How often have you walked into a sports bar and every TV was tuned to baseball or basketball or some other game (not a “sport,” by Ernest Hemingway’s definition) and if you asked for just one screen to be switched to racing they looked at you like you might be carrying some rare and contagious disease?
The Petrolhead Café is not one of those places. Not at all. It was actually born from a reaction to those places.
You can tell right away that the focus at Petrolhead is not the usual stick-and-ball sports.
Located at 1429 Park Street in the Parkville neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut, Petrolhead Café was launched by Kyle Mayer, a guy who’s one of us. Having worked for restaurants and a craft brewing company, he began selling his own smoked brisket at a popup food booth. Now he has his first brick-and-mortar location. I’ve been meaning to go check it out and Saturday was the perfect day to do so, with glorious weather for a ride and MotoAmerica races to watch on the big screen once I got there.
Where else could I go to enjoy a meal and have the wait staff happily tune to the TV to MotoAmerica motorcycle racing?
Kyle and I had met virtually many years ago when he contributed a couple of articles to Common Tread at RevZilla, but never in real life. Lucky for me, he was still working when I arrived, so I got to meet him for real and he even posted a photo on Petrolhead’s Instagram.
Open all day, the Petrolhead Café offers some good coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and pastries for the morning crowd, and sandwiches and sides for lunch and dinner. There’s also a selection of beers and other drinks at the bar.
I’m a rather rare creature, a vegetarian motorcyclist. So I went with the veggie burger and tater tots while I watched the MotoAmerica Supersport race from Brainerd, and washed it down with some of the very good dark roast Fuel coffee during the Superbike race. My food was excellent. I picked up half a pound of Kyle’s signature smoked brisket to take home, and my wife declared it “superb.”
If you’re passing through Hartford, the Petrolhead makes an easy stop, just a few blocks off of I-84. While riding into the city isn’t most people’s idea of a destination ride, Petrolhead isn’t that far from some fun roads (as I confirmed on my ride to and from my home in the northern Berkshires) and it’s a unique enough destination to make the detour worthwhile. Where will you find a more motorcycle-friendly café?
If you do go, here’s a tip. The building address is 1429 Park Street but turn down Bartholomew Avenue to find the parking and the entrance at the southwest corner of the building.
If you get the chance, check out Petrolhead Café and support one of our own who’s creating a place for us.
A cool place like this, serves vegetarian foods, and (kinda) near by… I’m going to have to make a trip over there ASAP.