Beacon Hotel recognized by America’s Best Restaurants
FORWARD TWP — If you’re making your way to the Beacon Hotel on Fat Tuesday, just follow the smell: clouds of fragrant steam rise as mounds of crawfish, shrimp and mussels roll to a boil with spices, potatoes, locally-grown corn and citrus for zest and brightness.
Normally, the Beacon Hotel’s Fat Tuesday menu would not have been offered on a Monday. But on Monday the restaurant served up around 200 pounds of seafood along with its famous wings and Krelow Burgers to about 70 regulars in an episode of America’s Best Restaurants, a show that celebrates independent restaurants nationwide.
“It’s cool to be recognized,” Nick Krelow, son of owners Debra and Greg Krelow said. ”(The Beacon Hotel’s) been here before just about anything near here.”
Nick Krelow said he started helping out in the restaurant as soon as he could hold a spatula. He’s a fourth generation cook in his family: the restaurant was founded by his great-grandfather, he said, and the fixture has been in the family for 90 years.
His mother, Debra Krelow, said the restaurant was recommended to appear on the show by locals, though they were initially supposed to be featured next July.
“With so many restaurants closing down due to COVID, (America’s Best Restaurants) said their timeline opened up like crazy,” she said.
The show posted a survey on Facebook asking people which dishes to feature in the show. Locals voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Fat Tuesday boil, Debra Krelow said, which is offered on the first Tuesday of each month. The seafood boil is cooked outside despite hot or cold weather, and even in frosty -20 degrees with the wind blowing, Nick Krelow said.
“We’ve been doing Fat Tuesday, boy, we’ve been doing it for 28 years,” his mother said. “We have sold tons, literally tons, of seafood.”
Though she grew up in Butler County, Debra Krelow lived in Florida for several years. She said she brought some of the Southern flavors back with her.
“We have people come in that live in the South or that lived in New Orleans or visited New Orleans and they come in here and say this is the closest thing that they can get to an authentic Cajun crawfish boil anywhere,” she said.
The spices for the seafood boil are flown in from New Orleans. They make up a secret blend that includes cayenne pepper and paprika for smoky flavor, she said, and the spice level is somewhat reduced to accommodate Northern tastes.
The sauces for the wings are also made from scratch, she said. The hottest sauce, aptly named Atomic, takes approximately three days to cook. The family is constantly experimenting with new flavors, Nick Krelow said.
Out of all three dishes that would be served Monday afternoon, Jacqueline Mains, the show host for America’s Best Restaurants, said she looked forward to the seafood boil.
“That’s not something I always get to taste,” she said. “And to even see the process, that’ll be amazing.”
Depth of flavor is critical in a good dish, Mains said, and food is a form of art.
“There are certain things that everybody can do,” Mains said. “I love to see it when chefs put their own spin on a dish … when you get a chef that really loves what they’re doing, and they put their own spin on (a dish) … I’m gonna try this flavor with the flavor display. That’s exciting to me.”
“I think it’s essential for a community to have independently owned restaurants,” she said. “We want to give those that are small business owners a chance, a vehicle to share their story and have their voices heard about why they want locals to come eating out at their place, what’s special about them, what’s unique, what do they do really well at their restaurant.”
Diners return for the personal interaction you can’t find in a chain restaurant, Nick Krelow said. His friend Ray Emminger of Penn Township has been a regular at The Beacon for several years with his wife, and showed up Monday afternoon to support the restaurant. He likened the environment to a family environment.
“It’s a community,” he said.
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