Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives
Citizen Pictures Productions
2530 Frontier Avenue
Boulder, Colorado, 80301
Mr. Fieri:
On behalf of the eatery owners of Downtown Wheeling – one of which you’ve already met – we would like to invite you to return to the Upper Ohio Valley to finish telling the story your Grandmother Betty Lee Ferry might have started during her years living in Powhatan Point, Ohio.
During your grandmother’s lifetime, she witnessed the rise and fall of our valley’s industrial era when steel and coal were king and queen and the factories along the Ohio River produced the materials to construct the rest of our country. She then watched while most of the jobs and the people departed once the smokestacks no longer produced the clouds that once hid away sunny days.
Downtown Wheeling was crazily crowded during those decades thanks to a fantastic array of restaurants that served everything from filet mignon to a Louie’s Hot Dog, but it’s different now. We still have steak, and hot dogs along Main, Market, and Chapline streets, but we’ve grown far, far, far beyond the Big Mac and the Big Boy, too. These days, these entrepreneurs wake up thinking about food.
We’ve got Appalachian, classic American, a touch of Mexican-American, traditional Asian, home-grown reinvention burgers, homestyle small plates, historic pizza squares, and seafood “so fresh it’ll slap ya.”
And Guy, that’s just in the downtown area. Other eateries in different areas of Wheeling – and throughout this valley – sling treats that, as you like to say, are “bomb-dot-com tasty”.
And see, that’s where you could come in. You could pick up where Grandma might have left off by explaining what this valley has become through the culinary revolution that’s been taking place in downtown Wheeling over the past 15-plus years.
You know the story. You’ve seen “it” take place elsewhere and you’ve celebrated it. Well, you got roots here, and you know us, and you know what we’ve been fighting against. So, if throw us a bone, we won’t disappoint.
Hey, did our Vagabond Chef fail when you called a West Virginia country boy to Hollywood? No, Matt Welsch walked away a winner and we have plenty more of those surprises waiting for you right here in almost Heaven.
Sincerely,
Flavortown, West Virginia
(Art by Bob Dombrowski)
