Media Credit: Rohanna Green
The State Press
Dennnis Skolnick, passes out his Mill Avenue dining
guide.
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Skolnick on top of his car.
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Media Credit: Rohanna Green
The State Press
Skolnick picks up his latest version of "Dennnis´ Mill
Ave. Guide" at Uni-Print on Forest Avenue Monday.
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It's dinnertime for Dennnis.
At about 7:15 on a Thursday night, Dennnis Skolnick -- with
three Ns -- breezes through the doors of Z-Tejas Grill.
Dennnis greets the manager, drools over the hostess and
comments on the number of "overly attractive young people" in
the restaurant.
He's not one of them. His curly brown hair sits flat against
his head, and his mustache with flecks of blonde and white hairs
is shaved too high on the left side. He wears white tennis shoes
that have turned a dingy shade of gray, a flannel shirt with a
white tie and a wrinkled denim jacket with the words "Dennnis'
Mill Ave. Guide" embroidered on the back.
Dennnis sits at a table and orders. In two hours, he polishes
off two glasses of gourmet iced tea, cornbread, shrimp tostadas
for an appetizer and an entree with more shrimp.
When he finishes, he asks for a slice of chocolate pie to go
for his friend who works down the block. While Dennnis waits for
the bill, his finger digs between two of his teeth. A piece of
food gets stuck in his fingernail, and he flicks the rogue chunk
into the air.
The waiter finally swings by with the bill. The total is
$30.90, but Dennis will pay nothing.
"And there it is," Dennnis says, pointing to the round zeros
at the bottom of his bill. "This is a very exciting thing for me
-- no bill."
Dennnis Skolnick is the Mill Avenue Food Critic, a title he
has legally registered. That is how he got his free meal from Z-Tejas.
That's how he gets free meals every week from Mill Avenue
restaurants.
A poster with Skolnick's face plastered on it and his
official "okee dokee" hangs in the doorways of the Mill Avenue
establishments he endorses. His pewter gray '83 Ford
Celebrity has the words "Mill Avenue Food Critic" taped on the
sides, and every week he publishes a free magazine with reviews
of stores and restaurants in downtown Tempe.
Even though his reviews -- sometimes glowing, sometimes
neutral, sometimes scathing -- are littered with poor grammar
and misspellings, Skolnick says he provides an important
community service. So it's only right, he says, that any
restaurant or store he includes in the magazine should give him
something in return, whether it is a free meal once a week or
$100 a month for advertising.
While some may question the ethics of his business
arrangements, Skolnick says he's just trying to make a living.
But more important, Skolnick says, his restaurant review
business keeps him from relapsing into a 30-year crack
addiction.
"I haven't smoked crack in 18 months, but I haven't thought
about it in 18 minutes," he quips in his New York accent.
From jail to rehab to a Phoenix halfway house to the
apartment by Arizona State University where he now lives,
Skolnick has been clean and sober for nearly two years.
"Some people advise me: 'Well, you can't take free
[expletive].' Blah blah blah blah. Well, screw that," he says.
"One of the coolest things I get to do is walk into a major
restaurant, sit at a table after getting welcomed by everyone I
meet and have my meal. I open the menu and I take an appetizer
and I take an entree and I take the dessert with me and I'm
treated as if I own the joint and what a wonderful individual
moment that is. I don't want that to get away because I feel the
respect. I feel the benefits. I feel like what a lucky guy I
am."
The middle N is silent
Skolnick, 49, spent most of his life in Manhattan, where he
picked up a love for all kinds of food.
Tempe doesn't begin to compare.
"Pizza? Chinese food? Bagels? Fuggetaboutit!" he shouts. "If
you took all those [authentic] restaurants away from Chinatown
and replaced them with P.F. Chang's, where would all the
character be?"
Skolnick left home when he was 15 to get away from his
parents, he says, and to study photography at the High School of
Art and Design. Soon after graduating, he got married and
started his own limousine business, which soon failed.
In 1980, he landed a job shooting video for a film production
company, a job that lasted eight years - until "crack took over
my life," he says.
"After a night of smoking crack, you can't get up at six in
the morning" to go to work, he says.
Neither can you keep a marriage together or parent a child.
Skolnick got divorced and left home, abandoning his son.
Dependent on crack and with no money to buy it, he decided to
hit up his mother for $20. He hadn't visited her in three years,
and he was surprised to find the 60-year-old woman had dropped
from 300 to 110 pounds. She had suffered a stroke and was also
battling pancreatic cancer.
His mother invited Skolnick in and gave him the $20; Skolnick
decided to stay and help. He washed her dishes, kept house and
took care of her until she died -- all the while "smoking
cocaine like crazy."
