Road Tips

Boozie's Bar & Grill - Davenport, IA

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a halt to dine-in options for restaurants and bars across the nation.  Travel has also been curtailed as social distancing practices have become the new norm for the time being.  If you've noticed a slowdown in my posts, that's pretty much why.  My wife and I have tried to do our best to support some of the local restaurants by getting food or craft beers to-go during the crisis, but we do miss having the option of heading out for dinner and relaxing with a couple drinks or beers with the meal in a restaurant.  

The night before the mandatory shutdown of restaurants and bars for dining in was to take effect in Iowa, my wife and I decided we had better go out somewhere and get something to eat.  Actually, I was to meet a couple three friends for burgers and beers that evening over in Iowa City, but that was canceled at the last moment.  I had been craving a good burger all day long and with that rug pulled out from underneath me, I still wanted a burger.  My wife suggested we give a place in downtown Davenport another try - a place we had not been back to in over 20 years before of, well, slow and indifferent service.  However, they stayed in business in spite of that - and I heard that they still had a pretty good burger - so we ended up going to Boozie's Bar & Grill that evening.  

Boozie's has been a staple in downtown Davenport since 1979.  Evidently, the first owner of Boozie's had a cat by the name of "Boozie".  That's why there's a cat on the logo.  I've never been able to find who the original owner of Boozie's was, but I do know that Mark McClintock became the owner of the place in 2007.  

Friends of mine who knew McClintock said that he was a gregarious and fun-loving person.  And he transformed Boozie's into a fun place and away from its former "upscale dive-bar" reputation that included slow service and an aloof waitstaff.  

Unfortunately, Mark McClintock is no longer with us.  A couple days after Christmas in 2018, McClintock was driving home at 2:30 in the morning after closing Boozie's for the night.  He veered off the road and struck a telephone pole.  He was found unresponsive by first responders.  Investigators surmised that he may have had a medical condition that caused the crash.

The Boozie's staff, clientele and McClintock's family were devastated by his death.  However, Boozie's was open again the next day because the staff knew that's what McClintock would want them to do.  Soon after his death, his sister Monica McKown took over the ownership of Boozie's.    

When I first moved to the Quad Cities in 1991, I heard from many of the locals that Boozie's had the best burger in town.  They certainly won their fair share of "Reader's Choice" awards from local publications, but I had learned years before that usually means the owner is having employees, friends and family stuff the ballot box.  My wife and I finally did try a burger at Boozie's around 1994 - it was during a lunch break and we met at Boozie's and each ordered a burger almost as soon as we sat down.  The place was not very busy as it was after the noon lunch rush, but it took forever for the burgers to get to our table - as in nearly a half-hour after we had placed our order.  And my wife only had a had a half-hour for her lunch.  She had to end up taking hers back to her office to eat it.  She wasn't happy as she caught some grief from her boss for coming back 15 minutes late from lunch, PLUS having to eat her lunch at her desk.  

We thought we'd try them out again one evening a few months after.  The waiter we had was dressed in a snap-button tuxedo shirt with a crisp black vest - that's how they used to dress their waiters at Boozie's over 25 years ago as the owner at the time somehow tried to "class up" the joint.  Once again, we both ordered their signature "Boozie Burger" and, once again, it took nearly 30 minutes for the burgers to show up to the table.  The waiter was sort of condescending when we inquired about our burger order, intimating that they were busy in the kitchen.  Looking around the dining area, there weren't that many people in the place.  The burger was good, but the experience left a sour taste in our mouth.  

Our final visit to Boozie's occurred in 1998 on a drunken outing with friends on a Friday night.  We didn't eat there that night - we probably should have - but the place was packed with people of all ages enjoying the start of the weekend.  Since then, we just never thought about giving Boozie's a try.  Until this particular evening.  

We were able to find a parking spot in front of Boozie's on the north side of W. 3rd St. - the eastbound one-way street in downtown Davenport.  (see map)  Boozie's is easy to spot with their large awning out front and stairs that lead up to their front door.  

The building that Boozie's is in dates back to 1899 when it was initially used as the offices of the Davenport Water Company and a doctor's office on the street level entrance.  A livery stable and a brothel may - or may not - have been housed in the property at some point in time.  A construction company used the space for their offices a number of years ago and it also housed the Trio Restaurant.  By the 60's, the space was converted to a retail boutique, then it became an antique store.  In the mid-70's, the-then owner put in a tavern - the Ballister Pub - before the original owner of Boozie's bought the business and named his bar after his cat.  

It was pretty sparse in terms of people in Boozie's that evening - Monday nights are usually not a hot time for many restaurants.  And coupled with the growing uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic, not a lot of people were out and about.  Boozie's main floor dining/bar area was festooned with St. Patrick's Day banners and bling for the annual celebration that happened to be the next day.  However, the announcements that all bars and restaurants would be closed came the next morning and very few revelers were out and about before the bars were shut down at noon.  

We took a table on the walk-up level close to the front of the building.  Boozie's also has an upstairs dining/party area and I understand that they also have a small outdoor patio area attached to their building.  It has to be in back because Boozie's is locked in by other buildings on either side.  

Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Kelly.  She gave us a couple menus to look over and also said they had $3.00 23-ounce domestic draws that evening as part of their happy hour.  Not one to pass up a good bargain, I took one of those.  My wife went with her usual Tito's Vodka and cranberry juice.  

