Fuel & Fuddle, loosely translated, means "food and drink."

Really.

If you don't believe us look it up. Fuel & Fuddle is a lively little joint in Oakland that serves great "wildfire food" and a coupl'a perfectly chilled house brews. A local food critic once described our food as "upscale west coast bar food." We have no idea what that means, but we like the way it sounds. We're getting ahead of ourselves though. Let's start from the beginning.

Fuel & Fuddle is the joint venture of three friends; Ron Lutz, Jerry DiLembo, and Mike Hanley. We have a few other restaurants around town called Uncle Sam's Subs. Great places to grab a cheese steak if you're in the mood. Ask anyone who knows us and they'll tell you that we're not the sharpest knives in the drawer. That being painfully obvious, we decided to get some help running this joint.

First, we called Jerry's brother in California. Unlike us, he's a real genius. Plus he's a great chef. Tony DiLembo graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. He used to be Barbra Streisand's personal chef. He owns his own restaurants. More importantly, since he's Jerry's brother, we didn't have to pay him much. He has developed our menu of "Wildfire Food" centered around our exposed brick oven. By the way, Tony would want you to know that he didn't have anything to do with the "stupid names" (direct quote) we use for the menu items. You know these genius types. They take everything so seriously.

Any red blooded American male will tell you, having your own beer is a really cool thing. We decided having our own private label beer was an absolute must. After about a million phone calls, endless drives to remote locations and gallons and gallons of tested beer; we found another genius to help us. Well, actuallly, we found two. John and Chris Trogner own and operate Troegs Brewery in Harrisburg, PA. They brew us two great craft beers in real small batches. They are our Fire Brick Brown Ale and our Pumphouse Pale Ale. Incidentally, every time you order one of these beers, a portion of the sale goes to Pittsburgh Cares, a local nonprofit group. We like to say, "charity work never tasted so good."

Well that's about it. If you're looking for a casual little joint to grab some good food and some good beer, check us out. We're open early and we're open late every day. And remember:

Life is a journey...stop for fuel.