Food is good.
Eating good food is better.
Eating good food in a nice, low-key and friendly atmosphere is even better.
The Ido Bar and Grill, yet another one of those gems on South Main Street in Akron, is one such place.
Spawned from the original Ido Cafe that was open in the 1940s in the same Firestone Park spot, the Ido has a bit of simple, old-school charm. There’s a back entrance that leads to the large dining room, lined with booths big enough for multi-kid and/or multi-grandfolk families. The rectangular, dimly lit bar area features another wall of booths across from the lengthy bar, where I spent most of my time.
The Ido has a surprisingly varied and hearty menu with much more than just burgers, wings and jojos.
One of the Ido’s trademarks is daily lunch specials, which for the upcoming week include Monday’s twice-baked potato soup and a grilled teriyaki chicken sandwich with citrus salsa and mozzarella. Most of the specials include a soup and an entree, and all are under $10. Check the schedule on www.idobar.com to plan accordingly.
Weekly specials include three kinds of pork chops on Tuesday, fish and prime rib on Fridays, the very popular half-off burger Wednesdays (my tender, delicious burger cost $4.30!) and on the final full weekend of the month, pan-fried walleye.
But wait! There are also weekend specials, touting good eating ideas like Swamp Pasta (blackened chicken and shrimp, andouille sausage, asparagus, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, corkscrew pasta and alfredo sauce for $18.99) and even some summer specials, such as the wonderfully named Chicken Paradise, which comes in lunch and dinner portions for $11 and $15 respectively.
The 4 to 7 p.m. weekday happy hour, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, also features draft beer pint specials and $1 off glasses of wine along with appetizers from $5-$8.
So yeah, the Ido is pretty serious about its specials.
Jeannie Kolnik and her buddy Lydia Potter, both of Akron, were having their weekly burger in one of the booths in the bar.
“It’s always been steady, always been good,” Kolnik said, noting she’s been eating at the Ido through a few ownership transitions.
“The service is always good. You usually run into somebody you know because they’re regulars too,” Potter added.
The Ido has plenty of those and like any good neighborhood bar and grill, the friendly staff knows its regulars well.
Linda and Jed Derhammer were enjoying a few drinks with friend Nancy Schafer at the bar.
“It’s a really cool place and everybody likes it, and everybody comes back because they have really good food,” said Schafer, who has been eating and drinking at the Ido since the 1970s, regularly for the past dozen years.
“And when we got to know Kim,” Linda Derhammer said, pointing to her favorite bartender, who also received praise from Jed for her Long Island Iced Tea and martini-making skills.
Actually, Linda is a legacy regular at the Ido, following her now 91-year-old mother and late father.
“She and my dad always came here, and my dad has passed, and she wanted to come here for her [90th] birthday, so we brought her here for her birthday and we loved it,” Linda said.
“We come in every Wednesday night for hamburgers, I have a Long Island, maybe two,” Jed Derhammer said.
(“Maybe three,” Schafer whispered.)
“And the food is always good, never been disappointed. The prime rib on Friday or Saturday, and the walleye is to die for,” he continued.
“We have met so many people here, so many friends,” Linda said.
Wait. There’s one more upcoming special that I wasn’t going to share, because I don’t need the competition when the time comes to stuffing my face. But the weekend of June 16-17, the Ido has its seasonal Lobsterfest and Seafood Fest, which features a bevy of mollusks and crustaceans including South African lobster tails, Drunken Mixed Grill, lobster mac and cheese, and mojito scallops among others.
The prices range from $12 for a la carte soft-shell crab to $60 for a trio of lobster tails (butter is optional, but eating it without butter is arguably un-American). The lobster/seafood fest happens each month from now through December, so please pick another month to indulge, because I’m claiming June.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Follow him on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1lNgxml or on Twitter @malcolmabramABJ .