As I said, Boozie's is famous for their eponymous burger which starts with a grilled 1/3 pound beef patty that's topped with three different types of cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mayo and a house-made sauce.  It's served on a sesame seeded bun with a side of your choice.  But Boozie's also has a number of other sandwiches on the menu including a reuben, either a grilled or breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, a cheesesteak sandwich, and a BLT.  They also have wraps and salads on the menu.  Appetizers such as chicken wings, fried pickles, mozzarella cheese sticks, nachos and Santa Fe-style egg rolls stuffed with smoked chicken, black beans, corn, and pepper jack cheese were available, as well.  

My wife was thinking about getting an appetizer and she proposed getting a basket of the fried cauliflower.  But, quite frankly, I didn't really want any deep-fried appetizers that evening.  She ended up ordering a cup of Boozie's baked potato soup.  It was a creamy concoction with chunks of potatoes in a thick butter/cream base.  Chopped green onions, bacon bits and shredded cheddar cheese garnished the top of the soup.  She thought it was very good.  In fact, my wife raved about how good the soup was.  After a bit, she ended up offering me a bite.  And I will say that it was pretty good - rich and hearty with that creamy/butter taste.  She seemed to like it better than I did, however.

We both ended up going with the Boozie Burger.  My wife got the pasta salad that she thought was very good.  She offered me a bite of the pasta salad and I sort of recoiled at the taste.  It had somewhat of a fishy taste to it - at least it did to me.  My wife thought I was nuts as she thought it was some of the best pasta salad she had ever tasted at a restaurant.  It did nothing for me and I'm glad I didn't order it for my side.  

My Boozie Burger came with basic crinkle-cut fries.  (Cottage cheese, sweet potato fries and cole slaw were the other options.  A few more sides were available for an upcharge.)  I knew I wouldn't be interested in the fries when I first saw them. Like my wife's burger, American cheese was melted over the top of the patty.  The sesame seeded bun was lightly grilled and the crown was slathered with mayo.  A pile of veggies came on the side of the burger platter.  

By the time I was finished putting on the veggies and some condiments, the burger was piled high.  And my first bite told me that this was a pretty good burger.  The patty was juicy and had a robust beef taste that wasn't overpowered with everything on top of it.  Multiple napkins were needed as the juice and cheese oozed with each bite.  The bun wasn't really up for the rigors of the juicy and cheesy nature of the burger - especially with the mayo and the house sauce (which I really couldn't taste) adding to the mess.  The bun sort of disintegrated about 3/4's of the way through me eating it.  It didn't hold up well.  

On this visit, our service was impeccable.  The burger was served to us less than 20 minutes after we ordered, and that may have been because my wife had ordered a cup of soup to start out giving her some time to enjoy the soup without the burger coming out way too early.  Nonetheless, Kelly's service was friendly and prompt.  

Since it had been over 20 years since the last time we'd been to Boozie's some things changed and others didn't.  The biggest change we noticed was that service was much more quick and friendly than the previous times we'd been there (and chose not to go back because of it).  But what stayed the same was the atmosphere and the taste of the Boozie Burger.  I can't call it the best burger in the Quad Cities - things like that are all so subjective - but I did think it was very good.  My wife raved about the house-made pasta salad and the baked potato soup.  Either my taster was off that evening or her tastes are vastly different from mine as I felt the pasta salad had a fishy taste to it and the potato soup was good, but not as good as she thought it was.  Nonetheless, for our first visit back to Boozie's in over 20 years, we decided that we could put them back into our rotation for weekend afternoon burger joints that we like to visit.  

Tired Texan BBQ - Omaha, NE

I was out in Omaha a few weeks ago for a private function at one of my accounts.  I had some time to kill before the event started and I was thinking it may be a good idea to go get something to eat as I didn't know how long I'd be tied up with the function.  I did a quick look for restaurants not too far away and a barbecue place turned up in my search.  It was just down the road a bit from my account and I took off for a quick dinner at Tired Texan BBQ.

The couple who owns Tired Texan - Chip and Christine Holland - aren't even from Texas.  Chip Holland grew up in Birmingham, AL and Christine grew up in the Omaha suburb of Ralston.  But it was in Birmingham where Chip Holland learned all about true Texas barbecue when he was a teenager working for Ira "Tex" Ellison who owned the original Tired Texan Barbecue. 

Tex Ellison grew up in Texas and joined the United States Navy just after World War II ended in 1945, weeks before his 17th birthday.  In 1948, he was told that he could learn electronics if he transferred to the U.S. Marine Corps.  After transferring to the Marines, Ellison learned about new technologies of the day - primarily radar and televisions.  After finishing his electronics training, Ellison was stationed at the Marine Corps air station near El Toro, CA where he became the first African-American air traffic radar technician in the armed forces. 

While he was stationed at El Toro, Ellison missed the authentic Texas barbecue that he loved to eat growing up and he decided to do something about it.  Along with his wife, Madeline, Ellison fashioned a small barbecue joint at the air base that he ran part-time until he was transferred in 1959 to Merritt Field, a Marine Corps air base just outside of Beaufort, SC.  

Ellison wanted to do barbecue at his new posting, but noted that there weren't any buildings suitable at Merritt Field for a barbecue shack.  Ellison had a group of Marine privates under his command and he commissioned them to build a small place that would house his barbecue joint.  In the early 60's, Tex and Madeline Ellison opened the Tired Texan Country Club that sold barbecue at Merritt Field.  As a second side job from his duties with the Marine Corps, Tex Ellison also repaired television sets for the Marines and their families stationed at Merritt Field.  

