My wife's grandson plays varsity soccer for Liberty High School in North Liberty, IA. He's only 15 and a scrawny little turd, but we're proud that he was only one of four players on the squad who are freshmen. We've gone up to North Liberty to watch him play a few times this year (they recently placed second in the state in the Iowa Class 3A boys state soccer tournament), and with their games starting at 5 p.m. because their field has no lights, we are usually out of there by 7:15, barring the game going into overtime and - possibly - penalty kicks. We had just watched them play and along with my step-daughter, her daughter and her soccer-playing son we decided to go out to eat after the game. I had wanted to go to a place in North Liberty that I had been by many times, but had never been in to eat. I suggested Red's Ale House and everyone wholeheartedly agreed.
Red's Alehouse is owned by Faye Swift and her son, Matt. Both have an extensive background in the restaurant business in the Iowa City area - Faye Swift was the longtime owner of Slugger's Sports Bar located on the Coralville strip, and Matt Swift has been involved in a number of local restaurants including Blackstone, 30hop, and was one of the founders of Big Grove Brewery that now has four locations across the state of Iowa.
Pictured right - Faye and Matt Swift. Photo courtesy Iowa City Press-Citizen.
But it was a natural disaster that precipitated the Swift's buying a building in North Liberty that had stood since the 1930's first as an illegal bootlegging/gambling house then later on as one of the more popular destination restaurants in the area.
Faye Swift started Sluggers in 1988 and helped revitalize the part of the Coralville that included hotels, restaurants and retail businesses. Around 2006, Faye Swift turned the management duties of Sluggers over to her son Matt and started to dabble in real estate.
In 2008, a monumental flood inundated parts of Coralville and Iowa City including Sluggers. Having been through one flood before the big one in 2008, Swift realized that she couldn't reopen the restaurant anytime soon. She let the lease lapse and looked for new opportunities. (Sluggers was in what is now Monica's in Coralville.)
Faye Swift thought she was done with the restaurant business and was looking forward to a career in real estate. However, in late 2008, the opportunity to buy a restaurant in North Liberty - E.B. Tayler's - came up. The Swifts had applied for a government loan to help rebuild Sluggers, but when it came through they had since walked away from the building because it was going to take too long to rehab. Instead, they took the money and bought the restaurant in North Liberty that had housed a number of establishments since it was built in the 1930's.
The original owner of the building had run an illegal gambling and bootlegging operation during Prohibition. Once Prohibition ended in 1933, the owner built a building next door to his original bar/gambling hall and called it Ma Shannon's. Even though they were still illegal, slot machines were housed in a room in the back of the establishment.
In the 40's, two gentlemen took over the business and simply called it Shannon's. Shannon's was in business into the early-60's when the business was sold and it became a pizza place - Charlie's Pizza. Pizza was still sort of a novelty and the owner was having trouble getting the locals to take notice of his business. In 1967, the owner of Charlie's Pizza sold the building to Dale and Kay Dahnke, the owners of the locally famous Lark Supper Club in nearby Tiffin. The Dahnke's remodeled the building and opened the Red Garter Supper Club soon thereafter.
While there were a number of supper clubs in the area, the Red Garter became known as the first place to have a salad bar. But because the Red Garter had a lot of competition, the Dahnke's decided to sell the business to focus on The Lark. The new owners of the business - The Winner's Circle - changed it into a horse racing-themed bar and grill. The centerpiece of the bar was a large fiberglass horse that was on display just inside the front door. After a short while, The Winner's Circle became a "member's only" after-hours gambling house.
But in the late 70's, Pam Hanrahan along with her brothers Mike and Tim bought the building and turned it into The Hitching Post. Now, I remember the Hitching Post because it was right next to some softball fields that I used to play on during my time in Iowa City in the early 80's. It was a great place to hang out after the game and I sort of remember they had a pretty good burger there, too.
After I left Iowa City in the mid-80's, the ball fields next to The Hitching Post were redeveloped into housing tracts and the Hanrahans sold the business. This was sort of the downtime for the building - it housed a couple bars that didn't last long, and during the 90's when it was vacant the local North Liberty Jaycees would use the building for their annual haunted house around Halloween.
In 1996, two friends bought the building and transformed it into Rookies, a more upscale sports bar/restaurant that featured steaks and seafood along with a party room for all occasions. The restaurant ran for about 10 years before the two partners sold it to one of their longtime managers who changed it into E.B. Tayler's and focused on pizza and pasta. However, that incarnation didn't last long and the restaurant closed in the fall of 2008.
That's when Faye Swift and her son Matt came in to buy the restaurant. They took the low interest loan money they had gotten from the government loan and bought the building not long after E.B. Tayler's closed up. From there, they managed an extensive remodeling of the building transforming it into an upscale bar and grill. In February 2009, Red's Ale House opened for business. Each summer, they have an annual anniversary celebration as Matt Swift said that no one wants to have a celebration in the middle of February.
