Hometown Eats: Mickey G’s Bistro

FLOYD, Va. (WDBJ) - You ever go to a restaurant because you’ve been introduced to a secret menu? There’s a chef in Floyd who pulled back the curtain on some hidden specials that will take you straight to Italy.

We’re checking out Mickey G’s Bistro in this week’s Hometown Eats.

“I like when someone comes in and they just say, ‘We’re hungry. We don’t like anchovies. Cook for us.’ That’s my favorite thing to do,” said Mickey G’s Bistro owner Michael Gucciardo.

Drift away on a gondola ride of the sounds and smells of small-town Italy in the small town of Floyd at Mickey G’s Bistro.

“I grew up in a real Italian family who was from Italy. There was cooking all the time. Sunday as a little kid if I went out to play football, when I got up in the morning you could smell the food starting to cook already,” said Gucciardo.

Owner and head chef Michael Gucciardo grew up in Brooklyn and used his time wisely to find the perfect flavors for the kitchen.

“Thinking about what this lady, Ms. Galante, cooked in apartment 4G. You’d walk up the steps and you smell it, knock on the door and ask her what it was. They loved that,” said Gucciardo

He came to Floyd 35 years ago in search of a slower pace of life and found it at the Pine Tavern Lodge. After a while he opened Mickey G’s and has been going strong for a baker’s dozen, 13 years.

“It’s just a great place to eat, great people, great county we live here in Floyd. I love it all,” said regular customer Shawn.

“The waitresses, the service, the atmosphere, it just couldn’t be better,” said regular customer Danny.

Michael wants you to feel like you’re visiting family when inside this place and you kind of are. All four of his kids work there and his nephew is direct from New York to make the pizzas.

“It’s not exactly like the pizza you’d get in Italy because we don’t have a wood fire stove, but anywhere in Italy where you’d get pizza that isn’t wood fire, this is it.”

“It’s excellent pizza, it’s New York-style pizza and you can’t get a better one anywhere in town,” said regular customer Jeanne.

Don’t get me wrong, the pizza is delicious, but the real bread and butter is when Michael goes to work on the chefs’ choice.

“Lots of times I keep stuff in the back that nobody even knows I have. We have a large cliental that does what we call ‘chefs’ choice’ who just come in and tell me they’re hungry and I cook. For me that’s the best part of it.”

That’s exactly what I told him, and that’s exactly what he made. Another popular attraction is the lunch buffet that was recently brought back, a full spread of Italian favorites.

“They just started that lunch buffet, which is great,” said Danny.

“It’s one of my favorites and I really like it a lot,” said Shawn.

Whether it’s the buffet, a calzone, or the good stuff in the back, Michael has the same level of passion today as he did on his first day in a commercial kitchen 50 years ago.

“I love cooking, I love eating, and I love people. I got them all,” said Gucciardo.

Mickey G’s Bistro, a hometown eat where you truly are family. Mickey G’s Bistro is located at 113 Parkview Rd NE, Floyd, VA 24091.

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