After Ellison was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1967, he "retired" to Birmingham, AL where Madeline was from.  Knowing that barbecue would be big in Alabama, he found a small concrete block hut on the north side of Birmingham and opened up Tired Texan BBQ.  It was open only three or four days a week - Tex was still fixing televisions on the side - and while open hours would be sporadic, they would sometimes stretch deep into the night.  But everyone from cops, lawyers, prostitutes, doctors and late-night revelers knew when Tex's barbecue joint was open from the smell of smoked meats emanating from the smoker.  

Tex eventually moved Tired Texan BBQ to a building not far from Legion Field on the west end of downtown Birmingham.  It was at this location where 16-year-old Chad Holland first came to work for Ellison and to learn the art of Texas barbecue. Ellison's specialties were ribs, brisket, pulled pork, smoked chicken, and sausage.  But he didn't let a lot of other parts of the meats go to waste, either.  Tex Ellison was famous for a sandwich that used parts of unused pulled pork, sausage, chicken necks, gizzards, livers - anything that he could grind up and throw in the smoker.  He topped the ground meats with an ultra hot sauce whose recipe he traded his delectable pig ears for with a local Mexican restaurant owner.  Tex and Madeline would watch as customers who bought the sandwich would go through cups and cups of sweet tea to get the burn out of their mouth.  

By the mid-90's, however, Ellison was truly a "tired Texan".  He was in his late 60's and his wife was in her mid-60's.  Headaches of running a restaurant mounted over the years, and a beauty shop had moved in next door to him and complained that there was no parking in their shared lot when Tired Texan was open.  Tex thought that he'd had enough, but there was one last event that he felt he needed to stay open for.  

In 1996, the Summer Olympics were held in Atlanta, but a number of college football stadiums in the southeast were used for preliminary round soccer games.  Birmingham hosted seven of those matches at Legion Field, walking distance from Ellison's barbecue joint.  Many of the fans from other countries didn't come to Tired Texan BBQ, but for some reason the Mexican fans did.  And they spent a lot of money on his barbecue.  Once the Mexican national team was eliminated by eventual Olympic gold medal winner Nigeria in Birmingham, it wasn't long that Tex closed his doors to the Tired Texan BBQ.  

Tex couldn't shake the barbecue jones, however, and he was invited to open a small barbecue joint inside the local VFW hall in Birmingham.  He did that for a short while before he suddenly and mysteriously disappeared one evening in late 2001.  A few weeks later, Ellison's car - with him in it - was found in a river about 35 miles east of Birmingham.  A Honda automobile assembly plant had opened in Lincoln, AL, about 45 miles to the east of Birmingham, and Ellison had talked about putting up a trailer with a smoker to sell barbecue to workers at the plant there.  It was said that Ellison - who was diabetic - suffered a seizure or became disoriented during the drive between Birmingham and Lincoln when he went to check on things at the Honda plant and drove off the road and into the Coosa River.  Ellison was 72 at the time of his death.  

After learning from a mentor such as Tex Ellison, Chad Holland used his in-depth training at making Texas-style barbecue at various restaurants in the Birmingham area for a number of years.  When he would travel back to Omaha to visit Christine's family, he would try some of the barbecue joints in the city.  While he thought many of the places were good, he thought he could do something a little bit better.

Pictured at right - Christine and Chad Holland

A business opportunity opened in late 2016 when a Perkins location on Omaha's southwest side had closed and became available.  The Hollands felt that it was time to make their move back to Omaha and open their own place.  After renovations and the installation of barbecue smokers, the Hollands opened Tired Texan BBQ - the name was a homage to Tex Ellison and blessed by Ellison's widow for the Hollands to use.

Like any new restaurant, there are going to be growing pains and Tired Texan had their share.  Staying true to the methods Tex Ellison taught him as a teenager, Chip Holland cooked his meats low-and-slow.  Briskets and pork butts would take 15 to 18 hours to cook.  Ribs would take about 5 hours.  And his smoker capacity was limited at first.  On many days, Tired Texan would run out of meat before they were scheduled to close.  And after a favorable review came out in a local publication, more people would come to try his smoked meats.  And sometimes that meat would run out sometime after the lunch rush.  It angered many first time visitors who were greeted with "Sorry, Out of Food" signs hung on the door.  But barbecue purists knew that the best places usually do run out of meat early on.  However, once the Hollands were able to expand their smokers, continually running out of ribs, brisket or pork during the course of a day became a thing of the past.  

It was a little past 6 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot of the Best Western Plus/Kelly Inn Hotel near the corner of S. 108th and L Streets.  (see map)  Tired Texan BBQ is attached to the hotel - a place I used to stay at from time to time when I would come out to Omaha for business a long number of years ago.  

As you enter, there's a bar area with corrugated metal facings on the bar.  9 or 10 chairs were positioned at the bar with Edison lighting hanging from the ceiling over the bar itself.  I thought a moment of just sitting at the bar, but the place wasn't all that busy so I waited for a hostess so I could get a seat in the dining area.

A young lady came out from the kitchen area behind the bar and greeted me at the hostess stand.  She took me to a booth further back in the restaurant.  The walls were paneled with faux barn boards, but tastefully done.  The booths were spacious and comfortable.  Behind two rolling barn stall doors was another room that could be used for overflow or private gatherings.  

Another young lady by the name of Lisa came by to tell me that she'd be with me in a moment.  She came back a couple minutes later to take my drink order.  I got an IPA from the Pint Nine Brewing Company that is located a couple three miles just south of Tired Texan BBQ.  

