Road Tips

209 Main - Paton, IA

My wife and I were recently invited for a weekend retreat to my sister's fiancé's lake home along Lake Panorama in west central Iowa.  My sister's fiancé and I were working out dinner plans in advance and he was giving me some options in the area where we could go.  One place that he suggested was a place in the small town of Paton, IA that I had heard about in the past and had wanted to try since first hearing about it.  We agreed that we needed to go have a meal at 209 Main one of the nights we would be at the lake.  

Vaughn Bauer is what you would call a modern success story.  Bauer grew up in a farm family outside of Paton and went to a local community college to study welding and metal machining.  After getting his certificate in 1977, Bauer set up his first shop - Paton Machine and Welding - that he ran in conjunction with working part-time on the family farm.  At the time, jobs were tight and the Bauer family would do what they had to do to make a living.  

As Vaughn Bauer sat on a tractor planting corn or beans in the Iowa soil, his mind would wander to figuring out how to make a better planter, something that would plant wider than the usual 12 rows planters of the day would allow.  In the early 80's, he came up with a toolbar that would allow planter wings on a standard 12 row John Deere planter that could be easily placed in an upright position for easy transport.  Soon, Bauer would modify other planters for friends and farmers in the area.  

By 1989, Bauer had started to manufacture his own multi-row planters.  He called his company Bauer Built and his planters started gaining the attention of farmers across America and internationally, alike.  By 1995, he had redesigned the tool bar on the front of his planters to accommodate more planting boxes that would eventually allow up to 48 rows being planted at once.  

In 2002, John Deere started a co-branding agreement with Bauer Built to sell Deere-Bauer planters around the world.  A few years later, Deere ended up buying out Bauer Built taking over the 150-employee plant in 2013.  Today, Bauer Built has a manufacturing facility just down the road from the original plant that Deere now runs.  Vaughn Bauer employs 60 people that work on special projects for John Deere.  In addition to collaborating with Deere, Bauer Built also manufactures sleds that are used worldwide for tractor pulls, a hobby Vaughn Bauer and his family has been involved in since he was a teenager.  

With so many interested parties coming to Paton to check out the Bauer Built planters - many from countries outside of the US - there was no place for Vaughn Bauer and his wife Lori to entertain clients.  Paton is a very small town with a population less than 200 people.  The town didn't even have a convenience store until the Bauer's put one in a number of years ago.  It became evident that the Bauers were going to have to do something on their own to provide a place where they could entertain clients coming into Paton.  

The Bauers came up with a concept of a steak house-style restaurant that had a nice bar area and a reception/banquet area for larger parties.  Work started on the building in the downtown area of Paton in 2012 and in 2013 along about the time they sold Bauer Built to John Deere, the Bauers opened 209 Main for business.  (The Bauers also own 716 Main in Humboldt, IA, the second of what they hope will be many similar restaurants they hope to bring to small towns in Iowa.)  

It was a 45 minute drive from Lake Panorama up to Paton.  After a quick stop at the Wild Rose Casino in Jefferson, IA to bet horses in the Kentucky Derby, we ended up in front of 209 Main around 5:30 p.m.  (See map)  There was a class reunion going on in the banquet hall of 209 Main, but seating was plenty in both the dining room and in the bar, known as the Tool Bar.  

The Tool Bar at 209 Main is to the left as you walk in the front door.  Multiple flat-screen televisions hang from the walls and around the rectangular bar.  Above the entrance to the restrooms for the restaurant/bar is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle just sitting there.  I've never understood the reasoning why some places will have what appears to be a perfectly good motorcycle on display.  It could be that it was Vaughn Bauer's and his wife didn't want him to ride it any longer.  

The bar, itself, garnered a reputation for its chill strips - basically, a narrow cooling strip along the edge of the bar where patrons could put their beers or drinks to maintain a cold temperature.  The only other place that I've seen this was at the Maui Brewing Company when we had lunch there a number of years ago.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the Maui Brewing Company.)   The only problem is that the chill strips at the Tool Bar were deactivated.  All I know is that chill strips wouldn't help me out - I drink my beers too quickly.

We found a table in the bar area - there were five of us as my sister's fiancé's son joined us for dinner.  Our server that evening was a nice young lady by the name of Courtney.  After she gave us our menus, we ordered up some drinks.  They had a hazy IPA from the Lake Time Brewery out of Clear Lake, IA on tap - the G-Haze Lives.  We had been to the Lake Time Brewery before and I sort of remember getting that when we were there.  