It was around 7:45 when we all met up at Red's Ale House located along N. Dubuque St. in the older part of North Liberty. (see map) It's obvious with Faye Swift's fledgling career in real estate, she had an inkling that North Liberty would be growing by leaps and bounds when they bought the building in 2008. There were just under 10,000 people living in the community when they opened Red's Ale House. 16 years later, the population had more than doubled to just over 21,000 residents.
We were met by a young lady at the hostess desk who took us into the bar to seat us. There were high-backed leather (or pleather?) booths along two walls of the bar with short-top 4-seater tables in the middle of the room. The bar was made from deep mahogany - or walnut - and it was really a pretty classy place for a town the size of North Liberty. But it didn't feel pretentious. It actually felt somewhat homey.
The dining room on the other side featured two rooms including one sort of off to the side that could have been used as a private dining area or for overflow. My wife had complained that during previous visits to Red's Ale House that it could get pretty loud in there. But it was later in the evening on a week night when we got there and the inside dining areas were mostly empty as they were putting people mostly in the lounge.
Where there was a nice crowd was outside on a large and very nice patio area. It was more of a courtyard setting with trees and green patches with slab tile as the main flooring. It was pretty warm and my wife had been in the sun during the game, so the air-conditioned lounge area worked best for her.
Our server that night was a young lady with the very unique name of Tenli. I thought she said her name was Kenley, so I commented how unique that name was. My step-daughter said, "No, it's Tenli, with a T!"
"Oh," I sort of exclaimed. "That's even more unique than Kenley!" We had gotten food menus and I took a look through the beer list they had. They have 28 beers on tap - "No Crap on Tap" is Matt Swift's motto. (Many of the new-release beers from the Big Grove Brewery he co-owns go to Red's Ale House for release parties.) One beer that I saw they had on tap was the WarPigs Brewery Foggy Geezer hazy IPA. WarPigs Brewery is the off-shoot brewery from the 3 Floyd's Brewery in Muenster, IN. I ordered one of those from Tenli, but moments later she came back and said that they were out of that. I ordered up the Big Grove Easy Eddy hazy IPA instead.
The food menu featured sandwiches and burgers, flatbreads and house specialties such as mahi mahi tacos, a vegetarian tamale plate, and fish & chips. They had a slew of appetizers including wings (boneless and bone-in), crab dip with chips, pretzel bites, a beef birria taco (of which I almost ordered 2 of for my dinner), cheddar and bacon fries, and tuna wontons. Soups, salads and a pretty good-sized kid menu rounded out the menu offerings at Red's Ale House.
Even though I considered the birria tacos, I ended up getting the Paddy Whack burger - two smash-grilled burger patties topped with American cheese slices, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, dill pickles, and onions, all topped with a Russian dressing. And I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed in the burger - it was overcooked and somewhat of a gut bomb. I guess I expected some thing a bit better from my first visit to Red's Ale House.
My wife got the sweet potato salad - chopped arugula mixed with sweet potato cubes, avocado chunks, goat cheese, chopped walnuts, craisins and finished with a Dijon vinaigrette. She also had an option of adding some protein and she got a small sliced/grilled chicken breast. She thought it was very good.
Now, my step-daughter got what I should have gotten - the AleHouse burger. It featured a burger patty topped with provolone cheese, a sweet chili aioli, and onion straws. It looked juicy and delicious. I was somewhat jealous when she said how wonderful it was.
My step-grandchildren have been picky eaters for quite sometime, but I think I witnessed a rite of passage during this meal. My step-grandson never liked anything spicy and he had trouble just eating everything on his plate. But as a 15 year-old, he's completely changed. He also got the Paddy Whack and had no trouble with it being overcooked (maybe his wasn't) and he eagerly wolfed it down. I was happy to see that because he needs to put on weight to play soccer at the high school varsity level. But when he asked Tenli if he could get some Cholula for his fries, I about fell over. "This is the kid who cried when I put mild green chile sauce on his quesadilla a couple three years ago," I said somewhat incredulously.
My step-daughter said, "Oh, yeah. He puts Cholula on everything now." I was completely blown away by all that. Maybe some of my culinary preferences have rubbed off on him!
The other surprise came when my step-granddaughter ordered the chicken zingers (basically larger nuggets or smaller strips) with sides of both ranch dressing and a sweet barbecue sauce. But that's not what surprised me - when my step-grandson asked for Cholula, my step-granddaughter asked Tenli if she could bring her some Buffalo sauce for her chicken. Now, THAT blew me away. She's younger (10 - going on 18) and now SHE'S eating spicy foods and condiments. I was flabbergasted and somewhat impressed both at the same time.
About the only disappointment any of us had with our meal at Red's Ale House was my Paddy Whack burger that I thought was overcooked and very dry. But everyone else felt their meal was very good. Now, my burger wasn't that big of a deal breaker where I wouldn't go back to Red's at some point and eat again. They had a pretty nice selection of fixed and rotating craft beers (although they were out of my first selection), and there were other things on the menu that I would like to try at some point. Tenli's service was friendly and very capable, and I really liked the laid back atmosphere in the lounge area. North Liberty is lucky to have a place like Red's Ale House. It's a great destination if you're ever in the Iowa City area.
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