The menu wasn't that deep in terms of barbecue offerings.  Tired Texan featured brisket, pulled pork and pork spare ribs for their barbecued meat offerings.  I was sort of surprised to not see smoked chicken or the Texas barbecue staple of sausage on the menu.  They did have barbecue sandwiches, a burger and a breaded chicken breast sandwich on the menu.  For appetizers, they had a couple interesting items that included the Texas Tumbleweeds - small deep-fried balls consisting of shredded potatoes, bacon and cheddar cheese; and their Texas Loaded Fries that were fresh-cut French fries topped with a choice of either chopped brisket or pork and their house-made baked beans, then finished with smoked cheddar cheese and barbecue sauce.  That sounded great as a meal just by itself.

Lisa came back with my beer and to tell me about the special they had that evening - burnt ends with a choice of side and a corn muffin.  I was thinking of getting the two meat combo of pulled pork and brisket, but when she told me they had burnt ends I was sort of torn.  I asked her if there was a way I could get all three.  She said that they sell meat by themselves by the quarter pound.  "You can get the burnt end special and get a quarter pound each of the brisket and pulled pork," she explained to me.  

And that's exactly what I did.  For my side, I took the baked beans out of the choices of potato salad, fries, mac & cheese, creamed corn, cole slaw - your way: a choice of poppyseed, creamy, vinegar or peppercorn ranch mixed in.  The baked beans came with fried onions on top.  The meal was served on a small cookie sheet on a sheet of wax paper.  

The burnt ends were plump, juicy and had a great smoky flavor.  They were basted in Tired Texan's house barbecue sauce that had a sort of sweet and vinegary taste to it.  I thought the regular sauce was just OK.  Their "hot" sauce was similar in taste only more sassy with a bit more of a zippy flavor on the tongue.  It wasn't spicy, per se, but it definitely woke up my taste buds.  I liked it better than the regular sauce.

The pulled pork was moist and juicy, and it also had a great smoked flavor.  But the brisket was just outstanding.  The beef was tender and delicious.  It had a deep dark red smoke ring along the top near the bark.  With a bit of the hot barbecue sauce on all the meats, it was a wonderful taste explosion.  

The baked beans were very good, as well.  It turned out that the fried onions - the same kind you put on green bean casseroles at Thanksgiving time - were a nice touch that I had never seen before or even thought of as a companion with baked beans.  Adding some of the hot barbecue sauce zipped up the taste of the beans even more.  

Now, this was a LOT of food.  There was no way that I was going to be able to finish this meal in one sitting.  I didn't even touch the cornbread muffin - I don't care for cornbread all that much - and there was still a slice of brisket and similar sized piles of pulled pork and burnt ends left on the platter.  I had also finished just about four bites of the beans.  I thought I'd take the rest to go and have it for lunch the next day before I left Omaha.  

The only problem is that from the time that I got there just after 6 p.m. to the time I was finished eating, the place had filled up and filled up quickly.  The three young ladies - including Lisa - were running around in different directions, and quite frankly they forgot about me.  I was done, my dealer's event was starting in about 15 minutes and I wanted a to-go box and my check so I could get going.  It was finally about five to ten minutes after I really needed to be going that Lisa finally appeared with my check and I asked her for a to-go box.  It took her another five minutes for her to come back with my check and a box, then another five minutes for her to come back with my credit card once it had been run.  Suffice it to say that I was late getting back to my dealer's event.  But it didn't matter as it wasn't that well attended as we were just on the cusp of the "social distancing" phenomenon that is so very real in our world today.  

Other than them getting busy and forgetting about me, I have to say that my experience at Tired Texan BBQ was more than favorable.  The smoked meats I had - burnt ends, pulled pork and brisket - were all wonderfully delicious.  I especially liked the fried onion-topped baked beans for my side.  And it was a lot of food, as well.  I was able to have almost the same sized meal - my only one of the day - for lunch the next day.   I've had barbecue at a few places in Omaha over the years - some have since gone out of business - and I'd have to say that I may prefer Tired Texan BBQ to the other ones I've tried.  It would definitely be worth a try if you're in Omaha and looking for good barbecue.  

The Walnut - Des Moines, IA

Growing up just 40 miles from Des Moines, I was really in tune with many of the more popular restaurants a number of years ago.  But not living there for nearly 30 years has made it so that I'm not that familiar with some of the newer restaurants in the area.  These days I have to rely upon recommendations from other people who live in the Des Moines area.  One of the Des Moines area blogs that I've followed for a number of years is the Slakingfool who delves into a number of interesting subjects including brewpubs and bars, some interesting restaurants, and travel (mainly by trains).  I happened to catch one of his recent posts on his Twitter feed and he re-tweeted a picture of a sandwich from a place in Des Moines by the name of The Walnut.  I wasn't familiar with The Walnut, but it piqued my interest enough that I made a mental note to go there for lunch at some point.  That point was last month when I was in Des Moines before heading out of town and I decided to head for The Walnut and have lunch.  

Ben Norris and Hunter Wilson were buddies who started out on the ground floor of the food truck revolution when they opened their mobile kitchen "The Spot" in 2013.  They specialized in sandwiches made with locally-sourced foods.  The Spot became one of the more popular food trucks over the first couple years of business.

As more and more food trucks came into existence, the two knew they had to do something that was unique compared to their competitors.  Visibility and having your regular customers find you are the two biggest keys to owning a food truck.  In 2015, Wilson and Norris rented space in a lot in downtown Des Moines at the corner of 12th and Walnut in which to put their food truck. 

Pictured right - Hunter Wilson and Ben Norris.  Photo courtesy the Des Moines Register.

