Lights, Camera, Mokena!
Lincoln Way Sun • Suntimes News Group / December 12, 2008 • by: Karen Hanson
Ardent anglers gathered at the Stoney Point Grill in Mokena last week to cheer on a live taping of their favorite cable outdoor sports show.
With the restaurant’s rugged stone fireplace as a backdrop, hosts Don Dziedzina and Rich Komar taped two episodes of The All Outdoors Television Show, a program devoted to fishing and hunting. Now in its 10th year on the air, the All Outdoors show has done remote broadcasts three times at the Stoney Point Grill.
For the show that bills itself as “The only All Outdoors show that is taped totally indoors,” the restaurant was a change from the usual studio environment in Bolingbrook. Welcoming the audience, Dziedzina joked that this time the show was “almost outdoors.” “We had to go outdoors to get here,” said Dziedzina.
Dressed in jeans and denim shirts, Dziedzina and Komar sat on tall bistro chairs before three digital cameras set on tripods. As the show was taped, live video from the lead camera was fed through the televisions mounted on the restaurant and bar walls so all diners could watch.
Stoney Point Grill owners Jim Burke and Brad Banaszak, who are fans of All Outdoors, said the show is a good fit for the sports-themed restaurant and bar. “Jim and I both love to fish,” Banaszak said. “It just fits with what we’re putting together as a restaurant.”
Read Full ArticleBringing a Taste of Minnesota to Mokena
Mokena Messanger • 22nd Century Media Publications / November 1, 2007 • by: Heather Warthen
As children, cousins Jim Burke of Orland Park and Brad Banaszak, a former Orland Park resident, often spent their sum mers fishing and enjoying the outdoors around Cass Lake in Minnesota. However, the food from those trips up north made a lasting impact on the two cousins, prompting them to share it with the southwest suburbs of Chicago.
Stoney Point Grill, which opened about two years ago, is located at 19031 Old LaGrange Road in Mokena. Since its open ing, the restaurant and off-track betting (OTB) establishment has offered guests a contemporary taste of the northern Midwestern cuisine that Burke and Banaszak have loved since they were children.
“A lot of the items on the menu relate to that region in Minnesota,” explained general manager Mark Lavender. “They wanted to bring Minnesota down here.”
According to Lavender, the grill prepares everything home made, down to the dressings and sauces. “Everything we do, we take extreme care in,” he explained. The ribs and filet are Lavender’s choices for entrees . . .
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