"I was there at the end when her stomach was getting bloated.
I had to call the ambulance to send her to the hospital for the
last week of her life, and I was smoking crack the whole time. I
swear," Skolnick says, throwing up his hands in surrender.
His mother died exactly a year after he arrived on her
doorstep.
That's where the extra N in "Dennis" came from. "Wheel of
Fortune" was his mother's favorite show and he watched it with
her every night, even though he thought it was the "stupidest
[expletive] show on TV."
"I added the N because consonants are free and the vowels you
have to buy," Skolnick says with a chuckle. "What the hell? It's
fun.
"It's Dennnis with three Ns, but the middle N is silent."
After his mother died in 1989, he inherited nearly $100,000.
He was determined not to blow it on cocaine, so he left New York
City, resolved to stay clean.
A critic is born
Skolnick bounced around the country for about three years and
managed to keep off drugs -- for a time. He started using again
in California just two years after he left New York.
"When you are a crack smoker, you have one thing in mind:
when are you going to smoke crack?"
By 1992, he had landed in Arizona and became what he calls a
"conceptual homeless guy." He didn't have a home, exactly, but
he did have a hotel room almost every night.
"My obsession was to make enough money to buy it (crack) and
spend the night in a hotel room and come back the next day and
do it again," Skolnick says. "I liked that life. It was a simple
life."
He panhandled around the airport and sold Grapevine
newspapers, a publication produced by a non-profit organization
for the homeless to sell for $1. He says he learned to flatter
and make jokes to cinch a sale.
"I was really good at it; I was really [expletive] good at
it," Skolnick says. He wouldn't say how much money he made --
just that it was enough.
"If you buy this, I'm keeping all the money," was one of his
favorite lines. He absorbed the advice in How to Win Friends and
Influence People, by Dale Carnegie, because "I needed more lines
to make people laugh and to make them feel like their day was
better because they met me."
But all the schmoozing and one-liners he spewed at the
airport didn't compare to the amount of cash he heard he could
make in downtown Tempe. So in 1997, he took a bus from Phoenix
and ended up on the corner of Fifth Street and Mill Avenue,
where he found a new audience for his jokes and to help feed his
addiction.
That's where he began developing his new persona as the Mill
Avenue Food Critic. It's also how he began his journey back to
sobriety.
Mill Avenue menace
Each day in the late '90s, Skolnick planted himself on the
corner of Fifth Street and Mill Avenue in front of Starbucks and
discovered the "magic" of the "Greenwich Village of the desert
Southwest." While he continued to sell Grapevines to those who
passed the corner, he would also shoot portraits for them, tell
a few jokes and then recommend a few places for them to eat.
"It's more annoying to talk to me than it is to eat in the
wrong place," he would say.
Eventually, customers would tell waiters and waitresses that
Skolnick sent them to their restaurants. In return, certain
eateries rewarded the "conceptual homeless guy" with a warm meal
once a week.
The attention and free food went to his head. Soon he was
telling anyone who would listen that he was the official Mill
Avenue Food Critic. He even started pinning a button with his
"title" to his shirt every day.
"People respect you if you're wearin' a badge," Skolnick
says. "It's like a press pass."
Skolnick's booming voice and in-your-face personality became
a staple on Fifth and Mill. But not everyone appreciated what he
was doing, and Skolnick didn't appreciate it when restaurants
didn't reward him for sending them customers.
"'You got to understand that Dennnis seems to have some kind
of a personality disorder, and if things don't go his way, well,
he's his own man,'" said an anonymous Mill Avenue community
member in a New Times article published in 2000. "'Even
restaurant people who cooperated with him got burned because
eventually, one thing or another didn't suit him. Still, no
matter what you think of him, you can't argue that he's one of
those people that make Mill interesting.'"
The Downtown Tempe Community organization found him less than
endearing.
In 1997, the group hired a team of security guards to
surround Skolnick and his corner, preventing pedestrians from
interacting with him. But the plan backfired when the police
arrived and sided with Skolnick.
"I've got constitutional rights," Skolnick says.
Another time, Skolnick decided to protest the Owl's Nest
because the restaurant wouldn't give him free food for his
referrals. He stood on his corner with a sign denouncing the
restaurant until the Owl's Nest decided to fight back. The
manager sent four employees with their own signs criticizing the
food critic.
Then in 2001 Tempe police arrested him on a drug charge
involving marijuana. He was thrown in jail, and the Downtown
Tempe Community petitioned to keep him there so he couldn't
return to Mill Avenue.
During a few months in jail and 30 days in court-ordered
rehabilitation, Skolnick says he spent most of his free time
writing about Mill Avenue and the stores in the area.
