Earlier this year, my wife and I took a drive over to East Moline to try a new coffee place by the name of Iron + Grain Coffee House. At the opposite end of the building from the coffee place was a new Mexican taqueria that had opened late in 2019 that we had heard about and always wanted to try - Jennie's Boxcar. We had made mental plans to come over to Jennie's Boxcar, but less than a couple weeks later the COVID-19 outbreak pretty much stopped life as we knew it. And along with that, Jennie's Boxcar shut down for the time being, opening only for take-out service at some point. However, with many Illinois restaurants re-opening in late June with restrictions on dining in, we found out that Jennie's Boxcar was once again open. On a recent weeknight, my wife and I decided to take the trek over to East Moline to try the place out.
Jennie's Boxcar is part of a number of businesses in what was the old Moline Pressed Steel Company, a metal manufacturing firm that started in 1910. The company stared out making fenders and body parts for automobiles made at the Moline-Knight Automobile Company located next door before making parts for local farm implement manufacturers. Founder and owner Fred Lundahl noticed that a lot of his son's toys just didn't hold up very well and came up with an idea to make small toys for his son out of the scrap sheet metal that he was basically throwing out. He named the company Buddy L after his only son, Arthur.
In 1921, Lundahl started making the toy trucks and cars in his home in Moline before he moved the operation back to Moline Pressed Steel. The Buddy L toys were expensive, but they were much more durable compared to other toys of the day. Soon, he had worked out deals to sell his toys at some of the more prestigious department stores in the Midwest. By 1925, Buddy L trucks and cars were among the most coveted toys of the day. Unfortunately, Lundahl died in 1930 due to complications from surgery and his widow sold the Buddy L company.
The building that housed Moline Pressed Steel eventually became a large warehouse before it was closed down a number of years ago. In 2017, a group headed by local businessman Larry Anderson bought the 40 acre property on which the old buildings were standing and developed them into a multi-faceted entertainment, restaurant and commercial complex called The Rust Belt that includes a 4000-person capacity live music venue.
One of the first tenants in the converted warehouse was an architectural/furniture design company by the name of Streamline Architects. Owner Andrew "Drew" Dasso not only designs buildings, but his company designs interiors for commercial office spaces, restaurants, residential and retail shops. And Streamline Artisans is an off-shoot of Streamline Architects that designs and fabricates high-quality furnishings for offices, restaurants and retail shops. Dasso saw a need for a coffee shop in the East Moline area and he started Iron + Grain Coffee House in the fall of 2019.
A few other businesses were going into the complex, but the property owners also saw a need for a restaurant that would complement both the Rust Belt music venue and the new Midwest Ale Works microbrewery. Unable to find a restaurant that would be willing to move into the space, Dasso told the landlords that he may have an idea. That's when he turned to his wife, Marguerite, who was a teacher in the Davenport School District.
Marguerite came from a family that liked to cook. Mexican specialties that were handed down from her grandmother Jennie Sandoval Garcia were passed through the family. Jennie Garcia was also a long time manager for Adolph's, a local Mexican chain started by Adolph and Louisa Perez back in the early 50's, and she garnered a number of recipes from her work there. Drew Dasso suggested that his wife take some of the recipes from her grandmother and open a restaurant at the facility. At first, Marguerite resisted the overtures from her husband to start a restaurant, but she finally consulted with her sister Crystal Reickard who had experience working in restaurants for nearly 20 years.
At first, the two sisters thought the restaurant would be something akin to a food court - three or four different restaurants where people would order at the window and use the dining room, courtyard or microbrewery next door as seating areas. But they found that concept as unfeasible and decided to stick to one thing. Using their grandmother's recipes as an inspiration and consulting both the Internet and a local chef who worked for a food purveyor, they decided upon eclectic tacos for the bulk of their food items.
Marguerite Dasso and Crystal Reickard had to come up with a name for the place and it was purely simple that they would pay homage to their grandmother and call it Jennie's Boxcar. The "Boxcar" part of the name comes from the fact that Jennie Sandoval was born in a boxcar in the freight yards of Silvis, IL in 1922. Back in the day, immigrant workers from Mexico were given boxcars to use for housing for their families since conventional housing wasn't readily available at the time. Jennie and her family lived in the freight yards for the first 10 years of her life before her parents moved the family to 2nd Street in Silvis. Jennie was one of 10 children and all six of her brothers went off to serve in World War II. Two of her brothers - Joe and Frank - were killed in action and are immortalized as part of the Hero Street USA memorial in Silvis.
