Armored Gardens - Davenport, IA

We're always excited to get a new place to eat in the Quad Cities, especially one that features barbecue and a huge beer list - as in 100 beers on tap.  A new place like that opened up last fall and we finally got around to trying the place recently.  Here's what we encountered on our first visit to Armored Gardens.  

Armored Gardens is the third downtown project spearheaded by Dan Bush, a 30-something native of Davenport who also is a co-owner of Analog Arcade Bar - a grown-ups version of an arcade that features over 50 contemporary and classic pinball and video games; and the Triple Crown Whiskey Bar and Raccoon Motel - a live music venue and drinking establishment with an unnecessarily long and unwieldy name.  Along with his father-in-law Rich Cooksey - who has done the build-outs of the first two establishments, as well as the build-out of Armored Gardens - Bush is joined in ownership of his barbecue and beer establishment by Marc Kopcho who worked with Bush in some Jimmy John's outlets that Bush's family owned a few years ago.  The executive chef for Armored Gardens is Daniel Cuneo, a Connecticut native who got his culinary training in New York City before moving out to the Midwest to work at Black Dog Smoke and Ale House in Urbana, IL.  (When I read that about Cuneo in the local paper before the place opened up, it immediately piqued my interest in the place.  I thought Black Dog Smoke and Ale House is one of the finest barbecue joints in the Midwest. And if you click here, you can read the Road Tips entry on the place.)  

Armored Gardens is located on Pershing Ave. in downtown Davenport, between E. 3rd and E. 4th Streets, and across a parking lot from the Hotel Blackhawk.  (see map)  We were able to find some parking on Pershing just down from the restaurant.  The front of the restaurant looks elegant - it was designed to sort of look like a 1960's country club from the outside with large columns flanking the front door.  

The drill at Armored Gardens is that if you want food, they have a counter to the left as you come in.  The menu is on the wall and it consists primarily of smoked meats such as beef brisket, pulled pork, pulled chicken, burnt ends and sausage.  You can also get ribs, but it's by the bone and not available in slabs or half-slabs.  Sandwiches and burritos are also available to order, as well as two different sizes of mac and cheese.  Sides such as fries, baked beans, Mexican cornbread, and blue cheese and bacon potato salad are also available.   

They have a small selection of beers on tap at the food counter.  However, if you want a much larger selection, you'll need to go to the main bar.  This is where they have 100 beers on tap including a large selection of local, regional and national craft beers.  The beer menu is shown on flat screens on the wall high behind the bar, and you order by the number, not the name of the beer.  The only problem was that they weren't in alphabetical order and it was sort of difficult to figure out all they had.  I probably stood there for two minutes looking over the beer menu before settling on a Kona Big Wave Golden Ale.  My wife ended up ordering a Dale's Pale Ale from the Oskar Blues Brewing Company.  I got a pint and the pint glasses at Armored Gardens are a heavy plastic.  My wife asked for a half-pint of her beer and she actually got a glass.  

The dining room features a number of community style picnic tables in the middle of the room with a few tables along the wall.  We took a seat at one of the tables.  It was a spacious area and I'm sure that it could get pretty loud if there were a lot of people in there.  

Out back, they have a very nice patio area that will, no doubt, be used very heavily in the warmer months.  It also featured a number of community-style picnic tables, but they also had fixed umbrellas that will probably cover tables.  There was also a small concrete stage for live music.  Yeah, this is going to be a very nice place to hang in the summer months.

Well, on to the food.  After we ordered at the food counter, got our beers from the main bar (which is sort of a hassle if you're paying by credit or debit card - you have to basically pay twice), and finding a seat in the dining room, our food was brought to our table.  We got a half-pound of the pulled pork and a half pound of the brisket.  We also got a side of their baked beans and my wife wanted to try their Carolina slaw.  

They had three different sauces at a sauce bar in the dining area - a sweet red sauce, a Carolina mustard sauce, and a Carolina white sauce.  I don't care for either mustard or white sauces with barbecue, so I got some of the sweet barbecue sauce.  It was all right - I would have liked for them to have another sauce that would have been a little more spicy.  

The pulled pork was tender and moist, but it was very bland in taste.  There wasn't much of a smoky taste to the meat.  Even putting some of the sweet barbecue sauce didn't do much in zipping up the taste.  The brisket was thick cut, tender and moist, but also lacking in taste.  Once again, there wasn't much of a smoky taste - it tasted like it was cooked more in a conventional oven than in a smoker.  My wife - being the more adventurous of the two of us - got some of the Carolina white.  She said, "Maybe this will help the brisket."  She tried it and immediately said, "Oh, no.  This won't do."  She didn't like the sauce and didn't like the brisket.

The baked beans were also just all right with a healthy amount of kidney beans mixed in with other beans.  There were chunks of pork in the beans, but the baked beans were just OK.  My wife liked the cole slaw at a couple barbecue joints we were at when we were in North Carolina last year.  The combination of the sweet and spicy nature of the Carolina slaw was what she really liked.  But the Carolina slaw at Armored Gardens wasn't all that sweet, but it did have a bit of a spicy bite.  Interestingly, it seemed to have more shaved carrots in the mixture than cabbage.  She decided she didn't care for Armored Gardens version of Carolina cole slaw.

I hate to say this, but we were underwhelmed with the barbecue offerings at Armored Gardens.  We felt the brisket and pulled pork - while moist and tender - were bland in taste.  The baked beans were basically just OK in my book, and the Carolina slaw had a nice spicy bite, but there wasn't a lot of sweetness to offset the spiciness and the shaved carrots overwhelmed the cabbage in the mixture.  Their sauces were more Carolina-centric with a white and a mustard sauce, and they only offered a basic red sweet barbecue sauce.  The beer selection is vast and impressive, but ordering can be a little tedious as the beers are not in alphabetic order on the beer menu board.  If I were invited to go to Armored Gardens to have a beer with friends - especially in the summer months when the wonderful beer patio is open - I would have no problem.  But I'd suggest that we go elsewhere if we want to have food.   

Comments

[Bill]

Boy, I'm glad to see I'm not alone in thinking their barbecue wasn't all that good. Like you, I was hoping this place would have great Q, but it was disappointing. Can't complain about the beer selection and if winter ever goes away that back patio will be a hopping place in the summertime. But, I agree. Go for the beer and go someplace else for the food. Have you tried Ruby's yet?

[Jerry L.]

They keep the beers from breweries together but they are a little all over the place with the list. Good selection though.

[Road Tips]

We have been to Ruby's and we liked it. Look for an upcoming Road Tips post on Ruby's.