Road Tips

tacobar? - Davenport, IA

It's rare for a chef that has a pretty successful restaurant to basically stop and rework the concept in mid-stream.  That's what happened with a place we liked to go to in downtown Davenport from time to time, an upscale casual restaurant by the name of Woodfire Grill.  In October of 2019, owner Toby Christianson decided that he was getting stale as a chef and he wanted to do something fun with a new restaurant concept. He ended up shutting down Woodfire Grill and rebranding it into an eclectic taqueria.  In February of 2020, Christianson reopened the restaurant with the unique name of tacobar?. 

Toby Christiansen grew up outside of Fargo, ND and got into working at restaurants as a teenager.  After graduating from Minnesota State-Moorhead, he started on an odyssey where he worked for a number of upscale restaurants around the Midwest.  He helped open restaurants in Grinnell, IA and in Muscatine, IA before making his way to the Quad Cities over 15 years ago.

In 2004, a restaurant by the name of Centro opened on the ground floor of the historic Redstone Building in downtown Davenport.  Once the flagship store of what eventually became the Von Maur department stores, the building also houses the River Music Experience on the other half of the ground floor and up on the second story of the building.  Centro had signed a three-year lease when they opened in the summer of 2004 and that lease expired in 2007.  The lease was renewed month-by-month as the owners of Centro were helping the River Music Experience find a suitable replacement for their restaurant.  They found it in Christianson who was the managing partner of a small investment group who ended up taking over the location.  

Pictured right - Toby Christianson.  Photo courtesy Quad City Times.   

Christianson's upscale/casual restaurant Woodfire Grill took over the new location in March of 2008 and my wife and I ventured down there less than our usual "three month rule" after a new restaurant opened.  Of course, there were problems and that was the first night we met Toby Christianson who came by our table to profusely apologize for my wife being served the wrong meal.  We told him that we usually wait 90 days after a restaurant opens to allow them to work out the kinks.  Toby said to us, "Well, if everyone did that, new restaurants would be out of business in less than 90 days.  That's why we need people like you guys to help us work out the growing pains."  It was a good point and one that we've thought about since.  But, honestly, we still try to let a restaurant go for 90 days before we give it a shot.  

The Woodfire Grill was a place we had been to a number of times over they years and we really enjoyed the food that Toby and his staff served there.  They always had a good bar and sometimes we'd just hang out with friends for a drink.  

But Christianson was getting burnt out after running Woodfire Grill for nearly 12 years.  As I said, he ended up reimagining his restaurant into a chef-driven eclectic taqueria with a diverse selection of crafted drinks and a couple dozen craft beers to choose from on tap.  I was told that the name "tacobar?" came about as that was the immediate retort people would say to Christianson as he told them that he was turning his popular restaurant into a taco bar.   After closing Woodfire Grill in October of 2019, he had a soft opening of his new restaurant later in December and tacobar? was pretty much open for full business in February of 2020.  

Of course, not long after tacobar? opened last year, they were forced to shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions.  Christianson worked through that by offering carry-out meals and also providing tacos to many of the front line medical workers who were fighting the coronavirus.  

And the continued outbreak of the coronavirus was one of the reasons why it took us so long to finally get down to tacobar? for a meal.  We were out with friends of ours having a couple drinks on a Friday night and the women were wondering where we should go for dinner.  My wife brought up tacobar? and our friends basically said, "Yeah, we haven't gone there yet, either!  Let's go!"  

We found a parking space just down 2nd Street from tacobar? which is located at 2nd and Main.  (see map)  We had actually tried to get into tacobar? on a Friday night during the time when restaurants were still under 50% capacity restrictions sometime late last year, but we were told it would be a 45 minute wait.  Well, there was going to be no problem getting in this particular night - even if there were restrictions in place - as there were just a handful of people in the place.  And with their outdoor patio open during warm weather months, there was plenty of places to sit.  

The inside had changed a bit from the days of Woodfire Grill.  Some of the banquette-style seating and booths had been taken out on one side of the restaurant and small alcove seating was available.  I detest banquette seating, so this was a good change.  

However, on the other side of the restaurant, they kept the banquette seating in the middle of the dining area.  
There was a little lounge area off to the side that replaced a number of tables along the east wall of the restaurant.  It was kind of a neat concept to have comfy sofas for people to relax on while having a drink.  

It was such a nice evening that we decided to sit out on the patio.  The patio overlooks the courtyard for the River Music Experience, and on Friday nights from June until September the organization sponsors "Live @Five" where they showcase local bands from 5 to 7 p.m.  It was around 8 p.m. when we got to tacobar? on that Friday night, so the crowds had pretty gone and the band and production company had already packed up and moved on when we got there. 

There is no waitstaff service at tacobar?.  There are menus available to take to your table and then figure out what you'd like to get.  Then you go inside back by the kitchen and order up your food.  They bring the food out to you once it's ready.  

We ordered the obligatory chips and salsa for our table to enjoy while we looked at the menu.  The chips and salsa are not free at tacobar? and run $2.95.  But we were fine with that.  The chips were fresh and warm, and the salsa had a nice little kick to it with hints of chipotle peppers and cilantro.  It was excellent salsa.      

And since there is no waitstaff, that means you have to go to the bar and order your drinks.  And that means two separate charges.  The bar area hasn't changed at all from the days of Woodfire Grill.  It still had the high-back chairs at the bar, the small tables along the front window and the six flat screen televisions hung above the back bar.

My buddy and I had gone to the bar to order drinks - my wife wanted a strawberry margarita while I saw the unmistakable spigot for Kona Big Wave.  I ordered the drinks and the bartender - a blonde young lady - asked me for my name.  When I said it, she said, "I THOUGHT that was you!"  It turned out it was the ex-wife of a guy that I know and I hadn't seen her since they had gotten divorced a few years back.  It turns out that she had been working at the Woodfire Grill with Toby and stayed on when he went to the tacobar? concept.  

Well, the first hiccup of the evening occurred when the keg for the Kona Big Wave blew as she was pouring it.  "And we don't have a replacement keg," she said looking under the bar.  I decided to get a Sierra Nevada Hazy IPA they had on tap instead.

The second hiccup came when I went to order food.  They touted "puffy tacos" on the menu - made from Navajo-style frybread - and I thought about getting a couple of the pork shoulder puffy tacos.  However, I was told that they were out of the puffy taco shells that evening.  Hmmm....  OK.  Let me look at the menu again.  I decided to go with the pork tacos.  Then someone in the kitchen called up to the girl at the cash register and said they were out of pork that evening.  I was sort of incredulous that they were 0 for 2 on what I wanted to order.  OK - back to the drawing board.  

Usually, they have six proteins to choose from for their tacos at tacobar? - chicken, pork shoulder, ground beef, carne asada (steak), butter-grilled shrimp and a fried tofu for the vegetarians.  Toppings are grouped, such as "main stream" - lettuce, pico de gallo, taco sauce and fresh cheese; "al pastor" - pineapple, cilantro, onion and achiote pepper salsa; "Tex-Mex BBQ" - garlic-cider slaw, pickled onion, a house-made bbq sauce and house-made pickles; and "Korean" - chopped cabbage, chimichurri, sesame seeds, and a spicy "yum-yum" sauce.    

My wife went with the chile lime chicken - three corn tortillas filled with marinated grilled chicken, main-stream style.  She also got jalapeño slices on the top of each tortilla.  The tacos were served in a tin-foil dish - not too fancy of a vessel for an eclectic taco place like tacobar?.   My wife really did enjoy the chile lime chicken, the tin-foil dish, notwithstanding.  

I ended up getting the carne asada tacos - there was a $2.00 upcharge for the carne asada - with the "Mexican OG" toppings which are the traditional cilantro and onions with a choice of sauce.  I got the chile verde salsa to go with my tacos.  And they were fine - not outstanding or earthshaking.  They were just typical carne asada tacos in double corn tortillas.  I really wanted to try the pork al pastor tacos, though.  I guess I'll have to go back again at some point and do that.  

For our first visit to tacobar?, I thought the food was fine.  There were a couple three setbacks (ran out of the beer I ordered, no puffy taco shells, no pork al pastor), but we were able to work around it.  My wife enjoyed her chile lime chicken tacos and I really liked their house-made salsa.  Toby Christianson has said that he doesn't want to compete with the myriad of Mexican restaurants in the area, he just wants to enhance the offerings.  I hope tacobar? is able to make it as the location is a prime spot in downtown Davenport.  But knowing how successful Christianson has been in the past, I'm sure that he'll be able to make it work.

Joey B's on the Hill - St. Louis

I think I've eaten at nearly every restaurant located on St. Louis' famed Hill neighborhood in all the years that I have been traveling there.  But one place on the western edge of The Hill that I had passed many times over the years was one of those that I had never been in before.  Trying to figure out a place to get dinner after getting into St. Louis one evening, I decided to take a chance and give Joey B's on the Hill a try.   

