Road Tips

3 Mile House - Hazel Green, WI

Just over the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River from Dubuque, IA are a handful of supper clubs, the backbone of rural-style casual-fine dining restaurants in the Badger State.  My wife and I have tried nearly all of them - most notably the Village Bar Supper Club in Kieler, and Chop's Kall Inn Supper Club in Hazel Green.  But there is one that dates back to the 1930's that we have wanted to try for some time and that one is 3 Mile House in Hazel Green.  We took a bit of a road trip one Saturday afternoon in August and ended up having dinner at 3 Mile House.  

As I said, the 3 Mile House lineage dates back to the 1930's when supper clubs were starting to be entertainment and dining destinations that grew out of rural speakeasies from the 1920's.  By the 40's and 50's, supper clubs in the upper Midwest had gotten away from entertainment and had gone to more of a casual upscale dining experience.  

Originally called the High Hat, the building that housed the original supper club was destroyed by fire in the late 1940's.  The owners at the time rebuilt the restaurant and placed it further back from Wisconsin State Highway 35 to allow for more parking in the front.  It was at that point it was named the 3 Mile House as it was exactly 3 miles from the U.S. Highway 20 bridge over the Mississippi River between Dubuque, IA and East Dubuque, IL  

Ownership of 3 Mile House changed over the years but stabilized in 1980 when Paul (Red) and Velma Moor bought the supper club in October of 1980.  It was a family affair as Red and Velma's son Jeff - also known as "Chop" - helped out along with his brothers Julius (also known as "Jube") and Chris, and his three sisters, Peggy, Paula and Audrey.  Shortly before Red and Velma had purchased 3 Mile House, Jeff started dating a young lady by the name of Julie.  Julie also went to work at 3 Mile House as a waitress and it wasn't long after that she married "Chop" Moor.  

When Red and Velma decided to retire in 1997, they sold 3 Mile House to Jeff and Julie who continued to run the restaurant for 20 years before "Chop" decided he wanted to sell the restaurant and do something else.  In late 2017, two friends who had worked together at restaurants around Dubuque - Jesse Elliott and Mark Giunta - came forward to purchase 3 Mile House from the Moors.  ("Chop" was eventually coaxed out of semi-retirement in 2019 by the new owners of the nearby Kall Inn supper club to run the place for them.  They even renamed the supper club Chop's Kall Inn.)

Jesse Elliott had experience working at Ground Round and Red Robin in Dubuque.  While he was at Red Robin, he met Mark Giunta who later left to open his own restaurant.  The opportunity to buy 3 Mile House was just too good for them to pass up and the pair took over ownership on January 16, 2018.   The pair also welcomed long time bartender Will Pearce as a minority owner in the business.  Pearce's daytime job was as a financial planner, but he had worked nights and on weekends as a bartender at 3 Mile House since 1992.  Last year, Pearce bought out Guinta and became a full partner with Elliott in the supper club.  

My wife and I were relaxing on our deck on a beautiful Saturday morning when she made the suggestion that we go up the river to Bellevue and sit outside on the patio by the Mississippi River at River Ridge Brewing.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on River Ridge Brewing.)  Then she suggested that we continue on up the river after that and go have dinner at 3 Mile House.  She and a friend of ours went up to Dubuque about a month earlier to go to Jubeck New World Brewing's 10th Anniversary celebration.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Jubeck's.)  After hanging there for awhile, my wife made the suggestion that they go have dinner at 3 Mile House.  (This is the second instance of my wife going somewhere with our friend to a new place we hadn't been to before.  See the entry on the Dizzy Horse for the first time that happened.  And they both happened on the same weekend!)  

As we were seated on the patio at River Ridge Brewing, my wife thought it might be best to make reservations for 3 Mile House.   "We were lucky when we went," she said as she was looking up 3 Mile House's phone number.  "We went early and the place was packed.  But they were able to get us in."  3 Mile House opens at 4:00 p.m. and she made reservations for us at 5:30.  

After having a couple at River Ridge, we drove up the Great River Road to Dubuque and decided to have a beer at Jubeck Brewing.  It was getting close to 5 p.m. and my wife suggested that we get over to 3 Mile House to make sure that we can get in.  I sort of scoffed at the notion of going early, but we drove over the US Highway 151 bridge into Wisconsin from Dubuque and got off at the first exit in Wisconsin.  A right turn at the highway and a quarter mile down the road found us at 3 Mile House located at the corner of Wisconsin State Highways 35 and 11.  (see map)   

When we pulled in, I was flabbergasted.  The parking lot was packed and the restaurant had been open for just over an hour.  We were able to find what was the last parking spot in the lot in front of the supper club and went inside.  The lounge was packed with people either waiting for a table or just hanging out.  My wife went over to tell a guy - who turned out to be Jesse Elliott - that we had made reservations.  He said that it would be a few minutes for a table.  We hung out in the cozy bar area and ordered up a couple drinks - a very dirty Absolut martini for my wife and a Pseudo Sue pale ale from Toppling Goliath in Decorah, IA for me.  

Almost as soon as we placed our orders with Will Pearce at the bar, Jesse Elliott called my name for our table.  Will said he'd have someone bring our drinks out to our table.  The dining room also had a low-slung ceiling with wooden beams criss-crossing the room.  The tables were sort of small and cramped, but it wasn't like people at tables in close proximity were on top of you.  

Our waitress that evening was a tall young lady by the name of Emily.  She was so tall that I had to ask her if she played basketball or volleyball.  She sort of laughed and said, "I used to play volleyball and basketball in high school when I went to East Dubuque."  She said that she's going to Northern Iowa now and plays both in intramurals.  Emily had worked at 3 Mile House since she was in high school.  "Sometimes I'll come back on weekends," she said.  "And, of course, I'm here in the summer time."  

When we sat down and were given menus, there was already the customary relish tray on the table.  It featured chopped veggies on a plate with cheese spread, ranch dressing and braunschweiger (liver paté) in little tubs.  A basket of crackers was off to the side.  We both dove in to the basket and plate to devour the pre-dinner snacks.  

It was a bit later when Emily brought our drinks to the table and she asked us if we had any questions on the menu.  We really hadn't taken a look through it as of yet and she said she would check back.  The menu was expansive and featured appetizers such steak bites served with horseradish and blue cheese, stuffed mushrooms, fried pickles, and - of course, since we were in Wisconsin - deep-fried cheese curds.  Steaks, chicken entrees, ribs, pork chops, seafood and pasta dishes were also available.  3 Mile House also had sandwiches, burgers and seasonal features such as a stuffed lemon herb chicken entree or mahi mahi served with a mango salsa.  Combo dishes such as a beef tenderloin filet with either shrimp or lobster were also available.  

Starting off, we both got a dinner salad before our meal.  My wife got the Caesar dressing while I went with French dressing.  They were both basically the same salad greens with croutons and shaved carrots.  It was your typical supper club-type salad and was good for what it was.  

My wife ordered the 8 ounce beef tenderloin filet for her dinner.  She ordered a side of hash browns with fried onions and melted cheese on the top.  The filet was butterflied and broiled.  The cheese on the hash browns looked more like a cheese sauce rather than melted cheese on top of the fried potatoes.  My wife thought they were just OK.  

They have prime rib on Friday and Saturday night at 3 Mile House and I was leaning heavily that direction.  But when Emily asked me what I wanted, I blurted out, "I'll have the 12 ounce filet. Rare."  That sort of stunned my wife and made me pause for a moment after Emily walked away.  My wife said she thought I was going to order the prime rib.  "So did I," I said.  "I don't know why I ordered the filet."   For a moment, I contemplated getting Emily's attention to change it to the prime rib, but in the end I went with my choice.

But it all turned out well.  The filet was cooked a perfect rare for me and it was tender and tasted great.  Emily was able to round up some ground horseradish for me.  And after I had eaten about half the steak, I saw someone at a table next to us get a New York strip with some sautéed mushrooms.  Man, sautéed mushrooms would have been great!  Oh, well, the filet on its own was excellent.  

For my side, Emily was talking about the au gratin potatoes when she was going through the specials they had that evening.  I figured they must be something special if they highlighted them with the specials that evening and I ordered a side of those.  And they were fine - cheesy potatoes with bread crumbs were basically what they were.  I was more interested in getting through the very good steak I was having.   

I love supper clubs as the food is usually very good, the staff is friendly, and they're homey and cozy little places.  And 3 Mile House checked all three of those boxes for me.  My steak was delicious and cooked perfectly rare with a cool red center.  The au gratin potatoes were a good side to go with the filet.  My wife loved her 8 ounce butterflied filet and she was happy enough with her hash browns with cheese and grilled onions.  Emily was a top-notch server for us that evening, friendly, efficient and fun.  Add 3 Mile House to the list of excellent Wisconsin supper clubs that we've visited.    

Chop's Kall Inn Supper Club - Hazel Green, WI

We love the atmosphere and food at many of the Wisconsin supper clubs we've visited over the years.  We were going to take a weekend getaway up toward Dubuque and check out some of the fall foliage last year.  We knew there are a handful of supper clubs in Grant County on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River from Dubuque including the Village Bar Supper Club in Kieler, WI that we visited a few years ago.  But there was one that I wasn't familiar with - Chop's Kall Inn near Hazel Green, WI. 

Ben and Mable Kahle started the Kall Inn Tavern and Dance Hall ("Kall" the pronunciation of their last name) in Kieler, WI in 1945.  The main draw to the Kall Inn was a television set that marveled and entertained diners when programming was available to be watched.  Five years after opening, the Kahle's purchased an old fish market near the Mississippi River west of Hazel Green along US 61/151 near the narrow bridge that would cross the river at Eagle Point in Dubuque and turned it into a supper club, changing the name to the Kall Inn Supper Club.  

Ben and Mable were joined in the business by their son Wayne after he got out of the Navy in the late 50's.  Ben Kahle died in 1964 and Mable passed the following year.  Wayne, his wife Mary, and their five children continued to run the Kall Inn Supper Club up for over 45 years up to and after Wayne and Mary had retired and were wintering in Texas and three of their children had moved away.  Two of the remaining daughters in the area decided to close the business in 2012.  

Not far from the Kall Inn was another supper club - the 3 Mile House Supper Club - so called because it sat 3 miles from the Mississippi River bridge between Dubuque and East Dubuque, IL.  It was located at the corner of Wisconsin State Highways 35 and 11 outside of Hazel Green, WI.  Originally known as the High Hat Supper Club, it suffered a devastating fire in the 40's.  It was rebuilt, but further back from the highway intersection.  It was - and still is - one of the more popular supper clubs in the Tri-State area.  

In 1980, Paul and Velma Moor bought the 3 Mile House Supper Club and like many people who own supper clubs, it was a family affair with their six kids helping out in the restaurant.  One of their sons - Jeff, also known as "Chop" - became deeply involved in the business.  Shortly before the Moors bought the supper club, Chop had started to date a young lady by the name of Julie.  In fact, Chop and Julie's first date was dinner at the Kall Inn Supper Club.  When the Moors took over the 3 Mile House, Julie started as a waitress.  It wasn't long after that Chop and Julie were married and raising their own children.  

In 1997, Chop and Julie took over ownership of the 3 Mile House and ran it for 21 years before Chop decided he wanted to do something else in life.  Chop and Julie sold the supper club and laid low for a couple of years.  

In 2019, Jeff and CeAnn Kaiser, owners of one of our favorite little roadside dive bars - the Kieler Mall in Kieler, WI - bought the Kall Inn as an investment.  The Kaisers reached out to Chop and Julie Moor to see if they would be interested in running the place for them.  Chop was ready to get back into the restaurant business and he readily agreed to run the Kall Inn for the Kaisers.  Chop brought over many of his famous dishes from the 3 Mile House including his beef tips bowl, broasted cod, and the popular prime rib and barbecued ribs on Saturday nights.  And to let everyone know who was in charge of the place, the Kaisers named it Chop's Kall Inn Supper Club.  Chop's Kall Inn opened in late November 2020.  

My wife and I had taken the Friday afternoon off and we got checked into our hotel in Dubuque around 3 p.m.  After getting settled in, we took off to enjoy a couple craft beers at the newly expanded Jubeck New World Brewing in downtown Dubuque, then we went on to the Wicked Dame to get my wife a martini or two.  We had made reservations in advance at Chop's Kall Inn for 7 p.m.  But we decided to head out early and I popped the address into the GPS.  

After crossing the Wisconsin side bridge over the Mississippi, we got off at the Badger Road exit - the 2nd one into Wisconsin on US Highways 61/151.  The GPS had me get off on a black top road.  It was well after the son had gone down and we were suddenly going down a dark road with trees lining the roadway.  My wife remarked, "This looks like the kind of road in the movies where two people drive down, but only one comes back.  Are you trying to tell me something?"  At the bottom of the hill, the road opened into a clearing and on the left was Chop's Kall Inn.  (see map)  

We were about 25 minutes early when we walked into Chop's.  There was a long narrow three-sided bar off to the side, but it was the most prominent feature in the dining room.  Royal blue was the defining color of the restaurant with the wait staff wearing royal blue polo shirts and the chair backs at all the tables were a deep royal blue.  It wasn't a fancy place - more homey than posh.  The atmosphere fit us like a glove.

A young lady behind the bar asked us if we had reservations.  I told that we did, gave her my name, but I also said we were early.  She said, "We have your table set up back in the corner!"   

The young lady led us back to a four-seat table in the corner.  Already on the table was a good ol' fashioned relish tray complete with veggies, a cheese spread, a liver spread and ranch dressing.  The little packaged bread sticks were available in a basket on the table.  

My wife and I were looking through the menu when our server for the evening - Brooke - came over to greet us.  Here's a spoiler alert - Brooke was fabulous that evening.  She was cheerful, had a great sense of humor, and was more than helpful all night long.  She would have been the kind of waitress where you would have invited her to sit down at your table at the end of her shift and just hang out having a couple beers.  

Brooke asked us what we wanted to drink.  My wife ordered a dirty Absolut vodka martini - I was sort of surprised she wanted another martini after she had two stiff ones at Wicked Dame.  I saw that they had Old Style in bottles on the beer menu.  I immediately signed up for one of those.  Wow!  Old Style in a Wisconsin supper club.  I was loving this place already.

The only problem - Brooke came back and told me that they were out of Old Style.  "Out of Old Style," I said in feigned indignation. 

Brooke laughed and said, "I know!  What kind of place is this?"   

I jokingly said, "Well, I'm gonna trash this place!"

Brooke laughed again and said, "Could you do it in one of the other girl's stations so I don't have to clean up?"

I knew I was going to get a steak, so I immediately switched to the house cabernet they had at Chop's.    

Even though I pretty much knew I was going to get steak that evening, it turns out that Chop's Kall Inn also had pork chops, grilled or broasted chicken, a chicken or shrimp pasta alfredo, and a number of seafood entrees including the stuffed-broasted cod that Chop made famous at the 3 Mile House.  We were a day early for Chop's prime rib and barbecued ribs night.  Appetizers included chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, onion rings - and since we were in Wisconsin - fried cheese curds.  

After ordering up our meals, we had a choice between cottage cheese, a tossed salad, house-made cole slaw or soup as a starter.  My wife got a small bowl of the cole slaw, while I ordered a salad.  My wife thought their cole slaw was very good and she offered me a bite.  It was creamy and sweet with a nice crunch to the cabbage.  Dinner rolls were provided along with the salads.  

My salad featured fresh lettuce greens - the dish was cold to the touch so they were making the salads in advance and pulling them out of the refrigerator when they were needed.  And I have absolutely no problem with that.  There were cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers and large crouton chunks on the sale and it was slathered in what was called a French dressing on the menu, but it was more of a sweet Western-style dressing.  It was a great start to the meal.

My wife and I both got steaks for dinner that night - the tenderloin filets.  I don't think we considered anything else on the menu.  Hers was a 6 ounce cut and she ordered it medium at first.  Seconds after "medium" came out of her mouth, she changed it to "medium-rare".   She cut into it and I would have called it rare-plus - it was pretty rare.  But years ago, my wife would have sent it back.  She went ahead and ate it like that.  And she thought it was excellent.  

Sides came with the steak and we had choices such as mashed potatoes and beef gravy, a baked potato, wild rice, steak fries or French fries, or a steamed vegetable of the day.  My wife got the hash browns with grilled onions and cheese mixed in.  

I got the 10 ounce filet that evening.  And, as always, I ordered it rare.  I got steak fries to go along with the filet.  I had requested Brooke bring out some fresh ground horseradish and she provided a little tub of it 

And my steak was a perfect rare - very red and cool in the middle with a great salt and pepper flat-grilled seasoning on it.  It was tender and flavorful.  It, too, was excellent.  And the steak fries were outstanding, as well.  They had to be broasted as they weren't oily or greasy, crisp on the outside and had that pillowy potato inner core.  After tots, steak fries - good steak fries - are my second favorite way to prepare potatoes.  

And that was a problem because I was stuffed from the steak and I couldn't stop eating the steak fries.  I finally got Brooke's attention to come over to the table.  "Take these away before I eat more," I said as I gestured to the less than half-full bowl of steak fries.  

Can't stop, huh," Brooke said as she picked up the bowl.  "The steak fries are my favorite," she said.  

Brooke tried to entice us with some dessert, but we were too full to even consider any more food at that point.  (Besides, we figured that if we needed dessert later on, the hotel had a restaurant.)  She dropped off the check and I took a quick look at it.

Now, this is my pet peeve with some restaurants - restaurants who suggest a tip on the bill.  The tip suggestions at Chop's Kall Inn - 18%, 20%, 22% - were based upon the meal, the tax on the meal, and the credit card fee of 3.5%.  I only tip on the cost of the meal, not the tax or tip.  I think it's somewhat dishonest when restaurants suggest a tip that includes taxes and extra fees.  

But that was the only bad taste that was left in my mouth with our visit to Chop's Kall Inn.  The steaks we had at Chop's were excellent.  The service we had from Brooke was excellent.  She was really fun and we like fun servers when we dine out.  And the atmosphere was homey and far from stuffy.  Grant County in Wisconsin has 8 supper clubs and we're going to try to eat at each one.  But it's going to be tough to beat everything we experienced at Chop's Kall House.  

 

Birch's on the Lake - Long Lake, MN

A former account of mine in the Twin Cities area knew of my affinity with supper clubs and brew pubs.  About four years ago, he told me of a place on a lake just west of Minneapolis that was a combination supper club AND a brew pub.  I had this place on my "Restaurants to Visit" list ever since.  But because of the pandemic and subsequent job changes, I hadn't been back up to Minneapolis for a while.   I did recently visit to the Twin Cities for work and this time I made my way out to Birch's on the Lake.  

Back in the early 60's, a supper club by the name of Hanson House opened on the shores of Long Lake near Wayzata and Orono just west of Minneapolis.  When Hanson House closed in 1984, Billy's Lighthouse took over the supper club and it continued to be a favorite destination for steaks, fish fries and great views of the lake.  But Billy's Lighthouse closed down in 2006 and the property was re-zoned to accommodate a proposed townhome development.  

The townhome development never materialized, however, and the original supper club building was never demolished.  It sat vacant for nearly 10 years before another restauranteur in the area came to its rescue.  

Burton Joseph grew up in the restaurant and catering business.  His family ran Joseph Catering in Minneapolis for a number of years and his father owned a franchised chicken restaurant in the 1960's and 70's.  Two years after Billy's Lighthouse closed, Joseph took over a spot in Long Lake that used to be an Italian restaurant and turned it into a contemporary supper club with an emphasis on hearty comfort food.  A longtime family fried chicken recipe was the cornerstone of his menu at Birch's Restaurant and Bar.  

Billy's Lighthouse sat in decay for nearly 10 years as Burton Joseph passed near the property each time he went to and from Birch's Restaurant.  Finally, he decided to do something about the two-tiered supper club and he had a plan.  And it involved a young man longing to run his own brewpub.  

Brennan Greene grew up in the Orono/Long Lake area west of Minneapolis and he ended going away to college at Wisconsin.  After graduating from UW, he went to the World Brewing Academy - first in Chicago at the Siebel Institute, then finishing up in Munich at the Doemens Academy - to learn how to brew beer.  Upon graduation, Greene ended up in St. Louis as the brewer at the original Schlafly Tap Room.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the Schlafly Tap Room from 16 years ago.)  For 8 years, Greene led a team of brewers making some of the better craft beers in the St. Louis area focusing on sours and barrel-aged beers that helped grow Schlafly's business.  

In 2014, Greene left Schlafly on a quest to open his own microbrewery.  He had a name - Missouri Oak Brewery - and a concept for a brewpub with a beer garden in the University City neighborhood of St. Louis.  But two failed attempts at leasing space for his brewpub caused Greene to re-examine his plans to open in St. Louis.

Pictured right - Brennan Greene and Burton Joseph during the build out of the Birch's on the Lake supper club and brewery.  Photo courtesy Laker Pioneer.   

On a trip back to Minnesota to see his parents in the fall of 2014 after failing to find a spot in St. Louis, he was introduced to Burton Joseph who happened to be a friend of Greene's parents.  It turned out that Joseph was looking into doing a brewpub at some point and shared Greene's ambition about opening a microbrewery.  

One of Greene's problems with running a brewpub was that his wife had just given birth to their first child and it was going to be tough for his wife to take care of their daughter if she had to help out at the brewpub.  But what convinced Greene to come back to Minnesota permanently was that they suddenly had a built-in baby-sitter with his parents for their baby daughter.

Joseph and Greene leased the old Billy's Lighthouse in early 2015 which by that time had turned into an eyesore as it was rundown and well-in-need of extensive repairs.   After gutting the building and starting from scratch, the duo put the supper club on the upper level of the two-tiered building, and put the brewery/brewpub downstairs with a walk-out patio that sat just off Long Lake.  After 9 months of construction, Birch's on the Lake opened in late September of 2015.  

