The winner of the November 19th, “Guess The Mileage On The MBIP Mobile” facecrack contest was Stuart Laughlin who had this prize-winning guess:

The prizes for the contest were a fifty dollar gift certificate to Acme Comics and an MBIP lunch at the restaurant of his choice. Stuart chose the new El Zarape on Adams Street, which was a great choice because I’ve never been there. And so...it’s off we go!

Behind the wheel today is Bob Gordon, MBIP pal, Contributing Writer and the owner of Acme Comics and he’s armed with the fifty dollar gift certificate to present to Stuart when we get there. And as you can see, the sky is overcast and not a sign of that rotten sunshine! I love it!

Here we are at the newest El Zarape on Adams Street. Bob told me that this building used to house a Steak ‘n Shake.

Let’s go in and see what’s happening inside.

Bob quickly snared a table in the back of the dining room. It’s very nice simple and quaint atmosphere in here. Let’s go join Bob at the table!

No sooner did we get settled in than Blanca, our lovely waitress brought us some homemade chips and fresh salsa. We’re off to a great start here!

It’s certainly looking festive in here!

Well now, you don’t see one of these every day!

And back at the table, here’s the MBIP contest winner, Stuart! Great to see him!

Here’s a shot of the back of the dining room.

And Stuart’s pretty wife Angela just showed up and our luncheon party is all complete. I’ve met Stuart and Angela a couple of times while running around doing posts for MBIP and they’re really cool and nice people. That’s one of the things I love about doing this blog is meeting kindred spirits and making new friends!

I can’t show all of the luncheon orders, because I’m doing another MBIP contest soon that deals with this lunch, stay tuned over on facecrack for that, but I had the chicken Gordita and it was really tasty, spicy and delicious! We also got an order of the cheese fries for the table. Love the cheese fries!

Blanca took a photo of the four of us after lunch was devoured. This was really a fun lunch with lively conversation and the only thing missing was beer! Hopefully on the next visit El Zarape will get a liquor license!

Love the cheese fries!

We almost forgot to give Stuart Bob’s generous fifty dollar gift certificate to Acme Comics! Here’s Bob making like Ed McMahon in true Publisher’s Clearing House spirit presenting Stuart with the gift certificate. And look closely at the gift certificate and see if you can spot the typo on it!

Suddenly...it’s nighttime! I love it when that happens!

Here we are at Sky Harbor, one of my favorite Peoria restaurants and bar! A while back I started doing an armwrestling tour here at MBIP and I thought I’d do it every week for a year, but I’ve decided to make a few amendments in this tour. First, I’m not going to armwrestle every week and second, taking a cue from Andy Kaufman back in his wrestling days, I’m just going to armwrestle female bartenders. My friend Shannon is bartending here tonight and she volunteered to be the first female bartending opponent in this new amended tour, so let’s go in and start this evening!

I love the lobby in here with the stone wall and look at the Christmas tree and decorations! Beautiful!

There’s the friendly owner of Sky Harbor, Daryl Klusendorf at the hostess station with his pretty mom! Always great to see both of them!

There’s the bar, let’s go say hi to Shannon!

Hi Shannon! She’s looking pretty as always and we decided to wait a little bit for the armwrestling bout so we both could limber up! And that beer that Shannon is serving up is definitely going to help with the limbering process!

Here’s a shot from the end of the bar and overhead hangs a Budweiser trolley, always the sign of a classic bar!

Liz and Lisa were enjoying drinks at the bar and posed for the MBIP camera while flashing two beautiful smiles!

Here’s the quartet of taps at the bar. Note the Peoria Brewing Company handle third from the left. Nice to see local beer on tap!

Daryl called me down to the end of the bar to say hi to musicians, Eddie Harrmann and Robin Crowe. I’ve met Eddie in here before and while I’ve heard plenty about Robin Crowe, we’ve never met, so it was great to finally meet her!

Here’s the colorful dining room at Sky Harbor, love the blue banquettes that line the walls in here and the stone wall at the far end of the room complete with an antique piano!

Meanwhile, back at the bar...

Here’s Shannon with Lawrence who was also on bartending duty.

Steve was enjoying a drink at the bar, we met last summer when I was having drinks at Los Jimadores, great to see him again!

Uh, oh, looks like Shannon’s ready to do battle! I’m feeling pretty limber so let’s do this!

We start off with the traditional shaking of the hands...

The bell has rung and let the wrestling begin!

Shannon was really a formidable opponent and we were at a standstill for a couple of minutes, but I finally wore her down and won the first of my female bartending matches! So far I'm undefeated!

Thanks to Shannon for being a great sport and a tough armwrestling opponent! In addition to bartending at Sky Harbor on Thursday nights, Shannon also sings at the piano bar and she’s going to be featured there tonight. If you haven’t heard Shannon play piano and sing, you should definitely stop out tonight, she’s got a beautiful and unique voice and in addition to varied cover songs, she also sings original material! Thanks again to Shannon, Daryl and everyone at Sky Harbor for a fun night and friendly hospitality! We’ll see you all tomorrow!

“Late For The Sky”

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