My wife and I took a recent drive up to Northeast Iowa to see the fall foliage, which was actually pretty nice along the Mississippi River. We decided that we were going to spend the night in Decorah and made our way there from La Crosse one cool fall morning. Initially, we were going to meet my wife's son for lunch in Decorah as he was on a short fishing/camping expedition not far from there. But on our way over to Decorah, he said that he'd had a hard night and was going to head back to him home east of Cedar Rapids. Well, we had planned on meeting and eating at Mabe's Pizza, the esteemed destination in Decorah known for their thin-crust, tavern-style pizzas. But just because he wasn't going to join us didn't mean that we couldn't go to Mabe's for lunch.
Probably 25 years ago, I was part of a list-serve group that chatted on-line about Iowa Hawkeyes sports. Invariably, the threads would go 90 degrees from the Iowa football team to who has good food. (Those left-turn threads were one of the sparks for the idea of Road Tips when I started this blog 10 years later.) Some of the Iowa fans in the group did undergraduate work at Luther College in Decorah and they raved about Mabe's Pizza. I tried it for the first time over 20 year ago and I was pretty impressed. Over the years, Mabe's branched out with franchises in places such as Cresco, IA, Postville, IA, and Prairie du Chien, WI. My wife and I ate at the one in Prairie du Chien a number of years ago, but we were convinced it wasn't as good as the original in Decorah. And I think other people felt the same way as those locations are long closed.
The "Mabe" behind Mabe's Pizza was Mabel White, an unassuming and kindly lady who opened a small 30-seat cafe - Mabel's Lunchroom - in 1953 at the age of 49. It was a small place at the corner of College Dr. and Leif Erickson Dr. where Mabel would make sandwiches for students at nearby Luther College. Many of the students were male and living off-campus due to a housing shortage at the rapidly growing small college. Sometimes, Mabel would allow the students to make their own sandwiches and self-pay for them at the register. The students at Luther loved "Mabe", the affectionate nickname they eventually gave her.
Pictured right - a portrait of Mabel "Mabe" White that hangs on the wall of the present day Mabe's Pizza
One day, a student came in and asked Mabel if he could he could make a pizza. Mabel knew nothing about pizzas - it was in the early 60's when pizzas were relatively unheard of in rural parts of Iowa. The student made his version of pizza - I'm guessing he was from the Chicago area as the pizza he made had a thin-crust and he cut it into tavern-style party squares - and Mabel was intrigued enough to do some research of her own. Thanks to the growing number of students from the Chicago area, she began to regularly make pizzas. And in 1968 she renamed her little lunch counter Mabe's Pizza.
Mabe's had outgrown their original small location and moved to a larger building in Decorah. It wasn't long before they had to move again, and not long after that, another move. Mabe's Pizza had three or four different locations before settling into a spot near downtown Decorah in the early 70's. Unfortunately, on New Years Eve in 1976, Mabe's was destroyed by fire.
Undeterred, Mabel White - then 72 years old - decided that she wanted to rebuild. She eventually found a spot on E. Water Street in the heart of downtown Decorah where she built a 200-seat restaurant. Ground was broke in May of 1977 and the new and improved Mabe's Pizza opened in the spring of 1978.
Over the years, Mabel's youngest son Don White had been helping out in the business. When Mabel retired in 1981 at the age of 77, Don White and his wife Maime had been running the day-to-day operations for a number of years. Mable didn't go far - she lived in an apartment above Mabe's - and would still pop in to the restaurant from time to time over the next few years before passing away in 2002, just weeks before her 98th birthday.
Maime White tragically passed on New Years Day in 1993 and Don White kept going with the restaurant. He eventually turned the reins over to his son Steve White and Steve's wife Connie in 1999. Don White would also pop in from time to time during his retirement before he passed away in 2014 at the age of 77. A fourth generation of the White family - Collin White - is the general manager for his parents' business today and will undoubtedly take over sole ownership of Mabe's at some point in the future.
We got into Decorah around 11 a.m. - the time that Mabe's opens up seven days a week. It was Sunday and I was pretty certain that it wouldn't be all that busy if we went there at our original planned time of noon. We drove around Decorah a bit and took a walk along the Upper Iowa River and Trout Run Creek on the east side of town on what turned out to be a beautiful fall day. By the time we got that out of the way and pulled up in front of Mabe's at 110 E. Water St. (see map) it was 11:55 a.m. I figured that we wouldn't have any trouble getting into the restaurant - after all, it was a Sunday and I just didn't think any restaurant would be busy on a Sunday at noon. Especially a pizza place in Decorah, IA.