I had an appointment in downtown Minneapolis in the late morning, then had to drive up to Fargo for meetings later in the day.  I had looked up Birch's on the Lake and found that it wouldn't be all that far out of the way if I went there for lunch.  I took I-394 west out of downtown Minneapolis and followed it all the way out of the city as it eventually turns into US 12.  A quick turn off US 12 in Long Lake took me right to Birch's on the Lake.  (see map)

The supper club upstairs is closed during the day with all lunch served in the brewpub downstairs.  But I was able to sneak a peek into the main dining room thanks to a young lady who was at the doorway.  The supper club featured a long dining room with great lake views to the north side of the room through a number of large windows.  A fireplace was at one end and I understand that they have live entertainment in the dining room some evenings.  

The brewpub is down the stairs and opens into a three-sided bar area.  The bar had a few single diners there for lunch and that's where I decided to park myself.  The bartender that day was a lady by the name of Steph and she gave me a lunch menu to look over.  The brewery was offering seven beers on tap that day including a blonde ale, a stout beer seasoned with marshmallows that made it taste like S'mores, and a blood orange wheat beer.  I got the hazy IPA which was a 1st place winner in its category at the 2023 Minnesota Brewers Cup awards earlier this year.  It was definitely worthy of the award.

There's a small lounge area on the bar level just in front of the brewery room.  The lounge featured half-barrel chairs with some small tables.  It was sort of a disheveled space with some boxes off to the side as it also appeared to be a working area of the brewery.  Lamps made with brown gallon jugs hung from the ceiling throughout the brewpub.  

                                                                                            The 10-barrel brewing system was behind glass panels and it definitely smelled like a microbrewery.  I was told that initially when Birch's on the Lake first opened they were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays as the smell of the brewing process didn't agree with some diners.  But they've since been able to vent out a lot of the more overpowering smells from the brewery.  

 

A lower level from the bar and lounge area takes you to the dining area of brewpub.  Barn board short walls lined one side of the dining space with large windows looked out toward the lake.  More of the brown jug light fixtures hung from the ceiling in the dining area.  

The outside terrace is just past the windows from the brewpub dining room.  The deck is long and narrow and looks out on to Long Lake.  The patio terrace is a popular place for lunch and dinner, and it was evident this particular day as nearly every table was filled during the lunch rush.  

The lunch menu features a number of sandwiches, appetizers, soup, salads and brunch items that are served until 3 p.m.   (The dinner menu goes more toward the traditional supper club entrees such as steaks, seafood, ribs, and pasta dishes along with sandwiches, specialty tacos and flat breads.  On Saturdays and Sundays, Birch's on the Lake features brunch starting at 10 a.m.)  

There were a lot of things on the lunch menu that caught my attention.  The grilled grouper tacos was probably the first thing that jumped out at me, but I also was intrigued with the burnt ends served with waffle fries.  The brunch part of the menu had a couple things that interested me such as the corned beef hash topped with a poached egg and a hollandaise sauce.  And off the menu that day was a duck tacos special that Steph said was very good.

But it was a guy across the bar who ordered something that made me change my mind at the last minute.

Steph brought out a plate of the prime rib benedict and placed it in front of the guy across from me at the bar.  He was telling someone just a couple seats over from him how great the prime rib benedict was and how he got it nearly everytime he stopped in for lunch.  I sort of shrugged my shoulders and ordered it, as well.  

It featured thin-sliced prime rib placed upon two English muffins halves, each topped with a poached egg and a hollandaise sauce.  Real hash browns - as in freshly shredded - were on the side with strawberry slices.  I asked Steph for some Cholula hot sauce to sprinkle on top of the hollandaise and the hash browns.  

And it was pretty good.  I don't know if I was quite as enthusiastic about the overall quality or taste of the plate of food as the guy across the bar was, but it was still very good.  The hollandaise sauce had a nice tangy taste and was spiced up with some ground horseradish, but didn't overpower the rest of the items on the plate.  The sliced prime rib was tender and was a surprisingly good combination as part of the eggs benedict.   

If you're a long-time reader of Road Tips, you'll know that two of my favorite places to visit in my travels are supper clubs and brewpubs.  Imagine my glee to find a supper club and a brewpub under one roof.  Birch's on the Lake is a great combination of both.  You can have your traditional supper club meals on the upper level, but also have a great brewpub experience on the lower level with a nice outside terrace to enjoy the views of the lake.  My only regret is that I wish I had found Birch's on the Lake sooner as I don't get to the Twin Cities as much as I used to.  But when I do get back, I really want to head back out for another meal.  

Turtle River Chophouse - Turtle River, MN

During our summer vacation to northern Minnesota, one of the things that I wanted to seek out was a good ol' fashioned northwoods supper club.  There were just a handful in the area and one of them that we checked out was sort of "iffy".  However, one that we did find was a steak house that was about halfway between Bemidji and Blackduck on the old US Highway 71 - Turtle River Chophouse.  We checked via phone one afternoon to see if they were open that evening and made reservations when we were told they were.  

Turtle River is really nothing more than a point in the road where there are a handful of businesses that cater to outdoorsmen and campers.  For years, the focal point of Turtle River was a small supper club by the name of Bar 71.  Bar 71 looked like a barn with an addition on the back and was locally famous for their fish fry's and their fresh walleye platters.  But in September of 2012, a fire that started in the kitchen wiped out the restaurant.  Owners had planned on rebuilding, but that never happened.  The property sat dormant for awhile before two brothers came to the rescue.

Derek and Brett Leach had bought the Bemidji burger joint Bar 209 in 2011 and were itching to do something a little more upscale for their next restaurant.  They purchased the property that Bar 71 sat upon in the summer of 2013 once it was determined that the owners of the old supper club were not going to rebuild.  Part of the original building was salvaged in the fire, but the brothers determined that they wanted to rebuild a larger space with a new foundation underneath.  Turtle River Chophouse opened in the early spring of 2014.  

We had driven up to Blackduck earlier in the day and decided to stop off at the Turtle River Chophouse before they were opened to make sure this place was legitimate.  Turns out that it was and then some.  (see map) The outside of the building was modern looking with a stone patio off to the side.  It was a beautiful evening, but we wanted to eat inside.  

Just inside the front door is a cross-cut section of a white pine tree that had fallen during a storm on a nearby property back in 2003.  It was lacquered and small arrow notes showed that the tree sprouted in 1825 and historical dates were marked along the rings of tree.  I noticed it immediately when I came in, but lingered a few moments to check out the information arrows on the cross-section of the tree when we left.  

As I said, we made reservations earlier in the day - we were told by one restaurant when we started to do some research on going to the Bemidji area a couple weeks prior that we had to have reservations according to the state mandate when restaurants across Minnesota reopened a number of weeks ago.  But the young lady at the hostess stand at Turtle River Chophouse said that most of the time people don't show up with a reservation, they would take their name and number just like it was a real reservation and still seat patrons.  My wife and I figured the names and phone numbers had to be in place in case a COVID-19 outbreak started in the restaurant on a given day.  

We were seated at a table in the dining area along the wall.  A couple menus were dropped off with us when we sat down.  The place wasn't fancy, but it wasn't a dank bar and grill, either.  We were dressed in casual clothing that night, but a table filled with a family celebrating a birthday on the other side of the dining area had a couple guys that looked like they had just come in from the fields to have dinner at Turtle River Chophouse.  Stone-tiled floors and a high-ceiling gave the dining area some roominess, and my wife immediately discovered the acoustical tiles attached to the ceiling to help lower ambient noise.  A couple three palm trees - we found out later they were real - were sitting in middle of the dining area.  

The bar area is attached to dining area.  Flat screen televisions hung on either side of the long rectangular bar.  The kitchen area with a large service window that looked out into the long room was just past the bar.  The only remnant of the old 71 Bar was the Pabst Blue Ribbon lighted sign that hung above the kitchen service window.  And they had a great selection of tunes playing in the background on their music system.  We heard recordings from Modest Mouse, Strumbellas, Lord Huron, and a great rendition of the classic Simon and Garfunkel "The Boxer" by Jerry Douglas backed by Mumford & Sons.  

Our server for the evening was a fun and effervescent young lady by the name of Cailin.  She was friendly and chatty all evening long.  She asked us what she could get from the bar for us while we looked over the menu.  I saw that they had Alaskan Amber on tap and I ordered one of those.  (Although, later, I wished I hadn't as it was a little flat.)  My wife got her usual Tito's vodka and cranberry juice.  

The menu at Turtle River Chophouse was not exactly what we were expecting.  It was more of an upscale steakhouse and not quite the quintessential northwoods supper club that we had hoped to find.  And that was not a deal breaker for us.  In fact, Turtle River would be a good place to eat if it were in any mid-sized Midwestern city.  It was just sort of surprising for the type of menu they had in middle of the sticks 11 miles from Bemidji, MN.  

At a supper club in the northwoods of Minnesota, you probably wouldn't see sesame-crusted ahi tuna on the menu, and you probably wouldn't see Korean barbecued ribs.  They also had interesting items such as shrimp with gnocchi, chicken and rice stir fry, and spinach-dip-stuffed chicken breasts topped with a garlic cream sauce.  In fact, they only had one steak on the menu - an 8-ounce sirloin steak with a gorgonzola butter topping.  Yes, it was not your typical supper club by any stretch of the imagination.  

Another thing you don't see at northwoods supper clubs are  sushi rolls.  But they had them at Turtle River Chophouse. Actually, my wife and I were a little hesitant, but also somewhat intrigued about them.  When Cailin came back, I asked her about the sushi rolls.  I apologized in advance for being so incredulous that they would have fresh seafood sushi rolls on the menu at a restaurant in the middle of the woods in Northern Minnesota.  "We actually sell quite a few of them," she said.  "They're actually pretty good."  What the hell - we had to give them a try.  

And our incredulity pretty much stopped after popping a slice of the spicy tuna roll that we had ordered into our mouths.  The tuna was fresh and not fishy in taste.  The spicy drizzle gave the roll a nice little "pop" in flavor, and they were certainly better than grocery store-bought spicy tuna rolls that I've had in the past.  The only thing was that they didn't give us enough wasabi or fresh ginger.  But we were more than able to work around that.  

Being that it wasn't a true supper club, we had a bit of a hard time digesting the menu.  When Cailin came back to take our food order, we still weren't ready to order just yet.  But my wife and I both determined that we were going to drink red wine with our meal.  I ordered up a bottle of the Jeff Runquist 1448, a blended Californian red.  We had been getting into blends lately and some have been very good while others have been sort of "meh!"  But with the 1448, we were both surprised and happy with the complex flavors the wine offered.  

After ordering our main courses, house salads came out beforehand.  The salad featured thick romaine leaves with slices of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers.  A very hearty balsamic vinaigrette came on the side as a dressing.  Everything in the salad tasted farm fresh and was a nice start to the meal.  

For her main entree that evening, my wife got the special that night - beef filet medallions topped with crusted gorgonzola sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes.  Some vegetables came with the medallions.  She was in the mood for steak that night, but since there were only two choices for steaks, she went with the medallions.  She was a little skeptical when it was served to you, but she was happy with her choice after a couple of bites.  

I went with the seafood linguine with Italian sausage and mussels in light red sauce - once again, not something you'd expect to see at a restaurants in the middle of the woods in northern Minnesota.  Parsley, sliced red peppers and basil were mixed in with the sausage, mussels and linguine noodles.  This dish, too, was surprisingly very good.  

For dessert - which we both really didn't need after all the food we'd had - we went with the creme brûlée.  It was good quality creme brûlée and it definitely appeared that they had someone back in the kitchen who knew how to make it - and make it correctly.  

We had been talking with Cailin about the Turtle River Chophouse.  We had been to the brothers' other restaurant Bar 209 a couple night's previously.  (They also own Red Stu Breakfast Bar and the Cabin Coffee House in Bemidji.)  We were asking her about the origin of Turtle River Chophouse and she was telling us the story of Bar 71 and the night it caught on fire.  "It started at 2:30 in the morning," Cailin told us.  "So, immediately, people around here thought it was suspicious.  I don't know if it was or not, but Derek and Brett came in after a while and bought the place.  The tore down what was left of the old building and built this."  

By now, most of the other people in the restaurant had cleared out except for a couple people seated at the bar.  A man came over as we were finishing up our wine and trying to finish the very rich creme brûlée.  He asked how everything was and I told him it was surprisingly very good.  It turned out that it was one of the co-owners, Brett Leach.  He asked me how it was so surprising.  I told him that we sort of expected a northern Minnesota supper club-type of menu and we were surprised to see some of the things on the menu - things that we didn't expect to find out in the country less than 100 miles from the Canadian border.  

"We set out to make it a little more upscale than other restaurants in the area," Brett explained to us.  "But we didn't want to make it so upscale that the locals wouldn't appreciate the food."  He said that business has been steady during the pandemic, but not at the numbers they've seen in the past.  "People aren't traveling like they have in the past," he said.  "But we're holding our own."

We remarked about the sushi rolls and he said, "We get our fish for sushi three times a week.  We're still debating whether it's worth it, but we do sell a fair amount of sushi rolls."  

I asked him how business was normally in the winter time for them.  "It's surprisingly not bad.  We have a steady clientele of people who either live here year round or come here to ice fish or snowmobile or cross-country ski," he explained.  "But that may be a different story this winter."  

My wife asked him how he got started in the restaurant business.  He told us that he and his brother worked at a steak house in Bemidji - "Not too much different from this place," he said - working bussing tables and in the kitchen.  "But I got my real start working in my grandmother's kitchen when I was a little boy," he said.  It turned out that his grandmother had a working farm with 30 farmhands where she would cook 3 meals a day for the workers.  "I had to learn how to help her prep food, clean dishes, make sure we had enough provisions.  Stuff like that," he told us.  "My grandmother would make three different types of pies each morning after breakfast."  Brett said that was his introduction to working in a kitchen and it taught him how to work in a high-impact kitchen and having to come up with solutions on the fly if something didn't quite work out.   

We had told him that we had already eaten at Bar 209 and wondered if he had any recommendations of other restaurants we needed to try in the immediate area around Bemidji.  He gave us a couple three names of places that we actually did give a try including Tutto Bene.  I remarked to my wife that I felt he was very gracious to do that, helping support other places in the area.  Most restaurateurs would have probably said, "Oh, you won't find anything in the area as good as MY place!"  

If you've read all the way through this post, you've figured out by now how pleasantly surprised we were with our visit to Turtle River Chophouse.  It was definitely a unique find in the lakes region of northern Minnesota. It wasn't the typical "relish tray/three-bean salad/prime rib"-kind of supper club that you can find in the northwoods.  The menu was interesting, the food - we thought - was very good, the atmosphere was nice, the decor was welcoming, and the service was efficient and personable with some fun mixed in.  We had a lot of good to great meals on our trip to northern Minnesota and this one may be the most memorable in terms of how surprising it turned out to be.  

Ernie's on Gull - Brainerd, MN

On our recent trip to Northern Minnesota, we were driving through Brainerd as I was trying to remember some of the town from trips my family would take to Lake of the Woods when I was a young boy.  Unfortunately, I didn't remember much of anything while driving through Brainerd.  It was getting close to lunch time and my wife has to have three-squares a day.  Knowing this and figuring that there were restaurants in the immediate area, I started to calculate where we may stop.  While driving through Baxter, the "twin" city to Brainerd, we saw a billboard touting a restaurant on Gull Lake.  I punched the name into the GPS and it came up right away - Ernie's on Gull.  We're always up for lakeside dining, so we decided to head there for lunch.  

The spot where Ernie's stands has been there since 1917 when a Finnish immigrant by the name of Ernie Ritari opened a small fishing resort on what was known as Squaw Point on Gull Lake - the largest of the 7 Gull Lakes in Minnesota.  Ernie's wife Edna worked in the bar and was the housekeeper for the small cabins that were part of the resort.  Ernie - who was a carpenter by trade - had left Finland in the late 1800's as a small child with his parents and siblings.  But he harbored a deep resentment for the Russians who were casting a pall of influence over relatives still living in Finland after the Bolshevik Revolution in the fall of 1917.  His disdain for the Russians ran so deep that he never allowed vodka to be on the grounds of his resort.  

Ernie and Edna ran the resort for a number of years before retiring in the 1960's.  From there, the resort changed hands when Ron Niemann bought the place and called it Ron's on Squaw Point.  When he shut down the resort and kept the bar, restaurant and marina, he changed the name to Ron's Steak House.  Ron Niemann eventually sold out to a person who renamed the place The Butcher Block.  But by the turn of the 21st century, the Butcher Block was no more.

A group of private investors came in to resurrect the bar/restaurant/marina and called it Ernie's on Gull as a nod to original owner Ernie Ritari.  That group ran the place for 11 years before two brothers and a friend came into the picture who were interested in buying Ernie's.  

The brothers - Chris and Mike Foy - had grown up in Brainerd and were high school football stars in the late 1990's/early 2000's.  Like many people who had lived in the area, they frequented Ron's Steak House with their parents and younger brother while growing up.  The opportunity to buy Ernie's on Gull came about and with a friend, Zac Swarthout, the group purchased the restaurant/bar/marina in August of 2011.  The Foy brothers eventually bought out Swarthout's interest in the place in January of 2015 and they continue to run Ernie's on Gull to this day.   In addition to Ernie's, the Foy's also run the Main Street Ale House in nearby Nisswa.  They opened that upscale bar and grill in the spring of 2018.

Ernie's on Gull is definitely off the beaten path and without a GPS we probably would have had a little trouble finding the place.  It's located in an area that the locals call East Gull Lake.  We pulled into the parking lot a little after noon on an unseasonably cool day in north central Minnesota.  (see map)  

We found what turned out to be a nice northwoods supper club with dark pine paneling on the outside of the building.  There was a patio that faced the lake and it was filling up fast with noontime diners.  Off to the side of Ernie's was another building that housed the On Point Burger Company, a pseudo-burger shack which opened earlier this spring that offered counter ordering for boaters coming off the lake.  It was closed the day we were there and I'm guessing that it's only opened on weekends and holidays.  

The view from the outdoor patio was very nice with the lake spread out to the north. The only problem was that it was in the mid-60's, my wife and I were in shorts and short-sleeved shirts, and the wind was whipping across the lake from the north.  Outside dining may have been popular with people who were wearing jeans and light jackets, but we were going to be eating inside. Had it been about 10 degrees warmer and with less wind, we would have definitely wanted to sit on the patio to have lunch.

Inside Ernie's, we found an open area that had a small bar off to the corner.  Pine wood accents were prominent throughout what was more of a lounge area with a few high-top tables.  A young lady greeted us and asked if we wanted inside or outside dining.   We told her that we thought we'd like to sit inside.

She took us to another room off the lounge area that turned out to be a more spacious room with low ceilings.  We took a booth by the window that looked out over the lake.  Now, I have to say that not only was it cool outside, it was cool inside.  They had the air conditioner cranked like no other for such a cool day outside.  My wife had to go back out and get a sweater out of the car because she was freezing.  I can tolerate some coldness, but even I thought it was sort of cold in there.  

We were given a couple menus and it wasn't long before our server Lauren showed up to take drink orders.  They had Kona Big Wave on tap and, of course, I signed up for one of those.  My wife ordered up a Summit Extra Pale Ale.  She ran off to get our beers while we took a look at the menu.  

It wasn't a long menu at Ernie's on Gull, which sort of made me feel better.  Too many times a restaurant tries to do so many things that the food is all right, but generally not good.  The bulk of the menu you could get all day long.  They had a handful of entrees - such as a peppercorn-encrusted ribeye, an almond-crusted walleye, and shrimp & sausage gumbo - that were only available after 5 p.m.  Actually, the shrimp & sausage gumbo sounded pretty good to me, given how cold it was in the dining room.  

For the most part, they had burgers, sandwiches, salads, and a choice of short rib, shrimp or smoked pork tacos.  Crab cakes, seared ahi tuna, Korean-beef nachos, and roasted Brussels sprouts were part of a pretty interesting mix of appetizers.  And Ernie's also offered their "seafood buckets" that could be shared for appetizers or as a meal.  Peel-'n-eat shrimp, fried calamari, Prince Edward Island mussels, and fried shrimp were the choices for the seafood buckets.  

Since the gumbo wasn't a possibility for lunch, I focused on the sandwich selection that included a reuben, a pastrami on rye with muenster cheese, a smoked pork Cuban sandwich, and a gyro that featured prime rib in a pita wrap.  The burgers all sounded pretty good too as they got their beef from local purveyors.  But there was something on the special board as we walked in that caught my eye that I wanted to try before having a sandwich.

They had a wild mushroom and beef soup the day we were there.  That just sounded good to me, especially for how cold it was in the restaurant.  It featured large chunks of wild mushrooms with tender small cubes of beef mixed into a creamy broth.  It was very rich and hearty, and it helped warm me up a bit.  

My wife followed suit as she saw that they had a lobster bisque on the menu.  She was planning on eating light and thought she would get the full bowl of the bisque.  The lobster bisque was very rich and about halfway through my wife was regretting her choice of getting a bowl rather than a cup.  She offered me a few bites to help her out and it was very good.  Actually, I didn't know what I liked better - my wild mushroom and beef soup, or the lobster bisque.  Both were a great start to our lunch. 

My wife ended up the small Caesar salad with some grilled chicken.  When Lauren brought the salad plate to the table, my wife exclaimed, "Oh, my gosh!  I'm glad I got the small Caesar salad!"  It was a pretty sizable plate filled with chopped romaine lettuce, red onions, cherry tomatoes and croutons.  A thin grilled chicken breast came on the side.  She was almost so full from the lobster bisque that she said she would do her best to eat it.  She must have liked it as she made a sizable dent in the salad and grilled chicken.