Not far from where their food truck was located, a local developer had purchased a building that used to house a tire and battery company on the ground floor and a publishing company on the upper floor.  In the burgeoning days of automobile sales in Des Moines, the west end of Walnut Street in the downtown area housed a number of car dealerships, repair garages and other automobile related businesses.  The developers were turning the building - which was initially built in 1924 and added onto in 1928 - into commercial space on the ground floor and residential housing on the second floor.   

By 2017, much of the west side of the ground floor of the building was already leased and the landlords were looking for a possible restaurant to come in to take the other half of the building.  Norris felt Wilson and he had cut their teeth long enough in the food truck business to be able to run their own brick-and-mortar establishment.  After signing a lease on the 3500 square foot space just two blocks away from their food truck rented space, Norris sold the food truck to a couple in the Minneapolis suburbs.  The partners focused on the development of the restaurant that would continue to feature sandwiches that made The Spot one of the more popular food trucks in Des Moines, but expand the menu to include eclectic appetizers, burgers and salads.  Norris and Wilson brought in Justin Stokes as the restaurant's general manager and they opened the Walnut in October of 2017.  

I pulled up in front of The Walnut around 1:30 one recent weekday afternoon.  (see map)  Parking was abundant on the street in front of the building.  Upon entering the restaurant, I found an open floor plan with windows on the south and east side which allowed a lot of natural light to cascade on the dining area.  A small bar area was along the north wall with a handful of flat screen televisions affixed to the wall behind the bar.  There is an outdoor patio area on the east side of the building.  

The original garage doors from the tire and battery company were on the front of the building, and the concrete floor was restored to its original state when the building was completed over 90 years ago.  The windows were also restored with the original panes.  It was a nice mixture of a contemporary and antique industrial design in the building.  

I ended up taking a seat at the bar and a young lady came out to greet me.  She was very friendly and handed me a menu to get started.  She asked me if I wanted anything to drink and they had a number of Iowa craft beers from Exile Brewing Company, Big Grove Brewery and West O Beer.  However, I was pleasantly surprised that they also offered Kona Big Wave on tap.  I ordered up a Big Wave while I looked through the menu.  

As I said, many of the sandwiches that The Spot food truck was famous for migrated onto the menu at The Walnut.  The Royal Bird features a sage-rubbed grilled chicken breast with prosciutto, lettuce, tomato and onion, then topped with a red wine vinegar mayo and parmesan cheese.  The Tabasco Turkey Melt had an herb-rubbed turkey breast topped with pepper jack cheese and a Tabasco-infused butter.  And the Portobello, Pesto and Swiss sandwich was basically just that - grilled portobello mushroom with fresh pesto, Swiss cheese, with lettuce, tomato slices, and red onions.  

They also had burgers at The Walnut including a mushroom/Swiss cheese burger that I was looking very hard at.  Their Bacon, Blue and BBQ burger featured a burger topped with bacon, blue cheese crumbles and a barbecue sauce.  And their Al Pastor burger featured ground pork topped with grilled pineapple, white onion slices, cilantro, and a citrus aioli.  Appetizers such as stuffed mushrooms, Kalua pork sliders and burnt end pork belly were on the menu, as well as soups and salads.  And on Saturdays, The Walnut serves their own version of the Hawaiian Loco Moco bowl with a hamburger patty on a bed of rice topped with a fried egg, brown gravy and chives.  

As I said, I was leaning toward getting the mushroom/Swiss burger, but they also had a traditional reuben on the sandwich part of the menu.  I did see grilled mahi mahi tacos, but then the fine print at the bottom said, "Fridays Only"  I was sort of crestfallen at that, so it was down to the burger or the reuben.  I was in a quandary trying to decide between the two until my bartender/server came up to me and said, "We do have a special that isn't on today's menu."  

And as I mentioned in my opening paragraph of this post, a couple three days before the Slakingfool had retweeted a picture of a meatball sandwich from The Walnut.  It looked ungodly delicious.  Well, it turned out that the meatball sandwich was the lunch special AGAIN that day!  I didn't even hesitate when she told me that was the special.  

The meatball sandwich wasn't all that large, but it was filled with four meatballs, topped with a tangy marinara sauce with mozzarella cheese melted and carmelized on top of a soft and spongy hoagie bun that was cut in half.  Actually, the outer shell of the hoagie bread was sort of crispy from the cooking process, but it was still soft and chewy when you bit into it.  The sandwich wasn't much in terms of any exotic ingredients, but it was especially delicious.  It went extremely well with the second pint of the Kona Big Wave that I ordered before my sandwich was given to me.

After I finished up at the bar for lunch, I took a quick tour around the perimeter of The Walnut looking at a number of historical pictures of the downtown Des Moines area that were on the wall in a back alcove area of the restaurant.  I'm always interested to see buildings from back in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's that I remembered seeing when I was a little kid.  Some are still in use, others are long gone.  

The Walnut is one of those very comfortable and laid back places that I like to find during my travels.  The menu wasn't all that extensive, but it was interesting enough to have me be interested in three or four things.  Their craft beer menu also wasn't all that long, but the beers that they had were all very good and hit all the right tastes.  I can't say enough about the service that I received from the very nice bartender/server who seemed to be on top of my every need while I was there.  The owners did a very good job of turning what was a popular food truck enterprise into what seems to be a very good and thriving brick and mortar restaurant in The Walnut.  

Corner Pub and Grill - Valley Park, MO

I had to head down to St. Louis earlier this year and I was staying out in the far southwest side of the city the evening before my morning meeting.  The food options around the hotel were mainly fast food or sports bar fare, and even though I wasn't that hungry I wanted something a little more substantial than that.  I did a quick look on-line to see what was in the area and there was a place that was about a five minute drive from the hotel that had a little bit more in terms of upscale offerings.  I ended up heading over to the Corner Pub & Grill in Valley Park.