Joey B's on the Hill is one of the three Joey B's locations in the St. Louis area - the other two are Joey B's in Concord Plaza in St. Louis, and another Joey B's location in the western suburb of Manchester.  But the three restaurants are just branches of a tree of a number of restaurants in the St. Louis area that first started in the late 1950's.  That's when Frank "Frankie" Gianino established Valencia's on Delmar, an family-style old-world Italian restaurant that also featured pizza.  Frankie was a partner in another restaurant, Rossino's, located in the Central West End of the city.  

Along with his two brothers, Willie and Chip, Frankie Gianino started a small chain of carry-out pizza restaurants in the 60's - Gianino's Pizza Den - and it was there that Frankie's son, Bill Gianino, cut his teeth in the restaurant business.  Sometimes he was a reluctant worker in his dad's pizza places as he was 16 and didn't want to work on Friday or Saturday nights, but was forced to when his dad was shorthanded.  

After Bill Gianino was discharged from the Army in 1975, he followed his father's footsteps and opened three small carry-out pizza places on the south side of St. Louis.  His father helped him get his start, but Frankie Gianino passed away in 1977.  Bill Gianino leaned on the expertise of his uncle Willie Gianino who helped him grow his business.  The small carry-out place in the suburb of Oakville eventually became Bill Gianino's, a small ma-and-pa-type Italian restaurant.  Later on in the early 90's, a space opened next do to his eponymous restaurant and Gianino opened Frankie G's, a small bar and grill.

Pictured right - Bill Gianino.  Photo courtesy Sauce Magazine and the Gianino family.

Bill Gianino's two sons, Tony and Billy, joined their father in developing two other restaurants - Frankie Gianino's in Imperial, MO, and Billy G's in the suburb of Kirkwood.  But it took one of Bill Gianino's lifelong friends to help develop the Joey B's concept of restaurants for the Gianino family.  

Joey Barczewski and Bill Gianino were pals since grade school.  Barczewski eventually got into the restaurant business and opened a sports bar on Laclede's Landing a number of years ago.  Bill Gianino asked Barczewski to join him in the Gianino family of restaurants and together they developed the modern day Joey B's concept.  A building that used to house a Bartolino's restaurant on the west side of The Hill became available and Joey B's on the Hill opened in 2008.  As I wrote earlier, that was followed by two other Joey B's restaurants - one in the Concord area on the south side of St. Louis, and another on the far west side in Manchester.  

On a sad note - Bill Gianino was spending some time in June of 2020 on his farm near Cuba, MO when he suffered a heart attack and passed away.  Gianino was 69.  His legacy continues on thanks to Barczewski and his sons who now run the Gianino family of restaurants.  

It was just after 6 p.m. when I went down Hampton Ave. and took a left turn on Columbia Ave. to get into the parking lot behind Joey B's on the Hill located on the northeast corner of the intersection.  (see map)  I went inside and was immediately in the bar area of the place.  Things were a little tight to maneuver through the bar to get to the restrooms toward the back end with the high-top tables so close to the bar, itself.  I thought about having a seat at the bar, but it was pretty packed when I came in.  So, I ended up heading over to the hostess stand to see about getting seated in the dining area.  

I was seated in the dining room at a step-up booth along the wall.  A number of tables were in the center of the dining area and there was a patio off to the side.  Joey B's on the Hill reminded me of an upscale sports bar with a number of flat screen televisions on the wall throughout the place.  There was a mix of families having dinner, friends having drinks, and a single patron - me - who wanted both dinner and drinks.  

After getting a menu from the hostess who sat me, I was greeted by my server that evening, a friendly guy by the name of Josh.  He said, "We have an early bird special where you get either a pasta dish of your choice, our Chicken Speidini or Chicken Modiga with salad and one side for $11.99."  Then he looked at his watch and said, "Ooohh, it's after 6.  Well, I'll tell you what.  If you give me your order now, I can still probably get it in."  Well, I hadn't even opened the menu yet to see what they had to offer, let alone knowing what kind of pasta they had to offer or what the hell Chicken Modiga was.  (It's a lightly breaded chicken breast that's pan fried topped with Provel cheese, and a white wine and butter sauce.)   I said I was going to pass on the early bird special.

Josh then told me that their special that evening was the fried chicken dinner for $12.99.  "Best fried chicken in the city," he told me with all sincerity.  But I doubted that it could top the great fried chicken at Hodak's, a place I had considered going to when I got into town.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Hodak's.)  I told him that I'd just start out with an ice cold Budweiser and take a look at the menu. 

I was a little astonished at the offerings in the menu.  They had pasta dishes, sandwiches, burgers, and entrees such as the aforementioned Chicken Modiga, beef tips and noodles, housemade meat loaf, and a 12 ounce New York strip steak.  They had pizza on the menu at Joey B's on the Hill and it was served in a square cooking sheet.  The thing that got me is that some of the items on the menu came with "St. Louis' favorite cheese", which is the creamy Provel cheese.  Now, I can take Provel cheese from time to time, but I prefer mozzarella on my pizza.  I thought about the pizza for a moment until Josh told me when he brought my beer out that they did not offer mozzarella cheese on their pizza.  Some places in St. Louis give you the option, but not at Joey B's.  

They also had a number of appetizers and salads on the menu.  I thought about getting some of the toasted ravioli to start out, but Josh told me that the portion served was great for two people to share and it would be more than enough for one person to have as dinner.  I decided to pass up the toasted ravioli for this trip.  

Man, they had a lot of stuff on the menu at Joey B's on the Hill.  I was apprehensive about all the items on the menu because history has told me that restaurants with deep menus usually only do all of the foods well enough, but not great.  I was certainly in a quandary that evening.  Josh may have come around three or four times to see if I was ready to order, but I was trying to mentally pare down the items that I was interested in.

Here's what I was looking hard at for dinner - the Swiss cheese and Mushroom burger (I hadn't had a burger in a long time), the meat loaf, the lasagna, the portobello-stuffed ravioli, and I also considered the fried chicken special that evening.  But I reluctantly - and with my fingers crossed - I ended up order the tortellini that evening. 

The tortellini featured beef, veal or chicken stuffed pasta served in a thick cream sauce along with fresh peas and sliced mushrooms, then finished with grated parmesan cheese.  A basket of fresh and warm sesame-seeded Italian bread came on the side with the tortellini.  (I passed on a salad that I could have gotten.)

The tortellini was surprisingly very good.  I was amazed at the taste of the stuffed pasta shells in the rich and creamy white sauce.  It was a large portion and I was certain that I couldn't finish the whole bowl of pasta, but it was so good that I couldn't stop eating it.  I was taking portions of the Italian bread and dipping it in the cream sauce because it was so sinfully good.  I ended up eating a very large portion of the tortellini and had only two pieces of bread left in the basket at the end of the dinner.  

As I was eating my dinner, a young lady by the name of Breanna came over to introduce herself to me.  "Josh had to leave suddenly," she explained.  "I'm taking over for him."  I thought it was rather strange because there were a couple times that I saw Josh at the order station in the dining room after she came over to tell me she was taking over.  If he had to leave suddenly, there was a guy who looked like Josh inputing orders into the system.  

Nevertheless, I was more than happy - and very surprised - at how good the meat-stuffed tortellini was at Joey B's on the Hill.  I'm leery of restaurants that have a lot of food to choose from on their menu - and it was a large combination of American and Italian foods.  But Joey B's more than acquitted themselves on their very good tortellini.  The fresh and warm Italian bread they served with the pasta dish was a plus.  I felt bad for Josh as I made him check with me three or four times before I decided on dinner.  Maybe that's why he "left suddenly" and Breanna took over my table.  He'd just had enough of the guy who couldn't make up his mind.  I won't say the tortellini at Joey B's on the Hill was the best I've had, but it was very good and it was a perfect meal for someone who really didn't know what he wanted when he came in the door.

Triptych Brewing - Savoy, IL

My wife and I have friends who, when we get together, we usually laugh too much and drink too much.  They like to drink craft beers and we'll meet up with them from time to time for an afternoon or evening of laughing and drinking.  On one Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago, we met up at Radicle Effects Brewerks (formerly Against the Grain Brewery) in Rock Island, a place that brews their own beers, has great bloody Mary's, and also offers a handful of beers from other craft breweries.  (They even have Old Style and Pabst Blue Ribbon available!)  My friend and I were at the bar and he was looking at the beer menu.  He said to me, "Hey, have you ever tried the Triptych Dank Meme?"  I said that I had never heard of the brewery.  He explained to me that it's located in the small town of Savoy, IL, just south of Champaign.  "Oh, yeah," he said excitedly.  "I was down there a couple years ago and had one of these at their brewpub.  It's great."  