I hemmed and hawed about getting a sandwich or a burger - I almost pulled the trigger on the pastrami on rye - but I ordered the truffle mushroom and Swiss cheese burger.  I also got some bacon to go on the burger, as well.  It featured the same wild mushrooms as I had in my wild mushroom soup along with a truffle and thyme aioli.  Kettle chips normally come with the burgers and sandwiches, but I upgraded to sea salt fries for a buck and a half more.  

My burger was good, above average in taste and quality, but not outstanding.  The wild mushrooms had a nice earthy taste and everything that was on it - Swiss cheese, bacon and the aioli sauce - worked very well together.  I was asked if I would like it "pink or no pink" and I asked for it pink.  I'm a little leery when restaurants do that because my idea of pink sometimes doesn't jibe with the cooks.  But this burger was cooked perfectly with a pink middle, but not too rare where it was too loose.  It was a multi-napkin burger, the kind I like.  

For taking a chance on a place that we saw an advertisement for on a roadside billboard, I'd have to say that Ernie's on Gull turned out all right.  It was a nice place - albeit too cold for how we were dressed in normal summer attire - right on a lake with great views.  My burger and the wild mushroom and beef soup I had were both good - I liked the soup a little more than the burger, though.  My wife was more than happy with her rich and filling lobster bisque along with her Caesar and grilled chicken salad that she couldn't finish.  Ernie's was a nice place with a northwoods vibe.  And the service we had was friendly and prompt.  It's easy to see why it has been a popular spot with locals and vacationers for years and years.  

Village Bar Supper Club - Kieler, WI

My wife wanted to take a day trip up to Galena, IL not long before the Christmas holiday and while it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, I still did it.  But after a walk up and down the main drag along Main Street dodging holiday shoppers and other day-trippers from Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, even my wife said it was time to get out of there.  It was later in the afternoon and we hadn't really had anything to eat all day long.  I remembered something a friend of mine said to me not long ago about a supper club in Kieler, WI that supposedly had great prime rib.  We got in the car and headed up to Kieler to give the Village Bar Supper Club a try.  

Supper clubs are a staple in Upper Midwest culture with Wisconsin and Minnesota boasting, by far, the most supper clubs in the region.  Northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin have a large number of supper clubs, but the state of Wisconsin has over 250 restaurants that are designated as supper clubs.  (For a complete listing of current supper clubs in Wisconsin, click here.)  They are usually found in small towns, on lake front property, or at country crossroads.  Each of them has their own unique character and history.  And the Village Bar Supper Club is certainly one of those unique little places.  

The original building the Village Bar Supper Club sits in dates back to the days of Prohibition in the late 1920's and early 1930's.  German immigrants Bruno and Helen Heinrich were the original owners of the place that may or may not have once been a combination speakeasy and brothel.  It is said that Al Capone used to dine there as he came to Dubuque on a regular basis to run illegal liquor into the area in the late 20's using the Mississippi River to transport booze to cities and towns up and down the river.  

During World War II, anti-German sentiment was at a high, even amongst German-Americans in the area who thought the Heinrich's were Nazi sympathizers.  Their little bar/restaurant was vandalized on many occasions with the bar actually being pushed over by a group of young men one evening.  By the late 1940's, the Heinrich's decided to sell their bar.  

In the early 1950's, a gentleman by the name of Dick Alderson took over ownership of the place and renamed it the Village Bar Supper Club.  The original dining room was small and they had a second dining area on the second floor - an area that eventually became an apartment years later.   Alderson owned it for a number of years before selling it to a man by the name of Claire Fiedler.  By the time that Bruce Symonds bought the place in the 1990's, a total of five different people had once owned the place up to that point.  

Also in the 1990's, Kurt and Shelley Thumser both had full-time factory jobs around the Dubuque area, but they also had a part of the 19th Hole restaurant just outside of East Dubuque, a small tavern that was well-known for their good burgers.  Shelley Thumser was looking to do something more than just slinging burgers at a small place at nights and on the weekends.  Kurt just happened to be sitting at the bar at the Village Bar Supper Club talking with Bruce Symonds at one point when Thumser made the proposal to buy the place.  Symonds contemplated it for awhile, and in 2001 the Thumsers took over possession of the Village Bar Supper Club.  

The Thumsers wanted to distinguish themselves as different from previous iterations of the Village Bar Supper club.  From the first day they owned the place, Kurt Thumser declared that the Village Bar would have the best prime rib around.  Sourcing top notch beef from a local purveyor, it wasn't long before the Village Bar was known around Southwest Wisconsin, Northwest Illinois and Northeast Iowa as having excellent prime rib.  

It was a less than 20-mile drive up backroads in northwest Illinois crossing over into southwest Wisconsin to get to Kieler from Galena.  Now, we had been to Kieler before a few years ago when my former neighbor and his wife took us to there on our way up to Green Bay to have a couple drinks at the Kieler Mall, a small bar just off Highway 61/151.  My former neighbor is a descendent of the village's founder John Kieler and the story he loved to tell was the time they were in Kieler a number of years ago visiting with other family members.  Someone had mentioned that they were going to go to the Kieler Mall and his somewhat proper aunt from Green Bay, not knowing that the Kieler Mall was a bar and not a shopping outlet, jumped at the chance to go with the group.   "You can almost imagine how she felt when she walked into a small hole-in-the-wall joint thinking that she was going shopping," my neighbor laughingly told us on our visit to the Kieler Mall.    

The Village Bar Supper Club is on the north side of Kieler right at the corner of County Road H and County Road HHH which curves through Kieler.  (see map)  They open the bar at 4 p.m. and start serving dinner at 4:30.  We got there just about 4:30 and walked inside.  We encountered a small bar area just as you come in the door with a small dining room in front of the bar area.  We were immediately greeted by one of the bartenders behind the bar who asked us if we had a reservation.  We found out later on that reservations are probably a good thing to have on a Friday or Saturday night.  The phone was ringing off the hook when we were there from people putting their name and time in for reservations later in the evening.  Even so, the bartender told us that he could get us seated right away.

He took us to a corner table for two in the main dining room just off the bar area and it wasn't long until another lady came out from the kitchen area with a couple menus for us to look through.  There was already another couple in the dining room and they appeared to already be eating their main course.  It wasn't long before a party of 8 came into the room, then another couple came in and was seated at the table next to ours.  Our same server waited on them and they didn't even hesitate when she came over to greet them with a couple menus.  "He's on a mission," the lady told the server.  They both placed their orders without even looking at the menus.  The had their food in no time, ate it quickly, gathered up whatever remained in to-go boxes, and were out of there before we got our food.  Yes, I would say he was on a mission.

The wine and craft beer prospects at the Village Bar were limited - they did have New Glarus Spotted Cow, but I've never been a big fan of New Glarus beers.  They had some house wines, but my wife decided just to get a Tito's vodka and cranberry while I got a domestic beer that was served in a can with no glass.  Hey, I didn't say that The Village Bar was a classy place.  

Most of the items found on the menu at the Village Bar are typical of what you'd fine in most Upper Midwest supper clubs - of course, they had their famous prime rib that came in 3 sizes - a 16-ounce petite cut, a 24-ounce queen cut, and a 40-ounce king cut.  (I understand that they can also cut a 60-ounce "King-and-a-Half", or for the gargantuan appetite they can cut an 80-ounce "Double King" slab of prime rib.)  Steaks, chicken, pork chops, ribs and pasta dishes also are found on the menu.  An extensive seafood part of the menu offered lobster tails, scallops, jumbo shrimp and king crab legs.  In fact, one of the ladies in the part of 8 at a table near us got the king crab legs and they were huge.  My wife and I were both amazed by the size of the crab legs they brought out to her.  The menu had a little bit of everything for everyone, which is exactly how most supper clubs are.

And like any supper club worth their salt, the prerequisite relish tray made its way to our table.  It featured celery sticks, baby carrots and radishes with bowls of braunschweiger, ranch dressing, whipped cheddar cheese and a crab dip that my wife surmised was made with imitation crab dip.  The braunschweiger was actually pretty tasty, but it left sort of a metallic taste in my mouth, similar to a taste I remember from my youth drinking out of an old water pump on our farm.  My wife said that her grandmother made braunschweiger as a little kid and she can't really stand the taste of it any longer.  "Too much of that iron aftertaste," she said.  But the relish tray is still a great touch.  

Along with the relish tray, we had our choice of either cottage cheese or cole slaw to come out in lieu of a salad to start out.  My wife got the cole slaw, which was a creamy-style of cole slaw; and I got the cottage cheese which was pretty basic cottage cheese.  

For dinner that night, my wife - who is not very big on prime rib - declared she was going to get a steak.  They had an 8-ounce or 12-ounce tenderloin filet, a 16-ounce T-bone, a 12-ounce sirloin, and a 16-ounce ribeye steak.  My wife was sort of taken aback by the large cuts of steaks, but rationalized that she could get a to-go box to take home with her.  She ended up ordering the ribeye.  She had the option of a choice of potato, rice or a vegetable medley.  She got the vegetable medley which was really nothing more than some steamed frozen veggies.  But she didn't mind that as she was going to concentrate on making a big dent in her steak

Me - I was in full bore on the prime rib.   Even though I wasn't that hungry, I went with the 24-ounce queen cut - as rare of a cut the person cutting the prime rib in the kitchen could find.  I, too, figured that I could take some home with me.  I got sautéed mushrooms on the prime rib and for my side I got the hash browns mixed in with cheddar cheese and sautéed onions.  The cut of prime rib was very rare.  

Both of our meals were simply excellent.  My wife ordered her steak medium and it had a hint of a pink middle just as she likes it.  The vegetable medley turned out to be somewhat "meh!", as was the somewhat stale dinner roll they served with the cottage cheese and cole slaw.  But she was more than happy and impressed with the cut, quality and taste of her steak.  

My prime rib was everything that my friend said it would be - juicy, tender, flavorful, just an outstanding cut of prime rib.  The sautéed mushrooms were fresh and had that great earthy taste and texture that went well with the beef.  The hash browns with the cheese and onions were also very good, as well.  I offered them up to my wife after she turned up her nose at the veggie medley after a couple of bites.  "I should have gotten the hash browns," she said after her third forkful.  

Our waitress came over to check on us and we had pretty much hit the wall after both of us finishing just about half of the beef that was on our plates.  She got us some to-go boxes and said, "I take it you guys probably aren't interested in any dessert."  We both emphatically said no.  We were able to make a second meal at home out of the leftover ribeye and prime rib the next day.  

I have absolutely no complaints about the meal that we had at The Village Bar Supper Club.  But the thing that really got me was how good of a value the meal really was.  With all the food we had, a mixed drink and a couple beers, plus the add-ons for the sautéed mushrooms on my prime rib, and the cheese and sautéed onions on the hash browns, the bill came to just over $60 bucks and change.  The service was efficient and friendly, the place was clean and cozy, and the food was superb.  It's about a 75 minute drive from our home to The Village Bar Supper Club in Kieler, WI and we'll have no problem making that trek again at some point.  

Skip's - Des Moines, IA

Earlier this year, I was e-mailing back and forth with Road Tips reader Chris B. who found the blog awhile back and was interested in the places I've been to in his hometown of Des Moines.  He had mentioned that his parents used to own a root beer stand on the south side of the city and that he really missed a number of the old pizza places and steak houses from his youth.  One place that he asked me about was Skip's, a sort of supper club that is out by the Des Moines International Airport.  Now, I told him that I had been to Skip's before, but it was probably more than 30 years ago when I was last there.  I decided that I would get to Skip's on my next visit to Des Moines and try the place out again.  I was able to do just that on a visit to the Des Moines area earlier this summer.  

Alvin "Skip" Bachman grew up in Knoxville, IA before serving a stint in United States Marine Corp in the 60's.  After getting out of the marines, Skip started to work in restaurants before opening his eponymous named lounge in a house along Fleur Drive in 1981.  Over the years, Skip Bachman expanded the lounge into a full fledged restaurant that featured a full kitchen and menu.   He eventually teamed with business partner Dave Thompson to develop and run restaurants such as the nearby Francie's (click here to see the Road Tips post on Francie's), Nick's Bar and Grill, and the Urban Grill.  Tragically, Skip Bachman was diagnosed with cancer in May of 2013 and died in December of that year.  He had basically turned over full ownership of the Urban Grill to Thompson before his passing and sold off the other restaurants, as well.  Today, his children - John Bachman and Alyssa Clark - run Skip's.  

Although it faces Fleur Drive, the entrance to Skip's is on Wakonda Drive.  (see map)  I got into Des Moines around 4 p.m. and checked into the hotel down the street from the restaurant and got there about a quarter to five in the late afternoon.  Predictably, there weren't a lot of people in the place and I was able to get a table near the bar in the original lounge area.  A young lady by the name of Katelynn was my server and she dropped off a menu.  I saw that they had Toppling Goliath Pseudo Sue on one of the bar taps and I ordered one of those up.  

Since it started out as a house, Skip's has the intimate feeling of a cozy home.  Off to both sides of the lounge  were dining rooms - the newest one was one I didn't remember from my previous visit back in the 80's.  It was a walk down into a long narrow room with tables with banquette seating and booths.  A fireplace was at one end of the room.  It looked like it could get sort of cramped in the room if it were full of diners.  

The menu at Skip's features a myriad of Midwestern favorites - steaks, pork chops, seafood, sandwiches, soups and salads.  And being that it's on the south side of Des Moines, they also feature a number of Italian dishes, as well.  Surprisingly, they also had jambalaya on the menu - something that immediately caught my eye.  

Now, in our e-mails back and forth earlier this year, Chris had wholeheartedly recommended the chicken and black bean nachos.  He mentioned that there was no better food for a poor college student out on a date with his girlfriend than the chicken and black bean nachos at Skip's.  I thought about the nachos for a moment, but not only was the jambalaya looking interesting, but the chicken piccata they had on the menu was also rather tempting.  I thought about the seared ahi tuna, and even the basic cheeseburger that they had on the menu sounded pretty good to me.

But on this trip to Skip's, I ended up getting a good ol' south Des Moines favorite - cavatelli.   It featured Graziano's Italian sausage mixed with cavatelli pasta in a marinara sauce and topped with melted mozzarella.  The cavatelli is baked in the oven, then finished off under the broiler to caramelize the cheese on the top.  Slices of toasted garlic bread came on the side.  It was a wonderful, gooey mess of cheese, tangy marinara, and chunks of somewhat spicy ground sausage that really gave the dish a kick in taste.  There's a lot of places around Des Moines that do cavatelli and the one at Skip's was one of the better ones that I've had.  And it was very filling.  I left a large amount of pasta in the bowl going primarily for the sausage and cheese in the cavatelli.  

I'm glad I was able to make it back to Skip's after a nearly 30-year hiatus.  It's easy to pass by Skip's and not know it's there as I have many times over the years on my trips to Des Moines.  The former house is set back from Fleur Drive a bit and actually still looks like a residence if you really didn't know if was a restaurant/lounge.  I thought the cavatelli was very good, I liked the cozy and laid back ambience of the place, and I thought the service was efficient and friendly.  Skip Bachman may have passed a few years ago, but his children are keeping his legacy alive. Skip's is one of those places where you go, "Oh, yeah!  Skip's!" when you're trying to think of a place to eat on Des Moines' south side.    

Maxie's Restaurant & Lounge - West Des Moines

Every once in a while, I'll forget that I've been to a place until I come across some pictures I've loaded onto my computer from previous trips.  One Saturday morning not long ago, I was going through a file of pictures and came across a number of shots from a visit I had to Maxie's Restaurant in West Des Moines, IA.  I thought, "Holy crap!  I forgot all about going to Maxie's!"  I don't know how I could have, given that I had one of their famous Maxie Burgers on that visit.  Here's my story of going to Maxie's.

As the logo on the left says, Maxie's has been around for 50 years serving steaks, seafood, chops, pasta and sandwiches.  Named after patriarch Max Glenn who founded the restaurant, the Glenn family were the longtime owners before Max's son Jim sold Maxie's in 2006.  However, the family was forced to take the restaurant back a couple three years later.  Jim Glenn continues to run Maxie's today.  

It was around 1:30 one afternoon when I got into Maxie's.  It's located along Grand Ave. in West Des Moines in a windowless, nondescript brick building that doesn't really look like a restaurant from the outside.  (see map)  I was met by a young lady at the hostess stand who took me into the dining room and put me into a booth on the step up platform along the wall.  She gave me a menu and I ordered a beer while I looked to see what I wanted to eat. 

The dining room was kind of nice with soft lighting and pictures of classic cars were highlighted along the wall.  It was a mix of young and old in the dining room having lunch that day.  

Now, I had eaten at Maxie's before - it was over 20 years ago when I was being interviewed for a sales position with a manufacturer based in West Des Moines.  (I was offered the position, but the pay was so low that I didn't take the job.)  I don't remember much from that visit other than almost spitting out my sandwich when I was offered the job and told how much the starting pay would be.  

I had been told about the Maxieburger by someone a number of years ago and I had been hoping to get in to have one at some point.  I pretty much knew I wanted to try a Maxieburger, but I wanted to look through the lunch menu to see what else might catch my eye.  The lunch menu at Maxie's is more condensed than the dinner menu, but they have a number of salads, pasta dishes and sandwiches - the Maxie's Italian sausage grinder particularly grabbed my attention.  But I decided on getting the Maxieburger.

The Maxieburger starts out with 1/2 pound of blended beef and it comes on a lightly-toasted bun.  I got the mushroom and Swiss cheese Maxieburger along with a side of Maxie's famous onion rings.  Raw onion slices and dill pickles came with the burger.  

The burger was fabulous.  It was thick and juicy with a great beef flavor that came through the Swiss cheese and earthy sliced sautéed mushrooms.  The bun was light and spongy and held together very well with the juiciness of the burger.  The Maxieburger was as good as advertised in my book.  

But the highlight of the meal were the onion rings.  Named the "Best in Des Moines" for a number of years by a local magazine , the onion rings were more like onion strings with a great batter on the outside.  I could have done nothing but eat the onion rings and I would have been more than happy.  

It was nice to reconnect with Maxie's after over 20 years and to finally try one of their Maxieburgers.  But their onion rings were especially delicious.  Maxie's has been a local favorite for 50 years and it continues to offer good food at a fair price with great service.  It doesn't look like much from the outside, but you'll be happy with your meal if you head to Maxie's.    

 

Greenbrier Restaurant - Gatlinburg, TN

While on our vacation last fall in the Great Smoky Mountains (click here to see the entry on that visit), we stayed in Gatlinburg, TN.  While we didn't care much for Gatlinburg, we did happen to find a couple places that served us some pretty good meals.  One of them was a little out-of-the-way supper club by the name of the Greenbrier Restaurant.  I call it a supper club mainly because it was similar to supper clubs that you'd find in the Upper Midwest.  We decided to give the Greenbrier a try the last night we were in Gatlinburg.  

In the late 1930's, a lady by the name of Blanche Moffet built and opened the little cabin lodge and named it the Greenbrier Lodge.  Ms. Moffet catered to hunters, vacationers and other travelers, but also did a good business as a boarding house for people working in the area.  The present day lounge area was once two rooms where married couples slept.  (When you see a picture of the lounge area later in this post, you'll wonder how there could have been two rooms in there at one point.)  Upstairs where Ms. Moffet slept and it was also the sleeping quarters for single women who stayed at the Greenbrier.  Single men slept in bunk beds on the downstairs level.  

Ms. Moffet fed her guests breakfast in the morning and then they either went off to work, off to hunt, or would lounge around the lodge on a sun deck overlooking the wooded area around the lodge.  Later on, Blanche Moffet built the first concrete in-ground pool in Gatlinburg for her guests.  

One of the more frequent guests at the Greenbrier were the young actors and actresses who went to the University of Tennessee in nearby Knoxville.  In the mid-50's until the mid-70's, many of these actors and actresses stayed at the Greenbrier Lodge while performing at the Hunter Hills Theater in Gatlinburg.  The amphitheater was one of the first in the Southeast and hosted plays, musicals and ballets during the summer months.  

In 1980, Blanche Moffet sold the Greenbrier to Dean and Barbara Hadden.  With the help of their six children, the Hadden's turned the property into a restaurant and the family ran it for over 21 years before leasing it out just before Dean Hadden passed away in 1991.  The people who leased the restaurant only ran it for a few months before closing the place down.  In 1993, Barbara Hadden - with the help of her son, David, and his wife, Becky - reopened the restaurant.  David and Becky continue to run the Greenbrier Restaurant today with the help of their son, Jordan.  

For fans of the paranormal, it's said that the Greenbrier is haunted.  There have been reports that over the years workers at the Greenbrier have seen the ghost of a lady by the name of Lydia who was spurned at the alter by her fiancee.  She had supposedly stayed at the Greenbrier the night before the wedding, got dressed into her wedding gown the next day and went into town to get married.  After waiting for her husband-to-be at the church for a number of hours, she went back to the Greenbrier.  Consumed with anger and anguish, she went to a second floor landing, tossed a rope up over the rafters and hung herself.  She was buried in an unmarked grave not far from the lodge.

Local lore has it that the man who left her at the alter was killed days later in the mountains surrounding the area by a mountain lion.  But it was a caretaker at the lodge who was said to be rustled from his sleep at night in the weeks after Lydia's death with a mournful cry of a woman repeating, "Mark my grave.  Mark my grave...", over and over.  After a number of nights of this, the caretaker finally went down to where the body was supposedly buried and placed a makeshift gravestone.  The mournful cries at night went away after that.  But workers at the Greenbrier Lodge and subsequently at the Greenbrier Restaurant have reported seeing an apparition of a young woman from time to time.  The interesting thing about all this is that the Greenbrier seems to embrace the legend that it's haunted and even hands out pamphlets regarding the ghost of Lydia.  

