Yanni's Sausage Grill in Penngrove, CA – update (take-out)
Review date: May 2014
(previous reviews appended below)

It's been far too long since we've had the opportunity to stop in and say hello to John and Francesca, the wonderful owners of Yanni's. They have done very well without us, retaining a 5-star rating on Yelp with over 100 reviews. They still remembered us, amazingly, and were happy to take our order for take-out, to be picked up in a couple of days on our way home from a five-day Sonoma Cty trip.

We purchased four quarts of chili – one for our friend Christie – along with two of the 4-paks of lamb gyro sausage and two pounds of (bulk) Spanish chorizo, the flavor of the month special. The chili was still a little liquid, so I cooked it down some. Carlos loves it – no beans! – along with some fresh baked cornbread (sweet, of course, with plenty of butter).

The lamb sausage was excellent with soft polenta in mushroom tomato sauce, and the chorizo is wonderful for breakfast with eggs.

The great news is that Yanni's is in negotiations with Whole Foods Markets to sell their sausages and chili. Keep checking their Facebook page for updates; they still hope to start that food truck as well.

We kidded them that they are busier now than when they were in the corporate workforce! They laughed and agreed, but said they are loving every minute of their not-so-retired life.

Yanni's Sausage Grill in Penngrove, CA – update (take-out)
Review date: March 2012

We now look at Yanni's the same way we approach Parker-Lusseau Pastries in Monterey. We arrive in Sonoma County and go into Yanni's tiny storefront, where we pre-order multiple containers of their Greek chili and a couple of pounds of their lamb sausage, for pick-up a day or so later, on our way home.

The first time we did this we brought home four containers of chili, which just wasn't enough. So this time we ordered eight (they're 12-oz sizes) to go, as we intended to share a few with our friends Mel and Christie.

Inside the store, Carlos paid for an additional container which he ate on the spot. You could say he likes their chili! It was gone before we reached the freeway…and it doesn't take long to get back to Hwy 101 from Penngrove's Main Street.

Oh, and I was wrong about there being no seating inside the store. You can sit bar-style at the counter against the storefront window, which seats three people if they squeeze in a little. This and the pair of two-seater bistro tables outside, though, are all they've got. That's why just about everyone gets it to go.

We were too late to hit Full Circle Baking, unfortunately – their main store down the street closes at 1 p.m.

An additional note: most of the Greek chili we ate the next day, but a couple of containers sat in the refrig for about four days (owner/chef John Vrattos told us he had made the chili the morning of the day we did the pick-up). Carlos said it got noticeably hotter and hotter the longer it was held! So you're forewarned, this stuff can pack some serious heat.

Yanni's Sausage Grill
10007 Main St., Penngrove, CA
No website, Yelp reviews at: http://www.yelp.com/biz/yannis-sausage-grill-penngrove
Review date: June 2011

And:

Full Circle Baking Company
10151 Main St., Suite 120
Penngrove, CA
No website, Yelp reviews at: http://www.yelp.com/biz/full-circle-baking-co-penngrove
Review date: June 2011

Yelp, and the Internet in general, certainly have their faults. But when you're looking at relatively small businesses, it's a fast way to get a feel for them. And when a couple of small businesses get solid 5-star reviews from multiple people, it's a pretty safe bet that one might want to check them out.

And so it is with Yanni's and Full Circle. Yanni's the tiniest shop I've ever been in, with no seating inside and two tiny 2-seat bistro tables outside. Four people will fill up the inside and five are squished if somebody's trying to access their wallet or purse, or open the door of the beverage fridge.

They sell sausages in frozen 4-packs, and run a modest take-out business of sandwiches and lunch food. Without the Internet, you might never even see it riding past on a bicycle, let alone a car, it's so narrow a storefront.

Plus, there is absolutely no reason to visit Penngrove unless you intend to visit one of its modest shops in the two block-long downtown. Penngrove is halfway between Petaluma and Cotati, on the eastern half of Hwy 101 North if you're going towards Santa Rosa. The freeways border it on the west and there's only small houses and farms to the east. 

But although only 1/2 mile off the Old Redwood Highway, with its architecturally boring business parks, fast food/chain budget restaurants (Applebee's, Taco Bell, IHOP, etc.), coming into Penngrove suddenly appears a world apart, even more than the Bohemian Highway towns of Graton and Occidental on the other side of 101. 