He talked me into getting one and I had to say that it was very good for a hazy IPA.  I later found out that a Hy-Vee store over in Rock Island sells 4-packs of Dank Meme in 16-ounce cans and I've headed over there a few times over the last couple years to pick some up for my beer fridge at home.   

Well, I recently spent the evening in Champaign and it turned out that Savoy was just a couple three miles down the road from the hotel I was staying at.  I decided to head down to Triptych Brewing and get a Dank Meme from its source.  

Anthony Benjamin was looking for a hobby to start right when his wife entered law school at the University of Illinois in 2005.  It just so happened that he saw a program on television that showed the basics of home-brewing and he was immediately hooked.  Starting out in his garage - like any number of owners of micro and craft breweries over the years - Benjamin got to be pretty good at it.  In fact, he won a handful of awards and medals in brewery competitions while he was also working in the engineering department at the University of Illinois.  In 2009, Benjamin was named the Midwest Home-brewer of the Year based on the number of awards he won in contests across a 12 state region.

Pictured right - Triptych Brewing majority owner Anthony Benjamin

Through home-brewing, Benjamin struck up a relationship with computer engineer Joshi Fullop.  Along with a third friend, local Champaign lawyer Jason Bartell, the trio decided to look into doing their own brewery at some point.  Funding was a bit of a concern, so the three started a Kickstarter fund to raise the $20,000 needed to get their brewery in motion.  It wasn't long that the money was raised - actually over $5,000 more than they had hoped for - and things were kicking into gear.  

The trio found a space in a building in Savoy in 2012 and with the construction help and know-how of another fellow home-brewing enthusiast, Lyle Amacher, they were able to turn the space into an 500-square foot brewery with a small adjoining taproom.  By the end of 2012, Benjamin was starting to brew beers in the 1.5 barrel system and in February of 2013 Triptych Brewing opened for in-house serving of their beers.  The brewing system eventually grew to a cobbled-together 3-barrel system and then they acquired more vessels to make it a 5-barrel system.  Initially, they only sold beer-to-go in 32-ounce growlers, but they eventually put in a canning line so they could sell their beers in 16-ounce sizes. 

The name Triptych is a sort of interesting story.  Wanting to stay away from a name with a regional connotation, Benjamin looked at the three basic ingredients to make beer -  water, barley and hops.  There were also three initial owners of the new brewery.  He had learned years before that a triptych is a set of three associated artistic works blended into one work of art.  And, voila!  He had come up with a name!  The Triptych Brewing logo features a blending of water, hops and barley in three entwining circles.  

The Triptych Brewery was a hit right off the bat and as their business grew the trio of owners knew that A) they would need more space, and B) more time would have to be devoted to the business.  Fullop couldn't do that with the demands of his job, nor could Bartell with the demands of his law firm.  But this was Anthony Benjamin's full-time job since he quit his position at the University of Illinois just before the brewery opened.  Fullop and Bartell ended up selling their interests to Benjamin, who, in turn, sold shares of Triptych to Lyle Amacher - who had just retired early from his job with AT&T - and another home-brewer friend by the name of Greg Altstetter.  It wasn't long after that that a fourth partner - local realtor and property manager, James Voigtlander - became a minority investor in the brewery.

With Triptych Brewing signing distribution contracts around the state of Illinois, Benjamin and his minority partners had to find a larger space in which to brew their beers.  It turned out the owner of a flooring company just across the street from Triptych Brewing in Savoy was looking to move to a larger location.  Triptych moved into the building in the spring of 2018 and put in a much larger brewing operation going from nano-brewery status to micro-brewery status with three 15-barrel brewing systems in an 8,000 square-foot space.  

I had finished up with one of my accounts in Champaign in the late afternoon and had checked into my hotel on the south side of Champaign.  A storm front was brewing in the western skies when I made the short trek down Neil Street into Savoy.  A quick turn to the right and another quick turn to the right, I found myself pulling into Triptych Brewing on Woodfield Drive.  (see map)  I got what was the last parking space in the lot next to the taproom.  (Additional parking is available across the street at the brewing facility after 5 p.m. and along Woodfield Drive.)  

I would have to say the decor at Triptych would be classified as modern industrial.  The open space had a lacquered concrete floor with a number of metal/wood-topped tables with mismatched chairs at both the high-tops and regular tables.  A flow chart of how they make the beer is depicted in a mural on the wall in the space, and an authentic shuffleboard table was being used by two guests next to the mural.

I ended up taking a seat at the bar and took a look at the beer menu on the wall behind the bar.  Triptych Brewing had nearly 20 beers, ales and ciders on tap that day including a guest cider from the Brick River Cider Company out of St. Louis.  They had a handful of fruit-based beers including the tart ale called "Hawaiian Shirts" that featured mango and passion fruit.  I'm usually a sucker for anything with passion fruit (a.k.a. lillikoi in Hawai'i), but that sounded too fruity for my taste.  They also had a low-alcohol Belgian-style beer, as well as a mild-English ale with a 3.5 ABV.  And they had a smoked lager on tap that they made in collaboration with Narrow Gauge Brewing Company, a craft brewery located in the the St. Louis suburb of Florissant, MO 

I was intrigued by a couple beers they had that day - the Wake Up, Nero; and the Indistinguishable from Magic.  Both were hazy double India Pale Ales and had similar alcohol content (7.9 and 8.0, respectively).  I liked the smoothness of the Wake Up, Nero a little better than the Indistinguishable from Magic, but both were very good.

But I was there to get a Dank Meme on tap.  One of the bartenders by the name of Joe introduced himself to me when I first sat down and he poured me a pint glass with a nice head of foam.  It had the wonderful hazy gold color that I've come accustomed to.  And it was just as smooth and had a nice citrus back-end that I really enjoy with the Dank Meme.  It's an easy drinking beer and I was able to easily polish off a pint before ordering a second one.  

I walked around the tap room as I enjoyed my second beer and noticed that there was a food truck setting up in front of the building along Woodfield Drive.  Triptych Brewing has La Paloma, a Mexican food truck specializing in street tacos, on Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m.  But guessing by the gathering storm that looked like it could just start dumping rain at any minute, I figured they wouldn't be open much longer that evening.  I hurried up and finished my beer, then took off back to my hotel getting there just moments before it started blowing and raining heavily.  

I sent my friend a picture of the front Triptych Brewing after getting back to the hotel and he texted me back, "Jealous!" moments later.  Triptych Brewing is a great little brewery and I really enjoy their Dank Meme hazy IPA.  They have a number of interesting beers and their distribution reaches nearly all corners of Illinois.  If you find yourself in the Champaign area and are on the look-out for some very good craft beers, you need to take the short trek down to Savoy and give Triptych Brewing a try.  

 

 

The Airliner - Iowa City, IA

My wife and I met her sister one Friday night in Iowa City just to hang out and listen to some live music on the Ped Mall in the downtown area.  We decided to go get something to eat and pizza came up in the conversation.  We talked about a couple three different places and the venerable Airliner came up as one of the places to go get a pizza.  We walked down Clinton Street and turned into the Airliner.  I figured it was probably the first time in over 30 years since I was last in there. (see map)

The Airliner was one of my many hangouts during my college days at the University of Iowa.  More of the sorority and fraternity types would hang out at the Airliner and my roommates and I would usually cruise the " 'liner" first during Friday and/or Saturday evenings before heading over to a place with live music and/or cheap beer.  The gaming area at the Airliner was one of my favorite places. In fact, I flunked a summer school class during my time at Iowa because I liked playing the video game Galaga much better than I liked attending a 10:30 a.m. class.  (Actually, I got on incomplete on the course because I feigned ignorance on the "drop" date for the class.  I was just lazy that summer.)  

The Airliner has been a staple of collegians since the mid-1940's.  That was when Joe and Edris Rinnela opened the Airliner - named after a diner the two remembered that was near Midway Airport in Chicago.  It didn't hurt that during World War II, the University of Iowa was the home to one of four Navy pre-flight training sites at college campuses around the country where cadets underwent strenuous physical training, as well as basic aerial navigation, communications, and ground flight training.  Many Navy airmen got their start at the University of Iowa PreFlight - and many bellied up to the bar at the Airliner for drinks and beers.  

Local lore has it that former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw frequented the Airliner during his one year at the University of Iowa in the late 50's.  In fact, he frequented the place so much that he ended up flunking out of school and went back home to South Dakota to go to college there.  A booth at the Airliner is named in Brokaw's honor.  

Joe Rinnela died unexpectedly in 1956 at the age of 52.  The Rinnela family continued to run the restaurant before selling it in the 60's.  However, in 1970, the brother of one of Joe Rinnela's daughter's-in-law - Doug Tvedt - took over the Airliner.  Tvedt steered the Airliner in one of its most profitable periods.  Tvedt also sponsored an Amateur Athletic Union men's basketball team that was one of the top teams in the nation for a number of years.  The basketball team - comprised primarily of former University of Iowa basketball players - won the national AAU championship in 1980.  