Brent Baldanza was a 16-year-old kid going to Parkway West High School in the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin when a friend of his asked him if he'd be interested in working at her dad's restaurant called Mike Duffy's that was just getting ready to open a second location near their school.   When that location opened in 1989, Baldanza was in the kitchen and helped prepare the first order that left the kitchen.  He fell in love with the restaurant business and found a mentor in Mike Duffy's owner Bruce Frailey.  

After college, Baldanza started to work at Cafe Napoli, a wonderful Italian restaurant located in the Clayton area of St. Louis.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Cafe Napoli.)  It was at Cafe Napoli that Baldanza learned the ins-and-outs of the restaurant business from owner Tony Pietoso starting out in the kitchen, working his way up to a server, then as a bartender before becoming the front-of-house manager for the restaurant.  With help from Pietoso, Frailey and his father, Baldanza was determined to open his own restaurant.  

Along with another high school classmate, Jon Fogarty, the two teamed up to open the first Corner Pub and Grill location in the far southwestern suburbs in 2007.  A second one came about a couple years later in Chesterfield at the corner of Clarkson Road and Clayton Road.  In 2010, the pair opened a higher end eating establishment - The Tavern - which was located in the same shopping and entertainment complex as the original Corner Pub in Valley Park.  

In 2012, Baldanza and Fogarty came up with a new concept called The Shack - a breakfast and lunch joint that catered more toward college students and young professionals.  It was located near St. Louis University and after some tough times starting out, The Shack became a local favorite.  

In 2004, Baldanza's daughter was diagnosed with Celiac Disease.  Baldanza and his wife, Heather, found that gluten-free items at restaurants were few and far between.  When he opened the first Corner Pub, he made sure to have a number of gluten-free options on the menu.  And each of the locations of the Corner Pub, The Tavern and The Shack have a number of gluten-free foods to choose from.  

Baldanza and Fogarty came up with a corporation called OG Restaurant Group to oversee operations of their restaurants.   In addition to The Tavern and two Corner Pub and Grill locations, there are now five Shack locations in the St. Louis area and two in the Kansas City area.  Another Kansas City area location was scheduled to open this Spring, but has been delayed due to the worldwide pandemic.  And there are plans to open two Shack locations in the Nashville area later this year, but those may be delayed due to the current events.

As I said, it was about a five minute drive between the hotel and Corner Pub and Grill.  I pulled into the Shoppes at Seven Oaks and realized that I had been there before.  (see map)  At the opposite side from the Corner Pub was Dalie's Smokehouse, a very good barbecue place that I visited about 3-and-a-half years ago.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Dalie's Smokehouse.)  A parking space just opened up moments before I got to the Corner Pub and was able to park near the front door of the brick building that's on the southwest corner of the shopping and entertainment complex.  

Inside the Corner Pub, it appeared to be a sports bar, albeit an upscale sports bar.  I wasn't really looking to go to a sports bar, but maybe a pub that had a few TV's.  The dining room featured a number of flatscreen televisions hung on the walls along with sports memorabilia.  Tartan upholstered booths lined the wall under the televisions in the room.

I ended up heading to the bar to have a seat in there.  The bar was full, but a guy was just getting ready to relinquish his seat and he offered it to me.  One of the bartenders that evening was a young lady named Ashley.  She greeted me with a menu and asked what I'd like to drink.  They had a handful of craft beers on tap and I noticed the distinctive Kona Big Wave handle on one of the spigots.  I ordered up a pint of one of my all-time favorite beers.  There was a good basketball game that I wouldn't have minded to see, but the St. Louis Blues were playing hockey that night and like their baseball compatriots, the St. Louis Cardinals, if there's a game on TV, most - if not all - of the televisions in St. Louis bars and restaurants are tuned to the game.  

I was hoping Corner Pub and Grill was different from the sports bars that I didn't really want to go to and I will say that the food there seemed to be a step up from the typical sports bar food.  Oh, they had appetizers, sandwiches and burgers on the menu at the Corner Pub, but they were sort of interesting.   Bacon-wrapped smoked shrimp, brisket nachos, cauliflower/parmesan bites, and - of course - toasted ravioli were part of the appetizer menu.  Burgers were all 1/2 pound in weight and bison meat was available as a substitute.  One of the burgers featured on the menu was the "The Tot & the Egg" - a burger topped with applewood smoked bacon, a fried egg, crushed tater tots, and cheddar cheese.  Sandwiches included a slow-roasted brisket sandwich, a smoked turkey sandwich, a short rib French dip, and a reuben sandwich with in-house made corned beef.  Hand-tossed pizza, wraps, soups and salads rounded out the menu.  

They had a special that evening - a fried chicken platter that the guy next to me got.  It looked good, but it was a lot of food as it came with four pieces of Southern-fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.  I was not that hungry and that would have been a lot of food.  In fact, the guy ended up taking two of the pieces of chicken home with him when he was finished.  

Chicken did sound good to me, however, and I ended up getting the hot and spicy chicken sandwich.  It was a deep-fried chicken breast that was covered in a sweet and spicy Buffalo sauce, topped with bacon and blue cheese crumbles.  It was served on a brioche bun on a bed of shredded lettuce underneath.  I had a choice of numerous sides including fries, pub chips, veggie of the day, and onion rings (for a $2 buck upcharge).  But they had tater tots on the menu - actually, they also had sweet potato tater tots.  But I got the regular tots.  And Ashley was able to get me a bottle of Cholula to put on the tots.  

