THE EAGLE OPENS IN DOWNTOWN
Fifty-three weeks ago, Joe Lanni had one of the worst days of his life.
As the coronavirus pandemic began to unfold, over a tearful conference call he essentially shut down the Cincinnati-based company that he and his brother built, Thunderdome Restaurants — furloughing 1,300 employees at 44 nationwide locations, including himself.
“It was terrible. The most stressful year of my life, for all of us. We shut the whole company down. The entire corporate team and the rank and file,” he said.
“We had no idea when we’d be able to reopen and we’re in an already razor thin business. Our hourly employees had no hours so they were better off collecting and getting stimulus. We didn’t know how long this was gonna last and we needed to have a company to come back to.”
That put an indefinite pause on the Pittsburgh opening of the Eagle, their Southern fried chicken and beer hall concept, first launched in the Queen City in 2014.
But after an at times excruciating year, they are mostly back up and running. The Eagle is open at 737 Penn Ave. after construction first started in the fall of 2019 for the anchor ground floor tenant in the Eighth and Penn apartment complex.
The Pittsburgh location seats 150 at full capacity and will employ 75 full- and part-time workers. It is the company’s sixth nationwide location of this particular concept and its second endeavor in this market; the popular Bakersfield OTR taco and tequila bar a block away is also a part of the stable and opened here in 2016.
The Eagle features a pan-Southern menu including hush puppies, pimento cheese, spoonbread, biscuits, grits and po’ boys, and dozens of draught and bottled beers and small batch whiskies.
But the fried chicken is the main attraction. An iconic American vittle that started with a Scottish technique of frying the chicken in fat and then added the spice and seasonings created by West African slaves, it eventually became a staple of picnics and cookouts.
In recent years, Americans have either rediscovered or doubled down on their love of fried chicken in a huge way with gourmet and hot Nashville styles exploding in popularity. Late last year, Richard
DeShantz and Tolga Sevdik opened their long awaited Coop De Ville restaurant in the Strip District. Over this past year, the Popeye’s/ Chick-Fil-A debate became a Coke/ Pepsi rivalry for the pandemic era and myriad other fast food purveyors have gotten in on the act.
“Part of the genesis of how the Eagle was created is when you think about fried chicken, you could either get it at fast food restaurants or at these awesome
mom & pop places but there weren’t a lot of places that had great fried chicken and wonderful house-made sides — and a great bar program,” Mr. Lanni said
Their first location was in a former post office in Cincinnati, hence, “The Eagle” — a name that nods to a symbol of the United States Postal Service and of America and to the fact that “Southern food is quintessentially American.”
A running inside joke was that their chicken was “so good because it was actually an eagle,” which might not go over well with the bird watchers on the Three Rivers Heritage Trail in Hays. Rather the company uses antibiotic, hormone-free, free-roaming chicken that is never frozen and is brined in-house for 2436 hours in a concoction that incorporates lemons and fresh herbs. The chicken is then is coated with proprietary house dredge that’s lighter rather than thick so that it’s juicier rather than crispier.
“Our producer made a real commitment to quality of life for the birds and we feel like that results in a quality product … and, with something as specific as fried chicken on the menu, we feel like we’ve really got to nail it,” Mr. Lanni said.
The Lanni brothers grew up in food service — their father owned a string of Great Steak & Potato Co. locations in Cincinnati-area mall food courts. In a prescient move, he sold them in the early 2000s when he didn’t like the trends of brick and mortar retail.
The brothers started Currito in 2005, as a kind of healthier version of Chipotle and with a larger menu. It now has roughly two dozen national locations.
In 2012 they teamed up with fellow Cincinnati native Alex Blust, who attended culinary school at the bygone Le Cordon Bleu on Liberty
Avenue, Downtown. They opened their first Bakersfield and formed Thunderdome.
As beleaguered as Downtown dining has been during the pandemic with so many office towers nearly empty, the Eagle, along with the pending opening of DeShantz’s GiJin, and the announcement of a second, larger loc a t i o n of popular Shadyside jazz club Con Alma, signals a long-term belief in the future of the Golden Triangle.
“We look at opening as an act of optimism,” said Emily Lang, director of marketing and public relations for Thunderdome.
“We have seen so much support from the hardest darkest times of the pandemic, and now people are ready to get out and as more vaccines in arms and the numbers keep going the right direction, we’re ready, we’re excited.”
The Eagle: 737 Penn Ave., Downtown; 412- 688- 6350; https:// www. eaglerestaurant.com/