Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Road Trip! Granzella's in Williams

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season.

I started 2012 by taking a drive up I-5 yesterday to see the snow geese and other waterfowl that winter at the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. It was a wonderful outing, and after three hours of watching birds, I was starving. So I drove into the city of Williams and decided to check out Granzella's.

Since I was there at an odd time, I decided to get a sandwich in their delicatessen, rather than ordering a sit-down meal in their restaurant. But first, I checked out their olive bar, since the billboards for Granzella's advertise their olive tasting. And rightly so! I tried three different types: the Zesty Jalapeno Style Olives, the Spicy Greek Olives, and the Sicilian Style Olives. They were all wonderful, but the exceptionally flavorful Sicilian Style Olives were my favorite.

For lunch, I ordered the vegetarian sandwich on a sourdough roll, which consisted of marinated artichoke hearts, mustard, peppers, lettuce, tomato, and pickles. I asked them to hold the cheese, mayonnaise, and onions. They have hummus available for an extra charge, but I decided to skip the hummus this time. This turned out to be a pretty good sandwich, and I really enjoyed the flavor of the artichoke hearts, which must have had some extra garlic in the marinade.

It looks like there are some vegan options on Granzella's restaurant menu too. There's a lunch buffet that includes a salad bar, and there are vegan entrees such as spaghetti with marinara sauce, a vegetable pasta that consists of an assortment of vegetables tossed with black olives, tomatoes, and your choice of sauce (ask them to omit the Parmesan cheese), and a Boca burger. In addition, the vegetarian pizza could probably be made without the cheese.

Granzella's is located at 391 6th Street in Williams. Their phone number is 530-473-3310, and their website address is http://www.granzellas.com/. They are open seven days a week from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Granzella's also has a motel and a gift shop, so it's a fun place to stop if you're traveling on I-5.

2 comments:

Liz George said...

Yes--love the olives! but close your eyes if you walk through the bar---the eyes of many stuffed animal heads and an entire polar bear are looking down on you!

Pam said...

Yikes! Thanks for pointing that out, Liz. I didn't go into the bar, so didn't see any of that.