Irwin's Iceburgh's Bistro is making it fresh

With a name like Iceburgh's Bistro, you have to wonder if the new Irwin lunch spot is riding the coattails (or tail feathers?) of the Penguins' latest Stanley Cup win.

Not so, say owners Alicia and Skip Majiros of North Huntingdon.

Their daughter Riley's boyfriend came up with the name that refers to the iceberg lettuce in their wraps and salads and the “burg” or “burgh” suffix attached to so many area place names.

And Skippy, the bistro's penguin mascot? Well, he's distinguished from that other penguin by his bright green glasses — which also suggest everything green and fresh on the menu.

Skip, a real estate broker, did his due diligence in securing legal rights to the image and the corporation name, Iceburgh's Bistro LLC.

With all that done, the couple moved on to the business of serving those wraps and salads, along with artisan pizzas, soups and desserts. They opened May 24 for lunch only, and on July 10 will extend hours to include dinner.

After ordering at the counter, customers can watch their meals being made behind a glass partition by a crew of fresh-faced, friendly servers — most of them former cheerleading colleagues of Riley Majiros and her sister, Kelsey. The sisters also will be found hard at work as co-owners of the shop.

We made a couple of recent stops for take-out, stocking up on the Buffalo Ranch Chicken, BBQ Stu's Chicken and Strawberry Salmon salads and a couple of pizzas — Simply White, with provolone cheese, tomatoes and garlic oil; and a B.Y.O. (Build Your Own), with a variety of meats.

Intrigued by a photo on the website, we also ordered the chicken noodle soup.

The salads are large enough for two to share and still feel satisfied. The add-ins were plentiful, though some in the group thought the lettuce should have been crisper.

The soup was thick and hearty, with large chunks of white meat chicken and hefty egg noodles, more like chicken and dumplings than soup. It was good, but surprisingly different from the website photo, which portrayed a lighter, more Asian-inspired dish with corn, scallions, fresh parsley and what appear to be rice noodles.

Skip Majiros admitted that the website is still a work in progress, currently using some stock photos gleaned from the Internet.

No matter, because then it was on to the pizzas, which were eaten to universal acclaim.

Baked in under three minutes in a Turbochef Fire pizza oven, they had the taste and texture of wood-fired pies. The crust had the perfect combination of crust and chew, and toppings were bursting with flavor and obviously as fresh as advertised. Alicia Majiros says the dough is supplied by a local bakery.

A good meal calls for something sweet to finish, and Iceburgh's offers that with a chocolate-covered frozen banana ($3.50), shaved ice either Hawaiian-style ($2.75) or over vanilla gelato ($3.75) and Iceburgh's Wiley ($1.50).

The Wiley is a Majiros family creation, a peanut butter-chocolate-crisp rice bar cookie perfected over the years until, as Alicia Majiros says and we can confirm, it became addictive.

For those not on the run, meals can be eaten in a small dining room or an enclosed side porch. Decor is casual and bright, accented with paint the same green as Skippy's glasses. The intrepid penguin also stars in a series of wall posters illustrating some of the dishes — roaming the prairie with a bison for the BBQ Stu's chicken and fishing with a grizzly for the salmon.

Skip Majiros says plans are in the works for a limited-menu Iceburgh's Express to open next year in a building he owns in downtown Greensburg. After that, who knows?

With his real estate knowledge and Alicia's background in business administration and restaurant management, they say they designed the business with a franchisable concept.

Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-836-5750, smcmarlin@tribweb.com or via Twitter @shirley_trib.