Oh, boy. How wrong I was with that...
When we walked into Mabe's we found a long line of people waiting to pick up "to-go" orders. It had been homecoming weekend for Luther - even though there weren't any festivities or a football game due to the pandemic - and a lot of people were there to pick up half-baked pizzas or regular orders to take home locally. People were coming in the front door and in from the rear door where there's a smaller dining area. We saw people carrying multiple boxes of pizza out the door during our time at Mabe's.
We were lucky as we got the last booth available, back in the very far corner of the dining room that was socially distanced with tables taken out of the middle. On the far end wall of the dining room partitioned off from the front dining area by glass windows are portraits of founder Mable White, and her son Don with his wife Maime.
We got our menus when we were seated, but we pretty much had our heart set on getting a pizza. In addition to their pizzas, Mabe's also features burgers, sandwiches, broasted chicken, pasta entrees, appetizers and salads. Nope - we were there for the pizza.
Our server that day was a young lady whose attitude was so sour and dour that it was very evident that she didn't want to be there, let alone even wait on us. When I asked what they had for craft beers, she let out a heavy sigh and said, "I'll check to see." I told her to just hang on and ordered up a domestic bottle to cut my losses. She brought it back to our table moments later sliding it across the table with nary a word. She was like that the whole time we were there.
My wife thought she better get a small salad with Italian dressing. When she asked our surly waitress if she had like a vinegar and oil dressing, she sort of shrugged her shoulders and said, "It's Italian." My wife, too, thought she better just go along with the flow of our unhappy waitress and take what she brings her. It was a nice light Italian dressing and my wife was happy with that.
We noticed the lines getting longer and more people coming in right and left either waiting on to-go orders or for a booth or table to open up. One couple who looked to be in their late 60's, early 70's took the table near us and said that they had already ordered their pizza in advance. Five minutes later - and being waited on another girl than the one we had - they were munching on their pre-ordered pizza. My wife remarked, "Wow! Given how busy it is, they got lucky to get a table!" I jokingly said that they could have been forced to stand and eat their pizza had nothing been open to sit.
We put our order in for a small (12") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza at 12:10. We knew they were busy and I figured that it may take a little time. But I wasn't expecting our pizza to show up 35 minutes after we ordered it. It usually doesn't take that long for a thin-crust pizza, but Mabe's was rockin' with all the in-house and to-go orders. Their pizza oven is a multi-level "merry-go-round" style oven and there's only so much space that you have to bake pizzas.
It had been a long, long time since I had had a Mabe's pizza - maybe 15 years. The thin hand-tossed dough was misshapen a bit, but it featured ample toppings of ground Italian sausage, spicy pepperoni and fresh mushrooms with an abundance of mozzarella cheese that had been caramelized in the oven. The pizza was cut into the traditional Mabe's tavern-style squares.
The only thing wrong with the pizza - I think they could have left it in for a couple three more minutes. I remember Mabe's in the past for having sort of a more crunchy crust. On this one, however, it tasted sort of doughy like it needed to bake for a bit longer. Everything else associated with the pizza was fine - I love the tangy and somewhat spicy sauce they have on a Mabe's pizza. But we just felt that it was a bit undercooked, no matter how cooked it looked on top.
Service didn't improve much during our visit. The young lady who waited on us was visibly pissed off about something - we figured that maybe she was called in to work when she had the day off. But that shouldn't have spilled over in her outward demeanor toward the people she was serving. I usually will give a server the benefit of the doubt when I go to tip them and I usually go 20%. Our server got just barely a 10% tip in cash. Yes, I know times are tough for restaurants and wait staffs. But this young lady was not the best in her field.
Other than the outward surliness displayed by our waitress throughout the visit to Mabe's Pizza, we were happy to get back to try their pizza. Later on, we figured out that not much was open for dining options in Decorah on a Sunday evening and we sort of lamented that we should have waited to go to Mabe's that evening rather than for lunch. The pizza was fine - a little undercooked, but still fine. And everything could have been caused by how busy they were and were trying to get pizzas cooked as quickly as possible. We've eaten at some very good pizza places over time and I know why Luther graduates come back in droves to have a Mabe's pizza year after year. But let's just say this was not their best effort either in service or with the pizza.
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