Penngrove is small and old, more tattoo parlor and Harley choppers than the usual Wine Country lineup of endless antique stores. Half of it even lacks a sidewalk, and the biggest business in town, two doors from Yanni's, is a feedlot company with aging pick-up trucks constantly coming and going from their parking lot. They're lugging bales of hay, not a few bags of fancy dog food.

Owner-chef John Vrattos makes the following sausages:
•	Loukaniko (anise and citrus)
•	Garlic
•	Sweet Italian
•	Hot Italian
•	Olympic Flame (a super-hot Italian)
•	Greek (Kalamata and feta)
•	Chicken limoncello
•	Lamb Gyro (aka Gyro in a link; lamb mixed with tzatziki [yoghurt dip]) 

Sausage sandwiches have a grilled sausage, cut in half, on grilled pressed sweet Italian bread with one free topping of choice: roasted bells, pepperoncini, grilled onions, or their own invention, Greek chili. It's 50 cents for each extra topping.

They also serve burgers and fries, Greek salad, and a pizza menu (using their own sausages, of course).

The cons:
•	The chili isn't thickened, so it will drip off sandwiches and make French fries soggy.
•	There is no place there to eat, really. 4 tiny chairs by the side of the main road that quickly fill up, no park or street benches nearby. There is a secret place nearby, but this will only be revealed at the end of both reviews.
•	Only open Wed-Sun, limited hours (Yelp page has the correct hours/days, so Yanni's listing is reliable unlike some reviews). So if you're craving a yummy sausage Monday or Tuesday, you're out of luck. Suck it up, and wait until Wednesday.
•	It's a small, couple-run business. If they are out of something, they are out and must replenish supplies by their own labor. Don't go throwing a fit or dissing them if they're out of your favorite variety. They're not getting regular shipments of commercial sausage; they make every link themselves, along with their own pizza dough, salad, and dip.

The pros:
•	The food is simple but homemade, and John and his wife Francesca are charming hosts. If you are a first-timer and it isn't the lunch hour rush, they will hand you sample cups of their Greek chili, Greek salad, and tzatziki dip to try
•	It's less than 15 minutes from Petaluma and less than 5 minutes off Hwy 101.
•	If you like sausages with flavor but not an excess of salt or fat, thin tender casings, along with supporting a small local business, Yanni's is a terrific use of your discretionary funds.
•	The Greek salad is chunky and utterly simple. Halved grape tomatoes, excellent European cucumber (not English, not American), and magnificent crumbled fresh feta, wonderfully non-salty, in olive oil and sweet balsamic.
•	The chili (see below) is really, really spicy and just meat and tomatoes. If you can pry your mind off Hormel canned, it's eye-openingly good. 
•	The bread roll on the sandwiches was so terrific, we found out who his supplier is and visited them right afterwards (see 'bread', below).

Carlos normally ignores chili. For one thing, he doesn't like chili with beans, which I do. For another, he simply doesn't find it an interesting food, even when it's spicy.

But he loved the Greek chili. It's very simple – good quality ground pork that is very lightly browned, onions, red bells, and canned diced tomatoes in tomato puree to give it a touch of sweetness. The chili powder itself is mild, but there are a whole lot of really hot chiles in there! It is extra-hot and unthickened, no beans. He finished the little sample cup and went back inside to get himself a large bowl to go along with his sausage sandwich.

I have mentioned in other reviews that I grew up in Chicago, where once a week we would visit an old sausage-maker on dumpy old industrial Maxwell Street, where the sausagemaker would grill his housemade bratwurst and serve it on a toasted French roll with grilled onions on top.

Except for the fact that John splits his sausages in half and presses his bread when he toasts it (after generously slathering olive oil over the cut surfaces), his garlic sausage sandwich was the closest I've come to that memory in....well, maybe ever. 

Carlos got the Flame, which is nicely hot but of course, after the chili it tasted positively mild. He really enjoyed the sandwich, but it was the chili that made the whole meal for him.

