Appetizers: Celebrate bike culture and cool new bikes at Hot Italian tonight

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March 12, 2011

Celebrate bike culture and cool new bikes at Hot Italian tonight

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Bee Restaurant Critic
brobertson@sacbee.com

Congratulations to Hot Italian on its very special recognition as a "Bicycle Friendly Business" by the League of American Bicyclists, the first California restaurant to be honored in this way.

If you've ever ridden to Hot Italian and locked your bike in its very stylish bike racks (they have space for 32 two-wheelers), you probably have a sense of how pro-bike the pizzeria is. Many times when I've ridden my bike to review a restaurant, I've had to lock it to a tree or post. Hot Italian also delivers pizza by bike, sponsors a bike club, produced the well-received Bicycle Film Festival in Sacramento, the Velo & Vintage bike-themed fashion show and recently hosted the "Savage Sprints" series of stationary bike races to raise money to build a local velodrome..

Hot Italian has been racking up recognition and leading the way on many fronts in the local restaurant industry. It recently received LEED certification by the U.S. Green Building Council for its environmentally friendly building. Being bike friendly goes hand in hand with that.

To celebrate the bike friendly business designation, Hot Italian (16th and Q in Midtown) is hosting an event tonight (Saturday) from 6-9 p.m. to unveil the "pop-up" bike shop selling PUBLIC Bikes and Rickshaw Bags. Attending will be PUBLIC Bikes owner and founder of Design Within Reach, Rob Forbes. I have seen the PUBLIC Bikes city-style bikes and am impressed. Simple clean lines, not a lot of extra parts, nice colors and, best of all, a really good pricepoint (around $500). That's much cheaper than the Le Corbusier chaise ($3,600) you can buy at Design Within Reach. Also on hand will be Rickshaw Bags' Mark Dwight.

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