The Greenbrier is off the beaten path located at the end of a winding hilly road off of Highway 321 heading east out of Gatlinburg. (see map)  There was a long parking lot in front of the place and we walked in around 7:30 that particular evening.  The first room you see is the main entry way to what was the old lodge.  What looks like the original fireplace sits on one wall with a bearskin rug hanging above it.  A hostess came out to greet us and we told her that we didn't have reservations, but wondered if we could get in.  "We don't take reservations," she said almost cheerfully.  "We can get you in, though." 

We were seated in the dining area that was built by the Hadden's on what was the former sun deck to the Greenbrier Lodge.  It was long and narrow with large floor to ceiling windows looking out into the woods.  It was getting dark and you really couldn't see much of anything out the windows after the sun goes down.  But we were told that it wasn't unusual to see a black bear roaming around outside the dining room, sometimes even coming up to the windows on the end to look inside.  

We were given menus and our server for the evening, Dena, came over to greet us and take our drinks order. I asked her what kind of beers they had to offer and she couldn't remember what they had on tap that particular evening.  "They change them from time to time," she said.  "I'll have to go check."  

I told her not to worry, I wanted to go see what they had on tap in the lounge.  The lounge was just around the corner from where we were seated in the dining area and I went in to take a quick gander at what they had. 

I encountered a small room with a small bar - it sat, maybe, five people - with a like number of taps behind the bar.  Now, remember what I said earlier about the lounge formerly being two rooms where married couples slept at the old Greenbrier Lodge.  I took this picture literally with my back up against the wall in the lounge.  It was not a big area.  It's sort of difficult to imagine this being two rooms at one point in time.  I found that they had a White India Pale Ale from the Big River Brewery out of Chattanooga.  I asked for a sample and decided that I liked it enough to order it up.  Cindy got a glass of house chardonnay from the value-oriented Rex Goliath winery from Central California.  The rest of the wine list at the Greenbrier was pretty basic.  

The main entrees at the Greenbrier are prime rib, steaks, a pork ribeye, seafood and fish dinners.  They also have a stuffed pork chop, fettuccine Alfredo, and a stuffed tilapia dish.  They also feature something on the menu each night called the Chef's Choice.  That evening it was a grilled swordfish filet lightly dusted with Cajun seasonings.  That caught Cindy's attention and she ended up ordering that.

One of their signature items at the Greenbrier Restaurant is the Chicken Vera Cruz - Dena said they were famous for that dish.  They take a chicken breast and stuff it with a crabmeat dressing, bake it in the oven and top it with provolone cheese.  I normally don't get chicken all that much in restaurants, but I'd had so much beef lately that I was sort of getting burnt out on it.  (I know!  As much as I like beef, sometimes I get tired of it.)  Dena talked me into the Chicken Vera Cruz. 

Before we got our meals we got salads.  Cindy got a dinner salad with a vinaigrette dressing and I got a simple salad with creamy blue cheese. They were fine - nothing fancy.  

Cindy's swordfish filet - she pointed out that it was shaped like a heart (awwww....) - had some Cajun seasoning on the top and she ordered mixed vegetables to go along with it.  It was light and flaky without a hint of any fishy taste.  She let me have a bite of the fish and it was very good.  

My Chicken Vera Cruz was something to see.  It was a thick chicken breast to begin with, but stuffed with the crabmeat dressing made it even bigger.  It was thickly-covered in provolone cheese.  I knew this was going to be a pretty rich meal.  And Dena didn't steer me wrong - the Chicken Vera Cruz was outstanding.  I also got a twice baked potato with my meal, but I don't think I took a bite of that.  The Chicken Vera Cruz was delicious, rich tasting, and very filling.  

After dinner, Dena tried to entice us into some dessert.  Cindy noticed that they had key lime pie on the dessert menu.  She asked Dena if they made it in house.  "We do," she replied.  "But we put it in the freezer so it will keep."  We decided to give it a try.  It wasn't bad, wasn't great.  We've definitely had better.  But it was a nice ending to a good meal.  

The Greenbrier Restaurant is more comfortable and cozy than fancy and elegant, and that's exactly what we were looking for in a restaurant that evening.  The food was above average and the service was efficient and friendly.   I thoroughly enjoyed my Chicken Vera Cruz while my wife was more than satisfied with the Cajun-seasoned swordfish that was the Chef's Choice that evening.  This was a good find on our trip to Gatlinburg.  It's definitely off the beaten path and well worth the trouble to find the place.  

Spanky's Stone Hearth - Frazee, MN

I have a dealer in Fargo who - along with his wife - has turned me onto a number of great places to eat in and around the Fargo/Moorhead area.  I was in Fargo for a late summer visit and I told them to find a place that we could go for dinner.  He asked me if I was up for a little bit of a ride and I asked how far.  He said, "Oh, a little bit over an hour."  They wanted to take me to a supper club on a lake in Western Minnesota.  I was up for the drive and we ended up out at Spanky's Stone Hearth near Frazee, MN, not far from Detroit Lakes.  (see map)  

Josh Hanson grew up not far from Spanky's Stone Hearth and had worked at a nearby supper club until it was eventually closed in favor of turning it into a convenience store. He went over to Spanky's and started there in 1995 working part-time.  He went to college in nearby Moorhead, but came back home after finding that college just wasn't his thing.  He came back to work at Spanky's full-time and worked his way up through the ranks.  Hanson eventually took over the restaurant in 2005.    

In August of 2010, a devastating fire that started in ductwork above the kitchen demolished Spanky's Stone Hearth.  The fire took place during the busiest weekend of the year with a annual local celebration taking place at that time.  Prior to the fire, Hanson was growing tired of the long hours of running the restaurant and had listed the place for sale.  After the fire, the insurance company gave him two weeks to decide to rebuild or take a cash pay-out.  Hanson took some time off to go on a solo hunting to Montana to contemplate his future.  He decided that the restaurant - originally built in 1946 with an addition added in early 1997 - needed to stay open.  He had 50 employees who were working for him and he decided to give it a go again and put his full effort into the place.  

The restaurant was rebuilt and it reopened in May of 2011 with the full staff back to work as well as chef Jeremy Timm running the kitchen.  Anthony Soland continued as the restaurant's general manager.  (Hanson also owns the Skal Bar and Grill in nearby Vergas, MN which focuses on burgers and sandwiches as well as craft beers.) 

Spanky's Stone Hearth is located just across a county road from Rose Lake, about three miles from Vergas.  It was a beautiful evening and the lake was calm when we pulled into Spanky's.  We didn't have a reservation and there was going to be a bit of a wait as the place was pretty full even at 7 p.m. on a week day.  We ended up taking a seat at the bar getting a couple drinks while we waited for a table to open up.   My dealer was drinking a gin and tonic, his wife had a mojito and I got a bottle of the Summit Extra Pale Ale.  The front of the bar featured river rock inlays with wooden shelves behind the bar.  

The showcase of the Spanky's is, of course, the stone hearth that was part of the original building in 1946.  It - along with the fireplace in the new addition on the other side of the bar - were both cleaned and restored with a high-pressurized sodium bicarbonate after the fire in 2010.  The main dining room featured a high wooden ceiling with wood log highlights and supports with pine wood from Montana.  It definitely had a Northwoods feeling to the place.

We were seated at a table near the bar in the main dining room and given menus to look over.  Our server, Lezlee, came over to greet us and check on our drinks.  She gave us a couple of the highlighted menu selections for the evening which included an interesting item - the "Trust Me".  They wouldn't tell you what it was until they brought it to the table, but to trust the chef that you'd like it.  I'm not quite that adventurous, but it definitely intrigued my dealer's wife.  

We started out with a couple appetizers - an order of onion rings and the mussels in a white wine/garlic butter and saffron sauce that was served with toasted garlic bread.  The onion rings were beer battered and were just "all right", in my opinion.  But the mussels in the broth were just something else.  Now, I don't remember much about the mussels - they had to be good - but dipping the toasted garlic bread in the broth was absolutely fantastic.  We made short work of the bread we were originally served and Lezlee brought out more of the toasted garlic bread for us.  We got pretty full on that.  

Before we ordered dinner, I took a wine list through the very surprising wine list - surprising in the number of wines they had to offer, but also with the very reasonable prices they were asking for the bottles of wine.  I ordered up a 2009 bottle of Jordan cabernet that was priced about 30% under what I've seen it priced at other restaurants.  

My dealer's wife was the adventurous one and she went with the chef's "Trust Me" choice that evening.  It turned out that it was osso buco on a bed of a very interesting sauerkraut garlic-mashed potatoes.  She was more than happy with the choice.  Her osso buck was tender and flavorful.  

My dealer - obviously watching his weight, I joked - went with the grilled halibut filet.  He, too, went to with the sauerkraut mashed potatoes, not knowing that his wife would also get the same thing as her side.  The halibut was lightly grilled and served with a lemon wedge and a whole orange slice.  

I ordered up the ribeye steak, but it turned out that it was almost more of a strip steak as it didn't have a lot of marbling imbedded in the meat.  I also got some sautéed button mushrooms to go along with the steak as well as joining the others in getting the sauerkraut garlic mashed potatoes.  The potatoes were good, but I couldn't really decipher much of a taste of either the sauerkraut or the garlic.  It could be that the two tastes canceled each other out, but it certainly gave me an idea to try in the kitchen at home at a later date.

The ribeye was very lean and not overly thick.  It was cooked to a perfect medium rare and was very good.  I was sort of surprised that ribeye didn't have that much marbling, but it was still very good in taste.  I couldn't complain about anything.  

I love supper clubs in the upper Midwest and Spanky's Stone Hearth may be one of the nicest ones that I've visited during my travels over the years.  Looking out over the calm lake, the Northwoods ambiance, the fun and efficient service from Lezlee, and the very good food were all part of what made the visit to Spanky's Stone Hearth a memorable one for me.  I couldn't thank my dealer and his wife enough for turning me on to another great place in the Fargo area - even though it is a 60 mile drive from Fargo to the lakes region to get there.  It was definitely worth the trip.   

MECCA Supper Club - Chicago, IL

MECCA Supper Club is a place that I've driven by many times during my numerous visits to the northwest side and suburbs of Chicago over the years.  It's always intrigued me and I've wanted to try the place, but for some reason or another I never made it in.  That is until a recent visit to Chicago, I made a point to have dinner at MECCA Supper Club.  

In talking with one of the wait staff at the supper club that evening, she told me that longtime owner Kevin Shirley had recently sold the business to a lady whose name she didn't give me.  (And one that I cannot find in any public record.)  

Wondering if the restaurant had any connection to the Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia, I asked her how the "MECCA" name came to be.  She said, "Geez, honestly, I don't know the whole story.  There was a guy by the name of John who owned the place before Kevin and I think his last name was Mecca-something."  And, of course, I couldn't find any info on that.  

MECCA Supper Club is located on Northwest Highway in the far northwest side of Chicago (see map).  The facade of the building is covered in rock and a large neon sign - similar to ones that you'd see at supper clubs in Northern Wisconsin or Northern Minnesota - hung high off the front.  Parking is available on the street or in a parking lot a couple three doors to the southeast of the place.  

The decor of the dining area is heavy with Northwoods accents - pine log siding on the walls along with some old time paraphernalia including mounted fish and big game heads in the dining area in the back.  There were old time Schlitz beer trays affixed to the walls, too. This place didn't look like it belonged in Chicago.   

The bar was actually pretty cool.  Deep blue lights accented the long rows of bottles behind the bar.  I especially loved the "Schlitz on Tap" neon sign affixed to the wall above the bottles behind the bar.  This looked like a place that I'd love to belly up to the bar and have an Old Style.  

I was seated in a booth in the back dining area and given a menu to look over.  The menu was similar to what you'd find in the Northwoods - steaks, fish, chicken, pork chops and slabs of ribs.  Sandwiches are also available with prime rib served on Friday and Saturday nights.  I was leaning toward getting the 8 ounce filet and that's what I ordered when my server came to take my order.  I also got a Sweetwater 420 pale ale they had available.

Five minutes later, my server came back to the table and she told me, "I'm sorry, but we're out of filet's tonight."  I was incredulous.  One of their most expensive things on the menu and they don't have it.  I was crestfallen because I didn't want to get the hanger steak, the steak kabobs or the sirloin steak they had on the menu.  She went and picked up a menu for me to look through again and I finally decided on the pork loin with a twice baked potato.  

Like a Northwoods supper club, MECCA gives you a relish tray and a big bowl of rolls.  I especially like a relish tray even though I hardly eat any of the veggies on the plate.  It's just a nice touch.  The relish tray was served with a small bowl of ranch dressing.  

A salad with basil-vinaigrette dressing came soon after the relish tray was served.  It featured fresh greens with chunks and slices of fresh vegetables throughout.  It was a nice start to the meal.

However, the pork loin wasn't up to par.  It was a generous cut of sliced pork loin topped with a red pepper cream sauce and seated on a bed of spinach.  The pork was sort of overcooked and the red pepper cream sauce overpowered the overall taste.  It wasn't that I didn't like the sauce - I did.  But I think they slathered the sauce on in the kitchen to cover up the overcooked taste of the pork loin.  The twice baked potato was sort of cold and I only had a couple bites of it.  I ate a good portion of the pork loin before throwing in the towel.  It was disappointing. 

And it could have been the reason I was disappointed was because they didn't have the beef filet I'd originally ordered that evening.  Sometimes you get your hopes up for a certain food that you order and your taste buds are priming themselves for that food.  Then when you're told you can't get it, it mentally throws you off.  But the pork was overcooked and the roasted red pepper cream sauce was a tad too much.  However, the service was good, and I liked the decor and the ambiance of MECCA Supper Club enough that I probably will go back at some point and try the filet - that is, if they have it.

L. Woods Tap & Pine Lodge - Lincolnwood, IL

I was in Chicago for a weekend trade show earlier this year and I invited one of my dealers out for dinner on a Saturday night.  I suggested a place that I'd known about for awhile, but hadn't been to - L. Woods Tap and Pine Lodge.   

L. Woods Tap and Pine Lodge is modeled after a Northwoods supper club/steakhouse.  And I was a bit surprised that it was under the Lettuce Entertain You umbrella of restaurants that restaurateur-extraordanaire Rich Melman has built up mainly in the Chicago area (along with restaurants in Las Vegas, Washington D.C., the Twin Cities, and Scottsdale, AZ).  I realized that this was a Melman/L.E.Y. restaurant was when we walked in and saw a comical sign on the hostess stand that said something along the lines of "Rich Melman said to seat me right away."  While I wasn't crestfallen that this was another Melman place, I knew that the place would be nice and comfortable - albeit a little whimsical and formulated - but it wouldn't be excellent.  I've never run into a Melman/L.E.Y. restaurant that has been what I would call excellent.  But there's so many of them that I probably haven't been to even half of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurants over the years.  

And it's a wonder that I didn't know that L. Woods was a Melman/L.E.Y. restaurant - it's been open for over 16 years near the corner of N. Lincoln Ave. and W. Touhy in Lincolnwood.  (see map)  Before L. Woods opened, the building housed another Melman restaurant - Bones - that primarily featured ribs and chicken.  Bones had been in business for about 20 years before Melman retooled the place and opened L. Woods in late 1998.   

We stood in the crowded and very nice bar area - known as Frank's Bar -  waiting for a moment until they could get our table set up.  The dark lit room was brightened only by some reduced-light can lights and from the flat panel televisions behind the bar.  When our table was ready, the hostess guided us through the main dining area - a long room with wood accents and decorated with deer antler lights and framed pictures of old scenes and trophy fish from Northern Wisconsin/Minnesota.  We were taken into a small back room that was possibly used as a small meeting/luncheon area most of the time except for when it got busy on the weekends.  We were given menus and it wasn't long before our server, Jason, came over to greet us.  

After Jason took our drink order, he came back with a complementary taste of their tomato pesto and chicken flat bread pizza appetizer.  And it was all right - I wouldn't have ordered it as an appetizer.  But as a little tease for their flat bread appetizers, it was fine.  

The main items on the menu were steaks and seafood - exactly as you find on most Northwoods supper club menus.  It wasn't a long menu at L. Woods - they only featured about four or five each of seafood or steak entrees.  Continuing the tradition that started with Bones in the 70's, L. Woods also had chicken and rib dinners, as well.  They also featured soups and salads, and sandwiches and burgers on the dinner menu.  

After ordering soup for our starters - a good, but somewhat salty mushroom beef barley for me and tomato bisque for my guest that came with a small loaf of a wonderful house-baked onion bread - we were served our dinners for the evening.  I went with the Saturday night special, the prime rib.  I got the 16 ounce cut and asked Jason if they could find as rare of a cut as possibly.  This was more medium rare, but that was fine with me.  It was actually pretty lean as far as prime rib goes with not much marbling.  A side came with it and I got the garlic mashed potatoes.  It also came with creamy horseradish sauce and I asked if I could get some real ground horseradish.  Jason brought some out, but it was pretty pedestrian in taste compared to other fresh horseradishes that I've had.  

My guest went with the ribs and chicken combo.  I didn't want to say that I didn't think the chicken and ribs would be good when he ordered, but he pretty much said that the ribs were dry and the chicken was pretty bland.  He got some broccoli on the side and the crowns were mushy and overcooked.  He didn't think much of his dinner, disappointed that the ribs were overcooked and the chicken was just so-so.

I was happy enough with my prime rib.  The cut of meat was flavorful and juicy.  It had been a long time since I'd gotten prime rib, but this piece of meat told me that I shouldn't wait too long for the next time.  It was well above average for a piece of prime rib.  The garlic mashed potatoes were just all right - there didn't seem to be much garlic in them.  But I was much more focused on the prime rib than the garlic mashed potatoes.  

Even though my guest was less than thrilled with his ribs and chicken, I was happy enough with my prime rib.  Jason's service was all right - he seemed a little forced with some of his mannerisms.  The atmosphere was laid back and the decor was comfortable.  Even though L. Woods is a Lettuce Entertain You concept restaurant it did it's best to capture the essence of a Northwoods supper club - only one that is smack in the middle of Chicagoland.   (Photo courtesy of Check, Please! on WTTW-TV)

Don Hall's Old Gas House - Fort Wayne, IN

I was out in Fort Wayne seeing one of my dealers late last year and I had some time to kill before I had the appointment.  It was just after the noon hour and I decided to go get a burger somewhere.  Doing a quick search for burger joints in Fort Wayne, I found that I wasn't far from a place called the Stadium Bar that had good ol' juicy flat-grilled burgers.  When I pulled up in front of the Stadium Bar, it wasn't there.  It had closed.  I wasn't far from downtown, so I went to Plan B - a burger at Henry's was highly recommended.  I pulled into the parking lot next to Henry's, walked up to the front door and realized that they didn't open until 4 p.m.  Somewhat exasperated, I decided to just cut my losses and head over to a place not far away that I tried to get into late one evening a year or so ago - but they had closed for the evening - Don Hall's Old Gas House.  

The Don Hall's restaurant group is well known in the Fort Wayne area.  I had a meal at Don Hall's Factory last year (click here to see that entry) and it was pretty good.  Don Hall passed away just before Don Hall's Factory opened up and his family continues to run the restaurants and catering service in the Fort Wayne area.

Don Hall's Old Gas House is located along the St. Mary's River in downtown Fort Wayne.  (see map)  It shares the same building as the Don Hall's Japanese restaurant Takaoke.  The building that houses both the Old Gas House and Takaoke was, indeed, an old gas factory in the 19th century.  Fort Wayne's street lights in the mid-1800's were lit by artificial gas manufactured in the plant.  When the surrounding area of NE Indiana was found to have vast reserves of natural gas in the 1880's, the artificial gas factory shut down.  The building was used a brewery for a number of years before Prohibition was enacted in 1919.  

In 1958, Don Hall - who owned a popular drive-in restaurant on Fort Wayne's south side - bought the building to turn it into a supper club/fine dining establishment.  He put in a bar on the east side of the building and named it the Gashouse Saloon.  In the 1970's, Hall placed a statue of Charles Louis Centlivre, one of the brewing pioneers of Fort Wayne, on the corner of the roof of the Gashouse Saloon.  Centlivre was the founder of the Old Crown Brewery, a long time brewing facility that began in the 1860's and lasted until the early 70's.  Old Crown beer was a staple in taverns in and around Fort Wayne from the end of Prohibition until when the brewery shut down in 1973.   Centlivre is depicted with a foot on top of a keg of beer, looking toward where his old brewery once stood on the west bank of the St. Joseph River just north and east of Don Hall's Old Gas House.  The statue was commissioned by the Old Crown Brewing Co. and stood in front of the brewery.  Once the brewery shut down, Hall got the statue to continue to pay tribute to one of the first brewers in what was a long history of breweries in Fort Wayne in the 19th and 20th centuries.   

It was in the Gashouse Saloon where I parked myself at the bar that afternoon.  A rather sassy and funny bartender was working that day and she came over to greet me and to give me a lunch menu.  Her banter with many of the people in the bar area told me that she would be fun to be around.  

The bar area was nice and cozy featuring a three sided bar, a couple three booths and a number of tables.  This is the point in the story that I tell you that the pictures that I took at Don Hall's Old Gas House, well, they vanished off my computer.  I had pictures of the bar area as well as the main dining room that was a step up next to the bar.  I found this picture of the dining room on the Internet.  I understand the dining room went through an extensive remodel a few years ago to restore the mid-1800's look to the room.  The place seemed to be very popular with the older crowd.  A large table of 70-ish women were having what looked like a club meeting in the dining room.  

