When I first moved to the Quad Cities nearly 30 years ago, I had a friend and his wife coming into town and I wanted to take them out for a nice meal. Not fully knowing the landscape of restaurants in the area at the time, I asked a handful of locals who were in the know with the local dining scene to give me recommendations. Nearly everyone mentioned the Captain's Table along the Mississippi River in Moline. We went there that evening, the food was wonderful, the service was great and it was tough to beat the views of the Mississippi River. It became my go-to place to take people who were in town or for special occasion dinners. However, changes in ownership over the years meant changes in the quality of the food and service, and in January of 2018 a massive fire destroyed the Captain's Table. We didn't know if it would be back in business, but the group who own the restaurant worked with the City of Moline on getting a new building built. Last summer, the restaurant reopened and on a recent Friday evening where my wife and I were out and about, she suggested heading over to the "new" Captain's Table to give it a try.
Now, I have previously written about the Captain's Table (you can click here to see that entry), but a lot of things have changed over the last 11 years since I wrote about the place. The Captain's Table had ceased to be our restaurant of choice for special occasion meals, but they had a great Bloody Mary bar and $3 off their gourmet burgers on Sundays. We found ourselves over there a number of times meeting or running into friends who we had turned on to the Sunday specials at the Captain's Table.
The hey-day of the restaurant stretched over a nearly 25-year period starting in 1974 when Jim Sweet founded the Marquis Harbor marina and with the help of the City of Moline built an adjoining steakhouse/seafood restaurant and called it the Captain's Table. A gregarious guy and gracious host, Jim Sweet was larger than life. He and his wife, JoAnn, along with their children Dave and Lori, could be found at the Captain's Table at various times of the day. The place was cozy, had great views of the river, and the Sweet family were all so very friendly and made us feel welcome each time we went to the restaurant. My wife fell in love with the restaurant the first time I took her there when we first started to date. We got to know the Sweet family through our visits to the Captain's Table and at their sister restaurant over in Davenport, The Boat House.
In 1998, the Sweet family sold the restaurant and marina to the Heart of America restaurant group, the company that oversees Johnny's Italian Steakhouse, The Machine Shed and a number of other restaurants and hotels around the Midwest. That's when we noticed that the level and quality of the food began to suffer. The menu had changed drastically, the welcoming feeling that we always felt with the Sweet's in charge was gone, and the Captain's Table became a soulless shell of its original self.
After Heart of America's five-year lease on the building ended in 2003, the chef in charge of the restaurant for the Captain's Table - Mark Luciani - bought the restaurant outright. (At the time, Heart of America also sold the marina operation to American Marine based out of LaCrosse, WI.) Luciani tweaked the menu and made some positive changes to the restaurant. But the tailspin the restaurant began to go into during the Heart of America period still weighed heavy on the business and coupled with two floods and an economic downturn with the Great Recession in 2008, Luciani wasn't able to make the restaurant work. He closed the doors in February of 2009.
It was not long after that when three friends from Blue Grass, IA - Rod Teel, Jeff Delf and Casey Dolbin - came in to resurrect the Captain's Table. The group then contracted with Peter Harman - a.k.a. The Food Guru - to come in and help run the restaurant as a consultant. Harman owned or managed a number of restaurants including the Davenport location of Graze. Harman was in the midst of closing down Graze and he moved a handful of his employees across the river to the Captain's Table. (The Iowa City Graze location is still open.)
The partnership with the investment group and Harman didn't last long - I want to say Harman was pretty much out of the picture in a little over a year - and a number of chefs and managers revolved through the door over the years before Rob Eggers, who used to own the old Paddle Wheel restaurant/bar in Bettendorf, was brought on board in 2017 to run the Captain's Table for the group.
Then in the late evening of January 15, 2018, disaster struck in the form of a devastating fire that fully consumed the building. A passerby saw flames coming from the building (the restaurant was closed on Monday nights) and alerted authorities. By the time the fire department was on the scene, the whole building was fully engulfed. Because of the abnormal lay-out of the building due to additions that were made over the years, the fire department had no choice but to let the fire burn and employ a defensive strategy to keep the fire from spreading to the marina. No cause was found for the fire as state fire marshals said the building sustained so much fire and water damage that there would have been no way to pinpoint what started the fire. (Photo courtesy Todd Mizener - Rock Island Dispatch-Argus.)