I ate the sandwich open-faced and the chicken had a nice spicy bite, but a sweetness that tamped down the overall spicy taste of the sauce.  The chicken breast had a nice breading on the outer shell and the chicken meat inside was moist and tender.  The bacon and blue cheese were nice complements to the sweet and spicy taste of the chicken.  And the tater tots were, well, they were very good.  But tater tots are ALWAYS good.  It was enough food that I couldn't eat it all, but there wasn't a lot left on the plate when I was finished.  

The Corner Pub and Grill was a nice choice that evening.  It was a nice comfortable setting, the service I received from my bartender/server was stellar all evening long.  I thoroughly enjoyed the sweet and spicy Buffalo chicken sandwich, and any place that serves tater tots as a side and Kona Big Wave Golden Ale on tap is a plus for me.  The Corner Pub is a nice little neighborhood joint that appears to be pretty popular with its clientele.  And on my visit it was easy to see way.  

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Virgil's Real BBQ - Las Vegas

I hadn't been out to Las Vegas in over three years before I had to go out earlier this year for a meeting/training session for my company a little over a month before the city was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  I had gotten in during the afternoon, and after I got settled at my hotel - The Mirage - I decided to look for places to eat in the immediate area.  Vegas changes so quickly that three or four restaurants that I had enjoyed a few years back were out of business or had been changed into something else.  I found a barbecue place across the Las Vegas Strip from The Mirage in the LINQ Promenade called Virgil's Real BBQ.  In all the years that I have been coming to Las Vegas for trade shows and meetings since the mid-1980's, I don't think I had ever eaten barbecue in Las Vegas.  One doesn't think of barbecue when they're in Vegas, so it sort of intrigued me.  I thought I'd walk over to Virgil's Real BBQ and give the place a try.

It turns out that Virgil's Real BBQ is under the same corporate umbrella as Carmine's of Las Vegas, a place that I also ate at during my recent trip to Vegas and had written about here.   Virgil's got its start in New York City - also not really all that renown for their barbecue - after founder Artie Cutler was looking for other food concepts to explore after the success of his two New York City Carmine's restaurants.  With the help of a Chinese friend, he started Ollie's Noodle Shop and Grille, an Asian-American restaurant.  Artie had vision that a Southern-style barbecue restaurant would make it in the heart of New York City.  He discussed the idea with his two investment partners in Carmine's and his partner in Ollie's.  They all agreed that in order to have an authentic Southern barbecue restaurant, they needed to learn about those places.  And what better way than to have a weeks-long road trip along backroads in the South.

A few weeks later, the four men took off in a car for barbecue places in the south.  They traveled from the Carolinas across Tennessee to Memphis, then south to Texas, and then up to Missouri sampling barbecue along the way.   (Man, I think that would be a fun trip!)  You can almost imagine the looks of suspicion a Jewish guy, two Italian guys, and a Chinese guy would get when they would walk into a barbecue joint in the south.   After weeks of checking out and trying all different types of barbecue - as well as learning the tricks of the trade from some of the more friendly barbecue joint owners - the group felt they had a consensus in what meat to offer at their restaurant.  And, more importantly, how to make it.  

Artie and his partners came back to New York City and found a spot in Times Square just a block away from their Carmine's location.  With everything in place, Virgil's Real BBQ opened in 1994.  Cutler said that he named it after the starter at his golf club, hoping that it would get him premium tee times in the future.  (No word if that worked out for Culter, but I'm guessing it did.)  

Unfortunately, Artie Cutler passed away unexpectedly in 1997.  His wife, Alice, took over the Alicart Restaurant Group that Artie had formed to oversee his restaurants.  However, it wasn't long before Alice realized that she needed to have someone younger and with more ambition come in to run the restaurant group.  In 2008, Jeffrey Bank came on to become the CEO for the Alicart Restaurant Group and one of the first things he did was close or jettison some restaurants that were underperforming - including Ollie's.  However, he saw big things for expansion of the Carmine's and Virgil's restaurants, but not in New York City due to some stifling rules and regulations restaurants faced in the city.

Seeing that there was a need for restaurants in gambling and entertainment hot spots, Bank opened Carmine's locations in Atlantic City, Las Vegas and at the Atlantis casino/resort in the Bahamas.  He opened a second Virgil's Real BBQ in Atlantis in November of 2012, and the Las Vegas location opened in late 2016.  

The Las Vegas Virgil's is one of many restaurants and bars up and down the LINQ Promenade, a walkway that connects the Las Vegas strip with the High Roller, the world's largest observation wheel.  The High Roller stands 550 feet tall and it takes 30 minutes for it to make one complete revolution.  The LINQ Promenade also has a zipline that goes from one end to the other - the FlyLINQ.  It was sort of a cool evening in Las Vegas that night - it was windy and unseasonably cool when I flew in earlier in the day - and I didn't see many, if any, people using the FlyLINQ that evening.  But the LINQ Promenade was buzzing enough with people wandering around between bars, restaurants and casinos when I was walking through seeking out Virgil's.

I found Virgil's toward the east end of the Promenade (see map - the Google map here shows that its closer to Las Vegas Boulevard, but it's a lot closer to the High Roller than to the Strip).  To the left as you walk into the place, there's a main dining area with a stage at one end.  Some instruments were set up and it appeared that a live band was going to be playing there later on.  The acoustics of that room had to be atrocious as the dining room was loud to begin with with all the talking going on.  There was outdoor seating in front of the place and there was an upstairs area with a balcony patio for outside dining.  It was too cold for people to be eating outside that night.  