The menu featured a little bit of a lot of things - steaks, seafood, pasta dishes, pork chops, burgers, sandwiches and even down-home Iowa comfort food staples like an open-faced hot beef sandwich, and a hand-battered fried chicken breast served with mashed potatoes and a creamy pepper gravy.  That actually sounded pretty good to me.  209 Main also had pizza on their menu and I understand that it's pretty good.  

We started out with some appetizers for the table - boneless chicken wings, a bacon-cheese dip that was served with toasted bread, and the 209 poutine consisting of French fries topped with cheese curds, shredded braised beef, chopped green onions and cheddar cheese finished with a rich demi-glaze sauce over the top of the whole concoction.  Now, THAT was delicious!

Interestingly, they had a salad bar at 209 Main.  With restrictions in place for many restaurants during the pandemic, salad bars had gone by the wayside.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a full salad bar up and running at 209 Main.  It had the normal fixings - pickled beets, sliced mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and other veggies to go with the lettuce greens.  After putting a few things on my plate at the salad bar, I got back to the table and saw that my sister's fiancé had gotten a bowl of soup.  It was a green chile soup and I asked where it was on the salad bar.  "At the end," my sister told me.  "You probably walked right by it."  Well, my wife says that I'm not very observant and I certainly didn't see it.  I went back to get a cup of the soup and I'm glad I did.  It was very similar to some of the better green chile soups I've had during our visits to Colorado.

The salad bar was located in the main dining room.  The dining area featured large tables for group dining as well as a number of booths along the wall.  Laser-cut metal signs and parts made at Bauer Built hung from the walls of the dining area.  Some of the signs were the names of countries that had hosted patrons at 209 Main during their visits to Paton over the years.  The bar area was much more lively and I'm glad we sat in there rather than in the dining room.  

They have prime rib after 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.  Now, I had prime rib the night before at Prime Time in Guthrie Center (click here to see an earlier Road Tips entry on Prime Time), but for some reason I really wanted to try the prime rib at 209 Main.  And I'm glad I did.  It was a wonderful cut of prime beef, juicy and tender.  I had asked Courtney to have the chef cut it as rare as possible and there was a lot of pink color throughout.  It came with green beans on the side.  I had a choice of potato and I got the au gratin potatoes.  I had made my way through much of the prime rib before I threw in the towel and had to take a good chunk of it back with me.  As much as I love beef, two large prime ribs on back-to-back nights was a little too much.  

My wife and my sister's fiancé's son both got the ribeye that evening.  My wife got the loaded baked potato for her potato choice.  She was very happy with the flavor of the ribeye which she had cooked medium.  Actually, my wife was even more impressed with the flavor and texture of the green beans.  She said they weren't overcooked and had a good snap when cut.  I didn't pay much attention to my green beans.  

My sister went with ribeye steak sandwich - basically, the ribeye on a hoagie bun that's dressed out.  And my sister's fiancé got the broasted chicken.  It featured two pieces of chicken - he got a third one with a small upcharge - and came with the green beans and a choice of potato.  He appeared to like it very much as there wasn't a lot of meat left on the bones when he finished.  

I had heard good things about 209 Main and I certainly wasn't disappointed.  Having a restaurant like this in a small town like Paton is interesting enough.  209 Main would fit in most anywhere in the Midwest.  My prime rib was very good - one of the better cuts of prime rib that I've had in a long time - and my wife was very happy with her ribeye.  Everyone in our party was more than satisfied with the choices they had for their dinner.  On top of that, the salad bar was a nice surprise and the green chile soup they had on the salad bar rivaled some of the better green chile soups I've had in Colorado.  Paton is definitely off the beaten path, but if you make it out that way, I'd definitely recommend a stop at 209 Main.  

Links - Davenport, IA

A couple new breakfast/lunch places have opened in the Quad Cities over the past year or so and they've been on our radar to try.  The one we decided to try first was a little place on Utica Ridge Road on the far northeast side of Davenport simply called Links.  One recent Sunday morning, we decided to give the place a try.  

The owner of Links is Kevin Takacs who happens to also own the R Bar, a little wine/cocktail place that my wife and I like to go to from time to time.  Links and R Bar are side projects for Takacs who is the founder and CEO of MedForce, a medical air transport company that services Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa.  Takacs founded the company in 2000 with the company's base of operations in the Quad Cities suburb of Colona, IL, and in 2005 they opened a second operation in Burlington, IA.  

