On this episode of America’s Best Restaurants, Danyel Detomo is stopping by Sonny’s in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, to try out the The Sonny Special!
Learn more about Sonny’s on the America’s Best Restaurants website by clicking here: https://americasbestrestaurants.com/rests/wisconsin/sonnys-pizzeria
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Oh my God God might be a little hot yet that’s so oh my gosh that’s amazing what’s up America’s best restaurants I am Danielle doomo and we are joining you from Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin today we’re at a place called Sunny’s Pizza Pasta amazing views I mean
Come on now I want to go inside and see what it’s About hi Melissa hi Jake what’s going on what’s going on how are you doing I am doing great really excited to be here today and they greeted me with some beer cuz there’s a brewery downstairs so just to go ahead and let everyone know that’s
What we can expect today I’m going to go ahead and uh get started with this this beer I mean might as well you know cheers everyone we’re here we’re happy to be here we do a little sip cheers yes I’m so excited for the food too okay Melissa you are general manager
I am so familiar face talk a little bit about your role here and just working at this awesome spot with the best view um so I started about a year and a half ago was en manager I came on to a fast-paced fun environment um Family feel um a lot of long-term employees
That have been with sunnes for quite some time we’re talking 20 plus years several employees um really just a laid-back environment we come in we have fun we listen to live music we get fabulous views of the Waterfront um property here um outdoor dining it’s just it’s just a really fun place to
Work yeah I’m already loving it so far I mean it you just can’t be the atmosphere is amazing like walking in I can already tell this is the spot to be and Jake you actually help with the events like I know you guys can host parties here it’s
Such a big space for it so tell me a little bit about that yeah so um I’m actually in charge of planning a lot of those events and we’ve got this big room downstairs with you know Windows right by the water um had customers call it a
Million dooll view which I love too sunsets are 10 out of 10 every day but a lot things we have done there um big variety so rehearsal dinners weddings funerals birthday parties retirement parties um a lot going on down there and it’s a lot of fun yeah well I’m excited
To try it all Melissa Jake thank you for greeting me today I know you guys have’t blast working here but we’re going to head back into the kitchen now cuz it is food time okay as you can see we have made our way back in the kitchen now
We’re with Nolan Nolan really excited cuz I know you’re making me like a specialty pizza what are we making we’re making the sunny special the sunny special okay well hey I’m just going to kind of watch you do your thing so kind of talk me through like what definitely
Definitely we got the uh in-house made dough I make it every day multiple times uh big part of the job what what you do is you flatten her out as best you can before you send her through the sheeter uh a little Flower that’s so satisfying to watch so satisfying smooth when goes well when it goes bad it goes bad quick but going to thin it out a little bit here I know I’m like I don’t need to be near that machine I will some of it as in a lot of
Places a lot of the equipment’s got a personality you kind of figure out by touch and feel what what feels right mhm and this is about right okay oh yeah get it out get it even and then we use the docker and that pinches it together
What’s that do yeah it’s going to make it stick together cuz you throw it in the oven it’s going to want to expand and it’s going to want to puff up and that mitigates most of that we got the large cutter all right to make that nice
Circular shape okay and then a little bit of the uh sauce now is this just what’s the sauce exactly is this like a special it’s our own yep it’s our own thing we’ve been doing for about 30 some years now uh it’s kind of if you had to put a word to
It I’d say it was like the loudest interest instrument in the band it’s something it’s it shows up first yeah but definitely everything’s important we got the fresh sausage ooh and there’s a little bit of a skill set here that picked up over years um it looks easy but it’s
Something that to do it quickly and efficiently oh my gosh so way that you you so have a flow I love it you so got this flow down right here this would take me like an hour yeah literally speed is key we have a a a definite meld
Of things that uh it’s with between speed and and efficiency and freshness so we like then we go some fresh mushrooms and two things that divide a room is canned or fresh and we use fresh there’s some people that actually prefer canned oh very interesting yeah I thought that was interesting
Too green peppers okay so mushrooms and you said what was that green peppers we got mushrooms we’re going to do black olives oh I’m excited for this and then we’ve got onion onions first onions then cheese the cheese I’m like watching the cheese Y and what
Cheese is this so this is like a fleo matz blue ribbon part skim uh blend not blend but it’s uh shred but we uh yeah it’s Wisconsin cheese at its finest we are in Wisconsin so you know the cheese I’m ready for it yep okay and we don’t do a whole lot of
Like portion control I guess so it’s all by again by hand we okay we just feel you kind of just what’s right been doing it you probably been doing it for so long and probably make a lot of these so it’s kind of just like something like
Muscle memories 26 years now yeah look at you 26 years way to go it’s my first job first job and you just stay forever yep I love pizza yeah okay so adding some pepperonis is this the last ingredient that you add on yep and little Dash and we’re good to
Goov all right so we’re going to put that in the oven let that bake a little bit and then we’re going to try it of course all right as this is cooling down I do want to just talk some about you I mean you said you’ve been here for what 26
Years this my 26th year I think at this place yeah go we we’ve moved a few times but yeah I’ve always worked for sunnies oh my gosh that’s so cool so and like watching you make the pizza like you got it down so what do you just like fell in