The lunch menu at Don Hall's Old Gas House is pretty extensive.  It features burgers, sandwiches, soups (including a shrimp and sausage gumbo) and salads.  They have a smattering of some of the dinner entrees in reduced sizes for lunch appetites.  Through the week, the Old Gas House features $8.88 daily lunch specials that include lasagna, meat loaf, brisket and stuffed chicken.  

The first thing I saw I saw at the top of the burger part of the menu was their Chicago burger - a 10 ounce black angus burger served on an onion bun.  For $8.50 you can pick three toppings including six different types of cheese, grilled onions, jalapenos or roasted red peppers.  Since I had my heart set on getting a burger at the first two places I stopped, I decided to go with my old standby burger topped with Swiss cheese, mushroom and bacon.  For $8.50, I thought it sounded like a pretty good deal.

I also got a side to go along with it.  Fries, baked beans, mac & cheese and cole slaw were some of the choices.  They also had something like Hall fries and I asked the bartender what the story was on those.  "The story is they're basically homemade potato chips," she said.  "And you get a bunch of them."  I ended up just getting fries. 

Now is when I really wish I hadn't lost all those pictures of Don Hall's Old Gas House.  This was a big-assed burger.  The onion bun was soft and fresh.  The burger was thick and juicy.  The Swiss cheese was running down the side of the burger patty.  The sauteed mushrooms were thick and very tasty.  This was one of those burgers where I went, "Mmmmm..." at the first bite.  

The fries were just all right - they were typical fries, not skinny, but not like steak fries.  This was a big burger with a lot of mushrooms, a couple slices of thick bacon, and a lot of cheese on it.  Along with the very tasty onion bun, this was a stellar burger and I was going to concentrate on it and not worry too much about the fries. 

Like I say, it was an outstanding burger at Don Hall's Old Gas House.  Looking through the dinner menu made me want to go back and have a nice meal there on a future visit to Fort Wayne.  But the burger at Don Hall's Old Gas House would be worth another visit any other time.  And I thought it was a very good value.  Two for two for meals at Don Hall's properties is a pretty good record so far.

Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House - Las Vegas

During our company's annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, we're always happy to spend an evening with our friends from Cambridge Audio who treat us to a nice dinner.  To say that their choice of restaurants is interesting is an understatement.  Sometimes it works out, sometimes not - such as the place we went to with them last year, Austin's Steakhouse in the somewhat sketchy Texas Palace casino.  (Click here to see my entry on Austin's Steakhouse.)  Not only was it a long drive to Austin's Steakhouse, the food was mediocre, at best.  This year, they proposed taking us to a place that was even further away from our hotels on the Las Vegas Strip - Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House.  With much trepidation and a little bit of grumbling, we drove 30 minutes north of our hotel at The Mirage to be treated to a meal at Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House.

Bob Taylor was born in California in the early 1920's.  His father had wanted to open a small market in Los Angeles, but the Great Depression came and wiped out any hope for the family-run market.  The Taylor family moved to Kansas City and opened a small family restaurant.  His mother would bake pies in the early morning hours and they were so good that they were usually sold out of pie slices by 1 p.m.  It was at the small restaurant that the young Bob Taylor got his first experience in the restaurant business.  

The Taylor's eventually moved back to California, running small restaurants in Bakersfield, then in Ventura.  World War II came around and Taylor served in the Army Air Corps as both a mechanic and as an armored gunner in airplanes.  After the war, Taylor scraped together enough money to buy two properties - 80 acres of desert land north and west of Las Vegas, and a small get-away cabin in Jackson Hole, WY.  

Bob Taylor became a master skeet shooter and hosted many friends to come out to his Nevada property - where he'd built a small ranch house - for shoots.  After the shoots were over, Taylor would barbecue meat over mesquite wood that was abundant on the property.  Coaxed by his friends to open a restaurant, Taylor turned the small ranch house he was living in into a restaurant/supper club, opening in September of 1955.  Las Vegas' burgeoning tourist industry helped the initial growth of Bob Taylor's little supper club with people making the 20 mile drive out to have some of his steaks.  Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Elvis Presley and other Las Vegas casino performers loved to drive out to Bob Taylor's for a great meal and to get away from Vegas for a short time.  Taylor expanded his steakhouse in the 1960's to its present day size.  

For years, there was no telephone service to Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House.  He didn't take reservations and the only way people knew he was open was if a blinking light on his sign was on.  Taylor would tell his friends and good customers, "Come early or come late, but don't ever come at 8:00 p.m."  I'm guessing that was when he was at his busiest.  

Taylor was somewhat of a showman who once paid for a Chicago stockyards grand champion steer with a wheelbarrow full of silver dollars.  During the filming of "Viva Las Vegas", in the scene in which Presley and Ann-Margret were shooting skeet, it was Bob Taylor off-camera breaking the clay targets with his shotgun.  By the 1970's, Bob Taylor hosted one of the biggest trap shooting tournaments in the United States, hosting celebrities, pro football players, and the best trap shooters in the world.  

The one constant at the Ranch House supper club was Bob Taylor.  Nearly every night you would find Taylor cooking steaks over an open grill fired by mesquite, drinking Scotch and spitting ice cubes into the mesquite fire.  However, as Taylor grew older - and after multiple divorces that yielded no children - he began to sell off the surrounding property and slow down his involvement in the restaurant.  In 1980, Taylor sold the restaurant to the first of a handful of owners who went through management rather quickly.  The food suffered greatly and the solid foundation of local customers and entertainers who patronized the restaurant in the 60's and 70's quit making the trek to the middle of the desert north and west of Las Vegas.  

(Bob Taylor lived one day shy of his 88th birthday, passing away in March of 2010.  He developed emphysema, possibly brought on by years of standing over mesquite fires cooking steaks.  Between the time he sold the restaurant in 1980 and his death in 2010, he traveled the world with his wife, Dotti, hunting wild game in South Africa, seeing the sights of Europe and Australia, and taking an annual camping trip to a small bay in Northern Canada to salmon fish.  Throughout the later years of his life he continued his love for cooking, even catering his own 85th birthday celebration in 2007.)

In 1983, Bob Ratner bought the restaurant and started to turn things around.  With Las Vegas' outward expansion, business began to boom again with the restaurant serving upwards of 150 to 250 meals an evening.  However that progress ended up hitting Ratner over the head.  In the mid-90's, highway construction on nearby U.S. Highway 95 disrupted access to Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House.  Business began to fall off dramatically and Ratner was forced to shut the restaurant in 1996.  

Two young entrepreneurs - Jeff Special, who had a background in the restaurant business; and Steve Mikrut, who had no previous restaurant experience - bought the building and reopened Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House in October of 1997.  They kept the same Western-style decor, even adding some Western artwork on the walls of the restaurant.  Today, Jeff Special is the sole owner of the restaurant.  

My colleagues are somewhat enamored with my built-in GPS superpower I possess, but on the trip from the Strip to Bob Taylor's, my inner GPS had a hiccup.  It was because they were working on Nevada State Highway 215 and the exit I tried to take to double back to Bob Taylor's was closed.  (Hmmm... Wasn't that a previous problem with people getting to Bob Taylor's?)  However, with some backtracking and a couple of keen eyes we were able to pull up to the entry to the parking lot of Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House around the appointed hour of 7:30. (see map)  One van load of colleagues had already shown up, the first of two loads of Cambridge Audio people were already disembarking in the parking lot as we pulled up.  Five minutes later, the second load of Cambridge Audio people showed up.  In all, there were 20 of us that evening.  

After getting drinks at the bar and looking at some of the Pittsburgh Steelers memorabilia on the walls (I'm guessing the owner must be a Steelers fan), we were taken into the somewhat Western-style, rustic dining room.  High beamed ceilings were prominent in the front dining room, while the back part addition had a drop-ceiling with tile.  A large fireplace was the prominent feature of the front dining room along with pictures, Western movie posters and other Western-style paraphernalia.   

 
Before we were seated in the back dining room around three large tables, we had to pass the open grill at the front of the restaurant.  The menu at Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House features steaks, ribs, pork chops, rack of lamb, seafood, and chicken entrees.  They're famous for their 16 oz. tenderloin filets, their bone-in rib eyes and their 32 ounce "Diamond Jim Brady" New York strip.  

Because of the size of the group, they decided to give us a fixed menu that evening.  The choices were all fine - an 8 oz. filet, the 12 oz. New York strip, or the rack of lamb.  With the filet came some grilled shrimp.  Baked potatoes were offered as a side.  

I was seated between two young ladies from Cambridge Audio - Emma, who grew up in Western Australia and was very familiar with good outback beef; and Rebecca, on her first trip to America and who grew up in Scotland in a family where everything was overcooked making sure there was no sign of life left in any meat.  Emma ordered the New York strip - medium.  Rebecca also ordered the New York strip - well done.  I looked at her in horror almost with as much horror as she looked at me when I ordered my filet rare.  She explained later on, "I just don't like the blood in the meat."  

When we - meaning the North American guys in my company seated at the table - explained to her that the redness in the meat was not blood as it was the colored juice of the meat, she began to waffle a bit.  My colleague, Ian, said, "You want to have some moisture in the meat.  That's what makes the steak flavorful."  Rebecca was beginning to get second thoughts at that point and it was somewhat serendipitous when our server came back out to the table to make sure she had the right orders for us.  It was then that Rebecca changed her steak temperature from "well-done" to "medium-well".  We felt it was a minor step forward in showing a young Brit visiting America for the first time the proper way to order a steak.  

The wine list at Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House is pretty limited.  I was asked by one of the guys from Cambridge Audio to pick out a red wine.  About the only thing that I saw that I recognized and was familiar with was the Clos du Val Napa Valley cabernet.  One of my colleagues concurred with me on the choice and they ordered bottles for the table.  

Starting out the meal, we were served a small serving dish of grilled shrimp in a spicy cream sauce.  It was actually very good.  The cream sauce had a nice little bite to it and it went extremely well with the four or five grilled shrimp that were dunked inside.  

A small dinner salad with their house dressing - a sort of creamy ranch dressing with a little pepper in it.  The salad was actually pretty non-descript, but it was a nice preamble to the meal.

Our steaks showed up at the table and the tenderloin was accompanied with a couple three grilled shrimp, a baked potato and an onion ring garnish on top of a small green lettuce leaf.  The presentation wasn't much, but it was pretty much similar to what you would find at most Midwestern supper club/steakhouses.  

 
The New York strip also came with a baked potato and an onion ring/lettuce leaf garnish.  This is my colleague Ian's New York strip cooked medium rare.  Notice the large amount of juice on his plate.  Rebecca's New York strip didn't have any of that juice on her plate.  

The evening before, some of us in our company went out to dinner at The Steak House at Circus Circus.  It's one of my all-time favorite steakhouses and it's turned into an annual treat for us when we get to Vegas.  (Click here to see my entry on The Steak House.)  I ordered a filet that night, as well - rare.  It turned out to be more medium-rare than rare.  However, the filet at Bob Taylor's Original Steakhouse was cooked perfectly for me.  It had a deep red tint with a cool center.  The steak was cooked nearly blue (almost completely rare), but it was very, very good.  It was easy to cut, easy to chew and had great flavor both from the meat and the mesquite smoke.  I was extremely happy with my cut of meat. 

Everyone else at my table had the New York strip.  From medium-rare to medium to medium-well, everyone raved about their steak.  Even Rebecca was happy with the juicy nature of her medium-well steak.  Too many times I've run into situations where the food suffers when there is a large party.  But the grill cook at Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House had it down perfectly.  It was a wonderful meal, much better than I anticipated or even hoped for.  We all agreed it was worth the long trip out to Bob Taylor's.

Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House is the billed as the oldest restaurant in Las Vegas.  Granted, a number of the old time Las Vegas supper clubs and steakhouses have given way to four star restaurants owned and operated by celebrity chefs from around the world.  And while Bob Taylor's is no longer surrounded by miles of desert, it still offers a very good meal at a great price in a setting that hearkens back to the 50's and 60's.  Even though it is a long way from the action in the heart of Las Vegas, I would have no problem making the 30 minute one-way trek to have another steak at Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House.  Its "old-school" charm is a complete antithesis to the glitz and over-done glamour of Las Vegas.  

Redwood Steakhouse - Anita, IA

I'm not quite certain how I found out about the Redwood Steakhouse in the small west central Iowa town of Anita.  It has been on my "restaurants to visit" list for quite sometime.  On a trip to Omaha recently, I took the exit off Interstate 80 and made my way into Anita and the Redwood Steakhouse.

Since 1947, the Redwood Steakhouse has been in business, a favorite spot for special dinners, receptions and banquets.   In the early 70's, the original owners were looking to sell the business and a young local - Leo Peoppe - was interested.  Leo went home on March 13, 1972 - a Friday the 13th, at that - to announce to his wife, Jo Ann, that he had just purchased the Redwood.  The Peoppe's officially took over the business on April 1, 1972 - yep, April Fools Day.  Through all the superstitions and bad omens that accompanied their purchase, they continue to run the Redwood today.  

Local lore has it that the Redwood Steakhouse got its name from the red wood siding that was originally on the building.  When the Peoppe's took over, they decided to keep the name the same.  

Redwood Steakhouse is located on White Pole Road - which is also Iowa Highway 83 (and formerly U.S. Highway 6) - on the west end of Anita, across from the Crestwood Hills Golf Course and very near Lake Anita State Park. (see map) Heading west on Highway 83, the road takes you to Wiota which is the home of another popular local steakhouse - the Wiota Steak House (which, unfortunately, was damaged by a kitchen fire in late October of last year).  Going further west on Highway 83, you run into Atlantic which is the home of The Pines Steakhouse and the Feedlot Steakhouse.  Just by driving along the highway between Atlantic and Anita, there's some pretty good steakhouses to try.  

It was around 7 p.m. on a rainy evening when I made it into the Redwood Steakhouse.  Not many diners were in the place that evening.  I didn't know the drill and I didn't know if I needed to be seated by someone or what.  No wait staff were in sight as I stood there for a moment before I finally decided to grab a booth along the wall of the restaurant.  A waitress finally did appear and see me.  She came over to greet me and dropped off a menu.  I saw that they had Sierra Nevada pale ale available and I ordered one of those.  The server asked me if I wanted a glass with ice with the beer.  I sort of looked at her funny and I said, "Is that how they do things in Anita?"  She looked at me sort of funny and I quizzically said, "A glass of ice with the beer?"  

She sort of rolled her eyes, shook her head and gave a little laugh.  "Not a glass of ice," she said in a somewhat embarrassed fashion.  "A frosted ice glass with your beer."  She had the downhome Iowa appeal to her.  

The dining room at the Redwood Steakhouse was nice, but it was like walking back into the 70's.  It featured subdued lighting, but bright enough to be able to easily read the menu.  Booths with high back olive green naugahyde vinyl coverings were placed along the dark-paneled walls, while tables with matching olive green naugahyde chair backs were placed throughout the middle part of the room.  A small bar was near the kitchen. Leo Peoppe was running double duty that night as both the bartender and the grill man. 

 
I got up to use the restroom and on my way I found an old 70's-style Rock-ola juke box.  It looked lke it was still in use - it had a number of contemporary and classic country songs on the menu.  It was actually pretty cool to see.  The Redwood Steakhouse had a great retro feel to it. 

Looking through the menu, the main focus is on steak.  But they had a surprisingly long list of seafood and fresh water fish on the menu, as well.  Pork chops, grilled and fried chicken, burgers and sandwiches also populated the menu.  They also had a long list of appetizers including what they called the Number 1 onion rings in the state of Iowa.  OK, I've got to try the onion rings if they say they're that good. 

The onion rings had a nice flaky beer batter on the outside.  This was a small order - for $4.95 - and it was probably more than enough for 2 or 3 people.  The only problem was that they were pretty greasy and that I felt the oil they cooked them in needed to be changed.  There was just kind of that "well-used oil" taste on the onion rings probably from too many other deep fried items other than onion rings being dropped into the deep oil fryer.  Although they were light and flaky, I was disappointed in their taste.       

I wanted a steak that evening.  The Redwood features USDA Choice steaks and the first steak they have on their menu is called the Redwood Special - a 12 to 14 oz. ribeye.  It was either the Redwood Special or the filet.  I ordered the Redwood Special, medium rare.   A choice of herbed rice, a baked potato, French fries or hash browns came with the meal.  I asked my waitress if I could get some cheese and onions on the hash browns.  She said, "Oh, you bet.  But you know what else I like on my hash browns?  Sour cream."  She talked me into it.  

With the meal I got a salad.  I ordered it with the housemade French dressing.  I had asked if the dressing was a "Russian or Western-style French", but it confused my server as to what I was really asking for.  It turned out it was just a basic French dressing that came on the salad.

And, of course, with any type of throwback steak house worth its salt, a relish tray came with the salad.  It featured a wide array of vegetables including pickled beets, sweet dill pickle slices, and celery; cheese cubes, and surprisingly good pickled herring.  A relish tray is always a great touch at an old-time steak house.    

   
The steak made it out to the table and between the onion rings, salad and relish tray, I was getting stuffed.  The slab of ribeye looked to be more toward the 14 ounce size and the opposite side of the plate was filled with crisp hash browns topped with copious amounts of chopped grill onions and finished with some cheddar cheese.  The sour cream came on the side in a small paper container.  

The steaks at the Redwood Steakhouse are flat-grilled, not chargrilled or broiled.  The flat-grill they have probably has years and years of that grilled meat build up on it that does nothing but enhance the flavor of the meat.  The first taste of the steak showed that it had great flavor, not only from the grill, but from the great cut of meat.  I usually order my steaks rare or rare-plus, but ribeyes - being that they usually have more marbling - usually need to be at least a medium-rare for me.  Surprisingly, the ribeye that they called the Redwood Special was very lean.  It had little marbling and most of what fat was on the steak had been cooked out on the flat grill.  I could have easily ordered my steak rare, but medium-rare was fine as it was.

The Redwood Steakhouse is a little over 3 miles off Interstate 80.  If you're driving between Des Moines and Omaha - or if you're just looking to do a road trip for a great little place for steaks, it's going to be tough to beat the Redwood Steakhouse.  I thoroughly enjoyed nearly every aspect of the place - the steak was excellent, the salad was good, the relish tray - always a treat, and the service and ambiance was very good.  About the only complaint I would have is the onion rings which were far from being Number 1 in Iowa that evening.   This is a place that has been open for over 65 years and under the same ownership for over 40 years.  If you're looking for a great retro-style steakhouse, I sincerely recommend the Redwood Steakhouse. 

61 Chophouse - Mediapolis, IA

The Iowa Beef Industry Council had their 4th annual "Best Burger in Iowa" contest this year and the winner was a steak house/supper club about an hour drive from Davenport, 61 Chophouse in the small town of Mediapolis.  I'd been wanting to get down there to try one of their burgers and I asked my wife if she wanted to take a day trip and head down there with me.  She was up for it and we took off down Highway 61 toward Mediapolis.   

Terry Reis and his wife, Lori Denney, are the owners of 61 Chophouse.  They purchased the old Turn 2 sports bar location in Mediapolis in the summer of 2009 and took about three months to transform it into a steak house/supper club.  Reis, a native of Minnesota, is a certified executive chef through the American Culinary Federation.  Previously, he was a culinary arts instructor at a school in the Twin Cities, as well as a chef in various restaurants over the years.  Before getting into the 61 Chophouse, he was the manager of the Drake Restaurant along the riverfront in downtown Burlington, IA.  

Terry Reis and Lori Denney pictured at right.

Lori Denney has years of experience in the hospitality industry working as a sales and catering manager for a number of upscale hotel chains.  A native of Southeast Iowa, wanted to move back to her home area after working as the director of sales and catering at a Radisson Hotel in the Twin Cities area.  After a stint as a hotel and restaurant manager in Burlington, she joined her husband in their 61 Chophouse endeavor and is in charge of catering events at the restaurants banquet room.  The two also own the Yarmouth Cafe in nearby Yarmouth, IA

Terry Reis is also a renown master ice carver.  He is certified as a Professional Master Ice Carver and a competition ice carver.  His ice carvings have been used in movies and featured in national magazines.  To see a variety of ice sculptures Reis has made over the years, click here.    

It was around 12:30 when we pulled into the parking lot of 61 Chophouse located along Highway 61 in Medapolis. (see map)  Actually, I didn't really know what to expect.  It had been about three months since 61 Chophouse had been given the "Best Burger" award and I had wanted to wait to let the hoopla subside before I tried one.  I didn't know if the place would be packed or not.  Turns out that it wasn't.  There was a small little crowd in there for the lunchtime, but it was only about a quarter full.  

 
We were greeted by a young lady at the hostess stand who asked us if we wanted a table or a booth.  I sort of looked up at the step up lounge area at 61 Chophouse - called the Liquid Lounge - and it looked pretty nice.  She noticed that I was looking up at the lounge area and she asked if we wanted to eat in the lounge.  I said, "No, no, no.  That's OK.  I was just checking out the bar area."  It was a very nice bar, to say the least.

She directed us to a booth along the north wall of the restaurant and dropped off a couple menus for us to look over.  A few moments later, our server, another young girl by the name of Taylor, came over to greet us and get our drink orders.  I ordered a Bud Light and Cindy ordered an iced tea.  Taylor brought the bottle of beer back and it was ice cold.  

In 2011, the local Cattlemen's Association let Reis know that there was a "Best Burger" contest for the state of Iowa.  He entered his "Barn Burger" - an 8 oz. black angus beef patty topped with Swiss and American cheeses, then topped with 61 Chophouse's "secret" Barn sauce, then topped with a pile of home-made onion straws, all served on an egg bun.  It got Reis a top 10 finisher for the 2011 Best Burger contest.  