The City of Moline still owned the building that housed the Captain's Table and after clearing the rubble from the fire they decided to work on putting a new building in place. Working with an architect, the city came up with a new design that would have an upper deck bar that would allow for sweeping views of the Mississippi River with a new dining area with outdoor seating on the main level. (That design is shown below at right. Graphic courtesy Rock Island Disptach-Argus)
However, it turned out that particular design would be too costly for the city to bear for the replacement building. A second design that took off the upper floor bar, but kept outdoor seating along the river front was approved. Work began on the new Captain's Table in 2019 and it opened for business in August of last year. (Shown above left is the final design of the "new" Captain's Table. Graphic courtesy Rock Island Dispatch-Argus)
It was just after 7:30 when we pulled into the parking lot at the Captain's Table back at its original location at 4801 River Drive in Moline. (see map) One thing that they did during the construction of the new building was to add more parking. The parking lot is probably one-third bigger than the parking lot that they had before. Still there were a lot of cars in the parking lot and we weren't certain we were going to be able to get in right away.
As we went inside (a distinctive porthole window was near the front door - a nod to the five porthole windows the old Captain's Table had in their bar area), we went up some steps and were greeted by Rob Eggers working the front desk that evening. We were told that it would be probably a 15 to 20 minute wait, so we decided to stay. The bar was full, but there were bench seats up near the front stand. On a ledge above the seats in the waiting area were four large aquariums - a nice touch for a nautical-themed restaurant.
The bar used to be in a back corner of the Captain's Table, but with the new design in the restaurant it's in the middle between two dining areas. The three-sided bar had high-backed chairs with an ornate back-bar area with dark wood accents. Flat screen televisions were on the walls behind the bar.
The two dining areas at the new Captain's Table were on opposite ends of the building. There was a smaller area up front with high-backed booths that were situated just below the aquariums. Short four-seater tables were on the floor up toward the windows that looked out onto the deck. It was a little cool that evening so there was no one seated out on the deck.
There was a larger dining space on the opposite end past the bar area. It featured more booths under a mural of the Mississippi River where it runs east-west through the Quad Cities. The river bends from the north just up-river from the Captain's Table - the bend is easily viewed from the restaurant - and continues west to Muscatine where it bends back to its usual north-south direction. Yes, you actually drive south into Illinois from Iowa in the Quad Cities. My wife's directions were screwed up the first few years she lived in Davenport as she learned growing up in Cedar Rapids that the Mississippi runs north-south. She always thought she was looking east into Illinois from the Iowa side when she was looking south the whole time.
We were seated in the back dining area and we were giving menus by one of the young ladies working at the front desk that evening. Our server that night was a young lady by the name of Amber. Even with Amber wearing her mask, my wife recognized her, but she didn't say anything. Turns out that she's the girlfriend of a friend of ours. She didn't recognize us - we had only been around her a couple three times with our friend - or if she did recognize us, she didn't say anything. Amber asked if we wanted anything to drink and my wife ordered her usual Tito's Vodka and cranberry juice. They had a handful of craft beers on the menu including some specialty beers from four or five local breweries. But I ended up ordering a Deschutes Fresh Haze IPA.
The food selections at the Captain's Table featured steaks, seafood and some combo dishes. Sandwiches including burgers, pork tenderloins, chicken and catfish were on the menu - many of which were featured on the menu from the old Paddle Wheel that Eggers brought over when he came to the Captain's Table. Appetizers included fried calamari, bacon-wrapped scallops, shrimp and crab dip, and chicken wings. One of the things they also had on the menu was clam chowder.
Now, when I first moved to the Quad Cities years ago, there were a handful of places that had wonderful clam chowder - restaurants such as the original Captain's Table, the Dock, the Belgian Village and a couple three other places in the area. In fact, the guy who I worked for before I moved to the area in 1991 told me one time that the best clam chowder he ever had outside of New England was in the Quad Cities. Unfortunately, those restaurants - in their original forms - are all gone and it's been tough to find good clam chowder in the area.
But I was intrigued enough to try the clam chowder at the Captain's Table. It was a thick creamy base with chunks of potatoes and clams mixed in. Chopped green onions came on the top of the chowder. I asked Amber for some Tabasco and it reminded me of the time when I put Tabasco in my clam chowder in front of JoAnn Sweet at the original Captain's Table years ago and she went ballistic. "You're ruining the taste of our clam chowder," she said in a raised voice. "It's made to not have anything put in it!" But I've been putting Tabasco in my clam chowder ever since I first had it back in the early 80's and I like a little zip to the taste.
