Rudino’s Sports Corner recently opened at 3101 Edwards Mill Rd., Raleigh, N.C.  27612, and I couldn’t be happier. Having enjoyed the North Raleigh Rooftop location off of Strickland Rd. for many years, this new location is approximately 2 ½ miles from home, which makes it a breeze to get takeouts or catch part of a game when the kids have a play date. Rudino’s Sports Corner has numerous flat screen televisions, ample seating and a great outside patio to enjoy when the weather is warm.

Rudino’s opened its first location in 1995 in Cary, and now boasts a number of restaurants throughout the Triangle as well as in a few other states. One of the reasons for its popularity is because of its food (click here for the menu.) Rudino’s pizza was featured in the trade publication “Pizza Today” and features a homemade dough crust made on site daily. There are quite a few pies to choose from, or create your own from a nice selection of fresh toppings (the 12” plain cheese is $10.79, add $1.20 per topping; the 16” pizza starts at $14.55, add $1.50 per topping.)

The calzones are also quite good and are fresh and huge – usually I only can finish half of one in a sitting. That’s okay – it is so easy to reheat and enjoy later. Each calzone starts with pizza sauce and ricotta cheese for $7.50.  Additional toppings are $.60 each. I order mine with just spinach when I’m in vegetarian world, and spinach and bacon when I’m eating meat. Marinara sauce is served on the side for dipping. I love the crust of these calzones – golden brown, soft and a little bit chewy. Yum!

As much as I like the pizza and calzones, I usually fine myself craving one of Rudino’s grinders, which come on wonderful homemade bread and are oven baked. You can order a half grinder (9” for $6.99) or a whole one (18” for $12.99) from a number of choices. The Spinach Sofia grinder is a standby when I’m not eating meat and it comes with spinach, pizza sauce, feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and provolone.

My favorite is the Buffalo Chicken grinder, which comes with bite-sized pieces of chicken, buffalo sauce, chunky bleu cheese dressing, celery, mozzarella and provolone. The combination of the buffalo sauce, bleu cheese and celery is awesome! Celery on a sandwich – it works! Each grinder comes with your choice of chips.

Rudino’s is kid-friendly for the most part, especially foodwise. As with any place that has an active sports bar, sometimes you will hear objectional language, but we’ve never had a problem bringing the kids. Lexi loves the boneless wings and Gabe thinks the pizza is great and likes how it’s cut into small squares.

Rudino’s offers a number of daily beer and drink specials (such as mimosas and Bloody Mary’s for $4.00 on Sundays.) Or, bring some friends and save by ordering a tower of beer! What has turned into a chain still maintains a local feeling, and the Triangle locations I’ve visited each has its own unique atmosphere, yet same great food.

Ratings

• Price: Nice! Quite reasonable for both drinks and  food. Check the daily specials.
• Service: 4.0. Usually quite good, depending on how busy it is. Servers are friendly!
• Food:  4.5. Homemade dough and fresh ingredients are wonderful. I would like to see some Coke products, please!
• Recommend: Yes – it’s a great place to watch a game and still have decent “bar” food.
• Kid friendly:  Yes – they love the wings and pizza.

1= hater, 2=poor, 3=adequate, 4=above average, 5=superb

Eat, drink and be merry!