The next year, Reis entered his "Triple B" burger that featured blue cheese, bacon and a "bella" portabella mushroom.  When the burger didn't finish in the top 10 in 2012, Reis worked with some of the members of the local Cattlemen's Association to come up with a burger for the 2013 contest.  Applewood smoked bacon was one of the suggestions from the cattlemen, and Reis came up with a beer cheese sauce made from the new Budweiser Black Crown beer that came out earlier this year.  To add a little pop to the taste, Reis added some pepperjack cheese.  He put it on an egg bun and called it the Angus Black Crown Burger.  It made the finals once again and was named the best burger in Iowa in May of this year.  

(Pictured left - the Angus Black Crown Burger as shown on 61 Chophouse's website.  Be sure to check back with this picture later on.)

Actually, the Barn Burger sounded pretty good.  I proposed that we get one of each - the Angus Black Crown Burger and the Barn Burger - then we could try both of them.  When Taylor came back, we did just that.  We got fries with one and cole slaw with the other.  She said, "We cook them medium, is that all right?"  We told her that it would be perfect.

Good burgers take time, so it was close to 20 minutes from the time we ordered the burgers before Taylor brought them back to us.  Below is the Black Angus Burger that was served to me.  I could just tell from the look of the outside of the patty that the burger was overcooked.  Medium, to me, is cooked with a hint of pink in the middle.  After cutting the burger in half to share with my wife, I saw there was no pink in the middle and the outside shell of the patty was hard.  It was definitely cooked medium-well to well.

The other thing that sort of popped out at me was the lack - if any - of the beer cheese sauce on the Angus Black Crown burger.  It appeared that there was some sort of cheese on the burger - I couldn't tell if it was just the beer cheese sauce or the pepperjack cheese (I'm guessing the latter) on the burger.  But it wasn't swimming in cheese as the picture above from 61 Chophouse's website.  

The first taste of the Angus Black Crown Burger confirmed our fears - it was overcooked.  There was no juicyness to the taste, the outer shell of the burger patty tasted slightly burned and there was a definite lack of cheese in the overall taste.  The bun, however, was very good.  Spongy and flavorful, it was the only thing that saved the burger from being a complete disappointment.  

The Barn Burger didn't fare much better.  First of all, they claim they put a "haystack" of onion straws on the burger.  It looked like the haystack had been blown away somewhere between the kitchen and our table.  The burger patty, too, was overcooked and somewhat lifeless.  I could get a cheesy taste with the bites of burgers that I had - much more so than the Angus Black Crown Burger.  The bun was once again the star of the burger, the only saving grace from calling the burger as completely overrated was the bun.  

Now, I think of myself as somewhat of a burger expert.  God knows that I've eaten enough of them over the years that I've been doing Road Tips.  But if the Angus Black Crown Burger was deemed the best burger in Iowa, I have to severely question the credentials of the judges.  Cindy even thought they weren't that good.  "Not worth the trip," was her comment to me.  To me, if wasn't any better than an average sports bar burger.  

Cindy and I figured out that it probably wasn't Terry Reis back in the kitchen cooking for the noon time crowd.  But my point here is - if they have the best burger in Iowa, shouldn't it CONSISTENTLY be the best burger in Iowa?  I know places that are wholly dependent upon the head cook or chef or the food suffers.  I have to put 61 Chophouse in that category, as well.  

Since our visit, we met a person from Mediapolis and we told her that we'd recently been to Chophouse 61 for the burger.  She hesitated and asked, "Sooo... What did you think?"  When we told her we thought it was overrated, she concurred.  "Terry's a nice guy and all," she said.  "But there were a lot of people around town who were surprised he won the best burger contest.  Don't get me wrong, it's great for the community.  But we're trying to figure out how he was able to pull off having the best burger."   

When the judges for the best burger contest came to 61 Chophouse for the Angus Black Crown Burger, it's my guess that the person who made our burger was not the same person who made it for the judges.  As I said, if you're going to have the best burger in Iowa and people are going to come from all over - even further away than an hour's drive for the burger - it had better be the same as the winning burger each and every time it comes out of the kitchen.  I don't see myself just making a drive back down to Mediapolis some evening just to have Terry Reis cook me a burger.  But if you want to give it a try, do it after 5 p.m. when there's a better chance for Reis to make one for you.  

(Update - Terry Reis accepted a position as a corporate chef for Palace Entertainment in Los Angeles.  He and his wife, Lori Denney, closed 61 Chophouse on March 29, 2014.)

Weiderholt's Supper Club - Miesville (Hastings), MN

After my entry on the burger at House of Coates outside of Coates, MN (click here to see that entry), I got a couple comments that said I really needed to try a King burger at Kings Bar and Grill in nearby Miesville, MN.  I was driving between La Crosse, WI and the Twin Cities recently and decided to get a burger at Kings.  The only problem was that it was Monday and Kings is closed that day.  Somewhat crestfallen, I saw there was a supper club just up the road that I had passed - Wiederholt's Supper Club.  I U-turned back onto Highway 61 and went back to Wiederholt's.  (see map)

There's not much to Miesville - it's a small blip on the map almost in the middle of a triangle between Hastings, Cannon Falls and Red Wing.  The town features a few houses, a baseball/softball field and a couple three businesses.  That makes Wiederholt's a destination place for diners south and east of the Twin Cities.  And it all started out as a general store just before the Depression in the late 1920's.  That's when George Wiederholt first began selling groceries and pumping gas out of a small building along the highway.  And even though it was toward the waning days of Prohibition, George Wiederholt's little place was also a tavern.  George and his wife, Kate, ran the place along with the help from their only son, Sylvester, also known as Cy.  Cy eventually went away for military duty, but ended up coming back home after his service time was over to work with his father.

It was just after his military service was up that Cy married Harriet Weber.  In addition to working at the store/gas station/tavern, Cy and Harriet began to raise a family and looked to do things in life other than running a small family business along a federal highway.  While owning their own vending company, Cy traveled around Minnesota and Wisconsin and saw a number of supper clubs that were popping up in the post-World War II years in the early 50's.  His dream was to turn the little gas station/tavern into a restaurant.  When Cy and Harriet took over the business in 1961, his dream became a reality with the makeover of the place into Wiederholt's Supper Club.  

Cy and Harriet ran the supper club for another 10 years before Cy's health problems forced them to sell the business in 1971.  Cy passed away in 1972 and Harriet eventually took the business back over the next year. With the help of her two college-aged sons, John and Charlie, Harriet continued to run Wiederholt's Supper Club until the brothers eventually purchased the business from her in 1977.  I understand that Harriet is still up and around, coming in to act as hostess over the weekends.   

It was well past 8 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot in front of Wiederholt's.  I went inside and was met by a lady at the hostess stand.  There are two sections on the main level of Wiederholt's dining room - one to the left and another on the right past the bar area (below left).  It wasn't very busy at all and she said I pretty much had my pick of where I wanted to sit.  I decided to sit at the bar and catch a game on one of the two TV's they have hanging on either end of the bar.

 
The bar area at Wiederholt's is nothing fancy.  They had a few beers on tap and a number of shelves with liquor selections.  I took a seat at the bar and was greeted by the bartender, Jesse, who turned out to be a third generation Wiederholt.  He gave me a menu and said, "Our Monday night special is an 8 ounce filet with sauteed mushrooms for $17.50.  You get a salad, choice of potato and relish bowl with that."  He also said it was too bad I wasn't there the next night.  "It's our prime rib special tomorrow night.  That usually brings in the people."  In doing research on the Internet on Wiederholt's, I read somewhere that they go through nearly 500 pounds of prime rib during a week.  That's a lot of meat.  

Jesse asked me if I wanted something to drink while I looked over the menu and I saw that they had the Summit Extra Pale Ale on tap.  I signed up for one of those.  He drew out a frosty glass out of a cooler behind the bar and poured me an ice-cold Summit EPA.  

Wiederholt's does primarily steaks and seafood, but they are supposedly famous for their baby back ribs, as well.  They smoke them in the kitchen using hickory wood and have been a favorite item for the patrons of Wiederholt's over the years.  You'll also find chicken entrees, ham steaks and burgers on the menu.

I had a burger on the mind all day long on the way to Miesville, but the beef tenderloin filet special that evening pretty much made me forget about burgers.  I ordered the filet - rare.  Jesse said, "Oh man!  Just how I like it.  We get people that come in here and want their steaks medium-well or well done and I just go crazy.  I'm thinkin', 'How can they even taste the steak when it's cooked like that?'!"  For a side, I got the baked potato.  I don't know why - I hardly eat potatoes that much.  But rice and/or vegetables sounded boring to me.  As I said, a salad came with it as well and they have a homemade Catalina dressing that I got with my salad.   

Jesse brought out the salad with a basket of homemade croutons, a small bowl of carrots, celery and olives.  A bun was wrapped up in a napkin along with the large croutons.  And what looked to be a half stick of butter was included with the salad options.  Years ago, there used to be a small supper club in Oakland Acres, IA, that I loved to go to - not only for the steaks, but they had a great salad bar that featured a sweet Catalina dressing.  I've been trying to find something close to that over the years, but Wiederholt's Catalina dressing was about as close to that particular dressing that I've found.  I may even go back and see if I can buy some of their Catalina dressing at some point, it was that good.   

 
Since it wasn't very busy - and I ordered my steak rare - it wasn't long after I finished my salad that Jesse brought out the steak.  It was a large chunk of beef filet topped with and surrounded by sauteed mushrooms.  They were canned mushrooms, which weren't a deal breaker by any means.  A very large baked potato with sour cream with chives came on the side.  

I cut into the steak and it was perfect - it had a nice deep red color with a cool center.   The steak was tender and very flavorful.  There didn't appear to be any seasoning on the steak, other than from the grill.  I've had steaks that were more than double in price at many other steakhouses over the years that were nowhere as good as the steak I had at Wiederholt's that evening.  

Jesse came over and asked how my steak was.  I said, "Perfect.  Just perfect.  Give my compliments to your grill chef."  

It turned out that the grill chef was talking with some guys at a table in the bar and Jesse yelled over to him, "Hey, he liked the steak!"

The grill chef said, "Was it cooked rare enough for you?"  I gave him a "thumbs up".  It was an excellent steak.

Two things that I like finding on the road are surprisingly good places to eat and supper clubs.  I found both at Wiederholt's Supper Club.   If I'd only had one beer to go along with the meal, it would have been under $25 bucks.  It was an amazingly great bargain for an amazingly great meal.  Wiederholt's is simply one of the best supper clubs I've encountered in my travels.  While I will still make it back to Miesville for a burger at Kings at some point, it will be tough to pass up another meal at Wiederholt's Supper Club.

The Elms - Muscatine, IA

Someone who Cindy works with had told her about a supper club/steakhouse in Muscatine that has been open for over 55 years by the name of the Elms.  I had never heard of the place, nor had I ever known there was any other place of fine dining other than the recently shuttered Button Factory in Muscatine.  Cindy had a doctor's appointment in Muscatine late one afternoon and she talked me into taking her down there and then going out to eat at the Elms directly afterward. 

Since we don't get down to Muscatine all that much, I was sort of intrigued by the fact that a place like The Elms had been in business since 1958.  Muscatine County Sheriff Charles Anson and his wife, Anna, were the original owners of the Elms.  Anson stepped down as sheriff in 1960 to concentrate on running the business.  (He did run for sheriff again in 1964, but lost the election.)  

Charles Anson suffered a fatal heart attack at the Elms in early 1965 and a year later one of the 10 Anson children, Gary, came in to take over the business for his family.  Gary Anson ran the Elms for 30 years before retiring and selling the business to Jeanne Staats, a family friend of the Anson's. Staats eventually sold the business to two workers at the Elms - chef Justin Arp and manager Amanda Hart - in June of 2010.  Arp and Hart continue to run the business today.  

The Elms is located on Grandview Ave. in southwest Muscatine (see map).  Before the Highway 61 by-pass around Muscatine was opened in 1984, Grandview Ave. was the main route in and out of Muscatine on the south side of the city.  It was pretty early - after 5 p.m. - when we pulled into the spacious parking lot at the Elms.  We joked that we were like an old married couple having dinner that early.  I jokingly wondered if they had tapioca pudding at the Elms. 

There is a main dining room off to the right as you come in, along with a small room for overflow or private functions.  But the dining room lights were off and I turned to my left to go into the lounge area of the Elms.  A lady - I presume it was Amanda Hart - greeted us.  I said, "Are you guys open for dinner?"

She replied, "Oh, sure.  We just don't open the dining room until the weekends."  She grabbed a couple menus for us and asked if we wanted to sit in the lounge or in a room behind the lounge.  We spied a booth in the other room and planted ourselves in there.  She took our drink order and said that another girl would be waiting on us.

The room we were in was sort of an interesting mix of kitsch and cheesy decor.  There were some interesting pictures, posters and art work on the wall, including the venerable "Dogs Playing Poker".  The picture on the wall at our booth was the famous portrait of "Kramer" from the Jerry Seinfeld Show.  It was barely the holiday season and a number of Christmas lights were strung throughout the room.  I wondered if they possibly had the lights up year round. On the far end of the room was an old leather couch with a coffee table in front.  There appeared to be a number of games on top of and underneath the coffee table.  In the corner near the couch, there were some musical instruments that looked like they were sort of haphazardly put away after a jam session.  The room made me smile.   

A few moments after we ordered drinks, a young lady - Brittany - showed up with our drinks and wondered if we had any questions on the menu.  Cindy wanted to know if they had any specials that evening.  "No, generally not through the week," Brittany said.  "We usually have prime rib on the weekends, but not through the week."  She gave us a few minutes to look over the menu.  

I was looking at getting a steak and they had a filet, a ribeye and a strip steak on the menu.  I decided on getting the strip steak - medium rare (I figured this was the type of place that probably couldn't do a rare steak correctly).  With it, I got steak fries and the vegetable of the day came with the steak which were green beans.  Cindy ordered a ribeye - medium - with rice and the green beans.

Cindy also ordered a salad and I wanted to try a cup of their beef barley soup.  She wanted garlic, but they didn't have garlic.  She ended up with, if I remember right, a creamy blue cheese dressing. Brittany brought out the salad and the cup of soup not long after we ordered our food.  The beef barley soup had a nice deep brown base to it with chunks of steak embedded within.  But the first bite - whoa!  I use little to no salt in my diet and the beef barley soup was VERY salty.  Almost too salty to eat.  What ever type of bouillon they were using, it was too salty.  I offered Cindy a bite and she, too, said, "Boy, that's salty!"  If she says it's too salty, it's too salty.

We were the only ones in the restaurant getting food and it still took a little time for the food to come out.  Good food requires good preparation I've always said, so we weren't unhappy that it took a little bit of time to come out.

When Brittany did bring the steaks out, we were ready to eat.  From first glance, I could tell the meat was not the finest cuts we've had, but they were still serviceable.  Cindy's ribeye looked like one of the most lean cuts of a ribeye steak I'd ever seen.  It was almost void of any marbling.  In fact, I had to take a closer look at it to make sure it really was a ribeye.  I did dig the large steak-cut fries they had at the Elms.  

My medium-rare strip steak was more medium than medium-rare.  I guess I should have ordered it rare to make sure it wasn't overcooked.  The thickness of the steak was more thin than what I'm accustomed to at other steakhouse/supper clubs.  And while the meat had some good flavor to it, it was just a little too much overcooked for my taste.

As I said, Cindy's ribeye had little to no marbling.  Her steak was actually more medium-rare than my steak was.  I wondered if possibly they may have gotten ours mixed up in the kitchen as to the final temperature.  She said her steak was just "OK".  I had to agree.  My steak was just "OK" and really nothing that got me excited in the least.   

Because the steaks weren't all that thick, we could easily finish both of them.  I hardly touched my green beans and had about half of the steak fries, which were very good.  Cindy did like what she had of both her rice and green beans.  Overall, it was a pretty average meal.  

That's not to say that our meal at the Elms was bad.  It was all right, but not outstanding.  The staff was very friendly toward us and Brittany did a good job in taking care of us.  The steaks were all right, but it was not the best - and certainly not the worst - we've ever had. For an old-style Midwestern supper club, the Elms is pretty average.  If I'm in the area again and hungry, I may go back.  But I probably won't make a round trip from Davenport just to go all the way there for a steak. (Picture courtesy the Elms Facebook page.)

(Update - December 2014 - We were down in Muscatine and happened to go by The Elms, or what remained of it.  It was definitely closed and looked to have been closed for quite sometime.)

Chances 'R' - York, NE

Late last year, I found myself driving from Omaha, NE to Salina, KS to see an account I'd been chasing for quite sometime.  The route took me along Interstate 80 west to then head south on U.S. Highway 281 at York, NE.  It was around 1 p.m. and I was uncertain when I'd be able to have dinner in Kansas City that night (yes, it was a lot of driving that particular day), so I decided to wander into York and have lunch at one of my all time favorite steakhouses/supper clubs, Chances 'R'.  

I had written about Chances 'R' about seven years ago and I really wanted to do a better write up on the place.  I had first found out about the restaurant a number of years ago from a guy who worked for one of my former dealers in Iowa City.  He asked me if I ever traveled past York on trips out to Central Nebraska (I did, many times, back in the 90's).  He told me, "There's this excellent steakhouse out there that you need to check out."  I stopped in York and found Chances 'R' for a great dinner.  I made it a regular stop on my trips out to Grand Island after that until I got my new job in 2002.  The last time I was there was in 2006 when I found myself out in Lincoln one evening and decided to make the 45 minute trip to York for a good steak.  So I was really looking forward to hitting Chances 'R' again.  

There's a long and storied past to Chances 'R' that begins back in the early 30's.  A guy with the colorful name of Hiney Neufeld started a restaurant called the Cozy Lunch in 1932, advertising his little restaurant as a "modern hamburger shop."  Adding the sale of alcohol after the end of Prohibition, Hiney Neufeld ran the place until he sold it to the father and son team of Robert and Roy Schultz in 1937.  Roy Schultz, and his wife, Thelma (aka "Mimi") ran the small Cozy Lunch (seating capacity - 50) for the family for the next 20 years before their daughter and son-in-law, Shirley and Raymond Reetz, bought the business.  

The Reetz's operated the business as the Cozy Lunch until 1964.  They decided to expand the size of the original building by three-fold, buying up other buildings around the property.  They completely remodeled the restaurant and other buildings and increased seating to 180.  Raymond Reetz knew that his aggressive expansion plan was very risky and he confided in his wife, "Chances are that we'll go broke, but I want to give it a try."  That's how the restaurant became the Chances 'R'.  

Over the years, the Reetz's found success with both the restaurant and a booming on-site and off-site catering business.  In 1978, their daughter, Suzanne, and her husband, Tom Vanous, became partners with the Reetz's, and five years later the group expanded the restaurant with a lounge and an inside beer garden that increased seating to 550.  The lounge (pictured below left), west-side dinner room (pictured below right) and one of the banquet rooms were outfitted with a dark mahogany wood, stained glass and brass railing giving Chances 'R' a very classy feel to the place.

Raymond and Shirley Reetz retired from the business in 2008 after 51 years of owning the restaurant.  Tom and Suzanne Vanous, and her younger brother, Jason, and his wife, Holly - who joined the restaurant as partners in 1999 - continue to run Chances 'R' today.

As I said, it was after 1 p.m. when I pulled into one of the spacious parking lots across the street from Chances 'R' in downtown York (see map).  The lot was nearly full, as was parking on the street.  I thought, "Oh, boy.  I may have a little bit of a wait."  From the outside, Chances 'R' doesn't look all that big.  But with three large dining areas and at least two banquet rooms, they can handle a lot of people.  

After a quick trip to one of Chances 'R's "world class" restrooms (they're pretty proud of their restrooms, which are nice, but I wouldn't call them the best I've been in), I went to the hostess stand just inside the front door and waited to be seated.  The hostess finally caught up with me and took me into the more casual oak wood-trimmed east-side dining room.  I had never eaten in the east dining room in my previous visits as I actually preferred to sit in the Hob-Nob lounge at the bar.  However, during lunch, the bar in the lounge is transformed into a spacious salad bar (pictured right).  And the more ornate and less casual west dining room was full of diners.   

I was seated at a booth along the wall and given a menu to look over.  A waitress made her way over to take my drink order and asked if I was ready to order.  The menu at Chances 'R' - even at lunch - is pretty broad.  I needed a few minutes.  She was rather indifferent in her attitude, I thought.  Nonetheless, I carried on looking through the menu.  

The east dining room at Chances 'R' 

I'd had the New York strip, the rib eye, and the prime rib on previous visits.  However, I'd never had a filet.  I decided to get that.  

When the waitress came back with my drink, she said, "Oh, I guess I'd better tell you about the lunch specials."  Her demeanor was rather neutral - not upbeat, nor was she surly.  She seemed almost robotic in her actions.  I told her that I wasn't interested in the specials and that I had pretty much made my mind up.  "Oh!  OK!  Sure!"  I gave her my order of a filet - rare with a side of hash browns.  "All right," she coolly said as she clicked her pen.  "I'll get that right out for you."  She didn't even offer me a chance to go through the salad bar.  Even for an upcharge, I would have probably done that.

 

However, Chances 'R', like many supper club/steakhouses across the Midwest, offers a house salad served with a carousel of three different types of dressing.   I had my choice of sweet French, a creamy blue cheese, and a 1000 island that was similar to the Nebraska-made Dorothy Lynch salad dressing.  I tried the sweet French on part of my salad at first and it had a nice sweet and tangy taste to it.  I then tried the 1000 dressing and while it was good, the taste wasn't as pleasing as the sweet French.  But then I tried a bit of the cream blue cheese - whoa!  The blue cheese chunks were fresh and had a wonderful taste.  I tried the sweet French again, but decided that the blue cheese was probably the best of the three.  