We purchased three of the sausages (Flame, Greek, and Lamb), along with another two bowls of the chili to go, for dinner that evening. The chili, John told us, is his wife's invention, and they were very pleased when we told them how much we enjoyed our lunch (we were there at 11 a.m. when they opened, so were able to snag one of those bistro tables).

And now for the bread....!

Carlos loves bread, just as his mother does. I enjoy it, but being allergic (the gluten aggravates my asthma) I don't indulge as often as they do. I don't usually order panini sandwiches because the bread is often too thick or too hard/chewy.

But this bread was simply....wonderful. Pressed and toasted, it had the absolutely perfect texture.  Not too chewy yet it didn't fall apart; crisp outside without getting hard, still soft inside even though it was pressed down to a 1/2" thickness on each side.

Yanni told us he gets his bread from the Full Circle bakery "just down the street".  So off we went to find it, assuming correctly it was somewhere inside a tiny two-sided, newish strip mall just before the railroad tracks.

We walked into the bakery and called out, but no one was around. There were stacks and shelves of bread, however, so we were clearly in the right place. Across the way is the JavAmore Café (10101 Main St.), and we decided to grab a cup of coffee, and then check back with Full Circle in a few minutes. Carlos got a mocha, and I got a decent cappuccino, so we sat and sipped for 15 minutes, then went back to Full Circle.

As it turns out, Full Circle closes early, around 1 p.m., so it was a good thing we had eaten early. They do sell their bread at various farmers' markets around the area, so if you plan to be in the area, email them ahead of time at FullCircleBakingCo@sbcglobal.net, or call them at 707-794-9445 to find out exactly where/what days they're selling.

Because this bread is fresh, fresh, fresh. This is great stuff, with a nice crust and a tender, even crumb, The Sweet French is what Yanni uses, and it's a soft, moist bread, not the hard crust/full-of-holes inside that we've become unfortunately accustomed to as sourdough has reigned supreme over the last thirty years. 

If you have ever had Specialtys' bread, a local gourmet sandwich chain in San Francisco, at one time they made their own bread with freshly ground wheat. Doing so makes a bread with a very high moisture content, and with a long rising you get a superior, fine crumb with a tender texture. I don't know where Full Circle sources their flour, but the texture and taste remind me very much of Specialtys' breads.

Note that this bread is close, but not quite up to the highest-level standards of (in order) Cyrus, Café Beaujolais, Bouchon, and One Market. It doesn’t have the distinctive ‘steamed’ crust of these, being a different style. Full Circle is similar to the bread you buy at Safeway, or Grace Baking....only a whole lot better. It's bread you could eat by itself, but what it really does is make your everyday uses – whether that's a simple toasted garlic bread or a cheese toast or a cold turkey-and-havarti sandwich – immensely more flavorful. 

Sausagemaker John, BTW, when I asked who made the bread for his sandwiches, said he worked 38 years for Colombo-Parisien, and thinks Full Circle's bread is one of the best. We agree, and brought back both the sweet French and the Olive loaves. They sell nothing but bread – no pies, no pastries, no muffins. 

After stopping at Marin Cheese Factory for more triple-crème Brie, then finding both great sausages (and chili!) and bread, we were pretty jazzed. It was a little sad that we didn't enjoy the Texas BBQ class as far as the food went, but we had great lunches both before (Willow Wood/Graton) and afterwards. 

Oh, and that secret seating? JavAmore Café has maybe four outdoor tables: not large, but they could certainly give a small party of four or less some additional tablespace to sneak in some sausage sandwiches – just be nice and go in to buy some coffees and maybe a sweet muffin or two. Obviously getting there early is best, or Full Circle won’t be open, unless you’re going to hit one of the farmers markets where they sell, after lunch.

So far the restaurants in Sonoma overall are not as good as the ones in Napa. The trade-off is that the scenery is more gorgeous, there's more to see and do, and you're not far from the coast. We have enjoyed some of our meals in this area, but this simple lunch of sausage sandwiches, spicy chili, and a couple of Pellegrino orange sodas was one of the best. This is going to be a "must stop" for our future visits.

Yanni's: Two sandwiches, one chili (next time it'll be two bowls), two sodas, were $18.50.

Full Circle: we're ashamed to say we forgot to keep track of our cash! Whatever it was, it was worth it. Doesn't cost any more than Acme, and we actually like it better.