Bistro on Bridge (Phoenixville, PA)

I write this from an altitude of 31,000 feet, aboard a Southwest flight to Baltimore. I’m on my way to PoeFest, where my book Potable Poe: Cocktails of Mystery and Imagination (Fulcort Press, 2025) is (shockingly) a finalist for Poe Baltimore’s coveted literary award. A few moments ago I tried explaining the point and purpose of PoeFest to my seatmate, and I fear that I came across as a nutcase. Me: “It’s a gathering of people who like Poe’s writing!” Seatmate (sounding like Colombo): “But what exactly do you do?” Me: “Well, like we listen to people doing readings of Poe’s works!” Seatmate: “But haven’t you already read them all?” Me: “Well, we also go to Poe’s gravesite and drink a cognac toast to him.” Seatmate: “Flight attendant! Can I be moved please?”

Now, attentive readers will recall that earlier this summer I attended BlobFest, which, as should be evident from the name, is a fest(ival) celebrating the 1958 horror classic “The Blob.” Gatherings such as PoeFest and BlobFest don’t simply allow us to pay homage to a great writer or a great (or maybe mediocre) movie. And they don’t simply provide opportunities to study societal subgroups. More than anything, I think, these events allow us to get a better understanding of ourselves. Why did I come here? What is it about this event that appeals to me? What kinds of people do I choose to associate with? Where did my wallet go?

I think all of us have different facets or dimensions that we tend to only reveal when we’re around similar people. So I get my Poe on at PoeFest and I get my Blob on at BlobFest. What? You don’t do this as well?

In any event, there’s a reason I’m bringing all this up, and that’s because, while I was at BlobFest, which takes place annually in beautiful downtown Phoenixville, PA (pop: 19,000), I had lunch at a place called Bistro on Bridge, which has a relaxed outdoor dining area with a view of the historic Colonial Theater (which, you will recall, was the site of a crucial scene in The Blob).

And what did I see on the menu but a pretzel. The description was pretty minimalist: All it said was:

I decided to throw caution to the wind and order one of these bad boys. To my surprise it turned out to be a much more elaborate presentation than the minimalist description suggested. It’s the size of a Miata’s front tire, and it’s hung on its own stainless steel hook-stand. The hook-stand is in turn placed on a rustic wooden serving board, and the aforementioned beer cheese and spicy dijon mustard are nestled at the base. This is not just a pretzel; it is an event.

Before digging in I made a quick visual inspection of the pretzel itself. It sports an enticing mahogany color and presents some of the characteristic cracking that, to my mind, serves the same function as the celebrated “nooks and crannies” in Thomas’s English Muffins.

But, as with so many beautifully-presented foodstuffs, shortcomings become evident once you actually eat it. For starters, the salt was carelessly and haphazardly applied, resulting in half the pretzel tasting a low-sodium snack food and half resembling a salt lick. Second, the pretzel was too bready. Not even the nooks and crannies could surmount this fatal flaw. Third, as the pretzel cooled it became tougher and tougher, until it resembled that Miata tire in texture as well as shape. I strongly suspect that this pretzel was microwaved. Supporting this theory is the fact it arrived, piping hot, just moments after I ordered it.

And then there’s the beer cheese. It was thin to the point of watery, and quickly developed a rubbery skin on the surface, much the way Jack in the Box’s nacho cheese sauce congeals if you don’t eat it it fast enough. I suspect this so-called beer cheese was some kind of pre-fab condiment they buy by the barrel.

The mustard was good though. The taste was intense and horseradish-forward, reminiscent of Grey Poupon Deli Dijon. Being as piquant and potent as it was, the mustard worked together with the Nooks and Crannies to mask, or at least distract from, the pretzel’s other sins. This was one of the few times I preferred the mustard to the beer cheese.

And so, in the end, I managed to down a little over half the pretzel….until the mustard ran out. Still, I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as I should have. And so I am awarding it 3 stars, which is somewhere between “meh” and “I’ve had worse.”

PRETZEL TRIVIA

1n 1963, Joseph Nacchio of the Federal Pretzel Baking Company in south Philly made a 20-pound pretzel in connection with the mapcap movie It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Even though this claim is repeated all over the Internet, I cannot find how, exactly, the pretzel relates to the film. Some say it appeared in one of the hardware-store basement scenes with Sid Caesar and Edie Adams, but I just finished watching those scenes on YouTube and there’s no sign of a giant pretzel. Others say the pretzel was used as a “promotional stunt” for the movie–a claim that raises more questions than it answers. But I can find no elaboration on this point, or any evidence that it actually happened. I would welcome any clarification from any film historians among my readership.

But what is reasonably well documented is that Joseph Nacchio also made a second, larger pretzel which was deemed the largest in the world at that time (1963). It weighed 40 pounds and measured five feet across. Interestingly, the width of the pretzel is the same as the interior width of a Studebaker Avanti that was manufactured in that same year. I know this because I own one. (The car, not the pretzel.)

It should be noted that the current record for the world’s largest pretzel was set in 2015 in San Salvador, El Salvador. It weighed about 1,700 pounds, or exactly half as much as a Studebaker.