Doug Tvedt and his wife, Gail, had seven children - all went to the University of Iowa and all worked at the Airliner from time to time.  However, in 1988, Doug and Gail sold the Airliner and moved to Florida.  I'm not certain who owned the Airliner from 1988 to 1992, but two local men came in to buy the bar/restaurant in 1992.  

Brad Lohaus was a former Iowa basketball player who was then playing for the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA.  Randy Larson was an Iowa City attorney who was friendly with many Iowa basketball players over the years.  The two stepped in to buy the Airliner and start a new chapter for the venerable bar.  The one thing that has me confused is that I've read where the Rinnela family started serving pizza when they opened in 1944.  I don't think that's correct as I sort of remember that Lohaus and Larson put a pizza oven in when they took over the place.  I never knew the Airliner had pizza when I used to go there on a regular basis in the 80's - at least I don't remember them having pizza.  But with Larson and Lohaus in charge, the Airliner made a name for itself for its pizza.  

Lohaus and Larson ran the restaurant as a partnership until 2001 when Larson sold his share to Lohaus who had retired from the NBA just three years before.  Larson went on to open a couple pizza places in the Iowa City - Bob's Your Uncle - but sold the business in 2015.  Larson is also the person behind the popular Monica's Italian restaurant along the Coralville strip.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Monica's).  

With Lohaus in charge by himself, things started to go downhill at the Airliner - and fast.  The bar was hit with a violation for serving underaged drinkers in July 2002.  Not learning their lesson from that, the bar then was cited for serving underaged drinkers again in April of 2003 and then again in May of 2003.  The third citation prompted a 90-day suspension of their liquor license that they started serving in June of 2004.  The Airliner continued to sell food in the day time, but shut down at night when they quit serving food.  But by mid-July of 2004, Lohaus shut down the Airliner and walked away from the business.  

Since the Rinella family still owned the building and were holding a lease that still had over two years on it, they were forced into action on the Airliner.  A local guy stepped in to buy the restaurant, but the deal fell through at the last minute because of language in the lease.  That's when Jim Rinella - the grandson of Joe Rinella - stepped in to take over.  

The first thing Rinella did was a complete renovation of the space.  Since he was living in Michigan at the time, he asked his uncle Doug Tvedt to come back and oversee the project.  It took nearly a year and the restaurant was reconfigured and new fixtures were put in place.  The bar/restaurant reopened in the summer of 2005 and Jim Rinella continues to own the restaurant with a local manager in place.  

The Airliner calls itself Iowa City's oldest bar, but I'm also sort of confused on that one, as well.  I was always under the assumption that the venerable George's Buffet first opened their doors in 1939.  (For the Road Tips write-up on George's Buffet from May of 2011, along with its history, click here.)  But "Established 1944" is part of the logo on the awning over the front entrance of the place. 

We walked in and the place had completely changed from the last time I was in the Airliner.  The bar was still in the same place, but the area in front of the bar was now filled with booths.  They had moved the bathrooms from behind the bar to an area that used to be where the video games and pinball machines were when I went there in the 80's.  

The back room off the main dining room is where the video games used to be.  Now, my wife and my sister-in-law and I got into a small argument about the upstairs at the Airliner.  I had never been upstairs at the Airliner, but my wife said that's where we - as in she and me - used to play the Centipede video game when we would hang out in the early 80's.  I said, "Oh, no.  It was right back over there, where the bathrooms are now!"  Her sister said that she remembered being upstairs at the Airliner, too.  I saw some stairs by the front entrance that went up, but it was definitely dark up there.  At the end, I think we agreed to disagree as I think they were thinking of someplace else along Clinton Street.  

We were seated at a booth opposite the bar along the wall in the main dining room.  The hostess sort of tossed 3 menus on the table top and it turned out that the booth hadn't really been cleaned off.  Our server that night was a young lady by the name of Audrey.  When my wife asked if she could clean off the table (it was water marks from the people previously seated there), she left in a huff, then came back with a spray bottle and spayed cleaning solution all over the table - and it sprayed onto us.  She quickly wiped down the table and then left once again in a huff.  "What's her problem," my sister-in-law indignantly asked.  

(Spoiler alert - Audrey's attitude didn't get any better the rest of the evening.) 

Audrey did come back moments later and asked if we wanted anything to drink.  I saw they had the distinctive Kona Big Wave spigot on their draft beer wall and I signed up for one of those.  My wife got her customary Tito's vodka and cranberry juice, while her sister got a drink from the specialty drink list at the Airliner - an Irish Mule made with Jameson whiskey, ginger beer and lime juice.   

While were there for pizza, I took a look through the menu at what else the Airliner has to offer.   They had burgers names after planes - the B-2 was a bacon, mushroom burger with your choice of cheese; the Stealth Bomber was a burger with Cajun spices and bleu cheese; and the F-16 was a burger topped with cheddar cheese, barbecue sauce, bacon, and onion rings.  They also had sandwiches on the menu at the Airliner - a breaded chicken breast covered in Buffalo wing sauce, a pork tenderloin sandwich, a chicken parm sandwich, and a traditional grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough bread.  

They also had salads, soups and a handful of appetizers on the menu.  The appetizers weren't anything special or unique - cheese balls, chicken wings, chips and salsa, breadsticks, etc.  My wife and sister-in-law were hungry to we ordered up some the onion rings.  They were cooked to a golden brown and came with a side of ranch dressing.  They were fine for what they were, but I thought they were a little expensive at $7.99 for a small plate where there were just 9 various size rings.  

They have three different styles of pizza crust at the Airliner - a thin-crust they call a New York-style crust, the Airliner-style crust which is a little more thick, then they have a deep-dish Chicago-style.  They have a number of specialty pizzas such as a taco pizza, a meat-lovers pizza, a traditional margherita pizza, and an alfredo chicken pizza with a white sauce.  

I wanted to try their deep-dish pizza - I had heard good things about that.  My wife and her sister were leaning more toward the thin-crust pizza, so we decided to get two.  I ordered a small (10") deep-dish with sausage, pepperoni and mushroom, while my wife and her sister got a large (16") supreme pizza topped with pepperonis, Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, black olives, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, then finished off with a house-blended shredded cheese.  I figured that I'd have a couple pieces of the supreme pizza in addition to my deep-dish pizza.

When both pizzas showed up at the table at the same time - about 20 minutes after we had ordered them - I knew something was amiss with my pizza.  First of all, a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza usually takes a minimum of 35 minutes to cook.  This pizza was misshapen and they had tried to push the dough up on the side of the pizza pan to make one of their Airliner original-crust pizzas look like a deep-dish pizza.  It was a feeble attempt at trying to make this a deep-dish pizza.  The toppings were all jumbled in one area and on top of all that, they added green peppers to my pizza.  I like the taste of green peppers, but they don't digest well in my stomach and I end up burping them up the rest of the night.  I wasn't going to quibble about the peppers - there were other things wrong with this pizza.

The main problem is that it tasted horrible.  There was like some sort of industrial cleaner taste to the dough.  I had a couple pieces of the pizza and it didn't get any better.  It left sort of a bad aftertaste in my mouth.  Between Audrey's attitude and indifference, and now this sad excuse of a deep-dish pizza, I was becoming highly disappointed in our visit to the Airliner.  

The large supreme pizza was fine.  It was cut tavern-style and had a very good crust that wasn't too thin, but still had some pliability.  It tasted much, much better than the abysmal deep-dish pizza that I had.  My wife and her sister were both happy with the pizza.  I told them that I'd offer them a piece of my pizza, but I didn't want to spoil their taste buds for the pizza they ordered.  

The Airliner - to me - always bordered on being a dive-bar.  But I had noticed a few things about the place during our time there that sort of disappointed me compared to how nice their renovations had been years ago.  I noticed that my flip-flops would stick to the floor under the table. It was like they had spilled a full pitcher of beer under the table sometime back and hadn't cleaned it up.  But when I went into the restroom after I finished eating, I couldn't believe what I saw.  One of the urinals was completely out of order, the other urinal was just a step above unusable, the toilet in the stall had a loose seat, and the bathroom was just completely filthy.  Now, I've peed in some pretty disgusting places over the years, but they were in places where I expected the bathroom to be disgusting.  For as nice as the Airliner appeared to be, it didn't take much looking around (or stepping around) to know that this place needed an enema.  

They say that you can never go back to the places that you went to in your youth, and that may be true in the case of the Airliner.  I was never so disappointed in going back to a place that was one of my favorite haunts when I was going to college at Iowa in the early to mid-80's.  We had a server who was in a foul mood all night long, the deep-dish pizza I had completely sucked and was one of the worst tasting pizzas I ever had, and the place was filthy with the men's restroom especially disgusting.  I will say that the thin-crust pizza was pretty good, however.  It had been over 30 years since I was last in the Airliner and if I get back in there sometime in the next 30 years, well, that will be too soon. 