Now, I remember that they had a creamy garlic dressing at Chances 'R' in the past, but it wasn't part of the triumvirate of dressings that were brought to me that day.  It was probably for the best as I remembered it to be a very forward garlic dressing that lingered on the tongue for hours after I ate it.  Since I had a pretty important meeting in Salina later that afternoon, heavy garlic on the breath may not have gone over well.

My steak showed up - a small filet that, really, for what it was turned out to be pretty expensive.  A slab of hash browns laid passively next to the steak.  I cut into the steak and found it to be a little more medium-rare than rare, but that was all right.  The steak was tender, had a nice seasoning on it, and was very flavorful.  It certainly wasn't the best steak I've had, but it was still very good.

The hash browns, although they looked rather bland sitting on the plate, were also not that bad.  Some cheese and some grilled onions would have livened them up a bit, but the lingering taste of the hash browns had kind of that grilled butter taste to them.  

My very impassive waitress came over to check on me and asked how everything was going.  I told her that it was good.  And it was.  Not great, but certainly not bad.  It was definitely an above average beef tenderloin filet, but far from a great cut of meat.  

I splurged on lunch to the tune of about $40 bucks with an average tip for the unemotional waitress.   I don't know if she didn't like her job or if she was just the type of person that had no personality at all.  She wasn't unfriendly by any means, but she was about as emotionally constrained as I've ever encountered in a server.  My meal, like previous visits to Chances 'R' was fine, probably a little more expensive for lunch than I'd like to spend, but it was still good.  Being that it's one of the top destinations to eat in the state of Nebraska, chances are that Chance 'R' will be around for another 50 years, at least. 

 

Rusty Duck - Dexter, IA

The nominations for the 2012 Iowa Beef Industry Council Best Burger in Iowa contest have come in and a number of burger places across the state are vying to succeed the Rusty Duck in Dexter, IA as this year's winner. Rusty Duck's Ultimate Cheeseburger, a 14 oz. ground steakburger, topped with three different kinds of cheese, sweet red peppers, sauteed mushrooms and onions, beat out 275 other nominees for the best burger in Iowa for 2011. It has been my goal to try Rusty Duck's burger at some point, but on my first two visits to the place I was shut out. The first time, I came too early (they open at 5 p.m.) and the second time, I came on the wrong day (they are closed on Sunday and Monday). This particular visit, I made double damn sure that they'd be open, even calling beforehand just to make sure.

The Rusty Duck has been in business for nearly 8 years and is primarily known as a steakhouse. Owner Brad Waldron cuts his own steaks and uses the trimmings from both sirloin and strip steaks for his burgers. He grinds them himself and the more steaks he sells in his restaurant, the more hamburgers he can make up. There were times right after the Rusty Duck won the Best Burger award that they'd run out of burgers. He only had enough meat for so many burgers. Over a typical Friday and Saturday night period, the Rusty Duck sells over 200 burgers. In addition to the 14 oz. monster burgers, the Rusty Duck also has an 8 oz. burger on their menu.

Waldron (pictured at right), who started out his restaurant career about 25 years ago as a busboy at Gino's Italian Restaurant in Des Moines, knows his way around the kitchen. He is the grill chef at the Rusty Duck with over 80% of the items sold on their menu coming from beef. In addition to steaks and burgers, the Rusty Duck also features pork chops and chicken. In fact, their breaded tenderloin sandwich got 4th place in the Iowa Pork Producers Best Pork Tenderloin sandwich award in 2011. That's not too bad - winning the best burger and getting a top 5 finish in the best pork tenderloin.

The Rusty Duck is located in the heart of the small downtown area of Dexter (see map). Angled parking on both sides of the street is plentiful, that is if the American Legion across and down the street doesn't have a big crowd. I pulled in around 6:30 one evening and went inside. The decor of the restaurant isn't much to talk about. The dropped ceiling tiles are a little dingy and dirty, the chairs and tables are very basic. There's a large bar area that seats about 20 to 24 people with a mirrored backwall and a television in the center.

A hostess greeted me and asked if I wanted to sit at the bar. There were a number of people at the bar and I decided to sit at a table. She tried to seat me at a high table, but I asked to sit at a regular table. She sort of acted a little miffed that I wanted to sit at a table, then when I asked to sit at a regular table she sort of gruffly tossed the menu down on a table in front of the fireplace. I thought, "OK, yeah, whatever..."

However, the waitress that came over to greet me was very nice. "Welcome to the Rusty Duck," she enthusiastically said. "What can I get you to drink?"

I took a quick look at what turned out to be a very extensive menu for a small place. Of course, there were steaks, chops, chicken and some seafood items on the menu in addition to sandwiches and some salads. I was there for the burger and right at the top was the Ultimate Cheeseburger. However, I saw that it had sauteed peppers. I can't handle cooked green peppers very well. I like the taste of them, but I get indigestion something fierce afterward.

I did see that they had a bacon cheeseburger on the menu and I thought I could get one of those and maybe see if they could stick some mushrooms on the burger. When the waitress came over to take my order, I asked her if I could get a burger like that. She said, "Did you see our Ultimate Cheeseburger? It has everything on it that you're looking for." When I told her that I couldn't handle sauteed peppers very well, she perked up and said, "Oh! They're the red sweet peppers!"

Well, I CAN handle sauteed sweet red peppers, so I did end up going with the Ultimate Cheeseburger. She asked me how I wanted it cooked and she warned me that Waldron tends to cook his beef a little to the rare side. I ordered mine medium. She then said that because the burger is pretty thick, it takes awhile to cook. I was fine with that. I had my choice of French fries or their homemade steak fries. She said, "Our steak fries are actually cut long and thin, not the big thick steak fries that you get at other places." I got those, although I knew I wouldn't be eating many of them.

About 20 minutes later, I heard a bell ring at the service window and I just happened to look up to see the monstrous burger sitting there. My waitress went over to pick it up and, sure enough, she brought it to my table. Wow! This thing was HUGE!!! There was a ton of cheese on top of the burger, followed by strips of sauteed red peppers, large fresh sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, and crisp bacon. The bun was lightly toasted, light and moist.

In order to even handle this behemoth burger, I had to cut it in two. The beef was excellent - very fresh and flavorful. Actually, it was a little overcooked to my taste and I thought that if Brad Waldron tended to cook his meats a little to the rare side, I'm glad that I didn't order it medium-well. But it was still juicy enough.

Because of all the toppings on the burger - especially the cheese oozing off the top with every bite - eating the burger was a messy experience. I'm not certain any of the bacon, peppers or mushrooms actually stayed on the burger because they were constantly slipping off with each bite. I was constantly stopping and picking up the dropped toppings and putting them back on the burger. And with all that mess, I was using my cloth napkin constantly. Actually, between constantly wiping my hands and my mouth area, what I needed was a big roll of paper towels. The cloth napkin was a nice touch, but my hands never felt clean even after wiping them off. I had to go to the restroom and wash my hands after I finished the meal.

I ate half the burger with no problem and I cut the other half into another half. I barely finished that smaller quarter of the burger before I decided I'd had enough. I had a couple of the thin steak fries and they were good, but I couldn't eat any more. I saw an article on the wall of the restaurant that had to be written before they won the Best Burger award last year that said a number of guys had tried to eat the Ultimate Cheeseburger in one sitting, but hadn't been able to do so. I'm guessing that isn't the case now that the secret of the Rusty Duck is now out. I probably could have finished the whole thing had I not had lunch earlier in the day. But it was beginning to sit like a gut bomb in my stomach. Oh boy. I have to say that I was full for at least two days afterward. I didn't have breakfast or lunch the next day and I didn't care.

The overall taste of the burger was.... Good. I can't really say that the Ultimate Cheeseburger at the Rusty Duck was the best I'd had - I'm not even certain that it's the best burger I've ever had in Iowa. But it would definitely be a Top Ten all-time of Iowa burgers if I did such a list. I wish he would have taken it off a couple three minutes earlier, but the overall taste of the beef was well above average. The criteria for Best Burger in Iowa not only encompasses the taste of the burger, but how it is presented, the unique nature of the burger, and how well the bun works with the burger. I'd give the burger an A on uniqueness, an A in presentation, an A- with the bun and a B for overall taste. With all the cheese and toppings, there was a lot going on and I'm not certain that I really got a good taste of the beef. Maybe I'll go back at some point and get a smaller burger without all the fixin's.

 

Grinnell Steakhouse - Grinnell, IA

Thanx to Doug T. for the tip on the burgers at Grinnell Steakhouse, just off Interstate 80 at the Grinnell, IA exit (see map). I'd probably gone past this place a large number of times over the years, but never stopped in. Doug e-mailed me a few weeks ago and asked if I'd ever had the cheeseburger at the restaurant. Nope, I hadn't. He suggested I stop in when I could and see what I think.

I found out that the cheeseburger at Grinnell Steakhouse was one of the Top 10 finalists for the Iowa Beef Industry Council's "Best Burger in Iowa" contest for 2011. Grinnell Steakhouse is run by Laurie and Greg Hauser, assisted by their son, Chad. I was told that it's been in business for about three years, but I seem to remember that there was a restaurant in the building previous to this. Actually, now that I think about it, I believe that it was more of a bar than a restaurant. Either way, I'd never been in the place before this visit.

The key feature of the Grinnell Steakhouse is their "cook you own" concept. There's a couple three other places in Central Iowa that do "cook your own" steaks - Rube's Steakhouse is the most notable with their original location in Montour, IA (not far from Grinnell), and a location just west of Des Moines, just off of I-80 at the Waukee exit. It has been - geez, I don't know - about 25 years since I'd been to Rube's in Montour. I don't know if I'm a big fan of grilling my own steaks in a restaurant. Actually, I'm sort of scared to do so as I'm such a grilling snob that I'd probably end up cooking everyone's steaks, even people that I didn't know.

Grinnell Steakhouse had not one, but TWO open pit grilling areas in their restaurant. They had this one in their main and spacious dining room, and they had another one that was smaller than this one and situated back in a smaller dining area back near the bar that is probably used as overflow on busy nights, or for private parties.

It was after the lunch rush when I stopped off I-80 on a springlike day as I was on my way to Des Moines for a mid-afternoon meeting. From the outside, it didn't look like the place was open. If a large sign out front hadn't said, "Open Daily at 11 a.m.", I probably would have just driven on.

I was greeted by a young lady - Jazzmin was her unique name - and she asked if I wanted to have a table or eat at the bar. The dining room was empty, as was the bar. I decided to sit at the bar. Actually, the bar - although not very large - was sort of nice. It had seats for seven or eight people and had a nice back bar area filled with bottles of liquor and an assortment of beers they had to offer. A couple nice glass-faced refrigerators full of beer were down below.

Jazzmin gave me a menu and even though it appears that steak and chops are the focus at Grinnell Steakhouse, they also had a lunchtime menu that featured a handful of burgers and sandwiches. A good sized salad bar was one of the more prominent features in the main dining area.

I pretty much knew what I wanted - a burger and when Jazzmin asked me if I was ready to order, I didn't hesitate. I got a cheeseburger (I had a choice of American, cheddar, pepperjack, bleu cheese or Swiss - I got pepperjack) and a side of fries. They evidently had a grill in the kitchen because I could easily smell the charbroil scent of beef when the burger was cooking.

Jazzmin brought out the burger and set it in front of me. At first, I was sort of taken aback at how thin it appeared to be sitting open-faced on the plate. The overall size of the burger was big, but I thought it would have been a little more thick. But after taking a couple bites of the burger, I found that it was actually a lot more thick than I thought it was. Fresh red onions and pickles came with the burger, as did a lettuce leaf. A large sheet of very fresh and pungent pepperjack cheese laid on top.

The taste of the burger was good - very good, in fact. The meat was lean, but still had some juiciness to the taste. It had a little bit of pink in the middle, just as I like it, and the thick-melted pepperjack cheese gave each bite a little aftertaste kick. The bun was light and was a nice complement to the burger. Overall, it was a very good burger, one that definitely was worthy of a mention for one of the best burgers in Iowa. But I don't think I could put it on my Best Burger list. An honorable mention - probably.  But it could be a Top Ten if I just did a list for the state of Iowa.  

I really don't do a very good job of closing out my blog entries. So, thanks to Doug for the tip on the burger at Grinnell Steakhouse.  I'm sure the steaks they have at Grinnell Steakhouse are good, but I was impressed with the burger. It was good and a pretty good value. I'll go back again if I get the chance.

The Cellar - Geneseo, IL

Cindy wanted to go out for steak recently and we discussed going to Bud's Skyline Inn over in Moline for dinner. But we'd had a couple bad experiences the past couple of visits and decided to pass on Bud's. We thought about The Captain's Table on River Drive in Moline, but the Mississippi River was flooding and it would have been tough to make our way around the detours to get to the place (it turned out that all access to The Captain's Table was shut down due to flood waters). So, I made the decision on the spot to head over to Geneseo, IL, just about 15 miles from the Quad Cities, but close enough to be considered part of the metro area, and have dinner at a place we hadn't been to for quite some time, The Cellar.

The Cellar is located in the basement of the historic Geneseo House in downtown Geneseo at the corner of State and Main (see map). The Geneseo House was built in 1877 and was (at that time) a state of the art four-story hotel. The hotel had gone out of business in the 50's and stood empty until brothers Bob and Stan Bestor purchased the building and put a restaurant in the cellar of the building. Calling it, of course, The Cellar, the restaurant featured fine dining and banquet facilities. However, since Geneseo's population was hovering around 6,000 people at that time, the Bestor's relied upon the new Interstate 80 that would allow customers from the Quad Cities to make it to their restaurant in a jiffy.

When the Bestor's opened The Cellar in 1960, their first chef was Bob Schaefer. Schaefer eventually bought the business and building from the Bestor's in 1977. In 1980, a young kid by the name of Scott Stetter came in and asked for a job. Schaefer put him to work as a busboy and a dishwasher, with Stetter eventually working his way into the kitchen and becoming head chef. In 2000, Stetter bought the restaurant from Schaefer. (Schafer still owns the building and much of the space on the upper floors is used as office space.) Stetter continues to work as the head chef at The Cellar and you can see him most nights laboring over the large grated charcoal grill in the kitchen.

The Cellar consists of two main dining areas and a bar area with a banquet are off to the side of the bar. Local artists have their artwork on display on the stone walls of the restaurant. The lighting is subdued and each table features a lit candle. It gave the dining area a nice little coziness. However, the tables in the dining area are a little too close to one another, putting people in pretty close proximity.

It was around 7:30 on a Friday evening when we got to The Cellar. We found some parking on the side street and went down the stairs into the restaurant. We were wondering if we would be able to get in without a wait, but the hostess took us directly to the back dining room and sat us at a table along the wall. Cindy looked at the closeness of the tables around us and she said, "Wow! They really like to cram 'em in here, don't they?"

We were given menus and the waitress came over to take our drink orders. I looked over the wine list and while it was pretty short, they did have a couple three good red wines on the list. Cindy wasn't certain that she wanted much more than a glass of wine that evening, so she ordered an in-house-brewed iced-tea and I got a Bud Light for the time being.

Steaks, chops and seafood are the headliners at The Cellar. They're famous for their chargrilled shrimp served with drawn butter. I considered getting a "surf and turf" combination that evening with the grilled shrimp and a steak.

Another specialty at The Cellar are their skewered beef filet tips. They only have those from time to time, usually after they've cut up a number of filets off of a full tenderloin. It turned out that they had them this particular evening and that's what Cindy ordered. She also got a side of their hash browns mixed with cheese and onions.

I ordered the regular filet, rare. I also got the hash browns with the cheese and onions. We also both got salads - Cindy got the homemade garlic, I got the Italian vinegar and oil with blue cheese crumbles on top. And when the waitress brought out our main entrees, I asked her to bring out a couple glasses of the Avalon Napa Valley Cabernet.

The salads were good, nothing outstanding. The garlic dressing Cindy had wasn't as overpowering as she seems to like her garlic dressing. Nonetheless, I still had to have a bite of her salad with the dressing or I wouldn't have been able to sleep with her that night, no matter how many times she brushed her teeth before we went to bed. My vinegar and oil dressing was pretty basic, but the blue cheese was definitely fresh and had a rich taste. Glad I learned about that combination a number of years ago.

The waitress brought out our glasses of wine saying that she wanted to make sure the wine was on the table before she brought our steak. And it wasn't much longer when she came back with our main entrees.

As I said, it had been a long time since we'd been to The Cellar, but the presentation was very nice. Our beef entrees along with the hash browns were served on a nice, somewhat ornate plate. Everything was very nice. I was a little taken back by the hash browns. It looked like they were more of a potato pancake with some cheddar cheese melted on top. But I soon found that the hash browns were certainly made in house with fresh potatoes, and the onions were cooked in with the potatoes rather than sauteed on the side and mixed in before they were put on the plate. They were very good.

And whoever cooked my steak that evening got the temperature right on (above right). The filet was thick and tender with a nice grill ring around the top and bottom of the steak. It was absolutely fabulous.

And Cindy's filet tips were also very good. She likes hers a little more medium than I and she told me that the tips were cooked perfectly. They, too, were tender and flavorful with a great chargrilled taste to the meat.

 

I also forgot to mention that with dinner we got these little sticky honey buns that were just outstanding. In fact, everything was wonderful at The Cellar. Half way through the meal we were questioning each other as to why it had taken so long to come back over to Geneseo to have dinner there. It's definitely worth the 20 minute or so drive - one way - for us from Davenport over to The Cellar.

 

 

 

 

 

Before we left, we went into the bar area to look around. It's not all that big and not that many people were in there. The bar itself is a dark-wood, three-sided small bar with lighted candles on top. There were a number of small tables in the room, also with lighted candles. It's definitely a nice place to hang out if you have to wait for a table at The Cellar.

As we were getting ready to walk out the door, I glanced into the glass enclosed kitchen/grill area. Scott Stetter silently mouthed, "Thank you!" and waved at us.

I waved back and also silently thanked him and then exaggeratedly mouthed, "We'll be back!"

 

And not long ago, we were. We were invited by some friends of ours to join them for an anniversary dinner at The Cellar with two other couples who had never been there before. This time, I had the 6 oz. grilled boneless pork chop and 5 count grilled shrimp combination. They grill both the pork chop and the shrimp with a homemade barbecue glaze - somethling that I don't care for during the cooking process. Then to top it off, the waitress brought out melted butter for the shrimp and a side of sweet barbecue sauce for the pork chop. I have to question why they glazed the shrimp and pork chop with the barbecue sauce, and then brought out butter and barbecue sauce. Actually, the shrimp were pretty good, but the pork chop was a little thin and a tad overcooked for my liking. But I should have asked for both without the glaze.

 

On this trip, Cindy got the grilled orange roughy that she said was very good. She got a side of rice with hers (I got the good ol' hash browns with onions mixed in and a dollop of cheese on top). While she had a salad with the homemade garlic dressing - this time with more zip in the garlic than last - I had a cup of their outstanding French onion soup before dinner.

 

The two other couples who had never been to The Cellar before seemed to like it very much. All of them had steak and they all raved about how good it was. Cindy said, "I should have gotten the steak, too. It smelled so good."

I love places like The Cellar. While tons of places have come or gone during their 50-plus years of existence, The Cellar has persevered through a couple of tough economic times during that period. The price of the meal wasn't out of line, the service was very good, and the food was just excellent. Sometimes you've got to go to the small towns to get some of the best steaks available, and The Cellar is absolutely one of those types of places.  

Charcoal Oven - Skokie, IL

The Charcoal Oven on Golf Road in Skokie, IL (see map) is one of those places that I've passed a number of times, wondered what it would be like, but have never stopped in.  It looks like an old time supper club like you'd find out in the middle of nowhere in the rural Midwest.  I happened to be staying just down the street from the restaurant a couple months ago and decided to give the place a try for dinner one evening. 

I walked into the restaurant as two men were walking out.  It was early - around 6:45 p.m. - and I was the only one in the place, save for a lone man sitting at the bar talking to the bartender.  It turned out the bartender was the owner - Rich Franco - whose wife, Maria, is the daughter of the previous owner, Phill Georgouses. 

Maria Franco came out and asked if I wanted to sit at the bar or in the dining room.  Considering there wasn't anyone in the dining room - and it was getting into the meat of the dinner hour - I thought two things.  1) It would be kind of cool sitting in the dining room all by myself.  And 2) Why am I the only one in here?  I began to regret my decision. 

I sat in an old style three-sided booth with a white linen tablecloth over the table.  Maria handed me a menu and I immediately asked her if this place was an old style supper club that, at one time, was out in the country.  She said, "Oh, most definitely!"

She told me the story of how the original business was built in 1928 - called The Oasis.  It was basically a gin joint out in the country toward the end of Prohibition.  When Prohibition ended in 1933, The Oasis flourished as a hot spot for good food and flowing drinks.  It later became known as The Little Club and was a favorite hangout for Northwestern University students fleeing Evanston to drink when it was a dry town up to the mid-60's.  The Little Club was just outside the Evanston city limits.   

Phill Georgouses began to work as a busboy and waiter at The Little Club before World War II.  Phil was called to duty during the war, but he came back in 1946 to work at the place.  He ended up buying the Oasis in 1948.  In the mid-60's, Phill put in a kitchen to serve Greek-styled meals and steaks and changed the name to The Charcoal Oven.  Rich and Maria took over the business when Phill retired a few years ago.  Many of the Greek-styled recipes that the Georgouses family had are still on the menu and I understand that Phill still checks in from time to time.

The dining room had that old time supper club feel to it.  Subdued lighting, tasteful decor, Frank Sinatra playing in the background.  It was like walking back into the 50's or 60's.  Maria said that the city of Skokie literally grew up around the restaurant.  "This was the place to go for an elegant meal," she said.  "But now, there's just so many choices in the area.  But we weren't going to change one bit."   

