Back in June of last year, I started a new series here on MBIP called, “The Twelve Timers Club” which is a special club consisting of places I have gone to twelve times or more on the blog. The first place I inducted into this club was one of my favorite places in Peoria, Agatucci’s. It was a lot of fun, but afterwards I kind of put the brakes on this idea because then I realized that my next visit would be the thirteenth visit and that kind of freaked me out. But tonight I put my fears to the flame and I’ve decided to visit Agatucci’s for a scary thirteenth MBIP blog post. For this numerically scary visit I challenged Tony and Dan Agatucci to make a 13 course Agatucci's dinner for me and a special guest for this Thirsty-Third Friday The Thirteenth edition and they agreed to step up to the challenge. And so here we go! Thirteen steps lead to...
Agatucci’s! This is one of Peoria’s oldest restaurants and a beloved iconic Peoria business. Let’s go inside and begin our 13th blog post here.
There’s the bar, my favorite spot here is down at the end because...
That’s where you’ll find Dan and Tony Agatucci, two of the nicest guys in the world...unless you try to rob them, then they can get a wee bit testy!
And here’s our special guest for the evening, my friend, Laura! We met a couple years ago at Kickback on Fulton and you can see evidence of that by scrolling down to the last couple of photos in this post. We planned on getting together again and two and a half years later, just like clockwork, here we are, together again! I ran into Laura at Relics, where she’s working now right before I went to Mexico and she offered to give me Spanish lessons before I left, but I didn’t have time for that. If you read this post, you’ll see I should’ve taken her up on that generous offer, but last night she gave me this “Spanish for Gringos” gift, in case I go back. That was so nice, thanks, Laura, I’ll study up and maybe I’ll know basic Spanish by the time my leg heals up!
In Thirsty-Third Friday the 13th coinkydinkys, Tony pointed out that they have the 13th Retail Liquor License issued way back when Agatucci’s first opened. That’s a little spooky and Laura and I decided to sit down and see what Tony and Dan have cooked up for our 13 course dinner here at Agatucci’s!
There’s Laura at our booth but the MBIP Camera fuzzed the shot out in pure Thirsty-Third Friday the 13th luck. Sometimes I hate the MBIP Camera. Hate hate hate it!
As we settled in, Tony brought over twelve of the 13 courses, a cup of a dozen peanuts. Ha ha ha! That’s a nutty solution to a 13 course dinner!
After Laura and I sampled the nuts, I took a picture of the back dining room and the classic wine bottle stained glass lamps that loom over the booths.
Agatucci’s is a Cardinal’s bar, so if you’re a Cub’s fan, check your Chicago pride at the door if there’s a baseball game going on!
There’s the back of the bar with the Classic Hamm’s beer sign that’s been there for decades. Sadly the Hamm’s portion on the left is unlit due to technical problems...
Bart Grawey seated here at the bar next to John offered to fix it up in exchange for a free bar tab, but Tony and Dan wisely refused his offer!
And here’s the 13th course, a fabulous Agatucci’s pizza served up by Tony! They have the best pizza in Peoria and if for some crazy-ass reason you’ve never tried it, you need to get over there and get a pie, pronto! Laura took a picture of the pizza pie and for those of you keeping score, this is the 13th set of photos in this post and I swear I didn’t plan this!
Oh, oh, it’s 13 O’Clock so there’s no better time to end this Thirsty-Third Friday the 13th post! Thanks to Tony and Dan for the wonderful 13 course dinner and extra special thanks to Bobby Spears for picking up our dinner tab, he's a true Prince of a man! And thanks to Laura for joining me for dinner, it was a ton of fun! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
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2607 N .University Street
Peoria
309-688-8200
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Related Posts: The Thirsty-Third Friday @ The Red Barn, The 2018 Addy Awards and The Olympia Sports Bar & Grill.