Hazel's Nook - Gulf Shores, AL

During our time along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, we had noticed a restaurant that seemed to be extremely popular.  One morning, we even tried to get into the place, but we found that it would be a 30 minute wait.  On our last morning in Gulf Shores, we decided come hell-or-high-water, we were going to Hazel's Nook for breakfast.  To our surprise, we were immediately seated when we got into the place.  

Hazel's Nook was originally called Hazel's Family Restaurant when it opened in 1957.  It garnered a reputation for some of the best Southern-style family cooking along the Alabama Gulf Coast.  In the early 80's, the original owners were ready to retire and a young man of Richard Schwartz entered the picture.  Schwartz took over Hazel's and eventually renamed it Hazel's Nook.  A couple years after taking over Hazel's, Schwartz started Doc's Seafood Shack along Canal Road in Orange Beach.  Schwartz tried his hand a couple of other concepts - notably Hazel's Family Seafood and Jake's Steakhouse - before combining the two into Doc's Seafood and Steak along Perdido Beach Blvd. in Orange Beach.  

We stayed just down the road from Hazel's Nook on our last night in the area.  We got up early enough for the start of our long drive back to Iowa and we decided to head to Hazel's Nook before we left town.  We didn't know when we'd be able to stop for our next meal and my wife thought it would be a good idea if we had something in the morning.  

Pulling into the parking lot at Hazel's Nook, we noticed that there wasn't a line out the door as there was a couple of other times we drove past the restaurant during the morning breakfast hours.  (see map)  We figured that if people were waiting to get into the place that it had to be a popular place.  

We were seated at a table just inside the front door at Hazel's Nook.  The place wasn't fancy with generic chairs and tables throughout the place.  The low slung ceiling had a number of fans hanging down churning air in the little restaurant.  To say it was cozy is an understatement.  

Our server was a lady by the name of Terri who came over to give us some menus and to check to see if we wanted any coffee.  My wife took some, but I passed.  I ended up getting some orange juice instead.   

We figured out why Hazel's Nook was so popular.  It turns out that Hazel's has both an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and a lunch buffet.  During breakfast, the buffet features house-made biscuits with gravy, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and fruit offerings.  They also have a man at an omelet station making build-your-own omelets.  The menu features pancakes, French toast, Eggs Benedict, waffles, and country-style egg breakfasts.  They also had a Cajun omelet - the Bienville omelet - that featured crabmeat, Cajun-spiced shrimp, and mozzarella cheese topped with a hollandaise sauce.  That certainly got my attention.  

(Hazel's lunch menu features sandwiches and burgers, along with their house specialty fried shrimp with hushpuppies.  The lunch buffet has a daily feature along with fried chicken, meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and other lunchtime items.)  

I wasn't all that hungry after a dinner we had the night before, but I thought I'd get something.  I got the Old Thyme Country Breakfast consisting of two eggs, bacon and toast.  For another side, I had a choice of hash browns or grits.  Well, hell - I was in the south and I had to try the grits.  

The breakfast was pretty basic.  The eggs were greasy, the bacon was fine and the grits were, well, they were grits.  Now, my gold standard for grits continues to be the ones that they served at the DeSoto Hotel in Savannah, GA.   Those grits just melted in my mouth, they had such a wonderful texture and a great flavor.  I've never come close to having grits as good as what they served for breakfast at the DeSoto Hotel, but the grits at Hazel's Nook were actually very good.  

My wife got the exact same breakfast - eggs over easy with bacon.  She got hash browns instead of grits and she got rye toast instead of the whole wheat toast that I got.  She, too, thought her breakfast was fine.  Nothing spectacular, but definitely not bad.  

As we were eating, I had my back to the door.  My wife looked around me at one point and said, "We got here at the right time.  The line is 12 to 15 people deep outside the door."  

I turned around and looked.  "It's the breakfast buffet," I said to my wife whose back was to the breakfast buffet.  "There's been a steady stream of people going through that and to the omelet bar, too."

They were trying to turn tables quickly and we needed to get on the road.  We were hoping to get past Nashville before stopping for the night so we didn't have more than an 8 hour drive the next day to get home.  

Hazel's Nook is a popular place with the locals around Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.  We noticed the waitstaff talking with a lot of people they knew who came in primarily for the breakfast buffet.  Our country-style eggs and bacon breakfast was fine and the grits that I got with my breakfast were good.  Hazel's Nook isn't anything fancy, but the food is down-home Southern cooking and that's what has kept them in business for nearly 65 years.   

Edgewood Locker - Edgewood, IA

My mother-in-law's longtime companion died unexpectedly in his hometown of Strawberry Point, IA a few weeks ago and my wife and I went up to the funeral that was held on a hot Monday morning.  After the burial at a local cemetery and the fellowship lunch in the basement of the church where the funeral service was conducted, we decided to head out back toward the Quad Cities.  But - and as bad as this may sound - the ulterior motive of going to the funeral was that we had to make a stop in the small town of Edgewood, IA - about nine miles from Strawberry Point - so we could pick up some meat from the Edgewood Locker.

Tom Kerns started out his post-military life as a young farmer.  He and his new bride, Joan, lived on a farm near Oelwein, Iowa for three years before moving to the Edgewood area to farm there in 1961.  Tom continued to farm while Joan was a registered nurse.  In 1966, an opportunity to buy a small meat locker in downtown Edgewood came about and the Kerns jumped on the opportunity.  Initially, there were just two employees - one full-time and one part-time.  But within four years, the Kerns grew the business and they had to relocate to an old creamery on the north side of Edgewood.  With the help of their sons Terry and Jim, the family renovated the creamery into a meat locker/butcher shop.  

Terry and Jim joined their parents as partners in the business in 1980 and over the next 15 years they expanded the business into specialty meats, catering, venison processing and they opened a retail meat counter during this period.  As their reputation grew, so did the need for a larger facility.

In the spring of 1997, the Kerns family moved into a new facility - their present day facility - on the west side of Edgewood.  (see map)  This allowed them to add more employees (they have over 40 full-time employees today and 50 more seasonal or part-time employees) and to expand their offerings.  In 2013, the Kerns family purchased an event center in downtown Edgewood for weddings and other special events.  (They have since divested themselves of that facility.)  And in 2014, Terry Kerns daughter, Katie Anderson, bought a share of the Edgewood Locker making it a three-generational business.  In 2015, Jim's daughter, Baili Maurer, bought into the business, and in 2017 her brother, Payson Kerns, joined the business as a partner.  After the death of patriarch Tom Kerns in 2018, Terry Kerns' son, Luke, bought into the business.  

The Edgewood Locker is probably most famous around the state of Iowa for winning hundreds of awards primarily from the Iowa Meat Processors Association in conjunction with the Iowa State Fair for their specialty meats such as their smoke cured bacon and ham, dried beef, smoked turkey and pork chops, bratwurst, and meat and cheese snack sticks.  Since 1985, the Edgewood Locker has won over 200 awards and is annually recognized for their achievements by both professional and private associations.  

My step-son found out that we were going to go over to the Edgewood Locker from the funeral and he decided he would follow us over to take a look around.  We got there about 1:30 in the afternoon and there were a surprising number of people parked in the lot and shopping around in the store.  The numerous awards the Edgewood Locker has won over the years are proudly displayed on the knotty pine walls behind the main counter and over the refrigeration and freezer units that hold the fresh and frozen meats the locker sells.  

I had brought a cooler along with us so we could cold pack the meat for the 2.5 hour drive back to the Quad Cities.  And I wanted some of their bratwurst.  My wife had been up to visit her mother earlier this spring and she stopped into the Edgewood Locker and picked up a couple packages of their sweet onion brats, as well as their "very garlic" bratwurst.  I hadn't had Edgewood brats for quite sometime and I forgot how great they were when I cooked them up on the grill a week or so after she brought them home.  

I made a beeline to the refrigerated case that held the nearly 3 dozen different flavors of brats the Edgewood Locker has available.  I immediately found some of the sweet onion brats and the garlic brats and threw them in the basket.  Something else caught my eye - the craft beer and cheese bratwurst.  I grabbed a couple four packs of those, as well.  

I didn't want to go overboard with the brats, but the jalapeño and cheddar bratwurst was tough to pass up, as were the whiskey and peppercorn brats.  I thought twice about getting a pack or two of the horseradish and cheddar brats, as well as the mushroom and Swiss cheese bratwurst.  But I had six packages of brats already and thought that would be enough for now.  

While we were there, I saw a sign that showed a number of retail outlets from Central Iowa to Eastern Iowa that sold Edgewood Locker meats.  My step-son lives in a small town near Tipton, north and west of the Quad Cities and he said, "Oh, yeah!  The Family Foods store in Tipton has all different kinds of Edgewood brats and meats."  We saw that a couple places in towns close to the Quad Cities had some Edgewood Locker meat and we figured we'd check those place out at some point.  

