked in San Francisco for Michelin-star restaurants, New York city, a James Beard and a Michelin-star restaurant. I've been to Las Vegas, and that was a great experience. I was with David Burke in Manhattan, New York at the Archer Hotel, and he was a Michelin-star chef. And then, Michelin Point Restaurant at Trapassoño in San Francisco. And there's about three or four other ones. I started in corporate. I started at P.F. Chang's and got my training. Then, I went on to the Barcelona group, Bar Taco group, which ended up selling to Landry's for $350 million. And they were Michelin points. So, for me, I'm on the East Coast. I'm like, why not work for the best? And before I came to Oscar's, I was the managing partner for Capital Grill Steakhouse in Las Vegas on the strip and Costa Mesa before I bought Oscar's. So, I brought a lot of those recipes that I've learned from these wonderful chefs. So, people come in and are like, "Wow!" I bring a lot that here because I want to give that to the guests. And you got to realize when you work for those kinds of people, you're working a minimum of a hundred hours a week. I think I worked 325 days straight for a Michelin-star chef and restaurant, then go manage the U.S. Open because you were support staff for that, come back and run your hotel and restaurant. I tried to tell these young kids today, I said, "You don't understand what work is because back in the day you worked 100-plus hours at seven days a week."
Caroline MacGregor: I've been talking with James Scalzi, owner of Oscar's Sports and Grill in Saline. They're going to be featured in "America's Best Restaurants Roadshow." And the public is invited to the taping from 2 to 5 PM, Friday, August 29th. Thank you so much, James, for joining us and telling us about this!
James Scalzi: Absolutely. And just so everybody knows, it is in Saline. It's in front of the Super Walmart. So, if you look for Super Walmart, we're right in front of it!
Caroline MacGregor: This is 89.1 WEMU-FM Ypsilanti.
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