Road Tips

Flat Branch Pub and Brewing Company - Columbia, MO

I'm in the process of putting on a new dealer in Columbia, MO, a great Midwestern college towns.  In fact, Columbia has been one of my favorite destinations since I began to travel in the mid-80's.  I had a meeting with my new dealer recently and I thought we were going out to dinner.  But his partner was out on an install and he had a meeting with a doctor later in the evening, so he begged off until next time.  That afforded me the chance to go back to one of the better brew pubs in the Midwest, Flat Branch Pub and Brewing Company. 

Located on the west end of the downtown area and near the University of Missouri campus (see map), Flat Branch Pub and Brewing Company opened in 1994 and is housed in a building that was built in the late 1920's.  It was the first brewery in Columbia since 1841.  The business is named after Flat Branch creek that flows not far from the building.  Years ago, the building was the home to the local Hudson automobile dealership.  The building features a unique curved barrel roof and they've kept the original brick walls and hardwood floors intact.  The brewery is on the premises and it's headed by Larry Goodwin, who has been at Flat Branch for about 10 years.  Plus, there's a great outdoor beer garden on the south side of the restaurant.  It's a very popular place for people in and around the Columbia.

I got into Flat Branch Pub and Brewing Company around 7 p.m. and was met with a large crowd milling about in the lobby area.  The hostess told me that it would be approximately 30 to 45 minutes to get a table.  I noticed there were a couple places to sit at the bar and I asked if I could eat at the bar.  She said, "We have full menu service at the bar, yes."  The bar, itself, is sort of unique in that it has a couple of short 90 degree angles and I sat in a spot where I could easily lean up on the bar to my right.  It was sort of cumbersome for the bartenders to work around, but they managed.  

My bartender gave me a menu and I ordered up one of their pale ales - the Katy Trail Pale Ale.  It's an American-style pale ale made with Cascade hops.  It's not as forward of a pale ale like I normally like, but it was OK for that evening.  Flat Branch may have the largest beer list of any brew pub I've ever encountered.  They have a minimum of 10 different types of beer to choose from at any point in time.  However, Goodwin and his brewery crew have an arsenal of over 90 different types of beers they can brew.  They use hops and grain from all over the world including Germany, Belgium and New Zealand to make their special beers.   

In addition to their beers, Flat Branch Pub features one of the largest and most impressive Scotch selections in the Midwest.  And not only do they have a ton of great Scotches to choose from, they also have a fine selection of Bourbons, as well.   My colleagues Todd and Chris are big Scotch and Bourbon aficionados, respectively, and I thought about them as I looked over the whiskey menu.  I could see spending an afternoon in Flat Branch just trying the different Scotches they have to offer.

The food at Flat Branch Pub is a nice mix of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, burgers and what I would characterize as upscale bar food.  They feature a rib eye steak, a pasta dish (Bayou chicken and sausage pasta - I've had it and it's great), ribs, chicken dishes and even brick oven pizza.  One thing that caught my eye was the Buffalo Stout meatloaf - they mix ground beef and lean buffalo meat and mix in some of their stout beer.  They top a couple slices with a barbecue bourbon glaze and you get your choice of one side.  I signed up for that and I got their dirty rice for my side. 

I had finished my Katy Trail Pale Ale and I was looking to try something else.   Most of the beers Flat Branch serves are unfiltered beers.  One that caught my eye was their Green Chili beer - a mild beer that is hopped up with Serrano and Anaheim peppers.  I asked my bartender for a sample of that.  She brought me a small 6 oz glass that was about half full.  It has a peppery smell to the beer and mildly spicy aftertaste.  But I decided to try their American Pale Ale - an American style pale ale that was actually a little more forward in the taste of the hops and bitters.  I liked it better than the Katy Trail Pale Ale. 

A waitress brought out my dinner and sat it in front of me at the bar.  The slabs of buffalo/beef meatloaf were about 3/4 inch thick and very lean.  They were sort of dry - I think they may have thrown them on the grill for a bit before they were served to me.  But the meatloaf was still good and I did like the sweet Bourbon barbecue sauce they had with the meatloaf.  The dirty rice was also very good with a nice spicy aftertaste to it.  Overall, the meal wasn't overwhelming, but it was good. 

The Flat Branch Pub and Brewing Company is one of the finest brew pubs I've encountered in my travels.  It has a great atmosphere, a number of above average beers, and the food isn't bad.  The beer garden is a great place to have a cool beer on a warm Missouri Summer afternoon.  While it may not be quite the place to go to impress a client, the food is still serviceable for a brew pub.  It's a great place to go for a quick bite with friends or by yourself. 

Booches - Columbia, MO

I've been to Booches in Columbia, MO, geez, I don't know, maybe three dozen times since I first found the place back in the 80's.  Since then, I haven't found many other places in my travels that makes a cheese burger as good as the one at Booches.  I had a meeting in Columbia recently and purposely came to town early to get a couple of their small cheeseburgers one afternoon.