Takacs tabbed James Allen to run the kitchen and to come up with a concept for the breakfast/lunch restaurant.  A Quad City native, Allen started out cutting his teeth in restaurant kitchens at an early age.  He eventually became a pastry chef ending up at the Crow Valley Golf Club in Davenport as their head baker.  While at Crow Valley, Allen became intrigued by artisan butchery which involves whole-animal butchering of local organically-raised farm animals for unique cuts of meat and charcuterie plates.  Allen eventually took courses both at Iowa State University and through the University of Wisconsin to learn the art of artisan butchery.  

We got to first know Allen when he would sell artisan cuts of meat at the Freight House Farmers Market in Davenport.  For awhile, Allen would show up with cuts of meat he cut himself, usually sourced from local farmers such as La Pryor Farms in Ottawa, IL.  We bought a beef tri-tip from him one time and it was one of the best tri-tips I had ever made on the grill.  

When Allen got together with Takacs, he wanted to continue the relationships he had built with local farmers and come up with a restaurant that used locally-sourced ingredients for the foods he would make.  The food served at the new restaurant would be traditional breakfast and lunch fare, only made with a refined twist of better ingredients.  Artisan coffee and a full bar with beers and wine would also be part of the mix.

Links had their soft opening in February of last year, but like every restaurant everywhere they were forced to shut down on March 16 of last year.  Then when restrictions were lifted to allow for restaurants to open at reduced capacity, Links re-opened in June of last year.  

It was a beautiful Sunday morning when my wife and I decided to head over to Links, located on the south end of a new strip mall at the corner of Utica Ridge and E. 56th Ave. that also houses a beauty salon, a financial planner, and a chiropractor.  (see map)  Quite actually, we had gone by the place a couple times in the past on a Sunday where the parking lot was packed and we knew we'd have a wait.  This time, we got there early enough - around 8:30 a.m. - to get in with no problem.  

The dining area was an open room, not all that big, but still comfortable enough.  A line of tables with banquette seating stretched along one wall.  Opposite to the other side was the bar area that also had a barista station.  There was a breakfast bar toward the back of the restaurant that looked into a large window into the kitchen.  The breakfast bar wasn't being used for anything other than to stack items on top when we were there.  The decor and atmosphere was rather drab and somewhat utilitarian.  There is also an outdoor patio on the south side of the restaurant.  Even though it was a nice spring morning, it was still a little too chilly to be seated outside.  

We were greeted when we came in by a lady who turned out to be our server that day - Stacy.  Stacy was friendly and outgoing asking if we had dined at Links previously.  When we told her that it was our first time, she said, "Well, welcome.  We're glad you could make it!"  She showed us to a table in the center of the dining area and dropped off a couple menus.  

Stacy asked us if we wanted anything to drink.  With a full bar and craft beer selections, as well as a barista making coffee drinks, I hit the breakfast trifecta with a bloody mary, an Easy Eddy hazy IPA from the Big Grove Brewery in Iowa City and Solon, IA, and a double espresso.  The bloody mary was loaded with bacon, a celery stalk, sweet pickles and green olives.  It was delicious and a great start for what was going to be a lazy Sunday for us.  

While we were there, Kevin Takacs came in the back door and started to converse with the employees.  Then he sort of took charge on the floor - seating people when they came in, helping bus and clean tables, directing his employees in helpful manner.  When he wasn't doing any of that, he would go around to individual tables and check on the customers.  He seemed like a pretty even-keel, hands-on boss who was probably good to work for.   

The breakfast menu at Links is pretty limited.  I don't know if that's way because of the pandemic, or if they just want to focus on specific items.  They had made-from-scratch sourdough pancakes and waffles, a breakfast sandwich with a choice of bread with two eggs, sausage and cheese, and a basic two eggs, choice of bacon or sausage, and toast breakfast.  Sides included hash browns or fries, bacon, link or patty sausage, and pork belly.  

When I saw the menu, I knew exactly what my wife was going to get.  The root vegetable hash featured roasted root vegetables, with asparagus spears, sautéed kale, and a choice of eggs.  She got scrambled egg whites on top of the hash.  A smoked paprika hollandaise sauce was drizzled on top of the food.  For an upcharge, she could have added sausage, fried chicken or pork belly to the dish.  She wasn't interested in any of those.  She also got a cappuccino to go along with her breakfast.  

My wife was also intrigued enough to get a single sourdough pancake.  It was thin, just like she prefers to make her pancakes at home.  (And my wife makes outstanding pancakes.)  More on the pancakes in a little bit.  

I ended up getting the eggs Benedict - or "Classic Benne" as it was on the menu.  It was pretty straight forward - poached eggs topped with the smoked paprika hollandaise sauce, on top of slices of Canadian bacon and a toasted English muffin.  

