One of my favorite things to do is find small, local restaurants in the
new places I visit. So when we planned our trip to Lake Arrowhead, I
looked around quite a bit in search of places I thought might be good.
And no matter where I looked, one place was mentioned repeatedly as
being a must visit; LouEddies Pizza.
Given all of its tremendous reviews from people on places like Yelp and
Travel Advisor, everyone in town telling us how great it is, as well as
being voted one of the Top 100 restaurants in America by Yelp, we agreed
that we definitely needed to give it a shot!
The view driving to the restaurant is amazing. We were staying at Lake
Arrowhead Resort and Spa, and as we made our way to the restaurant, you
could look off to your right and see amazing views from the mountain
looking down below. LouEddies is right on the side of that mountain
along with a couple other shops and restaurants.
As you walk up to the restaurant, you see exactly what you hope you
would see as it is in a log cabin with many cute decorations to welcome you. One thing I noticed right off is some signs saying they do weddings! In
fact to the left of the cabin is a tree with lots hearts with the
initials of couples who had previously been married there. The property extends
well beyond the restaurant itself, offering some beautiful grounds to
host marriages. Although it certainly is not conventional, I can certainly
see how couples who don’t want to be conventional would love the idea! The
fact that marriages are so popular there is a testament to how
entrenched this place has become in the community in such a short time.
However, I wasn’t there to get married, I was there to try out this
great pizza I had heard so much about. We went inside and met the owner Lou
(half of the LouEddie name). She was super friendly, introducing us to
the staff and telling us a little bit about her place. You could tell
how proud of it she is, and why not, it is clearly a hit with locals and
tourists alike.
Before we ordered, we took a walk around the property. As I mentioned,
there is much more than just the small cabin. The grounds extend far
back offering an outside deck to sit on as well as great views. There is
also a bar downstairs that was just opening up. This is where you get your
beer, including two of their very own offerings the Backwoods Porter and
the Amber Wood Ale. We tried the porter, which was absolutely
delicious.
The room is very cute and seems like a great place to hang out with
friends and enjoy some drinks.
By now we were really hungry, so we made our way back up to the kitchen.
We got a great seat right next to where all the magic happens. Jeff and
Kennen were the ones working, and we enjoyed watching them do their
thing and talking to them about what there experience working there is like.
John’s story is amazing in that he not only works in the kitchen, but he
also lives on the grounds taking care of it and even built the place!
He is truly a fascinating guy.
We decided to try the LouEddie’s special which sounded absolutely
delicious. Their pizzas are New York style, and Lou explained to us
that everything is made fresh their daily. In fact, their dough is what she
says makes their pizza so special. She believes the water from their
location is the secret ingredient. I have heard people in New York say
the same thing about the water there, so it makes sense. Otherwise, the
pizza has their special sauce, mozzarella, homemade sausage, pepperoni,
caramelized onions and mushrooms.
We watched Jeff and Kennen go to work on our pizza and once they put it
into the oven we talked with them some more and enjoyed a delicious
Caesar salad while we waited. What I really love about this place is that it
is nothing like you would expect. I don’t normally think of California
when I think of great pizza. I also expect a much more “Californian” style
of pizza featuring a lot more vegetables and some unique ingredients pizza
purists may not approve of. And although they can do that for you too,
there is nothing about this place that any pizza lover from anywhere in
the county won’t love.
Once the pizza came out, we were ready to dive in. We immediately knew
that all we had heard about this place was true. It was absolutely
delicious! Jeff had told us that the key to any great pizza is the dough
and the sauce. Well, they certainly nailed that, and all the other
ingredients were perfect as well. I usually just scarf down my pizza,
but in this case I wanted to savor every bite. I can’t tell you how
delicious this was!
People love to escape from Las Vegas for a day or a weekend, and Lake
Arrowhead is a perfect place to go. It is actually closer than the very
popular Big Bear. So next time you might want to consider a trip there,
if for nothing else than to have some of the best pizza found anywhere.
I would like to thank Lou and her incredible staff for showing us an
fantastic dining experience! It is places like this that make me love
what I do. I can’t wait to go back and try another pizza.
You can learn more about LouEddies and their
wonderful restaurant by visiting their website HERE.
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