"I would sit on a picnic bench for 15 minutes between
meetings or half an hour after dinner, and I would write a
couple reviews," he says. "By the time I got to 10, it started
to look like something."
He ended up with nearly 40 handwritten reviews of restaurants
in downtown Tempe, reviews that he would turn into a booklet, "Dennnis'
Mill Ave. Food Guide."
He's baaaack
Skolnick finished rehab in January 2003, and the day he was
released he returned to Tempe, eager for food and recognition.
He took computer classes at Gateway Community College, got
his reviews in shape, then asked a friend at Uni-Print and
Design to publish them in return for advertising space in his
booklet. The result was the "Mill Ave. Buyest (sic) Guide,"
which later became "Dennnis' Mill Ave. Guide."
He would show up at restaurants with the guide and tell
business owners that they would be included if they advertised
in the publication or give him free food.
In capital letters at the beginning of one guide, Skolnick
proclaims, "The business that are out of order at the beginning
support this publication. I encourage you to give them your
attention and cash."
Some businesses buy in; others shoo him out the door -- which
ones are clear from the reviews.
"Z-TEJAS ... If I ever get off probation, I might move right
to Austin, Texas, home of the original Z-Tejas. A first-class
operation, serving large variety of upscale stylish southwestern
cuisine. Their management dynamic is as good as it gets. That
trickles down to their entire staff. Homemade cornbread and
butter will arrive at your table ... The dining area is so
comfortable, you can forget you're in a restaurant ... The food
is always great. I love their appetizers. Every variety you
expect and more. The dumplings rule ... They love to here (sic)
I sent you."
Restaurants like Z-Tejas "get it," according to Skolnick,
while others are sucking away "the magic of Mill."
A review for one of the restaurants that "just doesn't get
it" reads: "P.F.CHANG'S CHINA BISTRO ... Do not support this
place, go to the Bamboo Club. I recently offered to sample their
food and write a better review. The manager never bothered to
make eye contact while we were talking. They are not interested
in me, the Mill Avenue community or anything except packing in
the people who love the place ... The absolute worst atmosphere
and attitude. Nothing I could say could hurt them. On busy
nights, the wait for a table is ridiculous. I hate their patio
and seating arrangement. But if you are looking for a complete
bar and Chinese food, don't listen to me. I am not even welcome
in their bathroom, really! This is the wallmarting of upscale
food service."
Skolnick had hoped to support himself with his guide, but a
court ruled that it was not "gainful employment," and thus did
not meet the terms of his probation.
So he took part-time jobs, passing out coupons, working in a
factory and driving a cab on weekends.
But Mill Avenue kept drawing him back.
A changed man?
Strolling down the street one recent afternoon, Skolnick
points out a half dozen people he says he knows or who know him.
Whether they hate or adore the "critic," he stops them, chats
loudly while puffing on his cigarettes and reminds them to pick
up the latest copy of his guide at Borders.
"I've seen you go from obnoxious to less obnoxious to
tolerable," says a Tempe official who runs into Skolnick outside
of Starbucks.
Skolnick likes to talk about all the people he says are his
friends, especially the powerful ones like Tempe Chief of Police
Ralph Tranter, Mayor-Elect Hugh Hallman, City Councilman and
former mayoral candidate Dennis Cahill, local newspaper reporter
Carol Sowers and Channel 3 TV personality Mike Wattkis.
"The more heavy hitters you have in your ball park, the
better off you are," he advises.
Whether he sees these people on a regular basis or had a
conversation with him once or twice in his life, the connections
motivate him to stay clean.
"I'm doing it for the people who wouldn't necessarily stand
by me if I relapsed" -- like Mayor-Elect Hallman, who took
Skolnick out to dinner the day Skolnick got out of rehab.
He also likes the attention he gets from his Web site,
www.millavenuefoodcritic.com, which he says has received nearly
5 million hits in the past year.
"People are really responding to what I'm doing," Skolnick
says. "I'm trying very hard not to become like an out-of-control
ego maniac."
Perhaps to ward off such a possibility, Skolnick has recently
turned his attention to community service. Last December, he
asked local restaurants to donate food so Tempe firefighters who
had to work on Christmas Day could have a gourmet dinner with
their families in the station.
More recently, he has teamed up with the taxi company he
works for to promote a "Don't Drink and Drive" campaign. Posters
with his face cover windows on Mill Avenue businesses stating,
"If you drink like a fish ... swim, don't drive."
Some, like retired Judge Donna Hamm, who originally met
Skolnick on the corner of Fifth and Mill, says his work is
evidence he's a changed man.