Jennie eventually met and married Charley Garcia. In 1941 the two eloped to Horton, KS where Charley had a line on a job. When World War II came, the job in Kansas fell through and the couple moved back to the Quad Cities to find work there. He got a job with the Rock Island Railroad in 1942 and the couple lived - once again - in a boxcar in the freight yards that the young couple shared with Charley's brother and his wife. Jennie and Charley lived in the boxcar for a year and moved into an apartment just as their oldest child Irene was born. The Garcia's eventually moved into a home in East Moline in the late 1940's and raised five daughters in total including Bonnie, the mother of Marguerite Dasso and Crystal Reickard.
We pulled up in front of Jennie's Boxcar around 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night. (see map) Since live venues have been shutdown during the pandemic, there was a lot of parking available in the main lot of the complex. Only one entrance from the outside was open at Jennie's Boxcar and we went inside some doors just off of the courtyard area.
Once inside, we found a large open space in what could be categorized as a modernized industrialized space. Streamline Architects and Streamline Artisans had a hand in the design and manufacturing of the floor plan and furnishings. There weren't many people in the place - actually, there was just one other couple - and a young lady showed us to a table near a long mural on the east wall of the dining area.
My wife and I learned on a culinary tour to the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago about five years ago that Mexican murals tell a story about an event, a family, or a neighborhood. We admired the mural and our waiter came over to greet us. His name was Jamie and he said that he was Marguerite and Crystal's brother. "Yes, this mural tells the story of my grandparents," he said as he began to point things out.
Jamie explained about the boxcar and the fact that his grandparents and great-grandparents lived in boxcars in the rail yards in nearby Silvis. The Hero Street USA part of the mural paid tribute to the neighborhood his grandmother grew up in and to her two brothers who gave their lives in World War II. The musical notes meant that his grandparents loved music and I was able to pick out the Día de Muertos musicians and celebrants playing in the mural. The Rock Island Railroad switch engine paid tribute to his grandfather who worked there for 35 years before he retired in 1977. And then Jamie pointed out the picture of Charley and Jennie sitting at a table. "My grandfather loved his Swisher Sweets cigars, and my grandmother loved her Hot Sex," he said chuckling pointing out the bottle of the liqueur sitting on top of the checkered table cloth in the mural.
The bar area wasn't all that big, but featured an array of colorful stools in front. The beer and cocktail menu at Jennie's Boxcar featured nearly 20 types of domestic, craft and imported beers, along with nearly 40 different selections of tequila and mezcal. Wine and a selection of specialty margaritas and cocktails were also available.
As you walk in from the courtyard, you can see right into the kitchen. It was a large and open space, very clean and orderly. Food selections that can be taken to other parts of the Rust Belt complex can be ordered at the window. You can take food to any other part of the complex, but you can't take alcohol from place to place. That said, you can't take a Jennie's margarita into Midwest Ale Works, and you can't bring a beer from Midwest Ale Works into Jennie's.
We both got a couple menus from the young lady who seated us and Jamie asked us what we wanted to start out with. Their house margarita consisted of Corazon blanco tequila, Cointreau, lime juice and blue agave syrup on the rocks - the exact same way we make our margaritas at home. We ordered up a couple of those from him and my wife wanted to start out with some of their house-made chips with their house guacamole.
The chips and guac came out first and were served on a half-sized cookie sheet with wax paper covering the tray. The chips were warm and had a light, yet crunchy texture. The guacamole was fresh with large chunks of avocado mixed in with diced tomatoes and onions with a hint of a garlic taste to it. The guacamole was good, but it was a tad expensive ($8 bucks) for the size of bowl that we got. You can also get the chips with salsa ($5), pico de gallo ($8) and a black bean/corn salsa ($8). Other appetizers include beef barbacoa nachos, chicken nachos, a quesadilla (with or without chicken), and a shrimp cocktail served with a spicy salsa cocktail sauce.
Most of the main items on the menu consist of tacos, but they also have torta sandwiches with a choice of chicken, pulled pork, beef barbacoa or vegetables. And they have a handful of salads including one with pulled pork, black bean/corn salsa, sliced avocados, and diced fresh onions and tomatoes.