They had a "seconds" or a close-out section at Edgewood Locker and I found a pack of cheese hot dogs that I picked up.  I like hot dogs at home from time to time and I've had some of the hot dogs over the past few weeks.  They have a great snap to the casing, but the cheese usually cooks out and the hot dogs are very salty.  Maybe that's why they were "seconds".

I knew their smoked pork chops were very good - the Edgewood Locker has won numerous awards for their smoke pork chops over the years.  I picked up two of the 2-packs hoping to have them sometime soon.  My wife isn't too whippy on smoked pork chops as most of the ones we've had in the past have been too salty.  However, I seem to remember the smoked pork chops from Edgewood Locker not being all that salty.  

As I was getting ready to check out, I went back to the fresh meat case and found a couple packages of rib-eye steaks.  Thinking that those would be good to have with dinner that night, I picked two packs up thinking there was just one in each pack.  But when I got home that night and cut open the first of the two packs, I found that there were two thin-cut, breakfast-style rib-eyes inside.  They were probably better for sandwiches, but I went ahead and cooked the two on the grill for my wife and I that night.  And they were delicious.  

We passed up getting some of their great bacon - we had a bunch of bacon in the freezer back home that we needed to worry about before getting more bacon.  But they have about 10 different styles and flavors of bacon to choose from at the Edgewood Locker.  

And any type of pork or beef cut that you could imagine are available at the Edgewood Locker.  As I was checking out our basket of meat, my step-son inquired about getting a brisket to smoke at his house.  They had a 15 pound full brisket - flat and point cut combined - for $5.59 a pound.  I told him that the proper way to smoke a brisket is about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes per pound at about 230 to 240 degrees (F).  I even said that I'd go in on one with him if he wanted to split it out.  They lady behind the counter said that they could separate the flat and point cuts in back.  But the more my step-son thought of it, he finally declined.  "Sometime," he said.  "But I'm not ready to commit to that amount of time on a cut of meat like that."  

We got out of the Edgewood Locker spending just under $80 bucks on brats, hot dogs, pork chops, ground beef and rib-eye steaks.  And my wife didn't even pick out any of the beef or cheese sticks the Edgewood Locker is famous for!  I had brought a 33-quart cooler with us and it was packed nearly full once all the meat packs were transferred into it.  And we still needed to put some ice in it to keep the meat cool during the drive home.  As I said earlier, I don't want to say that I had an ulterior motive to going to the funeral in Strawberry Point, but let's just say that the stop at the Edgewood Locker made the day much more palatable - in more ways than one...

Jubeck New World Brewery - Dubuque, IA

My wife had been having cabin fever working at home while I've been on the road traveling the past few weeks.  Quite honestly, one of the last things I want to do on my weekends at home is to get in the car and travel anywhere of distance.  However, this one particular Saturday, after moaning about going somewhere when my wife brought it up, we decided to head up to Potosi, WI and get lunch at the Potosi Brewery.  (Click here to read about one of our previous visits to the Potosi Brewery.)  While we were there, my neighbor - who is very in-tune with microbreweries - called us to see what was going on.  After telling him that we were at the Potosi Brewery, he said, "Hey, if you're going home through Dubuque, you guys need to go to Jubeck's Brewery."  About an hour later, we found ourselves in front of Jubeck New World Brewing in the Old Historic Main district on W. 11th Street in downtown Dubuque.  (see map)    

Jay Jubeck got into home-brewing just after graduation from the University of Dubuque.  And he soon found a kindred soul in Dan Caraway who was also a home-brewer, as well as a musician and an aviation enthusiast like Jubeck.  The 18-year age difference (Caraway is 54, while Jubeck is 36) didn't get in the way of their friendship and shared passions.  In fact, they started a rockabilly band - The Fast Clydes - with Jubeck on guitar and Caraway on upright bass that lasted until 2015.  

Like many other home-brewers, Jubeck and Caraway made a number of different types of beers for friends and family.  This was at the height of the craft brewery explosion and they often noted that Dubuque did not have its own microbrewery.   

In March of 2013, Caraway and Jubeck decided that now was the time to look into opening their own small brewery.  However, they couldn't raise the money needed through banks or financial institutions, so they decided to do a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money.  Over the next two months, Jubeck and Caraway solicited backing money by hosting events showcasing their beer in private settings.  

Pictured at right - Dan Caraway and Jay Jubeck.  Photo courtesy Jubeck New World Brewery Facebook page.  

By May of 2013, 175 people kicked in money for Jubeck and Caraway's dream and by the time it was all said and done, they had raised $7,000 over their goal of $30,000.  Approximately 100 of those people who pledged funds for the brewery became initial members of New World Brewing's club.  This guaranteed those members that they would have free beer - depending upon their level of financial participation.  Some members received a growler of beer free of charge each week, while some members were guaranteed a set number of pints in a month.   

Next was finding a building in which to house their microbrewery.  They found a space in a historical building in downtown Dubuque in August of 2013 that used to be an Asian restaurant.  The space was completely gutted - no plumbing, no electricity, everything was stripped down to the bare brick walls.  The two set about putting in a new floor, overseeing plumbing and electricity installations, and finally they were able to build a bar and bring in brewing tanks, finishing the build-out in the spring of 2014.  With six beers on tap, Jubeck New World Brewing opened to the public in July of 2014.  Initially, they were open just one day a week, but by early 2015 they were able to hire bartenders that allowed them to be open 4 days a week.  (Wednesday thru Saturday.)   

We found Jubeck Brewery and parked across the street from it on W. 11th St.  There was a small roped-in area in front of the building that allowed patrons to drink outside.  

The space at Jubeck Brewing is not very large.  It seats somewhere between 20 and 25 people in the tap room.  Contemporary lights and fans hang from a tin ceiling, as well as a large model airplane - a nod to Jubeck's and Caraway's love of flying.   

There are no televisions in Jubeck New World Brewing, something that Caraway and Jubeck wanted to promote more of a community feeling with people having conversations rather than watching sporting events.  One of the things I liked about the place was that they were playing Classic Rock vinyl records on a turntable behind the bar.  One of my favorite albums - Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True" was playing through the JVC receiver when we walked in.  The intimacy of the place and the vinyl on the turntable made me fall in love with the place immediately.  

The brewery's brewing tank is located along a short wall next to the bar.  Much of the ingredients for the beers brewed at Jubeck come from local farmers or food sources.  

The tap list is one the opposite side of the bar from the brewing facility.  They had seven beers and a cider to choose from that day.  Three new beers were on the board - the IFR, a hazy IPA that also reflects Jubeck's and Caraway's love for flying (IFR stands for Instrument Flight Rules - when pilots have to navigate via instrument read-outs in cockpits, primarily when flying in heavy clouds.); a Lavender/Honey Wheat beer, and a fruity farmhouse ale called X9 Grissette.  They had two sours on the beer menu - sours are somewhat popular with the younger drinkers, I've never taken a liking to them.  Rounding out the beer menu was an imperial porter and a Czech-style Bohemian pilsner.  

I actually tried a sample of the pilsner along with the IFR hazy IPA.  While I liked the lightness with a somewhat forward malt flavor on the pilsner, I thought the IFR was even better.  It had a smooth hoppy taste that was tamped down by a citrusy back-side.  It was a seriously good beer.  Good enough that I had a couple  while my wife had one.  And before we left, I picked up a four-pack of 16 ounce cans of the IFR hazy IPA to take home with us.  The beer was just as good at home as it was at the brewery.

We have a lot of brewpubs/craft breweries around the Quad Cities (with more coming this fall), but I would put the IFR hazy IPA from Jubeck New World Brewing up there with some of the better beers I've experienced around the area.  In fact, I'm not certain it's better than some of the other hazy IPA's that I've had around the Quad's.  And what's not to like about the atmosphere at Jubeck Brewery?  It's a small, cozy place.  They're playing classic rock vinyl on their small sound system.  And it seemed like a friendly and inviting little brewpub.  We like heading up to River Ridge Brewing in Bellevue from time to time, so a 20-minute drive up the road to Dubuque and Jubeck New World Brewing is not out of the question on our next trip up there.  

The Angry Goldfish - Des Moines, IA

Starting to travel for work on a regular basis again, I found myself looking for a good burger and a craft beer after a day of calling on accounts in the Des Moines area.  I had a list of a handful of places that I had gathered over the past couple years that reportedly had good burgers in the city.  One of those place was the Angry Goldfish on the south side of Des Moines.  

