I've been hesitant on doing a post on a restaurant called me & Billy in downtown Davenport that we've been to about four or five times since it opened nearly 4 years ago. The reason is because I know the owners, they live in our neighborhood, and I've had what I would not call stellar experiences during a couple of my previous visits to the restaurant. But after a recent visit, I thought I'd do a write up of the place and share my thoughts.
When I first moved to the Quad Cities over 25 years ago, one of the first people I met was a local tavern owner Bill Collins. Bill came from a large, well-known and well-connected family in the Quad Cities - his father, the late Dr. John Collins, was a general practitioner in Davenport for nearly 40 years. (When my wife and I moved to our present house 15 years ago, Bill Collins' parents lived two doors down from us.) Ironically, I didn't first meet Bill at his bar at the time - the venerable Mac's Tavern in downtown Davenport (click here to read about Mac's Tavern). I first met Billy when he came in to the audio/video store I was managing looking to have us put in a projection system for a big screen television. After making the sale and supervising the installation, I started to hang out at Mac's. For years it was my go-to place to have a beer and socialize in the Quad Cities.
Bill and his wife Mary eventually sold Mac's Tavern after a 15 year run and Billy worked a few gigs at bars and restaurants around the area for a few years after. Mary and Billy eventually moved to a house a couple blocks away from us in Davenport. We always thought that Billy would end up running his own place again, but it wasn't until the Collins' daughter Fran moved back to the area around 2010 that the idea for her to run a restaurant started to sprout.
Fran Collins Maus had grown up with Mac's Tavern and she had the restaurant bug in her bones. She eventually studied hotel management at the University of Iowa and she and her husband, Jordan, lived in the Chicago area for around five years. After moving back to the Quad Cities, she saw a void in the marketplace for a gastropub-type of place that Fran came to love while living in Chicago. She focused on downtown Davenport that was undergoing a renovation renaissance with a number of old buildings.
Pictured right - Fran Collins Maus. (Photo courtesy Quad City Times.)
Fran Collins Maus settled on a site that used to be the old United Cigar Building at the corner of 3rd and Main in downtown Davenport. (see map) A local insurance executive and the co-owners of a local construction company had purchased the building and were renovating the space when Fran approached them about her idea for a restaurant. It wasn't long before the plans came to fruition and work on a full-fledged restaurant started up.
Co-owning the restaurant with her mother, Fran Collins Maus opened me & Billy in the fall of 2013. The name for the restaurant came from the name of a rowboat her grandparents had given her father and his younger brother, Dave, when they were young boys. Billy Collins is basically the general manager of the restaurant, recreating his gregarious and outgoing nature as he greets customers while darting from table to table making sure things are all right. And the other two Collins daughters - Sarah and Tricia - have significant roles in the restaurant, as well.
As I said, we've been to me & Billy a handful of times in the past. We were there for a birthday party not long after they opened and they actually ran out of some food items on the menu that evening. (Bill confessed to me that they weren't prepared for the large crowd that showed up that evening.) We went back another time a few weeks later and had a very good New York strip steak they had on special that evening. However, we were there with another couple not long after that and I had a burger that was literally inedible. (Billy told me that they were having problems with a chef in the kitchen and I believe he was let go not long after that evening.) We were a little skittish about going back to me & Billy, but my wife and I went there last summer and had a nice meal. On this trip to me & Billy, we had met up with some friends of ours for a couple pre-dinner drinks before the four of us went down to me & Billy for dinner.
It was a Saturday night and it was typically busy - and loud - in me & Billy. The restaurant features a number of hip cocktails and drink selections, and it's become a popular place with many of the young adults in the community. me & Billy is known for their ever-changing selection of premium martinis, their Moscow Mules (one of Billy's favorite drinks), and their fishbowl drinks that are usually a hit with the 20-somethings who are willing to share a $30 dollar vodka or rum drink mixed with a choice of a berry puree, Sprite, cranberry juice or lemonade. (I've heard that they will not serve a fishbowl to a single person, although a friend of mine thinks that I could probably finish off a whole lemonade/vodka fishbowl at me & Billy.) Here's a picture of one of me & Billy's fishbowl drinks that I lifted from their Facebook page.