But we were there for the main event - the tacos. It wasn't an extensive selection of tacos - and you couldn't get combinations to try a couple three different ones - but they were pretty interesting in their own right. The Hot Swine tacos featured cubed pork belly with red cabbage and diced apples with a sriracha drizzle; the Safe Bet featured seasoned grilled chicken with red cabbage, sliced avocado and their black bean/corn salsa; the Fresca had pulled pork with red cabbage and a grilled pineapple salsa, and they had a couple of vegan tacos including the El Camote with sweet potatoes, black beans, avocado slices, topped with diced onions and fresh cilantro. And for the very unadventurous, The Gringo consists of ground beef and chorizo, topped with lettuce, cheddar cheese and diced tomatoes. I'm sure it would be better than going to Taco Bell.
My wife went with the Bait and Hook - baked cod filets served with red cabbage, the black bean/corn salsa, pickled radish, pico de gallo and a cream sauce topping. They were served on small flour tortillas. My wife was very impressed with the taste of the baked cod tacos. We exchanged bites of our tacos and I thought her fish tacos were very good. (I was a little leery of the "baked" and not "grilled" cod, but there was not much of a fishy taste to the tacos.)
I was torn between a couple different ones they had on the menu. The Pipsqueak consisted of sweet ancho chile-rubbed grilled shrimp with sliced avocados, chopped cilantro and pickled onion topped with a lime sauce. But I ended up getting the barbacoa tacos. For an uncharge of something like $3 bucks, I was able to get a 4th one because I knew they were street taco-sized.
The description on the menu said the barbacoa was spicy shredded beef, but I didn't think it was all that spicy. The barbacoa was topped with a pico de gallo, queso fresco (but not a lot of it), their crema sauce and chopped fresh cilantro that was VERY fresh. A side of a spicy salsa came on the side. And somewhat curiously, lime wedges came with each of my tacos. I didn't mind that, but my wife - and I do, too - likes to have limes for fish tacos. We didn't quite understand how I got limes for barbacoa tacos and she didn't get any for her fish tacos.
The barbacoa tacos were, well, they were just all right in my book. As I said, I didn't think the barbacoa was all that spicy, but the salsa that came on the side had a zippy taste to it and helped kick the spiciness up a notch. But really, other than the fresh cilantro and the salsa, they seemed rather bland to me. I've had barbacoa tacos around the Quad Cities that I felt were better than the ones I had at Jennie's Boxcar. I was kicking myself for not getting the Pipsqueak tacos. Well, next time, I said to myself.
And it turned out that next time was just two nights later when we went with friends of ours over to Midwest Ale Works, located next door to Jennie's. They have a connecting door between the two places and my wife and I checked out the microbrewery after we had dinner at Jennie's on our first visit. I really enjoyed their BAMF hazy pale ale when we were there on our first visit, so I ordered one of those again when we went back.
We sat outside in the courtyard area as it was a warm night, but not oppressive. My wife wanted to get some of the chips and guac again, and even though I wasn't hungry, I thought this would be a good time to try the Pipsqueak tacos. I ordered a set of 3 and they brought them out to us from the kitchen. As underwhelmed I was with the barbacoa tacos the other night, the Pipsqueak tacos really made my taste buds jump. It was a combination of spicy and cool with some extraordinary flavors that really popped out. I gave my wife a bite of one of my tacos and she even said that she thought they were so much better than the barbacoa tacos.
About the only drawback to Jennie's Boxcar is that it was a pretty expensive meal. 3 margaritas in smallish glasses were $24 bucks, my tacos were $14 bucks, my wife's fish tacos were $10. Add on the $8 for chips and guac, and our meal was sitting at $56 bucks before tax and tip. But - the one thing about Jennie's Boxcar is that you can tell that everything is top-notch and very fresh. Even though I was somewhat disappointed with my barbacoa tacos, the shrimp tacos I had on my next visit more than made up for it. My wife really enjoys their chips and guacamole - the chips are not greasy at all - and the guac was very fresh and full of flavor. And I know that a margarita consisting of Corazon tequila and Cointreau is not gonna be cheap. Finally, the service was excellent both times we were there. If you're expecting to go to Jennie's Boxcar to get free chips and salsa, or meals with enchiladas or burritos, refried beans and rice, you'll be disappointed. But if you want top notch ingredients both in the food and drinks - and are willing to pay for it - you'll enjoy Jennie's Boxcar. It's a nice addition to a number of good to great Mexican restaurants in the Quad Cities.
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