The bar area was off to the right of the front door.  The place seemed to have that corporate rustic look - like when a designer from New York envisions what a barbecue place in the south looks like.  I took a seat at the bar where a younger couple - who had evidently been there for a LONG time - had just gotten up to leave.  I had to dance out of my way of the staggering couple as I made my way toward the bar.  After getting seated at the bar, a young lady by the name of Kelsee came over to greet me.  She gave me a food menu and asked what I would like to drink.  They had the Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA on tap and I signed up for one of those.  

When Artie Cutler and his partners took their little barbecue trip through the south, they adopted many of the items they had tried and put them on the menu at Virgil's.  There was Carolina-style pulled pork, Memphis-style baby-back ribs, Texas-style brisket, and Southern-style smoked pulled chicken on the menu for the main barbecue items.  They also had sandwiches made from the barbecued meats, burgers, and Louisiana-style Po' Boy sandwiches.  Virgil's also offered entrees such as crispy Kansas City-style fried chicken (they probably got their inspiration from Stroud's), Maryland-style crab cakes, Georgia-style chicken fried steak, and grilled Gulf Coast shrimp.  And if you didn't care for food from south of the Mason-Dixon line, then there was a 20 ounce T-Bone steak available on the menu, as well.  

As I usually do at a barbecue joint that I'm not all that familiar with, I go with the combination platter.  But this time, I decided to just go with the brisket platter.  (They had a combo platter called the "Pig Out" that featured brisket, ribs, smoked chicken, and pulled pork.  That would have been a little too much for me.) For my sides, I had a choice of a number of items - fries, collard greens with ham hock, mashed potatoes with gravy, cheddar cheese grits, and rice with sliced pecans were some of the choices.  I ended up ordering the baked beans and the pickled beets for my two sides.  

The brisket came sliced and placed on slice of white bread.  A bit of barbecue sauce was ladled on top of the meat.  I asked Kelsee if there was any other kind of barbecue sauce and she came over with three different styles - the regular sauce that was already on the brisket was sort of sweet with a hint of a smoky taste.  They had a hot sauce that was similar to the regular only with a bit of a kick.  But they had a habanero mango sauce that I was a little apprehensive about at first.  Some habanero-infused sauces I've had in the past are almost too spicy and they really mask the taste of the meats.  But this was a nice balance between the hot spicy kick and the cooling of the mango that was added.  Actually, I thought the habanero mango sauce was - by far - the best of the three.  

The brisket was just all right.  It was a little chewy and didn't seem to have that much of a smoky taste to the meat.  There wasn't much of a smoke ring around the outer part of the brisket and the bark on the outside was pretty pedestrian.  It certainly wasn't the best brisket I've had.  

The pickled beets were very good, however.  I never really liked pickled beets much while I was growing up, but my wife turned me onto her grandmother's canned pickled beets about 25 years ago.  While she was still alive, she would give us jar upon jar of pickled beets in the fall months.  Her grandmother's pickled beets are my gold standard when it comes to pickled beets.  Now, I don't think that a little old lady is back in the kitchen at Virgil's canning pickled beets, but wherever they get theirs from, they're damned good.  

The baked beans were sort of "meh!"  I poured copious amounts of the habanero mango sauce in with the beans to give them a little bit more flavor.  It helped, but not by much.  

Now, take a good look at the platter in the picture above.  There were - maybe - 10 or 11 thick cut slices of smoked brisket.  It was probably a half-pound of meat or maybe a little more.  This platter cost $29.95.  $29.95!!!  When I got the bill, I about gasped!  This platter of barbecued brisket with two sides was nowhere worth the price of what I got compared to other barbecue places I've enjoyed in my years of traveling.  I almost had to laugh when I got the bill - with 2 pints of the Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA at $9.75 each, the total on the bill before tax and tip was $49.45!  I was completely incredulous.  I remember a time in Las Vegas where you could get a steak with a baked potato and a salad for $7.99 at one of any casino up and down the strip.  The price of my meal at Virgil's was basically six of those old time Las Vegas meals.  

Well, there's a part two to this story.  The next evening, we all had to go out to an EDM (electronic dance music) recording studio on the southwest side of Las Vegas that our company has turned into a showcase for our pro studio monitors.  We had food that was going to be catered in and when the truck showed up, I about crapped - it was from Virgil's Real BBQ!   I just started to laugh and shake my head.  One of my colleagues looked at me and asked what was so funny.  "I had barbecue from this place last night," I said.  He asked me if it was good and I said, "Well, it was OK, but it was REALLY expensive."

They had brisket (naturally) and pulled chicken to choose from.  I had the brisket - again.  But this time, it was actually better than the brisket I had the previous evening.  It was actually more moist and had a good smoky taste to it.  The studio was not set up very well for a large group of people - maybe 40 of us in total - to be eating barbecue.  It was just a somewhat surreal experience for me that I was having Virgil's Real BBQ two nights in a row.  

The Las Vegas edition of Virgil's Real BBQ was just average, at best, in my book.  At least, compared to some of the great barbecue places I've eaten at in the Midwest and down in Memphis.  And it was expensive - almost obscenely expensive - for what I got.  The brisket I had on my visit was just OK (although the catered brisket I had from Virgil's the subsequent evening was much better), but the pickled beets I had for my side were the highlight of the meal.  They rivaled in taste my wife's late-grandmother's pickled beets that I enjoyed over 20 years ago.  There's not a lot of barbecue to choose from in Vegas and Virgil's will do if you need a BBQ fix while you're in Sin City.  Just don't forget to bring your wallet.  

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