Have BBQ Pit Will Travel
- following article taken from Boomers Magazine, September 2000
In 1988 Mitchell Evanitsky was looking for a small business to run. He purchased a combination gas station, laundromat and automatic car wash, and is the first to admit that this was a mistake. He was unaware of environmental problems caused by the gasoline storage tanks, and needed renovations on the old buildings would prove costly.
Evanitsky began to contact friends and colleagues and generally "picked peoples brains" to see if his idea of opening an ice cream store was a viable one. He had experience with making ice cream at home, but needed advice with recipes and operating on a grander scale. He even contacted octogenarian Walter Simonson, the inventor of frozen yogurt, for help with his research. The rest, as they say, is history.
On August 1, 1992 Evanitsky opened Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream. The consistent superiority of his homemade ice cream has always been his reliance on the "three key ingredients that go into the making of fine ice cream. You need a high quality mix, quality flavorings and good equipment," he states. For example, he doesn't use rock salt because the consistency of the ice cream is not as creamy as he prefers.
Customers generally have a list of 40 or 50 flavors from which to choose, but a request from the local Indian community led to the creation of Evanitsky's most unusual flavor - Pistachio/Saffron/Cardamon. "You either love it or hate it," he says.
The question remains: How did Mitchell Evanitsky get into the barbecue and catering side of his business? He laughs, "It's sort of like the line in the movie Field of Dreams. 'If you build it, they will come.'" Evanitsky had been making his own barbecue sauce for 10 or 11 years and had been thinking of expanding his business so that revenues would be steady during the colder months when ice cream sales drop. In July 1993, he was talking with a former customer who knew a man in Houston, Texas, fabricating custom barbecue pits. Evanitsky began negotiations for the building of one of these pits, but then ran across a wood-fired barbecue pit originating from a company in Dallas. He obtained one in 1994 and has been barbecuing ever since, In fact, in 1994, his company won the Best Sauce Award at the Three Rivers Stadium Rib Cook-off.
Evanitsky chuckles when asked about his catering business. "I sort of fell into it by accident," he says. In 1995, he was asked to cater an event and afterward put a small ad in the Yellow Pages just to see what would happen. Enough business was generated from the ad to warrant looking into buying trucks big enough to haul equipment and supplies to various catering events. In 1997, Evanitsky bought his first truck and catered about 25 events.
Unable to secure from his landlord the necessary repairs to his store, Evanitsky moved to his present location in Gibsonia in April 1998. The pleasant appearance and atmosphere of his present store has resulted in better sales, and the enthusiastic response to his barbecue has netted him a catering business that has taken off. "Our business has doubled each year," he stated proudly. In fact, he has catered more this year already than in previous years.
What role do the other members of the Evanitsky family play in Mitchells' Homemade Ice Cream and BBQ? "My wife is now involved in the catering business. She takes the orders for events and does the paper work. She also works with food preparation and serving for events." Although his 13- and 11- year-olds are still a little young to serve ice cream at the store, Evanitsky sometimes takes them along to help at various catering jobs.
Mitchell Evanitsky has obviously found his life's work, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have bigger and better dreams for the future. In his words, he has "two grandiose ideas". he is interested in exploring the idea of franchising his business, and he has written to two big-name football stars to see if they would be interested in endorsing his highly praised barbecued beans and barbecue sauce. He is currently negotiating with one star in particular for "Immaculate BBQ Beans and BBQ sauce".
- Kathleen Hughes
Wash, Wax & Scoop
- following article taken from Pittsburgh Magazine, May 1996
Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream & Real Southwestern Barbecue might be the area's most unlikely place to find great ice cream. The shop is part of an old gas station-laundry-carwash complex, and the coin laundry and carwash are still open for business. The gas pumps are gone, and the little office (where you used to get maps and spark plugs) has been converted into a small ice cream production facility with a Taylor batch freezer, shelves of exotic flavorings, and a couple of scooping freezers in the middle of the room.
"This was a dump," says Mitch Evanitsky, pointing out all the extensive remodeling he's done himself, then laughing. "It still is a dump, but better than it was."
Who cares what the place looks like if the flavors are great? I visited on a slow night, so I got to taste many. The lush vanilla. A "death by chocolate" that impressed me with its fatal flavor (even though I'm not a chocolate lover). Kim Bakaj, the young woman who was working the window, insisted that I try her favorite: amaretto nut fudge (with maraschino cherries). Terrific.
"Freshness is the crucial factor," says Mitch, a long-haired Ambridge native who possesses the kind of energy that lets you know he's probably great fun at parties. "I don't have anything in my freezer that's more than two weeks old, and in the summer, nothing lasts that long even." During the busy months, he experiments a lot, even though adventurous tasters don't always show up.
Mitch says we live in a "mainstream, conservative city" when it
comes to flavors. Nonetheless, he makes a tasty mango, a killer kiwi, and
a fabled Sacher torte, but his big sellers are still vanilla, chocolate and
butter pecan. "Strawberry's not third around here. Pittsburgh
is a big butter pecan town," he says.
Mitch graduated from Penn State, but not in ice cream. He says he didn't appreciate the wonder of foods till the early '80's (when he found himself eating a lot of Ben & Jerry's). He's a self taught ice-cream maker who knows all the jargon, speaking offhandedly about "overrun" and "double-fold Madagascar vanilla."
Mitch also makes some award-winning barbecue: ribs, chicken, hams, turkey breast, lamb and pork - but that's another story.
If his place weren't so quirky and funky, and his ice cream so superb, where would Mitch want to go for ice cream around here? His reply is immediate: Kerber's.
-Rick Sebak
Click on these links to see articles about Mitch's Barbecue and Ice Cream
Pittsburgh and Materials Letter of Recommendation
BBQ
High Test Or Regular High Test or Regular Article
- following article taken from Pittsburgh Magazine, January 1994
Instead of choosing which octane level they want, customers at gas station owner Mitchell Evanitsky's place get to select from 80 ice cream flavors and a list of barbecued treats.
In 1992, after new state regulations threatened to vaporize his profits, Evanitsky pulled out his pumps, remodeled the station by hand and opened Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream and Real Southwestern Barbeque in Ross Township.
Using true fruit purees and extracts, he sells his own specially formulated premium ice cream, as well as low-fat and nonfat frozen yogurts. He even customizes flavors: he's done persimmon, Heath Bar, Zagnuts and chocolate chili. Though skeptical, he says he'll try asparagus if pressed to.
And that's not all. Last summer Mitch hooked up with Dave Wasicak, a patron of Mitch's adjacent car wash and coin operated laundry, who was in the sausage business. Together, they cook to-die-for Southwestern barbecue.
Where the gas pumps used to be are now two steel drums serving as smokers and grills fueled by hardwood fires. The pork barbecue sandwiches, done North Carolina-style with a splash of spice and vinegar, are superb. Another specialty, skinless and boneless chicken breasts, come cajun, piri-piri ( a Portuguese hot sauce) and herbed. Then there are the ribs, lamb and pork kebabs and whole chickens-all done as devishly hot or as not as you want.
Mitchell's grows and dries its own peppers, reps the Santa Fe Coyote Cafe line of products and has his own private label for 11 different seasoning blends.
Everything is take-out. Some items require an advance order. You can't miss the bright pink and blue building at 3123 Babcock Blvd., but call first: 364-9988.
- Ann Haigh
http://www.pittsburghwedding/link_to_us.htm
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4988 Middle Road
Wagners Plaza
Gibsonia, PA 15044
724-776-0616
724-449-2733
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