Booches was established in 1884 - yep, that's right, 1884 - by Paul "Booch" Venable.   For over 90 years Booches was a male-only establishment.  That was pretty hard to believe when I first heard that, considering the Columbia area is one of the more progressive and liberal areas in the Midwest.

In 1976, three friends - Mick Jabbour, Jerry Dethrow, and Bob Rappold - who all shared a love for creative writing and poetry, bought Booches and transformed it into what is the present day incarnation of the place.  They quickly became known as having a killer cheeseburger and became a favorite lunch-time hangout for University of Missouri students and professors.  Over the years, I've had a number of people from the St. Louis area tell me about how they used to get Booches burgers when they were going to school in Columbia.

Running Booches gave the three friends time to dabble in their love of poetry and they ended up publishing five poetry reviews called "Review La Booche" that featured work from local writers.  Rappold eventually left the trio in the mid-80's and opened a small cafe with his wife near Booches.  Dethrow eventually bought out Jabbour's share of Booches in 1993 and he ran the place until 2004.  He then sold Booches to longtime managers Charlie Kurre and Rick Robertson who continue to run the place today.

For years, Booches was primarily a pool hall featuring a number of full-sized pool, snooker and no-pockets billiard tables.  Jabbour, Dethrow and Rabbold moved two or three tables out of the building to make room for a dining area up front near the bar.  First and foremost, Booches is still a pool hall that hosts a number of specialty tournaments.  But the massive draw continues to be their cheeseburgers.  In 2000, USA Today called Booches one of the Top 10 burgers in the nation.  The little secret that a lot of area residents knew about for 24 years suddenly became a national phenomenon.  But notoriety hasn't changed Booches one bit and the burgers are still consistently great.

Booches is located in downtown Columbia, not far from the University of Missouri campus (see map).  It was about 1:30 when I got into Booches on a cold day recently.  There was still a pretty good sized lunch crowd in the place at that time.  And it was very diverse in ages.  There was a large group of college-aged students seated at a big table up front, an elderly couple was seated near the bar, and a number of middle-aged men and women were having Booches burgers for lunch.  Now that Columbia bars and restaurants are smoke free, there's no longer any of that gray haze that lingers over the place from the number of pool players who smoked while they played.  I've been told the smoking ban has hurt Booches' billiard business, but they've more than made it up with the amount of people coming in for their burgers.

Booches menu is located on the wall opposite the old ornate bar.  In addition to burgers, Booches also has grilled chicken sandwiches, pork loin sandwiches, hot dogs and chili dogs, and breakfast sandwiches.  It had been a couple years since I was last in Booches and I noticed they'd raised their prices a bit.  Their cheeseburgers are now $3 bucks apiece.

In addition to the menu on the wall, there's a number of vintage pictures and a lot of St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia.  Actually, the amount of St. Louis Cardinals pictures and memorabilia on the wall is pretty impressive.  A Cardinals fan could easily spend a half-hour just looking at all the stuff they have on display.

I took a small table near the front door.  Each time the door opened, a blast of cold air came up my back.  It was sort of uncomfortable, but I didn't mind it all that much knowing that a couple Booches cheeseburgers would be worth waiting for in the occasional cold.

Booches cheeseburgers are not all that big.  Two can easily be eaten in one sitting.  I did see one of the college-aged girls seated near me order three.  And she wasn't that big of a girl.  I'm sure I could have had three, myself, but I was going out for dinner with a prospective dealer later in the day and I didn't want to spoil my meal.

I ordered up a couple cheeseburgers and a beer.  And don't think just because the burgers are small they're gonna be out quickly.  The grill Booches uses isn't all that big and it's located next to the bar.  It took nearly 20 minutes (and a second beer) for my two cheeseburgers to show up.

Booches cheeseburgers are served on wax paper, just as they have been for years.   Everything on a Booches burger is ketchup, mustard, raw onion slices and pickles.  The cheese is on the bottom of the burger as it's served.

The bun helps Booches cheeseburgers.  It's light and fluffy and stays together as you eat the highly juicy Booches burger.  As small as they are, it doesn't take long to devour one of the burgers.  From the first taste to the last, a Booches burger is still one of my all-time favorite burgers.

As soon as I finished the second burger, I damn near came close to ordering a third one.  I had the time, but I reminded myself that I didn't want to overeat - still trying to watch the waistline and keep the weight off.  So two Booches burgers were enough for me that day.

 

 I'm in the midst of "fine tuning" my Top Ten burgers list.  But, Booches remains firmly ensconced on that list.  Their burgers are consistently very, very good to great.  I view it as a treat each time I have the opportunity to go to Booches.  Now, if I can land this new dealer in Columbia I'll have more chances to visit Booches in the future.  If you make the trip to Columbia over a weekend for a Booches burger at some point, be sure to take note that Booches is not open on Sundays, or as the sign says, "Closed on Sunday - See you in Church."  I'm guessing that's a tradition Booches has had from the days of being a men only establishment.  And Booches is one of those places where you don't have to worry about traditions being changed.