Now, I can't say that the Tabasco hindered the taste of the clam chowder at the present day Captain's Table. In fact, it probably helped it. The clam chowder was pretty bland and somewhat lifeless for my taste, but I'm sure some people probably like it that way.
While I had my clam chowder, my wife got a dinner salad. It came with mixed greens and chopped veggies, and was topped with house-made croutons then drizzle with a creamy garlic dressing. My wife thought it was fine for what it was, just a basic dinner salad.
Along with the clam chowder and the dinner salad, a small loaf of warm house-made bread came with the starters. The bread was crusty on the outside, but spongy on the inside. It was a small loaf and we were able to each have two pieces of the bread with our salad and chowder.
Quite actually, I really didn't know what to get that evening. I wasn't certain I wanted a steak, and I wasn't certain I wanted seafood. I thought about getting one of their burgers, but I didn't want my first meal at the new Captain's Table to be a burger. They had crab cakes on the menu and I was just about to settle on those when my wife looked at a flap inside the menu. "Oh," she exclaimed. "They have prime rib tonight!" On Friday and Saturday evenings starting at 4 p.m., the Captain's Table has a 12 ounce or 16 ounce prime rib for $27.00 or $30.00 respectively. I hadn't had prime rib for long time, either, and I decided to get that.
However, when Amber came to the table to take our order, I ordered up the 12 ounce prime rib. "Oh! I'm sorry," she said apologetically. "I guess I forgot to tell you guys that we had run out of prime rib." It was around 8 p.m. - they're only open until 9 - and I'm sure the early birds came in droves to run them out of the prime rib. Somewhat crestfallen, I went with the crab cakes.
The crab cakes entree featured two thick patties that were overcooked and topped with a remoulade sauce. A side came with the meal and I went with the fries because someone at a table next us got the fries with a burger and they looked good. But, looks can be deceiving as the fries were lukewarm and limp. It was like they had made them up 20 minutes prior and left them in a bin for the cooks to pull from when needed. The crab cake was rich, but it was dry and rather unappealing. Overall, my meal was disappointing.
My wife went the seafood route and ordered the 8 ounce grilled salmon. She got a side of their potatoes-au-gratin. Well, if I was disappointed with my meal, my wife was appalled at what she was served. The piece of salmon - and a strong emphasis on "piece" - was nowhere near 8 ounces. My wife remarked, "This looks like a piece of salmon you get in one of the big bags of frozen salmon filets from Costco!" She thought the taste of it was fine, there just wasn't a lot of it.
And she was even more upset with the potatoes-au-gratin. It was like they had dumped two cups of cheese on a handful of cube-cut potatoes. "My god, this is like cheese soup with a little bit of potatoes mixed in," she said as she stirred the concoction in its dish. We counted 11 small chunks of potatoes in the dish - the rest was cheese.
The crab cakes were so over-cooked and so rich that I couldn't finish them. And I really didn't care if I finished them. And I hardly made a dent in my fries. Our meals were simply disappointing.
Amber tried to coax us into some dessert, but we were done. We'd had enough and were ready to get out of there. I just couldn't believe that the food didn't live up to the new and improved architecture of the Captain's Table.
A couple days later, we met up with friends of ours, one of whom works for a food distributor in the Quad Cities. "We went there for their soft opening," he said. "We didn't think much of the food." His wife agreed that she was disappointed in the food, as well. My wife said, "Disappointed. Yep, that sums up how we felt." We all agreed that it would be a nice place to go to on an afternoon or evening and have a drink and some appetizers on the outdoor patio overlooking the river. But going there for a special occasion, that was probably out of the question.
We were so hoping that the new Captain's Table would be a cut above the pre-fire Captain's Table. But I can't say that it was. And it may have even gone downhill from that era. For people like us who remember the Captain's Table when the Sweet family owned the place years ago, the bar was set so incredibly high that any other incarnation of the Captain's Table would be difficult to match. For now, the Captain's Table is only open Wednesday through Sunday from 4 to 9. We asked before we left if they were going to start doing lunch on the weekends and they said they hoped to during the upcoming boating season. I would come back to try a burger some Sunday afternoon if they were to re-open during the day through the weekends. Or I'd come back to sit on the deck on a nice summer afternoon to watch the river go by. But as a destination for special event dinners, I'd have to give the new Captain's Table a hard pass.
Hubby and I went there with some friends last weekend. We also thought the food was just OK. Definitely not like the old Captain's Table. My friend said it tasted like bar food.
Posted by: Steph's Mom | April 30, 2021 at 07:46 AM