Mother Dough: Thursday, June 14, 8:14 p.m.

It could be a scene from Portlandia.

The waiter's shirts say “quack” and depict a duck. Mother Dough quite literally put a bird on it.

“Tonight's special is a lot like the margarita pizza,” the girl in the bird shirt says. “Except it also has Japanese shishito peppers and crumbled pistachios on it.” At the back of the long room sits the hulking oven, and if prompted, the bird-wearing waiter will tell you all about its 6,000 pounds, its 850 degrees. Or she'll tell you about the oak table you're sitting at, handmade by the owner.

A group arrives, mostly made up of men in the most amazing collection of hoodies. One is Pepto pink. Another is floral like your great aunt Hilda's curtains. Big, bold, '80s-upholstery floral.

After gobbling up their thin-crusted pizza, topped with shishito peppers, and commenting on the beautiful char on the crust, one in the group asks about the old metal tacks sticking out of the wall and surrounding the light fixtures. They look like rudimentary 100-year old typewriter keys, but are adorned with numbers instead of letters.

“They're old railroad nails,” the bird-shirted waitress explains. “The owner collected them for years, then decided to incorporate them into the decor here. The numbers on them represent the year they were from. Like, 1826 or whatever.”

The guy in the flowered hoodie nods thoughtfully. “Wow,” he says. “1826. Cool.”

Black Hogg: Friday, May 25, 8:56 p.m.

Milo & Olive: Saturday, June 2, 1:17 p.m.

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