Love within the stream or like I’m staying I’m not leaving yeah so like I joined I just wanted a job when I was in middle school and I I initially was like I’ll do anything I’ll just I want a job I’ll wash dishes and Jason was when we
Were in a gas station goes teach you to make pizza I’ve been doing it I was uh well then I joined the reserves I was a National Guard out of Green Bay and I got activated for one year operation Iraqi freedom and then I was doing
Border patrol and every time I came back when I wasn’t doing stuff with the military or training or anything I had a job so and I always I love the place I love people I love the speed of things and uh there’s always something new happening yeah I’m ready to try this
Pizza I will say so I’m going to go ahead I mean there’s a lot over I’ll just try one slice but it’s all right here look at that okay so this is the one we made right here yep okay all righty and and yet there is more there
Is more oh I see the dessert one he was talking about all right oh my God might be a little hot yet that’s so oh my gosh that’s amazing I’m ready to try more that’s so good thank you so much you’re welcome we’re going to head to the dining area thanks for joining
Me all right as you can see I’ve made my way outside now on their patio because you can’t beat the view at this place uh it’s amazing we are with the owners Jason and Lara now really great spot you have here so thanks for having us thank
You for coming you’re very welcome all right we have some more food to display I already tried what was it the uh Sunny special already tried that in the kitchen stole a dessert from the buffet I was like y I’m going to need a slice of that let’s talk about well let’s tell
People what the dessert is and the two other dishes yeah this is our Cherry dessert uh we put cherry pie filling on top of our pizza crust a strucel and then we drizzle it with vanilla frosting very popular on our uh buffets um this is our tortillini basella okay it’s
Basically cheese filed tortillini with a tomato cream sauce Italian sausage very tasty oo definitely digging into that and then some more pizza yeah and then this is our Sicilian pizza crust um made with rice flour so it’s a very interesting crust um very crispy Airy um basically Sicilian style I was watching
Them make like they cuz you you’re busy getting ready for that buffet and I was watching them make all the pizzas and then I saw the the dessert one being made back there and I said yep I got to grab that and try that on camera but
First I’m going to try this let’s try this first oh that’s good oh my God the pizza was good this is good my gosh all right thank you I’m going to chew on this and then I I’ll get to the dessert eventually we’ll get there eventually
Let’s talk about the spot yeah we yeah we’ve got live music coming weekends we’ve got a brewery down below um Tap Room I guess uh which people like parties we have a lot of events that we cater private party room um live music uh Friday Saturday Sundays um and uh
Always something going on here always we have bags you can come and throw bags which is like bean bag toss whole you enjoy yeah when is that season when you’re having like what months when you’re having the all the festivities outside like how long does that go on
For June through August usually June July and August those are the three crazy months yeah but you stay open throughout the winter and then we have yeah some busy fall weekends we have a lot of you know September and October we have busy weekends it’s it’s such a cool spot I
Was so excited when I we pulled up and where we were I was just like oh my gosh this is amazing like this is would be a great place to vacation I want to talk a little bit just about this area and what makes it so special yeah I mean we’re
We’re located on a peninsula um so a lot of people call it the cape cata of the Midwest uh so we get a ton of Chicago people up Minnesota a lot of Milwaukee people come up and vacation here um and then our location primarily is I mean look at we’re
Surrounded by water we’ve got the historic Steel Bridge as our backdrop I mean we’re kind of like the gateway to Door County you’ve got to pass us to get into dor County which uh works out great I mean we’ve got great views and any of those boats out there y’alls rolling up
In a boat to work wish I know I’m like all those boats are they’re sitting there right now and I’m like oh my gosh I would love to just hop on just roll up in my boat to the restaurant like that’s a dream life right there yeah we get a
Lot of that we get a lot of customers from The Boulders this summer they like to uh a lot of them come up from the valley which is like an hour away and uh they come up and they use these as their Cottages their little weekend getaways
Okay so before we do wrap everything up you know we started with the dessert topic we’ll end on the dessert topic this comes from the buffet we got to talk a little bit about the buffet cuz your staff was back there getting it I mean it was so cool to watch them in
Action tell me about the buffet yeah we run our lunch buffet Monday through Friday 11: to 2 every every week um then we do a Saturday Night Buffet uh from 4 till yeah 4:30 till 8 um and we do all you can eat pizza there’s pasta chicken there’s Italian sausage meat salad salad
Bar and then this and then we also give away ice cream on our betet oh gosh yep like I said and they will add the vanilla ice cream on the dessert and that is yeah the vanilla soft serve on top of that is really delicious oh my
Gosh as soon as that thing like goes out there they’re like piranhas They will go and eat it and then it’s gone and I was one of the Piranhas I was one of the Piranhas all right you know I got to take a bite to this because I’ve been
Staring at this and the moment I saw it being made so let’s let’s do It oh my God and when you said you could do soft sof Ser ice cream on it that’s s that y you can’t get wrong with dessert pizza I’m just telling you so good look at me getting on messing now thank you both so much thank you
Awesome spot you have here yeah thanks for coming up we enjoyed having you of course y’all come check it out and this is Sunny’s right here in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin you can’t beat the view here and I mean the food amazing too they are truly one of America’s best restaurants for the ab
Road Show I’m Daniela Tomo and I’ll see y’all next Time