Maid-Rites are truly an Iowa phenomena (or is it phenomenon?). Started in 1926 in Muscatine, Iowa, legend has it that a customer told the owner while he was eating one, "These are made right!" Obviously, the name stuck, even though people in Muscatine couldn't spell correctly.
Maid-Rites are pretty simple - they're just loose meat sandwiches. Instead of cooking up the ground beef in a patty form, the beef is either steamed or boiled in broth. That's it. They're served on a bun and they're wrapped up in wax paper because when you eat the damn things the beef falls out all over the place. But as soon as you're done with the sandwich, you've got almost enough meat on the paper for ANOTHER sandwich. But you just eat that up with a spoon and call it done.
Some people like the sandwiches dipped in the broth to make the buns wet. Personally, I like mine dry.
Maid-Rites have evolved into a loose affiliation of independent franchisees over the years, with no one Maid-Rite being the same. One in one town is different from the one in another town. Some serve things other than Maid-Rites, others are just Maid-Rite shops.
In the late 90's, a company bought the rights to the Maid-Rite name. This company became Maid-Rite Corporation and they thought they'd make a buck selling franchises to unsuspecting suckers who saw a gold mine at the ones in towns across Iowa. The only problem is that the corporate owners wanted uniformity with all their franchisees. And that included the way the Maid-Rites were made.
Instead of making the meat on site at each restaurant, the meat was made at a location in Des Moines, frozen and sent out to each franchise. Then instead of warming the meat up in a steamer, they would micro-wave the Maid-Rite - a major no-no in the eyes of Maid-Rite aficionados.
The new Maid-Rites also started serving broasted chicken. Chicken! In a frigging Maid-Rite? No way. And then the flagship operation in Clive, IA sold PIZZA for a while! PIZZA! In a MAID-RITE! What in the hell are these geniuses thinking?
They've actually put a few out there in towns across Iowa. But I'm tellin' ya - check out the list of corporate franchised Maid-Rites on their website and stay away from them.
Wait a minute - just to tell you how bad they are - they opened one in Coralville, IA on the infamous strip. About six or seven months later, it closed down. The new Maid-Rites have absolutely no soul to them.
Now, the long time Maid-Rites seem to be going well. Even the ones in the Quad-Cities (see my blog), which really are not as good as the ones in the other towns, seem to be doing well. 
The most famous of the Maid-Rites is probably Taylor's Maid-Rite in Marshalltown, IA. (Click here to see my entry on Taylor's Maid-Rite.) And I think that's only because they were smart enough to grab the www.maidrite.com domain name. They actually ship Maid-Rites across the nation. One can only imagine how they taste when they get to L.A. or NYC.
One of the more unique things about Taylor's Maid-Rite is that they don't serve ketchup, kind of a tradition thing that I think dates back to the fact that the original Maid-Rite owner in Muscatine was cheap and didn't serve ketchup at his Maid-Rite. That tradition is still held by the Taylor family today.
By default (since the original Maid-Rite in Muscatine closed a few years ago), the oldest Maid-Rite is the one in Newton, IA. (Click here to see my review on the Newton Maid-Rite along with an in-depth history of the evolution of Maid Rite.) It opened up in 1927 - a year after the first Maid-Rite opened in Muscatine. (Taylor's Maid-Rite opened in 1928 - the Newton Maid-Rite, also known as Mr. Dan's Sandwich Shoppe - is the oldest family owned Maid-Rite in existence.)
I'm nearly 50 and the Newton Maid-Rite has been owned by only two guys during my lifetime - Bud Holland and Dan Holtkamp.
I'm partial to the one in Newton, since I grew up outside of town and grew up on Maid-Rite's. I think the one in Newton is the best of all the Maid-Rites that I've eaten in. I asked Dan one time what he did to make the meat so good and he said that the Newton Maid-Rite has been buying meat from the same supplier for over 40 years. He grinds it himself in the basement of the place, and the steamer has to be about 45 years old (I think they moved into their present location around 1960).
It's tough to duplicate a Newton Maid-Rite and God knows I've tried. But I've come up with a recipe that I think comes about as close to the Newton Maid-Rites that one can get. Hell, even if Dan told me that he cooked the meat in pig's urine, I'd still eat the things.
Dan also makes good chili in the winter time and my favorite meal is a Maid-Rite and a bowl of chili - and when I'm done with the sandwich, I take the leftover meat and pour it into the chili. Killer...
Another good Maid-Rite is the one in Marion, IA. The Marion Maid-Rite is more of a full service restaurant including diverse items like pizzaburgers, pork sandwiches, salads, which I think is somewhat blasphemous. But they get points back from me as they're the only Maid-Rite that I've ever been in that serves beer. The Marion Maid-Rite opened in 1986 and their Maid-Rites are arguably as good as the ones in Marshalltown and Newton.
But many people who grew up in the Ottumwa area feel the best loose-meat style sandwiches come from the Canteen Lunch. (Click here to see my entry on Canteen Lunch.) They're passionate about the Canteen and their loose-meat burgers, so much so that the entries on the Canteen have been some of the most read in the history of Road Tips.
There are some other non-corporate Maid-Rites around the state of Iowa and into Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin, but Maid-Rites are purely Iowan. I'm just glad the corporate Maid-Rite guys haven't made the ones in Marshalltown, Newton and Marion change the way they're making and serving their sandwiches.
Geez, now I'm hungry...
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