Live, from Peoria, Illinois, It’s Saturday Night starring this weeks host, First & Home with special guest stars, Amber, Joe, Adam, Mr. Max, Casey, Stephanie, Mackenzie, (another) Casey, Ashley and Chef John and featuring The Ready For Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher. And now, please welcome this week’s host, First & Home!
Here we are at First & Home which is located across the street from the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. It used to be the Tilted Kilt, I never went there, but now...
We’ll go inside and check out First & Home! I’m meeting some friends here tonight...
And there they are, Amber and Joe! Even though it’s massive in size in here, it’s pretty crowded and they secured a table! Let’s go join them and get settled in for another Saturday night.
The service here is crazy fast! I barely sat down and there’s our waiter, Mr. Max with a bottle of Bud Light! In addition to super fast server skills, Mr. Max is a real estate broker for KW Realty, check him out here.
Casey Martin is the manager of First & Home and he stopped by our table to say hi. We told him we were a little overwhelmed with the size of the menu and he graciously offered to bring us out a sampling of some of the food, which we happily accepted. He also told us that the beer selection at First & Home is as impressive as the food menu. In addition to 24 beers on tap, they have over 25 selections of canned craft beer. I asked Casey to pick one out for me...
And here’s what he chose, a can of Vintage Blonde. Perfect, it matches my new hair-do!
Our friend Adam has arrived and now we can officially begin our Saturday night at First & Home! While we wait for the dinner order, I decided to roam around for a few minutes with the MBIP camera.
This place is huge and I can’t do it justice with my camera because it doesn’t have a panoramic option, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Here’s the bar area and as you can see there’s plenty of big screen TV’s to watch all the sports on a Saturday night. First & Home has 32 big screen TV’s, but they’re all strategically placed high up on the walls, so they’re not too obtrusive if you just want to relax and have a nice conversation.
Here’s that line of taps that Casey had told us about! Quite a selection and there’s locally sourced beer from Peoria Brewing Company in the line which is great to see!
The staff behind the bar was busy filling drink orders, but Casey and Ashley were nice enough to stop and pose for the MBIP camera. They told me they read and enjoy the blog, which we all know I love to hear! Great to meet both of them!
Suddenly...sauce! All the sauces are made in-house here at First & Home. I just thought I’d throw that out there!
There’s the kitchen area and there’s...
Stephanie and Mackenzie looking pretty tonight!
Meanwhile, back at our table, the first course of our dinner has arrived. We got an appetizer of the spinach dip and it was really good. I love the little miniature skillet it comes in!
Here’s Stephanie delivering chicken wings and the rest of our meal! There’s sliders, chicken wings, haystack onions and a whole pizza! Everything looks fantastic! I don’t think we can eat all of this, but we’re definitely going to try!
This is the man responsible for all of this great food, Chef John! He cooked all the items and from the looks of our table-full of food, this man can cook!
Here’s a bird’s-eye-view of all the food on our table! You can read about the meal in the review below, but the food here is definitely many steps up from what you’d expect at a sports bar. Everything is freshly made and locally sourced as much as possible. And as much food as this is, there’s even more to choose from on their menu!
A big thank you to everyone at First & Home from all four of us! It was such a great meal and everybody was really friendly and fun! We had a fantastic evening and we will return!
Meanwhile, Back At MBIP World Headquarters...
After dinner we adjourned to the MBIP World Headquarters and Amber gave me this Christmas gift that her parents, Chuck and Diane got for me! It’s a case of imported beers from around the world! That was so nice of them and I’m pretty sure they’re reading this, so thank you so much, Chuck and Diane! That was so thoughtful! I really appreciate it and the card you sent along really made me feel good! I hope to see you soon and thank you in person!
And here’s the four of us taking a little trip to a different part of the world via Chuck and Diane’s very cool present! Thanks again to Chuck and Diane, everyone at First & Home and to Amber, Joe and Adam for hanging out and being great company for the evening! Oh and Amber and Joe gave me a really cool present too and it will be unveiled and used in April for a new ongoing MBIP segment! Thanks, Amber and Joe, I love the present and the idea!
We started out with an appetizer of the spinach dip and it arrived warm in a miniature skillet with fresh pita slices and chips for dipping. The dip was creamy and rich and in addition to spinach there was also baby artichoke hearts and leeks in the tasty dip. A wonderful start to our meal and then it was time for a feast!
Casey the manager of First & Home gave us a generous sampling of food from their massive menu. The items on our smorgasbord-like meal included three types of chicken wings, the Home Run Pizza, two varieties of sliders and Haystack Onion Rings.
We all agreed that the food at First & Run is several notches above your typical sports bar pub grub. Casey told us they try to use locally sourced food as much as they can and the chicken wings are a good example of that local philosophy. They get their wings from Alwan & Sons Meat Company and the wings are never frozen. We had three styles of wings: Tequila Lime, Thai Chili and the Hickory Dry Rub. The wings were plump, juicy and tasty. They all had a nice spicy flavor but weren’t overbearing in the heat department. For those fans of really hot wings there are Hot Buffalo and Extra Hot Habanero among the 15 styles of wings on the menu.
The cheeseburger sliders were savory and succulent mini burgers and the pulled pork was excellent as well. The buns were bakery fresh and they were served on a bed of Haystack Onion Rings which were light, crispy and extra delicious when dipped into the homemade Jalapeno Ranch sauce.
All the food was so good, but my favorite item of the evening was The Home Run Pizza. The crust for the pizza is homemade and hand stretched. The toppings on the pie were pepperoni, Italian sausage, bell pepper, black olives, onion, mushroom and the house-made First & Home pizza sauce. The crust was in between thin and thick and really flaky and fresh, as were all the toppings and cheese and this is one of the best pizza pies I’ve ever had. And I’ve eaten a lot of pizza in my day!
In addition to all this food, First & Run’s menu also includes a build your own burger option and a whole Smoked BBQ section including ribs, beef brisket and beef sausage. I’m definitely coming back to sample some of that in the future and suggest you do the same!
First & Home
7716 State Route 91
Peoria
309-839-1036
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Related Posts: Saturday Night @ Agatucci’s, The Fish House and Heart of Illinois BBQ & Bluegrass Festival.