Last fall when I was working a event over a weekend, my wife decided to take a road trip on a warm fall day up along the Mississippi River in Eastern Iowa. She ended up in Bellevue, IA and went to a little brew pub called River Ridge Brewing. She talked about how good the beer was there and how friendly the people were. On a cold and blustery Sunday a few weeks ago with nothing going on for us that day, we decided to get in the car and head up to Bellevue to try River Ridge Brewing. And we ended up having lunch at the Flatted Fifth BBQ and Blues restaurant in the historic Potter's Mill in Bellevue.
Potter's Mill is a former grist mill along Big Mill Creek not far from the Mississippi River. The building - one of the oldest in the state of Iowa - dates back to 1845 and featured six large milling stones turned by water turbines from a dam on the creek. E.G. Potter was the first owner of the mill and he had customers for his ground flour all around the Midwest and extending to the Eastern part of the United States and down to New Orleans. Potter sold the mill in 1871 and it changed hands a number of times over the years before the Mill finally closed in 1969.
The neglected property went up for auction in 1980 and it was bought by Dr. Daryll and Carolyn Eggers who had planned to restore the original mill. However, that turned out to be a task that was unfeasible and, in turn, they transformed the property into a restaurant/gift shop. Historical flooding on the Mississippi in 1993 caused the Eggers to close the restaurant. They eventually opened part of the building as a bed and breakfast destination. A couple parties bought the restaurant on contract from the Eggers, but both defaulted causing the Eggers to shutter the place for good in 2011. The building was offered at a deep discount at auction and the City of Bellevue was offered the building at a low price, but it sat empty for three years.
Mark Herman grew up in Mason City, IA and he and his wife, Rachel, were living in Rochester, MN for a number of years. Mark was working as a business administrator for a local church after being a management consultant and owning his own landscaping business for a number of years while Rachel worked as a clinical nurse. Both shared a passion for good food and good blues music, and the two had long harbored a desire to have a restaurant/music venue.
Pictured right - Mark and Rachel Herman. Photo courtesy Dubuque Telegraph-Herald.
Rachel's mother lived about an hour from Bellevue on the Illinois side of the river and the couple would pass through the small river town a number of times each year to and from her mother's home. They always admired the Potter's Mill building and when they found out it was available, they jumped at the chance to buy the property.
Retiring at the church, Mark Herman moved to Bellevue to oversee the building's renovation while Rachel stayed behind to work her job in Rochester, coming to join him on the weekends. She eventually moved full time to Bellevue to live with her husband and the two opened Flatted Fifth in August of 2014. Their chef since Day One has been Andrew Weis, a Bellevue native who was a bus boy at the original restaurant in Potter's Mill as a teenager. After graduating from culinary school in the Twin Cities, Weis went to work at both the Hotel Julien Dubuque and the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque before joining the Herman's in the Flatted Fifth.
As I said, our main idea going to Bellevue that day was to hit River Ridge Brewing, a nanobrewery that has been in business since September of 2016. Two couples - Nick and Kelly Hueneke along with Kelly's brother Jeremy Roth and his wife Nikki - decided to start the brewery after years of experience both as home brewers and working in the industry. Jeremy and Nikki Roth decided to divest themselves from the business in 2018 and the Hueneke's turned to one of their bartenders, Nic Hockenberry, to join them in the business.
Nic's wife, Alison Simpson, also worked at the brewery and when they told Alison's father, Greg Simpson, and her step-mother, Amanda, that they were going to buy into the business, Greg Simpson jumped at a chance to buy part of the business, as well. Greg Simpson had been a beer enthusiast and a home brewer for a number of years in addition to his normal job in as a health care professional and as a political operative in Dubuque. Hockenberry and the Simpson's joined as owners in late summer of last year.
We pulled up in front of River Ridge Brewing around 1 p.m. on that blustery Sunday. It's located on the main road through Bellevue. (see map) Nic Hockenberry and Alison Simpson were behind the bar with Greg Simpson standing at the end of the bar. They welcomed my wife and I into the place, and Greg Simpson asked if we had ever been in the place before. My wife recognized him from her first visit and she said, "Well, he hasn't, but I was here awhile back and talked to you just after you bought into the place." He gregariously welcomed her back as we settled in at the small bar near the front.
River Ridge is not that big of a place, the bar seats about six and there are tables and seating areas along the side and toward the back. Down a hallway past the brewing room is an exit to a beer garden that is open during the warmer months.
We got a couple of beers - the Iowa Bale Ale, a combination American pale ale and Indian pale; and the Oar What IPA that had a great hoppy taste to it. River Ridge tries to buy local ingredients for their beers when they're available. They don't serve food at River Ridge, but they do have two different types of beer cheese spreads and crackers that are available for $7.00. They work with a local cheese maker to make a mild and a spicy cheese spread. My wife thought she needed a little something to tide her over, so I sprung for the mild cheese spread and crackers. The mild cheese spread had a bit of a spicy bite to it and I could almost imagine how more intense the spicy cheese spread would have been. We had a few crackers with cheese and took the remainder home with us.