We were greeted at the hostess stand up front by Mary Collins who appeared to be frazzled by the large crowd in the place that night. Billy Collins was not there that evening, he was out of town attending some function and I could tell that Mary wished he would have been there that night. She told us it would be 15 to 20 minutes before we could get a table. We went to the bar area for a moment and I went off to use the restroom. When I got back to the bar area where we were waiting, Mary came over and said in a somewhat clandestine fashion, "Hey, you guys! Come on. I have a table for you." She took us to a table directly behind the hostess stand. She took care of us that evening.
The lay-out at me & Billy's features a dining room with high tiled-ceilings with exposed metal ductwork, large windows that look out onto Main Street and 3rd Ave., and tiled pillars. Because of that, the place can get loud pretty quickly. And with a large crowd in there, it was very loud.
The bar area of the place features a wide and ornate back bar with a long dark walnut front bar. Billy told me the story of how he had found and repurposed the bar for the restaurant, but I can't remember exactly where he got it from. But it's a very nice bar and it always seems to be full whenever we're in there.
There is also a rather large reception/party room behind the bar. My wife has attended a function in the reception room and she said it was a very nice area. It has its own bar area with a lighted "Cheers" sign behind it spelled out in cursive.
Mary had dropped off menus for us to look through before our server for the evening, Katie, came over to greet us. me & Billy also has a nice selection of craft beers on tap, in bottles and in cans. I ended up ordering a Ruthie, a nice deep blonde lager from the Exile Brewing Co. located in Des Moines. The only problem was that it was woefully flat. I let Katie know that it was flat and they needed to change out the keg. I ended up ordering a Lagunitas IPA for my second beer that Katie didn't charge me for.
Appetizers, salads, sandwiches and burgers make up much of the menu at me and Billy. They also have a short entree list that consists of items such as a flat iron steak, a seared tuna filet, shrimp and grits, and a brined pork chop dusted with smoked paprika. They'll also have nightly specials from time to time at me & Billy.
And I happened to get one of the special that evening - the hot brown sandwich. This was me & Billy's take on the Louisville favorite of the open-faced turkey sandwich with sliced tomatoes, a creamy cheese sauce, with shredded cheddar and parmesan cheese on top, then broiled. It filled a good portion of the plate with some fries on the side.
However, there seemed to be a distinct petroleum taste to the hot brown at me & Billy. I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but it tasted like it was sort of a burnt propane taste to the top of the sandwich. Then I realized that they had taken a propane torch to the shredded cheese on top of the hot brown instead of putting it under the broiler for a few minutes. The cheese was scorched. Once I figured out that was the root of the unpleasant taste on the sandwich, I just pulled that off and ate the rest of the hot brown. It was actually pretty good, except for the propane taste on the cheese.
Our friends went the sandwich/burger route. My buddy went with me & Billy's pork tenderloin sandwich. He said he had gotten it before and he thought it was very good. This one seemed to be no exception. He got his breaded, but the thick cut pork tenderloin is also available grilled. The pork tenderloin sandwich comes on a pretzel bun with pickles and red onion slices with a side of fries.
His wife got the Franny Burger named after Fran Collins Maus. It is topped with a slice of American cheese, then topped again with cheese curds. And if you can't get enough cheese on the burger, it comes with a side bowl of what appeared to be the same cheese sauce that was on my hot brown. It, too, was on a pretzel bun and came with fries.
My wife ended up getting the bison burger topped with white cheddar cheese, lettuce, grilled onions, a garlic aioli, and served on a whole grain bun. Instead of fries for a side, she got a salad with their housemade garlic parmesan dressing. She thought her bison burger was very good.
me & Billy also has a "Build-Your-Own-Burger" part of their menu that features a regular burger patty (or a chicken breast or veggie patty), then you have your choice of six different types of cheese. Toppings include avocado slices, fried egg, pickled red peppers, bacon marmalade, and even mac & cheese. If they aren't overcooked to death like they did the first time I was there, it can be a pretty good burger - just like the one that I had on my previous visit to me & Billy.
Once again, I had mixed results at me & Billy. In the handful of times I've been there, I've had a couple of bad experiences. But then I've had some good experiences on other occasions. On this visit, there were the minuses - the flat draft beer and the petroleum taste on the melted cheese on top of my sandwich. But the pluses were the rest of the hot brown sandwich tasted very good after I pulled the scorched cheese off the top, and our server was very good. Everyone in our group liked their food - the Franny Burger, the bison burger and the breaded tenderloin sandwich. I really want the Collins family to succeed, and it appears that they're doing very well given the crowds that are in me & Billy every time we've been there. I only wish there would be some more consistency in the foods I've been served there.
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