I also ordered a side of Links thick-cut bacon figuring that James Allen probably does his own butchering for his cuts of meat at the restaurant.  However, when Stacy brought our breakfasts out to us, she also gave me a single pancake.  I said, "I didn't order a pancake.  I got the bacon."  

Somewhat flustered and embarrassed, Stacy said, "Oh!  I'm sure you probably said bacon and I heard 'cake'. I'll get you your bacon right away."  And she took the single pancake away.  

Moments later, she brought it back.  "It looks like you're going to get a free pancake, today," Stacy said as she set it back down on the table.  "No use letting it go to waste."  I wasn't going to argue.  

The eggs Benedict were good - the eggs were cooked perfectly and they were big.  And the smoked paprika hollandaise sauce was very rich.  Actually, it was a pretty decent breakfast and somewhat filling.

But what was filling was the sourdough pancake that I got as a mistake.  Oh, man!  It was one of the most delicious pancakes I had ever tasted!  And I think my wife's pancakes are world class!  But whatever they do to the pancakes at Links, there's no comparison to anything I've ever had in a restaurant before.  What started out as just a couple bites to give it a try, it quickly turned into a "can't-stop-eating-this-even-though-I'm-full" moment.  The eggs Benedict were filling enough, but the sour dough pancake completely stuffed me.  And my wife thought they were excellent, as well.  

The only bad part of the breakfast was, well, the bacon.  For what I thought would be flavorful, thick-cut bacon turned out to be thin-cut and pretty basic in taste.  It was just two slices and they charged $4.25 for two normal strips of bacon.  That was a big disappointment.  I just sort of felt somewhat ripped-off for what I thought I was getting for a side of bacon and what actually showed up.  

Other than the bacon, I have to say that our breakfast at Links was very good.  My wife thoroughly enjoyed her root vegetable hash dish, and I was happy enough with the eggs Benedict that featured two very large poached eggs with a rich and flavorful hollandaise sauce.  But the sourdough pancakes were the hit of the meal and even the over-advertised bacon couldn't dampen the overall meal.  Well, and it certainly didn't hurt to have a bloody mary, a good craft beer and a double espresso to help get the day going.  My wife and I were so stuffed from the breakfast at Links that we didn't eat a thing the rest of the day.  It was a very good and very filling meal.     

Marquee Pizzeria - Coralville, IA

My wife and I made a recent Sunday trip over to Iowa City to hit the Trader Joe's store in Coralville.  My wife had suggested a place in Iowa City to go to for lunch, but when we got there it was packed and there would be a wait.  We went to another place I thought about, but it turned out they were closed.  A third and fourth place in Coralville were respectively closed as well.  My wife and I were incredulous that these many places would be closed, even though it was a Sunday.  Finally, my wife said, "There's a place down in the (Iowa River) Landing in Coralville that (her sister) and I noticed one time.  Let's try that place out."  She gave me directions how to get there and it turned out this place was open.  We were going to check out Marquee Pizzeria.  

Marquee Pizzeria was started by the same group of people - Sam Hall and siblings Ravi Patel, Raj Patel and Sajni Patel - who started La Vecina, a wood-fired Mexican restaurant just around the corner from Marquee Pizzeria.  (Click here to see our visit to La Vecina.  Also, quite interestingly, La Vecina is closed on Sunday.)  The group was also involved with the Clinton Street Social Club and the Patel's are all part of the family who owns the Hawkeye Hotels hospitality group of hotels and restaurants.  

After purchasing the Clinton Street Social Club, the group came up with a concept of a restaurant that had communal dining.  The logical food selection was pizza which large groups can enjoy.  They wanted to make the restaurant festive, sort of a "Brooklyn, NY comes to Iowa City" vibe and they wanted a large space with sort of a "backyard party" touch.  Strings of Edison lights were hung from the ceiling and criss-crossed over the tables of the space.  

The type of pizza was also important to the group.  Neo-Neapolitan-style pizzas were selected, but they added a type of New York signature to their pizzas - thin crust with a crispy underside to the pizza.  And they had to be wood-fired pizzas, so the group turned to the world renown Pavasi Forni Modena company located in Modena, Italy for their oven.  The oven is capable of reaching temperatures of 900 degrees (F) to be able to cook the pizzas quickly.  

Finding the right kind of dough was also crucial to Sam Hall's vision of what makes an exceptional pizza.  Hall worked with five or six different types of dough structures before deciding up on a naturally leavened dough that takes 48 hours from the time it's mixed to the time it's portioned out in dough balls.  With a wood-fired oven, it takes more time to prepare the pizza - shaping the dough and putting housemade mozzarella, sauce and premium toppings on top - than it does to cook it.  Pizzas at Marquee Pizzeria are usually fully cooked in as little as 90 seconds.  

