Last spring, my wife and I spent our anniversary weekend in Decorah, IA. We were downtown and got caught in a downpour that forced us to seek shelter in a local watering hole. (Imagine that!) It turns out this was a place that friends of ours who went to Luther College frequent when they go back for annual weekend gatherings with friends. When my wife and I went on vacation in early July, we took backroads up to northeast Iowa and later into southeast Minnesota. We ended up in Decorah in time for lunch and we decided to give the same bar - T-Bock's - a try.
Mike and Dominique Bockman have been in charge of T-Bock's since they bought the place in 1994. There's not many places for people to gather in Decorah for parties and receptions, but T-Bock's has a downstairs banquet area that will handle up to 60 people for a sit-down event, and an upstairs area that will accommodate up to 200 people for private parties, corporate events and conferences. According to our friends, it is probably the most popular bar for people of all ages in downtown Decorah. And they have over 20 different types of beers on tap, including local and regional craft brews.
On this visit, it was a much nicer day than the previous visit we had to downtown Decorah. It was a beautiful day and we parked down the street from T-Bock's to walk up and down Water Street. Since it was a Sunday, most of the shops were closed, but T-Bock's was open. (see map) We walked into the place and found a booth that was open up in the front part of the bar. There's a backroom on the main floor of T-Bock's that was closed off that day. The atmosphere at T-Bock's is lively with a number of flat-screen televisions, beer signs and sports memorabilia on the brick walls of the restaurant.
It was a tag-team effort for the waitstaff at T-Bock's that day. One young lady came over with menus for us, another one came by to take our drink order. A bloody mary and a Toppling Goliath Pseudo Sue sounded good to me and I ordered both of those up. The server said, "We have our bloody mary bar going just around the corner." Oh! Sure, I can go do my own bloody mary.
My wife is one of those people who has to have three square meals a day. Me, I'm pretty happy with snacking through the day and having a big meal in the evening, so I wasn't looking to get much of anything. T-Bock's has a lot of your typical bar foods - appetizers, burgers, salads, and sandwiches such as a French dip, a reuben, and a sandwich called the Captain's Sandwich which featured thin slices of roast beef topped with melted pepper jack cheese and served on marble rye bread with a side of Country Bob's steak sauce.
Continuing the tag team service, a male server brought our food out to us - I'm guessing he was the manager that day. My wife got the Greek chicken wrap - a locally-raised organic chicken breast that was chopped into smaller pieces, chopped tomatoes and onions, sliced black olives, feta cheese and a Greek vinaigrette in a tortilla wrap. It wasn't big, but it wasn't small. She thought it was pretty good and it satiated her appetite.
I went the appetizer route with a plate of T-Bock's chicken wings. I was supposed to get just a half dozen, but it was deemed by the person making them in the kitchen that they were pretty small so I got 8 instead. The wings also come from locally-raised organic chickens and I had them toss them in T-Bock's house-made Buffalo sauce. I also got the beer-battered onion rings that my wife helped me eat. The chicken wings were much better than the onion rings - I guessed the onion rings were probably from a food purveyor as they didn't have the texture or taste of in-house onion rings. The Buffalo sauce gave the wings a nice little zip in taste.
T-Bock's is pretty basic when it comes to food selections. But that's fine if you know going in that it's a sports bar with an average menu. My wife enjoyed her Greek chicken wrap, while I thought the chicken wings were very good. The onion rings were average, at best. The tag team service we received was prompt and friendly, and the atmosphere is what you'd find at any typical sports bar. There's a few places to eat in Decorah, but if you're looking for a burger or a sandwich for lunch - along with a good selection of craft beers - T-Bock's is fine and dandy for that.
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