On our visits to Muscatine over the years, we've gone past a place a few times that has sort of intrigued us, a place called Missipi Brewing Company (the mis-spelling of Mississippi is intentional, in this case). We actually thought it was a brewpub, but it turns out that it's a longtime bar/restaurant/music venue that the locals refer to as Missipi Brew, or just "The Brew". I had my car in for service at the local Toyota dealership and my wife and I ended up heading down to Missipi Brewing Company for lunch after I got my car back.
The concept for the Missipi Brewing Company actually got its start up river in Rock Island, IL nearly 40 years ago. Oak Brook, IL native Dan Carmody was a 24-year-old guy who took a look at the closed down and boarded up storefronts in financially strapped downtown Rock Island as an opportunity to start his own urban renewal project. Along with his father, John, his brother, Gerry, and a close friend, Jerry Ludden, Carmody started the Rock Island Brewing Company in 1979. At first, it was just a bar and pub grub kind of place, but it wasn't until Dan Carmody did an outdoor music show in the summer of 1979 on the plaza out in front of Rock Island Brewing Company - also affectionately known as RIBCO to the locals - where the Carmody's saw the light that having a music venue would be a good thing.
Sensing a sure-fire good thing ready for expansion, the Carmody family and Ludden looked for other places to open similar music/food/bar venues in the area. In 1980, the group found a spot in Muscatine along River Drive in the old Fitzgerald Building in downtown Muscatine. They took over a long narrow building and built an adjacent outdoor beer garden with a stage for live music. They called the place the Missipi Brewing Company, the quick way some people pronounce Mississippi.
The Carmody's and Ludden eventually opened two more Missipi Brewing Company locations - one in Galesburg, IL and the other one in Moline, IL - within the next year. However, like most rapidly expanding businesses, their expenses exceeded their revenues. Eventually, the group was forced to either sell off or close down their bars.
(Aside No. 1 - A number of years later, Dan Carmody became the general manager of the historic Eastern Market in Detroit, Gerry Carmody became a farm manager in Indiana before succumbing to a heart attack while on vacation in Florida in 2010, and Jerry Ludden became the owner of O'Meara's Pub in Bettendorf, IA, another at-one-time iconic music destination in the Quad Cities that shut down in 2002.)
(Aside No. 2 - over the years since I've lived in the Quad Cities, I've seen a number of national, regional and local musical artists both on the inside stage at RIBCO, as well as on the outdoor stage the City of Rock Island built in the middle of the plaza near the front of RIBCO. Today, the District of Rock Island is a thriving entertainment destination with bars and restaurants. And the impetus for the District began with the Rock Island Brewing Company.)
The group sold the Muscatine Missipi Brewing Company to local Muscatine residents Ron McGowan and Dan Vegter who ran the business for around 11 years. It was in 1994 that McGowan and Vegter sold the bar to local realtor Dave Armstrong and his sister, Mary Kisner. Armstrong and Kisner immediately made their sister, LeAnn Weinke, the general manager of the place. Other family members have chipped in over the years with Armstrong's son, Skippy, eventually become the co-manager of the place.
Pictured right - Dave Armstrong and Mary Kisner. Photo courtesy Muscatine Journal.
From the original bar/restaurant/outdoor patio, Armstrong and Kisner eventually bought the building to the west of them to expand the dining area of the Missipi Brewing Company. Then when a spot on the other side of that building became available, Armstrong and Kisner bought that spot for an indoor music venue and secondary bar. Annually, Missipi Brewing Company hosts over 100 nights of live music indoors and out.
It was right about noon when we pulled up to the front of Missipi Brewing Company just up from River Drive on Iowa Ave. (see map) Parking is at a premium in downtown Muscatine until River Drive is fully open from a major renovation it has been undergoing for the past couple of years, so we parked across 2nd Street on Iowa and walked back to the Brew for lunch.
Inside the front door, we found a long, narrow space with large booths up front, a bar area toward the back and a handful of hightop tables along the wall opposite the bar. The bar/restaurant had an antique tin ceiling, a large beer can collection along shelving high on the walls, and a number of beer signs.
The bar wasn't very big, but they had a number of craft brews on tap. There were a number of flat panel televisions on the wall above and behind the bar. It was a Saturday with a lot of men's college basketball games on that day, but they only had one television turned to basketball - and it was a women's basketball game, at that. I'm sure that if I would have asked they would have changed the channel to some basketball on one of the TV's, but it wasn't that important. In the background, contemporary country music was playing on the bar's sound system.
