Schwenksville native opens Italian-inspired bistro
The entrance to Doc’s Bistro Pizza & Pasta is shown in Limerick. Photo by Gene Walsh
Owner Erik Dougherty poses inside the newly opened Doc’s Bistro Pizza & Pasta, 1831 E. Ridge Pike, Limerick. “My concept is for the whole family — if mom wants a nice, elaborate salad, dad wants a steak, kids want pizza, there’s something for everybody,” Dougherty said. Photo by Gene Walsh
LIMERICK — Doc’s Bistro Pizza & Pasta may only have been open for a month, but it’s been 30 years in the making for first-time restaurateur Erik Dougherty.
The Schwenksville native has transformed the former Mama Velia’s into a true neighborhood bistro.
“My 30 years in the restaurant business in the front of the house and the back of the house has brought me here,” said the chef, who started his career at age 15 at the Perkiomen Bridge Hotel in Collegeville.
Dougherty’s recipe for success has motivated him through cooking stints at the Saloon in Jeffersonville, Chiccarine’s Restaurant in Schwenksville and Gypsy Rose in Collegeville. He also ran a franchised pizza place at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets for a few years.
Having honed his skills at some of the area’s best loved — and in some cases, much missed — eateries, it’s only natural that Dougherty would tap into the past a bit when he designed a menu so voluminous it should be divided into chapters.
“I created this menu from all my menu concepts over the years,” he said. “There are even a few things that we actually had at Gypsy Rose that I brought back.”
From the $6.50 burger served with homemade potato chips, to the $10 hand-tossed Red Top pizza — “it changes the whole flavor when the sauce is on top,” Dougherty said — to the $21.99 R.Scott hand-carved 8-ounce filet, the menu’s priciest offering, it’s tough to say what will sustain the Doc’s Bistro crowds in the near future.
“I threw a big menu out there thinking I’d cut it down in the fall, but people are ordering everything,” Dougherty said. “It’s amazing. My concept is for the whole family — if mom wants a nice, elaborate salad, dad wants a steak, kids want pizza, there’s something for everybody.”
The Norristown-style zep is a tribute to his dad, 1965 Kenrick graduate Joseph Dougherty, and the times the two would visit Eve’s Lunch for a couple of the local icon’s famous sandwiches.
Joseph Dougherty, who has since passed away, is also honored as the original “Doc” in the restaurant’s name, with a pizza-wielding caricature wearing a chef’s hat.
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