itinerant foodies

Prior to this weekend, all of my trips to the Ohio Valley had been to see family. I grew up going to Steubenville and the surrounding areas several times a year – always on the agenda of the adult driving the car. To be honest, the place terrified me as a child, and I found everything there gray: the buildings, the temperament of the people, the sky and even the music on the radio. That, however, is not how my dad viewed his childhood home, the land of Big Red football, Dean Martin and excellent sledding hills.

I decided to spend a short amount of time this past weekend to re-see the city, to imagine her as she used to be and to dream of what she may someday become. My main tour guide for this trip, aside from memories and some intuition, was my stomach. The Ohio Valley and its coal mines was the destination for many an Italian immigrant in the early 1900s. The result is a culinary tradition rich with Italian influence.

It seems fitting that my first stop was Naples Spaghetti House. Owned by the same family since 1923, Naples is an Italian restaurant half a block away from Steubenville High School. It is also the home of the heel, a sandwich found only in Steubenville. A few other area restaurants have copied the idea, but it’s widely known that the original owner of Naples (the current owner’s grandfather) created the concept when he opened the restaurant.

The heel is a loaf of fresh bread cut open at one end and stuffed with sandwich fare. Naples has a long list of possible fillings; I chose to get two meatballs, marinara and provolone cheese in my heel. The result of this particular heel is the delightful combination of sweet marinara and soggy fresh-baked bread. Speaking of bread, Naples goes through 150 to 200 loaves – sourced from two bakeries (Steubenville Bakery and Downtown Bakery) – a day.

Because of the size, eating a heel is quite a task. This photo is not posed. I found that I received the most joy from shoving the entire concoction in my face, in hopes of getting a perfect bite of sauce, cheese, soggy bread and meatball. This usually worked. (By the way, I am wearing a shirt in this picture.)

I asked the server half a dozen questions before she sent the owner my way. One of those questions was, “What do people eat here?” I knew, of course, that the heel was going to be my entrée, but I didn’t want to miss out on any other Naples’ favorites. Her answer? French fries with gravy. You know, something light to eat with your loaf of bread meal.

Not everything at Naples is giant or covered in fat. Baseball Boy ordered a more modest meal: a half order of Spaghetti and Mushrooms. He wasn’t as smitten with his entrée as I was with mine, but it was reasonably priced and came with a nice salad. (The “house dressing” is a Sysco sweet red vinaigrette sold at the register in its original Sysco packaging.) There’s definitely no pretension at Naples.

So the question is this: was my meal at Naples worth the drive from Columbus? Yes, yes, yes. Nostalgia aside, the heel was the prize at the end of I-70.

Naples Spaghetti House
329 North Street
Steubenville, Ohio
740.283.3405