Haymaker Restaurant Offers Midwestern Comfort Food and Other Culinary Creations

Are you looking for a restaurant that’s great for the family, perfect for the big game and wonderful for a date, while still being just right for breakfast, lunch or dinner? Well, just follow your nose to the enticing aroma emanating from one of Joey Lucidi’s Haymaker restaurants. The technical name for these palaces of palatable food delights is The Haymaker Restaurant Company, but the local name is simply Haymaker.

The West Valley is fortunate enough to have two Haymaker locations — the first restaurant at 24762 N. Lake Pleasant Parkway in Peoria, which opened in October 2013; and a second at 1800 N. Litchfield Road in Goodyear, which opened last year. A third location is scheduled to open at the intersection of Tatum and Bell in Phoenix in July, notes Joey.

Haymaker is a family-owned and operated business and Joey comes by his food management skills quite naturally. His parents owned 11 restaurants in San Diego (and earlier in Michigan) and he says that he literally did his school homework sitting in the back of the restaurants.
While Joey was in college, he took a break from the family trade and earned a degree in business and marketing. “I soon realized, however, that my passion was for food — the neighborhood grill, the family restaurant with something special,” he says.

Before opening Haymaker, Joey worked at some recognized national chain restaurants, doing a little bit of everything, he says. That experience, along with his college studies and family background, makes it easy to see how the Haymaker concept got its start.

The Lucidi family is proud of the food at Haymaker; it is good, wholesome and plentiful. The meals are reasonably priced and appealing. The pricing is also enticing for seniors on a limited budget. “Much of the breakfast crowd on any given day is composed of seniors,” says Joey.

The menu at the Haymaker offers a wide variety of foods and something for all tastes, from meat lovers to vegetarians. Vegetarian options (such as veggie patties) can be substituted for meat at no additional cost, notes Joey.

Another bonus is that the menu is not complicated to understand, even with its exciting creations. The menu comes from a family grill that, to quote Joey, “offers both Midwestern comfort food and interesting in-house culinary creations.”

made on-site, almost all from scratch, except for the breads, which are all fresh-baked from local bakeries. Examples of breakfast dishes include California and Arizona omelettes, Haymaker Benedict and huevos rancheros. The restaurant is open for breakfast 7-10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday, and 7-11:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

The meats served for lunch and dinner (beef, pork and chicken) are fresh and never frozen, says Joey. Examples of lunch and dinner items include burgers and sandwiches of many varieties, teriyaki bistroloin bowl, St. Louis ribs and Joey’s primavera. There are also specials for seniors. The Haymaker closes for dinner at 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Much of the advertising for Haymaker is done by word-of-mouth, says Joey. Nonetheless, two of the other successful marketing devices used by the restaurant are coupons, which generally promote a summer item, and the burger of the month, which is a year-round specialty. If a burger of the month is highly successful, it could become a part of the regular menu, notes Joey.

Children eat for free on Wednesdays at Haymaker. Also, the restaurant offers a different dinner special every night of the week. “Some menu items are exceptionally popular,” says Joey. “For instance, the Peoria restaurant serves between 35 and 40 pounds of pulled pork per night.”

In addition to the menu being the same at all Haymaker locations, so too is the basic restaurant decor. For instance, all Haymaker locations have a “Buffy” — a buffalo head mounted on the wall of the bar, which is made out of brick. Furthermore, “each bar has the best selection of whiskey in the Phoenix area,” says Joey.

Also, written on the walls at each Haymaker location, boldly and proudly, are the “Pledge of Allegiance” and “Grace before Meals.” Joey says, “This restaurant company firmly believes in God, country and family.”

For more information on The Haymaker Restaurant Company, call 623-566-1515 (Peoria) or 623-536-9000 (Goodyear), or visit www.haymakeraz.com.