The next room over is the overflow dining room complete with beer signs and pictures hanging on an exposed brick wall. More booths and regular tables were in that room. And just beyond that room was the indoor music venue with the second bar for Missipi Brewing Company. All told, it was a surprisingly large space that was cut into thirds.
It was a cold late winter day when we were there and the outdoor patio was closed down. It also featured a stage and a bar area with the patio overlooking the Mississippi River beyond River Drive and the Canadian Pacific rail line that parallels River Drive in downtown Muscatine.
We took a seat at one of the high top tables opposite the bar and our server, a lady with the interesting name of Aarin, came over to greet us. Menus were on the table, but I was having trouble reading the beer taps from the glare of the window behind them. She pulled up a tap menu from an iPad she was using and showed me a list of beers they had on tap. She suggested a couple of local beers - an Arms Race pale ale from the Big Grove Brewery in Solon, IA, and the Iowa pale ale from Millstream Brewing Company in the Amana Colonies. My wife took the Arms Race pale ale while I thought I'd do the Iowa pale ale. I've had it before and while Millstream isn't my favorite beer, their pale ale is fine. The Arms Race pale ale, however, was very bold and hoppy. My wife really enjoyed the flavor.
Missipi Brewing Company has what I would call typical bar fare - burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, and wraps. After 5 p.m. their menu expands to include nightly specials and pizza. I was hungry when we got there so a lot of things sounded pretty good to me. And we were pleasantly surprised at the reasonable pricing of some of their offerings on the menu.
My wife ended up getting the Southwestern grilled chicken wrap - large chunks of grilled chicken along with chopped lettuce, red onions and tomatoes with a corn and black bean salsa along with slices of pepperjack cheese rolled into a spinach tortilla. It was a large wrap and she ended up having to pull the second half apart and eat the filling without the tortilla. She thought it was very good.
I went with a "build-your-own" burger - a flame-grilled burger that I had topped with pepperjack cheese, sautéed mushrooms and bacon along with dill pickles and chopped fresh onions. When our server - another one of the ladies working there (they were tag-teaming serving us) - asked if I wanted a side to go along with the burger, I sort of turned up my nose at the fries. She said, "We have waffle fries," and I sort of thought about that for a moment. I asked about onion rings and she sort of hesitated making it appear that maybe she wasn't a fan of their onion rings.
My wife said, "Too bad they don't have tater tots." The young lady lit up and said, "We DO have tater tots!" So, of course, I got the tater tots.
When Aarin brought the burger out to the table, I sort of looked at the bun and was not happy to see that it wasn't toasted. It looked sort of thick and dry. The burger patty was pretty thin, but it looked like it was misshapen from being hand-pattied. But it was topped with an oozing chunk of pepperjack cheese, copious amounts of sautéed mushrooms and a couple three strips of crispy bacon. A generous portion of tater tots accompanied the burger.
My misgivings about the bun quickly vanished when I took my first bite. The bun was light and airy. With the thick cheese on the burger, it was a bit of a mess - a multi-napkin burger, for sure. The flavors all complemented each other, but the fresh onions were especially forward in their taste. I love a good fresh onion on a burger. The bun held everything together very well. While it wasn't an outstanding burger, it was still very good for what it was.
The tater tots were a bit of a disappointment. They had a freezer-burned taste to them, even drips of Tabasco didn't help the taste of them. But my wife didn't seem to mind - she ended up eating a good portion of them. I don't want to say that I'm a tater tot connoisseur, but I know a good tater tot and these were far from it.
But overall, we enjoyed our first visit to the Missipi Brewing Company. After driving by it so many times on prior visits to Muscatine, we're happy we finally made the decision to stop in for lunch. The food was good - not great, but good enough. The service that we experienced was friendly, prompt and efficient. Missipi Brewing Company isn't a fancy place, but it's far from a dive. And don't think that you're going to be able to try any of their beer because it's not a brewpub. But they do have a pretty good selection of craft beers. We were very comfortable in the place and I'd like to go back at some point when the weather is nice to enjoy some drinks on the large outdoor deck. It's another place that is worthy of checking out for lunch when you're in Muscatine.
It's ok - I think you've earned the title of tater tot connoisseur
Posted by: Jeni F | May 03, 2018 at 06:49 AM