After finishing up at River Ridge Brewing we made our way down to the historic Potter's Mill building to have something to eat at The Flatted Fifth. (see map) We went inside and were greeted by LouAnn, a friendly lady who showed us to a table on the upper level with a small stage was in the corner. The Flatted Fifth hosts a number of local, regional, national and even international blues artists on their stage on most Saturday nights. In fact, the restaurant/venue gets its name - Flatted Fifth (also known as the Devil's Interval or Devil's Chord) - from the fundamental chord structure and progression used by blues guitarists.
The interior of the main dining area featured hand-hewn rafters and support pillars with stone walls. Old grist mill machinery was on display in some areas. It was warm, laid-back and cozy in The Flatted Fifth - so cozy that Food and Wine Magazine named the restaurant as the most cozy in the state of Iowa in 2017.
Back behind the main dining area was a smaller dining room that was used for overflow in the restaurant. This room had full stone walls with a handful of tables that could handle groups of 4 to 6 people for food.
Since it was Sunday, they were featuring their brunch menu at The Flatted Fifth. LouAnn said they had a special on bloody mary's that day and we had a choice between ones infused with Flatted Fifth's house-made barbecue sauce or a regular bloody mary mixture. I took the BBQ bloody while my wife got the regular one. I also got a pint of the Toppling Goliath Pseudo Sue to go along with my bloody mary. The BBQ bloody was thick and had a spicy taste, but the sweetness of the barbecue sauce was not something that I particularly liked. My wife's bloody mary was also a bit spicy, but I liked the taste of their mixture better than the BBQ bloody mary.
If we would have had access to the regular lunch menu, we would have found a limited selection of Cajun-inspired and barbecued meat sandwiches and some southern entrees such as red beans and rice, chicken pot pie and shrimp & cheesy grits. The dinner menu opens up more choices, especially on the entree side of things including Cajun seafood pasta, chicken Tchoupitoulas, blackened catfish, and a Bourbon Street-style ribeye steak. The brunch menu menu cut down on both the sandwiches and entrees, but featured chicken & waffles, pecan-crusted French toast, and a Cajun omelet stuffed with andouille sausage, shrimp and crawfish meat.
One thing they had as an appetizer that day was a burnt end brisket platter that came with fries. My wife and I decided to give that a try, but we didn't want the fries. She got the cole slaw instead. We were sort of surprised at the number of burnt ends that LouAnn brought out to us. It looked more like a full meal rather than an appetizer. But the burnt ends were very good. They came with Flatted Fifth's sweet and smoky barbecue sauce that had a bit of a spicy kick. The burnt ends were tender and lean, and had a wonderful barbecued/smoked taste quality.
I wanted to try the jambalaya they had on the menu. For brunch you can get a half portion or a full portion. I took the half portion with a side salad that came with it. One again, when LouAnn put the bowl down in front of me I had to ask if this was really a half portion. "It sure is," she replied. I remarked that I could almost imagine how big the full portion would be. "We don't have many people walk out of here who are still hungry," LouAnn commented. The jambalaya was a mixture of smoked chicken and andouille sausage in a creole sauce with the holy trinity of onions, bell peppers and celery on top of a bed of Cajun-style rice. It was good - not the best jambalaya I've had - but it was still passable. Especially when I got it a bit more spicy with some dashes of Tabasco sauce. I concentrated mostly on the chicken and sausage sauce and left most of the rice. Between the burnt ends, bloody mary's and jambalaya - not to mention some of the crackers and cheese spread that we had at River Ridge Brewing - that was pretty much all we were going to eat that day.
After finishing up with our meal, LouAnn invited us to head upstairs to the third floor to the art gallery/coffee shop the Herman's dubbed "A Corner to Fill." This used to be the bed-and-breakfast part of Potter's Mill years ago. There's an elevator that we took up to the third floor that came out on a landing with a view of the mouth of Big Mill Creek with the Mississippi River just beyond.
The third floor space features a cozy little combination gift shop/art gallery/coffee shop and seating area. There was a young girl manning the area and we were the only ones in there.
The rooms featured a number of paintings and artworks by local artists. Rachel Herman's mother and Mark Herman's sister both had a strong connection to the arts and they dedicated the area in Potter's Mill to the two ladies.
This is the type of place where my wife likes to linger and look around. The area featured tables and chairs where people could enjoy coffee and pastries while playing board games. We were kind of surprised we were the only ones there as it was sort of a nice little place to hang.
We made our way down the stairs to the second floor and walked into a large room that appeared to be used for private functions, meetings and receptions. There wasn't really much to see in there other than some of the original woodwork in the room.
It was certainly a good trip to Bellevue that day with a stop at River Ridge Brewing, then lunch at The Flatted Fifth located in the historic Potter's Mill building. While we enjoyed the beers along with the beer/cheese spread at River Ridge, we were more than happy with the burnt ends and the jambalaya we had at The Flatted Fifth. Potter's Mill is still a very unique place to visit, a place we'd been by many times over the years but finally took the time to visit on this trip. If you're ever out on the Great River Road along the Mississippi south of Dubuque, take the time to stop for lunch or dinner at The Flatted Fifth, and then head over to River Ridge Brewing for a good craft beer.
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