"We've known Dennnis for several years," Hamm and her husband
wrote in a letter recommending his early release from probation.
"We first met him in his capacity as the Mill Avenue Food
Critic, a position he has developed from its beginnings as a
street hawker of a newspaper published by the homeless to an
authentic and much more sophisticated marketing entrepreneur who
reviews downtown Tempe restaurants, publishes a guide to those
restaurants and who also happens to perform community betterment
projects as part of his personal work. Dennnis works hard each
day and continues to improve his professional and personal life
by leaps and bounds."
Critics of the critic
Not everyone believes Dennnis or his business is good for
Mill Avenue.
Some business owners shuddered when he returned to Mill
Avenue, and one woman who worked for the Downtown Tempe
Community asked with horror, "He's back?"
Skolnick hung two of his "official okee dokees" on the door
of Long Wongs before the bar closed. The neon stickers boast a
picture of Skolnick giving a thumbs-up. But a few months later,
someone had crossed out his face on one "okee dokee" and wrote,
"I'm a no-good bum" on the other.
And, Skolnick and the Owl's Nest still don't get along.
Last spring, when Skolnick worked as a parking lot attendant,
he refused to let Owl's Nest manager Steve Baltz park in the lot
unless he paid the $5 fee. Baltz then hired a man to stand in
the lot and carry a sign to prevent others from giving Skolnick
money for parking in the lot. Skolnick responded by banning all
Owl's Nest employees from parking in his lot.
Fed up, Baltz came to the lot to confront Skolnick. But when
Skolnick pulled out a camera, Baltz balked. He warned Skolnick
he didn't want his picture taken then hit him with a stick.
Police arrested Baltz, citing him for assault. A judge later
gave him the option of attending anger management classes to
clear his record.
That seemed to settle things, and for the past few months
there have been no more eruptions in Skolnick's corner of Tempe.
On a recent Friday afternoon, Skolnick pulls up to a
stoplight on the corner of Myrtle and University drives. A man
in a ginger-colored jeep stops next to him and notices
Skolnick's "Mill Avenue Food Critic" banner plastered to the
side of his car.
"Whuddup, dawg!" the man in the jeep yells.
Skolnick recognizes the man as a P.F. Chang's employee. "What
did you think of the review?" Dennnis shouts.
"I didn't like it!" the driver of the jeep shouts back and
drives away.
But others say that Mill Avenue needs a little color, and
Skolnick provides it.
After a Thursday afternoon meeting with one of his "power
broker" acquaintances, Police Chief Tranter, Dennnis heads to
Borders on the corner of Eight Street and Mill Avenue to drop
off the latest edition of his paper.
He's wearing a red tie and a pink Ralph Lauren shirt, which
he bought for $2 at a thrift shop. He says he bought the shirt
because he wanted to "look good" for his meeting with Tranter --
and so he could "hide his gut."
Tranter says that Skolnick is different these days. "I don't
think he's as disruptive as he once was. He's more positive and
understands the concerns of his critics."
Besides, "He brings a lot of color to Mill Avenue; he's a
character."
After leaving the store, Tempe City Manager Will Manley runs
into Skolnick at the corner where the Mill Avenue Food Critic
was born.
"This man is a philanthropist," Manley says. "Mill Avenue
will not lose its soul as long as Dennnis is still here."
An investment in self
It's been more than a year since Skolnick left rehab and
invented the Mill Avenue Food Critic.
Forty pounds heavier, he is nearing the end of his two-year
probation on the marijuana charge. He says he values his
sobriety and network of friends now more than ever. And he
reminds himself every day that only 2 percent of those who stay
clean for a year will remain drug-free. He keeps a postcard on
the dashboard of his car that says, "I used to be a drug
addict."
"People tell me that I'm different, that I'm calmer, that I'm
not as quick to jump on you," Skolnick says. "I don't have any
buttons any more. If you let people push your buttons, they're
controlling you. You learn that in recovery."
He continues to drive a cab on the weekends and works part
time at a factory in Tempe to support himself. He says his paper
doesn't make enough money to earn a living because "people just
don't get it yet. But I don't care if people buy advertising
right now; it (the paper) is an investment in myself."
Simply put, he likes being the Mill Avenue Food Critic.
He gets to know important people; he gets special parking at
certain restaurants; and, of course, he gets his weekly free
meal at Z-Tejas.
After dinner, Skolnick leaves the waiter a $5 tip and one of
his neon green business cards. Before shoving the receipt into
his backpack, he glances again at the zeros across the bottom.
"These are the little moments that give me the gift that make
up for the hardship of this experience," he says. "I feel
important, successful. I've proven that I've earned it."
Reach the reporter at
lynh.bui@asu.edu.