The building that houses the Angry Goldfish at the corner of SW 9th and Davis Ave. kitty-cornered from MacRae Park (see map) has been many things over the years - a bar/restaurant, a vacuum repair shop, a hardware store to name a few businesses.  It was in the fall of 2016 when Dan White and his wife, Stephanie, along with Stephanie's brother Clark Way and his wife, Renee bought the building and started an intensive restoration inside and out.  Clark Way wanted to have a place like some of the neighborhood bars that he visited with his father as a young boy - a place that would allow children inside (up to 9 p.m.) and be family friendly.

No one is quite certain how the name "Angry Goldfish" came about.  It was during one of their alcohol-fueled skull-sessions that someone in the group came up with the Angry Goldfish name.  And the name just sort of stuck. With the completion of the renovations, the Whites and Ways opened the Angry Goldfish Pub & Eatery in December 2016 with Clark and Renee Way as the managing partners of the restaurant.  

(In the fall of 2019, Clark and Renee Way took over the old Reed's Hollow in the Beaverdale area of northwest Des Moines and renamed the place the Dam Pub.  The bar is heavy in 1980's and 90's kitsch and features a number of vintage video games and a menu that somewhat mirrors the Angry Goldfish.)   

I pulled into the parking lot behind the Angry Goldfish and went in the side door just off the patio on the north side of the building.  Inside, I found a small bar area and a dining area with a number of booths and tables.  The lighting fixtures on the walls next to the booths were old whiskey bottles with light bulbs inside.  A couple old chandeliers hung from the ceiling near the back entry way.  

The walls featured a number of bright and natural colored pallets that made a sort of interesting color pattern.  Vintage beer signs hung from the walls.  The restrooms in the back (marked "sausage" and "eggs") featured a number of old Iowa vehicle license plates that Clark Way's grandfather had collected over the years.  

I found a seat at a table up toward the front door of the Angry Goldfish.  A guy working behind the bar came out with a menu.  (Click here and scroll down to see the menu.)  I took a quick look at their beer menu and ordered up an Easy Eddy Hazy IPA from the Big Grove Brewery in Solon and Iowa City.

I was sort of surprised with Angry Goldfish's menu.  It had some interesting appetizers such as poutine, fried pickles and their signature Sriracha-seasoned "angry" Goldfish crackers.  Sandwiches included a pulled-pork and a brisket sandwich, as well as a club sandwich on garlic focaccia bread.  Entrees included two pork medallions with a whiskey/honey glaze, meatloaf made with black angus beef and Graziano Brothers Italian sausage, and their beer-battered cod filets served with fries.  On Monday nights, the Angry Goldfish features lasagna or a vegetarian manicotti, and on Wednesday's they have a hot beef sandwich special with mashed potatoes and gravy.  

That all sounded great to me, but I had my heart set on getting a burger on my first trip to the Angry Goldfish. After almost getting the garlic and herb Boursin cheese burger.  I settled on the Merlot/Mushroom burger topped with Swiss cheese.  For my side, I had a number of choices including truffle parmesan fries, cole slaw and pasta salad.  But then when I saw that one of my side options was tots, I went with those.  (For a small upcharge, I could have gotten a small side of Angry Goldfish's poutine.  Next time...)  

The two burger patties were flat-grilled and both topped with Swiss cheese and sautéed mushrooms.  The top bun was festooned with an "AG" from the merlot aioli sauce they put on the burger.  I was eager to dig into this one.

And it certainly didn't disappoint.  The burger was full of flavors - the earthiness of the sautéed mushrooms, the pungent and creamy Swiss cheese, and the tanginess of the merlot aioli all added to the wonderful taste of the flat-grilled beef patties.  The bun was spongy and held together very well with the juicy nature of the burger meat.  This was a great burger.

I also have to say that the tots were also very good.  These didn't seem to be your run-of-the-mill food purveyor tots.  I was almost like they had a panko outer shell with a very fluffy potato inner core.  Along with some Cholula hot sauce, the tots were top-notch.  

After my first experience at the Angry Goldfish, I decided that I would definitely be back to try something else in the future.  It was a great little place with friendly service, great food and a cozy and inviting atmosphere.  The owners definitely achieved their goal of making the Angry Goldfish a quintessential neighborhood bar, one that I wish I had near me at my home.  The Mushroom/Merlot burger I had was spectacular and it certainly hit the spot.  My next visit to the Angry Goldfish will be for the Boursin burger.  Or it could be for their meatloaf.  Or it could be for their hot beef sandwich special.  Or it could be for their Sriracha goldfish encrusted pork tenderloin sandwich.  There's just too many interesting things to choose from at the Angry Goldfish. 

OSO Early - Orange Beach, AL

During our trip to the Gulf Coast of Alabama, my wife didn't really care for the breakfast offerings at the hotel where we stayed.  We went out one morning to look for a place that had breakfast and we remembered a place on the north end of Orange Beach that we had passed during a reconnaissance mission getting our bearings of the area a couple three days prior.  I remembered where it was and it was mid-morning when we pulled into the parking lot at OSO Early.  

For over 19 years, Tyler Kean was the chef/proprietor at the Fairhope Inn - a bed & breakfast/restaurant in the nearby town of Fairhope, AL.  Kean purchased the inn and restaurant in 2000 after a stint as a chef in an upscale restaurant in Louisiana after graduating from culinary school in New York City.  Fairhope Inn became an award winning restaurant under Kean known for their Gulf Coast cuisine.  

In early 2019, Kean had a chance to sell the Fairhope Inn and looking to do something else - plus the fact that his wife had just given birth to the couple's 4th child - he sold the inn and restaurant to a lady who had no experience in either running a hotel or a restaurant.  He helped out during the transition - an old manager of the Inn agreed to come back to help run things, as well.  Then by the summer of 2019, he set out to find his new venture.  

A place called Flipper's Seafood and Oyster Bar was located on a point overlooking Bear Point Harbor on the north and east side of Orange Beach.  Known for their live music, their fresh seafood and stunning views of the sunset, the owners of Flipper's were looking to relocate to a larger space.  Kean came into the picture and offered to buy the restaurant.  He named his new restaurant OSO at Bear Point Harbor (Oso is Spanish for bear) and it opened in January of 2020.  

Pictured at right - Tyler Kean.  Photo courtesy Elizabeth Gelineau, Mobile Bay Magazine

Just like millions of restaurants across the nation, OSO at Bear Point Harbor was forced to close in March of 2020, but maintained a brisk to-go business until restaurants were allowed to reopen last summer with restrictions.  But on September 14th of last year, another disaster happened - this time a natural disaster by the name of Hurricane Sally.  

OSO at Bear Point Harbor was devastated by the hurricane losing nearly all of their kitchen equipment in the storm surge that inundated the building.  So, what do you think Kean would do while he waited for OSO at Bear Point Harbor to reopen?  Well, he decided to open a second restaurant.

A couple miles away from OSO at Bear Point Harbor was a restaurant called Barefoot Island Grill that had been closed up for awhile.  Kean would drive by the building on Canal Rd. and saw potential in the place.  He put a bid in on the building and it was accepted in the fall of 2020.  His concept for the restaurant was two-fold - he wanted a sit-down restaurant with limited hours that featured breakfast/brunch/lunch, as well as a place where people could stop by and grab a sandwich/drink/coffee to go.  OSO Early opened in January of 2021.  

We pulled into the parking lot at the corner of Canal Road and Wilson Blvd. around 10:15 that particular morning.  (see map)  The sun was out - the first time we had experienced a nice morning during our trip to the Alabama Gulf Coast, but the wind was still brisk off the Gulf.  

My wife and I made a rookie mistake by going into the "grab-n-go" area of OSO Early instead of the front door of the restaurant.  There were arrows on the floor that pointed the way to the restaurant for people like us.  The area for the "grab-n-go" featured a number of comfy chairs and sofas where people could hang out after getting coffee or fresh-squeezed (daily) fruit drinks.  

The arrows took us out of the large room and into the bar area.  It was a small bar with six chairs and large copper light fixtures overhead.  It was a full bar for people who wanted to have alcoholic drinks for breakfast.  I passed that day, but a bloody mary and a beer is always a nice eye-opener for me.  

We found our way to the lively-colored main dining area and one of the ladies working as servers that day saw us as we came in.  She showed us to a booth in the center of the room where she dropped off a couple menus for us to look through.  My wife got a coffee and I got a quadruple espresso to get me going.  We both later got fresh-squeezed orange juice to go along with our food.  

On the walls and hanging from the center partition at OSO Early were a handful of large fish pieces of art made by driftwood artists in the area.  Tyler Kean offers local artists to display their artwork and put it up for sale with 100% of the proceeds of the sale going to the artist.

Looking through the menu, my wife confessed that she wasn't all that hungry, but thought she needed something.  I wasn't very hungry, either, but thought that since it was later in the morning and we were going to be out exploring, it would be best to get something in my stomach.  