With everything in place, Marquee Pizzeria started out with a soft-opening in October of 2017 to help shake the kinks out.  They opened their doors with full menu dining in November of that year.  

Pulling up in front of Marquee Pizzeria, we weren't certain that IT was open, either.  (see map)  But as we turned the corner to go into the public parking ramp at the Iowa River Landing, we saw that there were people inside.  

After parking the car, we came in the back door of the place and found that the hostess stand was up to the front of dining room underneath a replica portrait of the Mona Lisa.  A full bar with seating was along one wall with a number of tables throughout the place.  We were greeted by a young lady who said we could sit anywhere, so we took a table up front next to a large garage door that opened out to a small patio in front of the restaurant.  

In the back of restaurant was the large wood-fired pizza oven.  The large red oven was difficult to miss.  It had char marks on the top of the opening from a number of wood-fired pizzas made over the last two-and-a-half years.  

Our server that day was a friendly young man by the name of Nate.  I have to say that Nate had a good sense of humor, was more than helpful with suggestions and requests, and was more than accommodating during our time at Marquee Pizzeria.  He was what you would categorize as a "good guy".  

Nate dropped off a couple menus on the table and wanted to know what we would like to drink.  My wife ordered her usual Tito's and cranberry juice, while I asked if I could get a bloody mary.  Nate said, "Oh, no, I'm sorry.  We don't have bloody mary's.  I don't know why, but we don't have the mix for them."  I was sort of crestfallen when he told me that as I was craving a bloody mary.  And I was sort of confused as they appeared to have a full bar as they certainly had vodka, but didn't have bloody mary mix.  But that didn't matter all that much as I found out they had a number of craft beers on tap.  I ended up ordering a Toppling Goliath Pompeii mosaic IPA, one of my favorite hazy IPA's.

The menu at Marquee Pizzeria featured a handful of shareable appetizers and salads.  They had a handful of pasta dishes, but the main aspect of the menu are their pizzas.  They have a number of speciality pizzas on the menu including a margherita pizza that sounded wonderful with their housemade mozzarella, a red sauce and fresh basil.  The Vice City pizza consisted of smoked mozzarella, locally-sourced sausage and pepperoni, with a pickled pepper sauce and hot honey.  And the Prosciutto Primavera featured - of course - prosciutto, housemade mozzarella, Prairie Breeze aged-white cheddar cheese from the Milton Creamery in Milton, IA, red pepper flakes, garlic-oiled arugula with Calabrian olive oil drizzled on top.  Marquee also had a vegan pizza available, as well.  

My wife likes to have some greens when she can and she was sort of interested in the Classic Italian Salad - romaine lettuce, sliced cherry tomatoes on sliced cucumbers, chopped red onions, pepperoncini, with parmesan cheese and bread crumbs on top with a red wine vinaigrette on the side.  We decided to get a full size salad to share as I thought it sounded good.  Well, it looked even better than the description on the menu. My wife remarked that it was almost too nice to dig in to.  The presentation was equalled by the fresh taste of the ingredients on the salad.  It was a great start for our lunch.  

We ordered up the Falco pizza - probably the most popular one on the menu according to Nate.  It consisted of locally-sourced pork sausage with a red sauce, then sliced red onions, breadcrumbs, garlic, fresh basil and  parmigiano cheese were all added.  I asked Nate if he could add some of the locally-sourced pepperoni to the pizza and he said it would be no problem.  

The pizza was a 12" pizza - as are all the pizzas at Marquee Pizzeria.  It was thicker on the blistered outer ridge, but nice and thin in the middle - just as my wife and I like our pizza.  And from the first bite, we could easily tell it was a quality pizza.  The fresh flavors of the basil, tomato sauce, the sausage and the pepperoni exploded with each bite.  The dough was perfect with little to no sag with each piece.   

My wife and I have experienced some pretty good Neapolitan-style pizza in our travels and I would have to say that the pizza we had a Marquee Pizzeria would rival many of the better ones we've had.  Everything about the pizza was wonderful - the fresh toppings were flavorful, the dough was spongy, but still had a crispiness to it, and the overall taste was very good.  I can't say enough about our server Nate who was attentive and accommodating throughout our visit, going about his job in a friendly and jovial kind of fashion.  The only drawback - and a minor one, at that - is that for a place with a full bar, I was surprised that they didn't have a bloody mary mix.  But it still seemed like a nice place to gather and even with a number of very good pizza options in the Iowa City area, I'd go back to Marquee Pizzeria at some point.