Take a mouthwatering journey through time at new Pitcairn restaurant
Pitcairn has a new restaurant, and “Great Scott!” the wings are hot.
The dining spot, Back to the Foodture, doubles as a pop culture museum. The place, inspired by the 1985 movie “Back to the Future,” is an entertainment time capsule filled with toys, gadgets and memorabilia from decades past.
Chef Angel Randolph and her fiancé Eddie Barnz, both 40, serve a side of fun with every meal. The Monroeville couple spent months transforming the old Broadway Boulevard bar into a restaurant.
“We wanted to have a place that was a restaurant and a museum,” Randolph says “We wanted to take you back and offer you awesome food, too.”
Diners can play a 1980s-era arcade game while devouring a Buggie Burger, a pair of beef patties topped with a fried egg, bacon, tomato, lettuce and mayo and served between two grilled cheese sandwiches. The No. 1 selling Big Poppa replaces a hamburger bun with glazed doughnuts.
Adventurous types can take the Life After Death Hot Wing Challenge, but they must sign a waiver.
The spicy wings are prepared in Randolph’s homemade Carolina Reaper sauce.
When making the sauce, she wears a mask to protect her from the fumes of the peppers.
After signing the waiver, customers have six minutes to consume a dozen wings sans water and napkins. They’re required to sit and feel the burn for an additional five minutes.
Only a few have triumphed over the picante poultry since the Pitcairn restaurant opened in June. (Their pictures are on the wall with tiny halos above their heads.)
Competitive eaters also can chow down on a Ready to Die burger: a five-and-a-half-pound burger, fries and a drink. This dish also comes with a challenge. Those who eat the monstrosity in 30 minutes or less get $10 off their next meal and a death certificate.
Back to the Foodture serves some of the most over-the-top dishes this side of Hill Valley. There are 76 flavors of wings, 15 varieties of fries and more mutant burger creations than even Doc Brown could come up with.
Randolph grew up in the kitchen, learning down-home cooking from her Southern grandmothers. The oldest of nine kids, she quickly became an expert at whipping up large-scale recipes that could feed an army.
She found her way into Barnz’s heart through his stomach. Barnz, a local hip-hop artist, wanted to open a restaurant since he was a kid.
Now they have four kids, who help come up with zany additions to the menu.
In the near future, Back to the Foodture owners plan to offer a Thanksgiving Burger, bottle and sell their hot sauces and produce 76 flavors of potato chips. Old-school video game tournaments will take place in the back room, where visitors can catch a screening of “Back to the Future.”
“I want this place to be as big or bigger than Primanti Bros,” Barnz says. “We step out of the normal order of what a restaurant is. I want people to come here to see what all the hype is about.”
Back to the Foodture is located at 378 Broadway Blvd., Pitcairn.
Kristy Locklin is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.
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