The menu at OSO Early is leveraged heavy toward breakfast options.  For starters, they had house-made beignets served with a white chocolate sauce on the side.  They had omelets, eggs Benedict plates, chicken and waffles, pancakes, and French Toast stuffed with banana cream cheese and Kahlua chocolate.  That sounded highly decadent.  

They also had a handful of "bowls" that went from healthy to hearty.  The "Parfait" bowl featured yogurt, pecan granola, fresh fruit and finished with an artisanal honey.  On the other extreme, the "Southern Loco Moco" was OSO Early's take on the Hawaiian breakfast favorite.  It featured country fried steak topped with fried eggs, a potato hash and fried onions, then topped with a hollandaise sauce and brown gravy.  (Yow!)  For those looking for lunch, OSO Early has a burger, a Monte Cristo sandwich, and Nashville hot chicken.

My wife went with the avocado toast for her light breakfast.  Only this was probably the most complex avocado toast that I've ever seen.  It featured guacamole, goat feta cheese, a bloody mary pico de gallo, arugula and finished with a drizzle of a lime vinaigrette all served on 4 halves of full grain whole wheat toast.  My wife was amazed at the taste.  "This is wonderful," she exclaimed after a couple of bites.  "There's so much going on with each bite!"  She was more than happy with her choice.     

I was sort of torn between a couple things, but I went pretty basic.  I got two eggs over easy, some bacon, a side of OSO Early's house-made corned beef hash, and full grain whole wheat toast.  The eggs were pretty basic, the bacon was better, but the house-made corned beef hash was outstanding.  In addition to fried potatoes and house-made corned beef, the hash had red and green peppers mixed in giving it a bit of a zippy taste.  They had a corned beef hash bowl on the menu that I wish I would have revisited.  But it would have been a lot of food - more food than what I really wanted or needed that morning. 

We drove by OSO at Bear Point Harbor one evening after we'd eaten at OSO Early a couple days before.  The place was understandably packed as it was just before sunset and they had music going on their deck.  We never got a chance to try the food there, but we were more than happy and impressed with the food at their sister restaurant OSO Early.  My wife raved about the avocado toast and I was happy with my basic breakfast consisting of two eggs - over easy, some very good bacon and some excellent house-made corned beef hash.  The service was fine and the atmosphere was, well, I guess you'd call it charming and laid-back.   OSO Early was a great choice for a light breakfast during our trip to the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

Cabos Cantina and Grill - Eldridge, IA

Good friends of ours were telling us about a Mexican restaurant in the Quad City bedroom community of Eldridge, IA earlier this year.  "The food is great and the portions are huge," my friend gushed.  "You really ought to try it sometime!"  On a recent Sunday evening when we didn't feel like cooking at home, we took a trip out to Eldridge to try Cabos Cantina and Grill.  

Jose Vazquez is originally from the Santa Ana Pacueco neighborhood in Pénjamo, Guanajuato, Mexico.  Vazquez's grandmother always had a busy kitchen making food for her family.  In his teens, Vazquez and members of his family immigrated to the U.S. and some ended up in the Midwest, while Vazquez's family ended up out in Virginia.  

As a 16-year-old, Jose Vazquez was working as a dishwasher at a Mexican restaurant in Blacksburg, VA.  The owners of the restaurant saw his dedication and they soon moved the young Vazquez into a waitstaff position in the restaurant.  They then moved him back into the kitchen where he learned how to cook and to run a kitchen.  He did just about everything in the restaurant including running the day-to-day operations as the restaurant expanded into multiple locations.  It was a great learning experience for Vazquez who ended up moving to Peoria, IL to be with family members there.

It was when Vazquez was in Peoria that he opened his dream restaurant, Los Cabos Cantina and Grill with the help of two of his brothers in 2008.  Many of the recipes Vazquez used at Los Cabos came from his grandmother's kitchen in Guanajuato.  Los Cabos immediately gained a following and became one of the premier Mexican restaurants in the Peoria area.  But Vazquez wanted to expand and he looked west toward the Quad Cities where he had relatives living.

Vazquez's cousins invited him to spend some time in the Quad Cities to get to know the area and to possibly scout for a site where to put a restaurant.   As I've said many times over the years, the Quad Cities - with a solid and longtime Hispanic population in the area - already has a number of very good to outstanding authentic Mexican restaurants.  Undeterred by that fact, Vazquez continued to look for a spot and spied a building in the growing town of Eldridge, just five miles north of the Davenport city limits.  The building had been a number of bars and restaurants over the years, but had been sitting vacant for awhile.  

Vazquez took over the building in early 2017 and by the summer, Cabos Cantina and Grill opened its doors.  Vazquez's brothers Juan and Alfonso, along with his cousin Luis, ran the restaurant while Jose Vazquez came up three times a week from his Peoria restaurant to check in on the operation.  In 2019, a small Mexican restaurant that was in a strip mall near the Walmart on the north side of Davenport closed its doors.  Vazquez took over that spot and opened Cabos Cantina and Grill 2 later that year.  

It was around 6 p.m. when we pulled up to the parking lot at Cabos Cantina and Grill, located just off U.S. Highway 61 at the LeClaire Road exit.  (see map)  There was something going on as a number of vintage and unique sports cars had congregated in the parking lot and the large meeting room they have at Cabos Cantina was filled with the owners of those cars.  When we walked in, we were asked if we were there for the party.  Nope, not us.  But we did notice more people being directed to the party room behind the bar area while we were there.  

Festive and bright colors abound inside Cabos Cantina.  The bar area featured a long bar with a faux brick background with a faux awning over the back bar.  Cabos Cantina features a full bar including domestic and imported beers on tap.   

We were seated in a booth just outside the kitchen entrance to the main dining room.  Booths lined the three walls of the dining area with tables in the center of the area.  There was a small patio area on the front of the restaurant, but it was sort of warm that day and we decided to sit inside.  

As we were seated, we were given menus and it wasn't long before a basket of warm corn chips with a tangy salsa with a hint of cloves and nutmeg was brought to the table.  Surprisingly, my wife didn't order a margarita and stuck with water on this visit.  I got a large Dos Equis Ambar that they had on tap.  

They had an extensive menu at Cabos Cantina - shrimp and seafood dishes, chicken plates, pork and beef entrees were featured on the menu.  Of course, they had the Mexican stand-by's - burritos, fajitas, enchiladas, quesadillas and tacos - to choose from.  Poblano chile peppers stuffed with a choice of ground beef, beef tips, shredded beef or chicken was something that caught my wife's eye right off the bat.  I was sort of interested in the pork chile verde entree they had, as well as the Fiesta Burrito - chunks of pork tenderloin that are simmered in beer and stuffed inside a large flour shell.  The tacos al pastor also got my attention.  

In the end, I went with the chile verde shredded beef enchiladas.  The menu said that it came with two enchiladas, Mexican rice and refried beans.  Since there were only two enchiladas on the plate, I went with a ground beef taco.  Well, imagine my surprise when I found not two, but three shredded beef enchiladas on the plate covered in chihuahua cheese and a tomatillo salsa.  The beef taco was covered with cheese, onions and cilantro.  

My wife got the No. 12 combo - a chile relleno with topped with a beef/tomato sauce (as I said, the stuffed chiles got her attention), a beef burrito, and a beef enchilada covered in a molé sauce.  All three had shredded chihuahua cheese on top.  She exclaimed, "This is a lot of food!"  Well, our friends warned us that the portions were huge.  

My shredded beef enchiladas were very good.  The tomatillo sauce on top wasn't all that salty like you can get with some chile verde sauces.  The shredded beef was moist and easily cut with a fork.  The ground beef taco that I got was also very good.  The beef was slightly seasoned and the freshness of the cheese, cilantro and onions all went well together, flavor-wise.  I was able to finish the taco and put a serious dent in the enchiladas, but I couldn't have finished everything that was in front of me.  

My wife also couldn't come close to finishing everything in front of her.  She said that of the three things on her plate she liked the chihuahua cheese-stuffed chile relleno the best, then the burrito, then the enchilada.  "The molé sauce is a bit too much for me," she said as she pushed her plate away so she wouldn't be tempted to eat any more.  

Our first experience at Cabo Cantina and Grill was a pleasant one.  Service was fast and friendly, the food was very good and there was lots of it, and the atmosphere was festive and inviting.  I thought my shredded beef enchiladas with the tomatillo sauce were very good, as was my beef taco that I really didn't need to get.  My wife really enjoyed the combo platter that she had - a cheese-stuffed chile relleno with a ground beef/tomato sauce, a ground beef burrito with an enchilada sauce, and a ground beef enchilada with a molé sauce.  I was also fixated on the spices in their salsa thinking that I'd like to try to put some crushed cloves or nutmeg in our next homemade salsa just to make it a bit more interesting.  Eldridge is a bit of a drive for us, but we do have a Cabo Cantina and Grill in Davenport that we'll be checking out at some point in the near future.