In addition to their Greek chicken, steaks and chops, The Charcoal Oven has a variety of homemade soups and salads topped with their own in-house dressing.  Sonia Carlson has been making the soups and salad dressings at The Charcoal Oven for over 30 years.  I sort of like that kind of consistency.   

While the menu isn't very deep, it did have a handful of great sounding meals to choose from.  Maria said they were famous for their Greek chicken - a marinated chicken breast that is lightly breaded and baked in the oven with lemon, garlic and oregano.  She said their butt steak was also a favorite.  And they were somewhat famous for their baby back ribs with their own homemade sauce. 

They did have a special on a sirloin steak that evening - a 16 oz. cut with a couple sides for $21.95.  I signed up for that - rare.  The sides were The Charcoal Oven's homemade potato chips and sauteed green beans with onions.  I also got a cup of the homemade lentil vegetable soup and a salad with their homemade Danish bleu cheese dressing.  Maria said she'd get it right out.

Sure enough, Maria first brought out the cup of soup and a fresh baked bread roll brushed with butter.  Both the soup and the bread were very yummy.  I'm not big on lentil soup, but this was very good.  

After I finished the soup, she brought out the Danish bleu cheese salad.  It was OK, rather bland in taste compared to other bleu cheese dressings I've had.  But the lettuce was fresh and tasty.  

 

The salad was done for about five minutes and Maria brought out the 16 oz. sirloin, but it certainly looked larger than 16 oz.  I cut into it and it was a perfect rare for me.  The homemade potato chips were interesting, but good.  And the sauteed green beans with the onion slices were absolutely fabulous.

I began to work into the steak and I found that a good portion of the steak was full of gristle.  What meat I could cut out of the steak was tender and flavorful, but the large amount of gristle was a downer to the meal.  I know it's the luck of the draw when it comes to meat like sirloin whether or not you'll have a lot of gristle.  My number came up this time.

Maria came out and saw that I had a lot of gristle in the steak.  She immediately volunteered to get another piece of meat for me.  I said, "Oh, God, no.  Don't worry.  I wouldn't have been able to finish this whole steak had it not had ANY gristle in it.  This is fine."

She said, "Are you sure?"

I said, "Yep, just the luck of the draw."  

She was so nice and throughout the meal I continued to be the only person in the place.  Not that it was bad - it was above average, overall.  Maria did tell me that the place usually is much more busy on the weekend (it was a Wednesday night when I was in there) and it was a beautiful night out.  People were probably hanging at home, doing yard work and cooking out that evening.

About three weeks ago, a friend of mine who works at Music Direct in Chicago had posted on Facebook that he had gone to The Charcoal Oven with his wife.  I talked to him after that and told him that I, too, had recently visited the place.  He said, "We lived not far from that place from 1968 thru 1977.  We'd always pass it on the way to my aunt's house, but we never stopped in.  I was always intrigued with the place and so my wife and I decided to go there for dinner."  

He told me he had the Greek chicken and he said, "It was WONDERFUL!  I was torn between getting the special that night, which was a ribeye steak, and the Greek chicken.  She told me to get the Greek chicken.  I'm glad I did."  

With my recent addition of Abt Electronics as one of my dealers, I'll be spending a lot of time in the Glenview/Skokie area of Chicago, probably staying just down the street from The Charcoal Oven on occasion.  I'll need to get back there to try the Greek chicken and I'll probably also try one of their steaks again, as well.  I love old supper clubs like The Charcoal Oven and I'll definitely go back. 

The Captain's Table - Moline

At one point in time, The Captain's Table in Moline was THE place to eat in the Quad Cities when it came to special occasions, impressing a date, or hosting a high profile business meal. Unfortunately, that was many years - and a few owners - ago. However, the current incarnation of The Captain's Table has been creating a little buzz, locally. For my birthday dinner a while back, my wife and I decided to head over there to give the place a try.

It had been a long time since I was last in The Captain's Table.  My wife had been in more recently when she was there with a group of ladies for a dinner.  She told me it was "OK to pretty good, but still nothing special." I'd read a couple of different things in the local papers about the place since it had been bought by a group of investors who re-opened the restaurant last summer putting Peter Harman, aka "The Food Guru", in charge of the restaurant.  Harman owns - or has owned and managed - restaurants in Iowa City, Davenport, Burlington, IA and Macomb, IL. Harman said his goal would be to bring back the classic menu that made The Captain's Table a stalwart in the Quad City restaurant scene for years.

The Captain's Table started in 1974 as a small steakhouse/supper club next to the Marquis Harbor on River Drive in Moline (see map). Local businessman Jim Sweet ran the marina and restaurant for years before selling the place in late 1990's to American Marine out of La Crosse, WI. The time between 1974 and 1998 were the golden years for the restaurant. Their steaks, chops, fresh seafood and especially their homemade clam chowder were part of the finest in upscale dining the area had to offer. The Captain's Table looked out over the marina and the Mississippi River and was a popular place for locals to dine in the summer, as well as in the winter.  My wife and I had many memorable meals at The Captain's Table during the years Jim Sweet was the owner.

After Jim Sweet sold the restaurant and marina, American Marine leased out the restaurant to a handful of people since then. I do know that the Heart of America group leased the restaurant for a while - the same people that own the popular Machine Shed restaurants that are found throughout the Midwest (and based in Moline). And that's about the time The Captain's Table began to go downhill. Service got bad, the menu changed drastically, the food was not very good, and the homey, welcoming feel the Sweet's had given to the place sort of dissipated. It was just another corporate-run restaurant with no soul.

Heart of America got out of their lease in 2003, but it was taken over by the chef of the restaurant, Mark Luciani. But by that time, any momentum the original Captain's Table had was pretty much gone. Luciani tried tinkering with the menu, but nothing seemed to bring the magic back. With a surge of finer restaurants in the area and the economic downturn in 2008, Luciani closed the restaurant in February of 2009.

American Marine then got into talks with a group of local businessmen - Rod Teel, Jeff Delf and Casey Dolbin - who agreed to buy the Captain's Table and separate it from the marina.  The group contracted with Peter Harman to come over and revive the restaurant. Harman re-opened the Captain's Table in July of 2009, not long after he had closed his Graze location in Davenport. Many of the employees from Graze went over to The Captain's Table. American Marine remains the owner of the place, and we were told Harman is more of a consultant who comes to the restaurant once or twice a week to meet with G.M. William Black who runs the day-to-day operations.

It was a beautiful evening, cool, yet clear, when we got to The Captain's Table. Since it was the middle of the week, we had no problem getting in. One thing that I'd noticed since my last visit, oh, maybe three years ago, was that they had put in a nice little outdoor patio with heavy metal chairs and tables that overlooks the harbor and the river. It was too cool to eat outdoors that evening, but there were a couple tables occupied with people having drinks, but dressed in heavier coats.

The original Captain's Table was a long, narrow dining room with huge booths that featured large windows that looked out toward the river. Before Sweet sold the place in the late 90's, he expanded the restaurant to include a large bar area that had a nautical theme to the place. There was also a little watchtower added to the place that allowed people to go up and get a better view of the upstream bend in the Mississippi River.

The original dining room has changed a little from the first time I visited the place nearly 19 years ago after I moved to the Quad Cities. It's more light in the place with white walls and ceilings versus the dark walls and ceilings of the original Captain's Table. The host that evening took us to one of the large window booths and gave us our menus to look over. There wasn't a lot of people in the restaurant and we noticed there was only one waitress working - Nancy, a pleasant 40-something lady who was working her butt off trying to keep up with the orders and requests.

I was still on a Hawaii hang-over and saw they had mai-tai's on their cocktail and wine menu. Nancy came to ask us what we wanted to drink and I told her that we were probably going to get a bottle of wine, but in the meantime I wanted a mai-tai. She went to get my mai-tai and I looked over the limited wine list The Captain's Table had to offer. I decided to get a bottle of the Frei Brothers merlot, a little over-priced at $36 bucks. I've seen the same wine at restaurants in larger cities at lower prices.

Nancy brought out the mai-tai and it was more fruity than boozy. Definitely not like what we had out in Hawaii. But as my wife reminded me, "We're not in Hawaii. We're in Illinois!"

The host who seated us brought out the bottle of wine and opened it for us. I was actually looking for a hearty cabernet that evening, but they only had two on the menu. I sort of expressed my astonishment that they only had two cabs on the wine list. He said, "Our wine list is evolving. We feel we have about the best values in wine right now. The Louis Martini cabernet is very good." I had to disagree with him. I find the Louis Martini cab to be over-priced and over-rated. There's a number of better cabs at lower prices that they could choose from.

In fact, the original Captain's Table was where we were turned on to one of our favorite California wines, Judd's Hill.  My wife and I were treated to dinner at The Captain's Table about 14 years ago by the former owner of SpeakerCraft. That was back when The Captain's Table had a very extensive wine list. Our guest, Jeremy, was blown away when he saw Judd's Hill on the wine list and we had two bottles of their cabernet that evening.  My wife still talks about the night Jeremy took us to dinner at The Captain's Table because she got a little tipsy on all the wine and Jeremy and I ended up closing down the new bar that evening drinking top shelf Scotch.

The menu was an interesting mix of beef, chicken, seafood and pork chops. Prime rib was available only on Friday and Saturday nights - the same as the original Captain's Table. The steaks were limited to a couple different sizes of tenderloin filets, a rib-eye and a strip steak dubbed "The El Cheapo". A strip steak sounded pretty good, but the name of it completely turned me off. It was the cheapest steak on the menu - $17.99, if you can call that cheap. But I was leery of how good of cut the "El Cheapo" would be. Plus, I couldn't bring myself to order the "El Cheapo" by name.  My wife said, "Just order it as the strip steak!"

"Yeah," I said. "But she'll probably come back and say, 'Oh, the El Cheapo?' And say it loud enough that the restaurant will know I'm a cheapskate!"

My wife just laughed.

There were a number of seafood entrees on the menu.  My wife was definitely getting seafood that evening and the choices ranged from grilled shrimp, sauteed scallops, broiled salmon, baked haddock in a cheese sauce, herb encrusted sea bass, sesame seed seared ahi tuna, and their famous brown sugar salmon where they top the salmon with brown sugar and Boetje's mustard and bake it in the oven. However, the special that evening was sea bass bruschetta - their house-made bruschetta topped with grilled sea bass, then baked and finished with a garlic sauce.  My wife couldn't pass that up.

I went with the 9 oz. filet with a side of bearnaise sauce. We also decided to get a side of The Captain's Table's own macaroni and cheese. We also got a Captain's Salad that featured mixed greens, tomatoes, onions, provolone cheese, parmesan and topped with their house vinaigrette that is served family style at the table. In addition to all that, we also decided to give a couple of their soups a try. I ordered the gumbo and my wife got the clam chowder.

There was a point in time when the Quad Cities would rival New England for the quality of their clam chowder. about four or five restaurants in the area had some world-class clam chowder. I had a guy I used to work for back in the 80's who visited the Boston area many times (and ended up moving there) and who used to travel to the Quad Cities for business before I joined his firm. He once told me, "I don't know what it is, but the clam chowder in the Quad Cities is on par with some of the chowder that I've had in New England." It was very good. And "was" is the operative term, here.

Since the original Captain's Table was sold by Jim Sweet, a few other fine dining restaurants in the area went out of business. All of them had great clam chowder. Jim Sweet and his son eventually bought a place on the Davenport riverfront called The Boat House, not far from where we live (and a place we occasionally go to, but the prices are high and the value is not that great), and their clam chowder was revived there. Sweet has since sold The Boat House and the clam chowder is definitely not the same as it was when the Sweet's were involved.

And the present day clam chowder at The Captain's Table is just OK.  My wife had it the time she was there with a group of ladies and she said it was better than what the previous incarnation of The Captain's Table had to offer. But it still wasn't like the clam chowder in the hey-day of Jim Sweet's ownership.

My gumbo, too, was just OK. It really wasn't anything special and I had to put a bunch of Tabasco into it to kick it up a notch in the heat scale. While it was thick and there were large chunks of andouille sausage, tomatoes, okra and other stuff, I've made better gumbo at home.

Nancy brought out our salad in a large bowl that looked more like a center piece presentation than something you'd want to eat. There were four cherry tomatoes that were equally spaced on top with shaved provolone and parmesan sprinkled on top. And for a weird effect, they placed cheese-flavored Goldfish crackers on top. I don't like Goldfish cheese crackers on their own, why would I like them on a salad? I had a couple bites of the salad with them on top, but knocked them off after I found the taste to be distracting. The house-made vinaigrette was also OK, nothing special at all.

Our main entrees soon arrived. My 9 oz filet was a generous 9 ounces, I'll tell you that. It was a thick cut of tenderloin and quick possibly more toward 12 to 14 ounces in size. It was cooked a perfect rare for me.

(Here is a back story with rare steak at The Captain's Table just after Heart of America took over the restaurant. About 12 years ago, I was traveling with a guy who was the VP for Sales at Niles Audio, a prestigious custom audio/video company based out of Miami. It was my first trip with him and I was trying to impress him. So, I took him to The Captain's Table and he ordered a New York strip, rare. The waitress brought it out and it was cooked medium-well.  My guest asked to send the steak back and the waitress left with his steak. She came back out and said, "We're all out of New York strips." He asked for a filet. She said, "We're out of filets, too." She said they had rib-eyes, but he wanted something lean. I was embarrassed to no end that evening. I had never had any problem with The Captain's Table at anytime and the night was a disaster.)

The bearnaise sauce they served on the side (you better ask for it that way or they'll serve it over the filet) was pedestrian and bland. It didn't do anything to enhance the taste of the meat. The steak, on its own, was juicy, tender and tasty. You really don't need the bearnaise sauce on it.

My wife's sea bass bruschetta was very, very good. She gave me a bite of it and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the taste. It had a wonderful garlic finish to the taste and the brushetta was also very good. While I was happy with my steak alone, she was very happy with her sea bass.

The mac and cheese side that we got was sort of like the bearnaise sauce - bland and lifeless. The dish was very cheesy, but there was no taste sensation to the cheese. I think we both had a couple bites and decided to just concentrate on our main entrees.

After we finished our dinners, Nancy tried to tempt us with The Captain's Table's desserts including a coconut key lime pie, their homemade cheesecake with triple berry sauce, an angel food cake parfait with the same triple berry sauce, and a chocolate brownie sundae. The cheesecake was tempting, but between the gumbo, salad, steak and a couple bites of the mac and cheese, I was done. We asked for our bill and lingered a bit to finish our wine and savor our meal.

There were some things very good about The Captain's Table - our entrees were very good and Nancy's service was also very efficient, considering she was the only one working the dining room that evening. The salad was OK, as was the gumbo and clam chowder. The mac and cheese was bland and disappointing. And the wine list was also very disappointing. But with the great view of the river, the over-sized booths with large wooden tables, and a history of providing good food - most of the time - since the 70's, The Captain's Table rated as slightly above average in my book. While I do give Harman some points in trying to capture the former allure of the original Captain's Table during Jim Sweet's era, he'll still have a long way to go to achieve just that.

(UPDATE - Jan. 16, 2018 - The Captain's Table was destroyed by an overnight fire.  They were in the midst of remodeling the bar and dining area of the restaurant when fire broke out before midnight on Jan. 15.  The building was a total loss and the building was razed after the fire was put out due to structural damage from the weight of the ice that had formed on the building.  No immediate word if the restaurant will be rebuilt.)

Silver Moon Supper Club - Fargo

A couple years ago, I took my dealer in Fargo out to dinner at Rescan, a wonderful Italian restaurant in the hip downtown area.  Before we went out to dinner, we met his wife for drinks at a place called the Silver Moon Supper Club - an upscale supper club that had opened just a couple weeks before.  I told him that at some point I wanted to take him out for dinner at the Silver Moon.  On my annual trip to Fargo this past summer, I did just that.

Monte Jones was a North Dakota farm boy who was obviously out of place in the upper plains.  After graduating from high school, he took off for New York City and became a dancer and choreographer.  After living in New York City for nearly 30 years, Monte moved back to Fargo, sensing a change in the attitudes of the city.  With Fargo being a small, yet somewhat cosmopolitan city in the middle of nowhere, Jones opened up a fine dining establishment called Monte's Downtown.  It was a big hit with the well-to-do locals and the people who came into town to do business. 

Let's go back to the 1940's.  That's when a supper club by the name of the Silver Moon opened in Moorhead, MN, just across the Red River of the North from Fargo.  From the early 40's until 1969, the Silver Moon was a grand old-style supper club - the kind of place where people would go for special dinners.  Monte Jones' mother used to work in the Silver Moon when he was growing up.  Jones and his partner, Jerry Erbstoesser, decided to open an extravagant supper club in downtown Fargo based in part on the old Silver Moon in Moorhead. 

The building that houses the Silver Moon was originally built in 1917 for a company that used the four floors and the basement as a warehouse for dry goods including clothing, linens, sheets, blankets and bedspreads.  The building was a warehouse for nearly 70 years before the space was no longer useful.  The building languished for about 20 years used for various things before a group of investors bought the space in 2007 turning the upper floors into loft residencies and allowing Jones and Erbstoesser to put the Silver Moon Supper Club on the main floor.

Jones and Erbstoesser envisioned a retro-styled restaurant, full of art deco and art moderne touches including clam shell booths, a water wall and a private eating area called Salon Privé.  They enlisted the help of Chef Josh Smith to come up with an interesting and varied menu - one that changes seasonally based upon locally grown foods found in the area.  Because of that concept, the Silver Moon's menu changes constantly and there's always bound to be something different to eat each time you go to the place.

It was late in the afternoon when I arrived into Fargo.  My dealer and his people were out working on a job site and were running late.  I ended up at a place for a couple three beers before he joined me after getting cleaned up.  We sat and talked business for a little while before we decided to head over to the Silver Moon on Roberts Street (see map).  My dealer's wife had been planning on joining us for dinner as were his two workers, but none of them were there when we showed up at 8 p.m.  

My dealer and I had a drink at the bar - a nice little modern style U-shaped bar with the bartender in a vest and black tie.  The owner, Monte Jones, whom I'd met on my previous visit to the place, came over to greet my dealer, whose wife and he are regular visitors to both the Silver Moon and to Monte's.  My dealer reintroduced me to Monte and I told him that I was looking forward to dinner that evening.  

One of my dealer's workers showed up about 8:30 and his wife finally showed about 10 minutes later.  The third worker had called and begged off saying that he was too tired to come out to dinner.  I told my dealer, "Man, you must have worked him pretty hard!"

My dealer said, "Oh, we were running wire in attic and crawl spaces today.  It was brutally hot in some of those spaces."  

The four of us sat at one of the Silver Moon's signature clam shell booths.  Personally, I don't care for booths like that - it's like you're on display for the rest of the restaurant, watching you eat and carry on in conversation.  But it was late in the evening and only a handful of people were in the restaurant.  

The Silver Moon also usually has someone in playing the baby grand piano that's up on a little riser in the main dining area.  But that night it sat silent.  When my dealer's wife inquired about that with Monte, he said that during the summer months he's been only having someone come in during the weekends.  "When the schools get back in session this fall (North Dakota State University and Minnesota State - Moorhead), we'll get our regular group of players to come back in." 

Our waitress came out and gave us menus.  I also ordered up a bottle of wine - and I have to admit that things get very fuzzy from here on out.  I'd had a few beers before we showed up to the restaurant, then a couple more while we were waiting.  I usually go back to the room and make notes of what we had to eat or drink at the restaurant, but I didn't get back to my hotel until 11:30 p.m. and I had a 5 a.m. wake-up call for a 7 a.m. flight out of Fargo that morning.  I immediately went to bed. 

So, I can't remember what kind of wine we got, but I do know it was red.  But I was the only one going to have beef that night - everyone else went with a seafood entree.  The night before in Dickinson, I broke up my two night streak of having steaks, going with some chicken dish at an Applebee's when I took my dealer and his crew out for dinner.  (My Dickinson dealer closes his doors at 9 p.m. and anything close to a fine dining restaurant in Dickinson closes at 9 p.m. - that's why we ate at Applebee's.) 

Three courses came with the dinner - salad, main entree and a dessert.  I ended up getting the Silver Moon's New York strip - rare - with a side of garlic mashed potatoes.  As I said, my guests all got seafood.  I do remember that my dealer got the shrimp and risotto entree, but I can't for the life remember what the other two got.  

The presentation at the Silver Moon is very good.  My steak was resting on a bed of asparagus spears with a small grilled onion slice on top.  From what I remember about the meal, it was very good.  Our waitress was also very good, she had a great sense of humor and took care of us very well.

After dinner, our waitress came around and showed us the dessert menu.  Something caught my eye on the dessert menu - the after dinner drinks.  And for $15 bucks they had a three-Scotch flight of drinks - the Macallan 12 year; the Macallan 15 year aged in fine oak barrels; and the 18 year Highland Park.  Now, I really have to tell you that at that point in the evening - close to 11 p.m. - I certainly didn't need that.  But for $15 bucks to have all three fine Scotch whiskeys I really couldn't pass it up.  I ended up passing on getting dessert and got the Scotch instead.  Let me tell you, I was feeling no pain at that point, but lingered a little longer in the shower the next morning after my 5 a.m. wake up call at the hotel.

So, from what I remember about the Silver Moon Supper Club - my steak was very good, the service was wonderful, whatever wine we had was very good, Monte Jones was a great host and the Scotch at the end of the night - which I didn't need, but had anyway - was a nice closer to the evening.  I wish I could get up to Fargo more often, but being that it's a nine hour drive - minimum - and a 3.5 hour plane trip (with a stop at Minneapolis-St. Paul to change planes), I just can't get up there as much.  But the way the economy in North Dakota is going, there's business to be had and I may be getting up there more often than once a year.  That way I can go back to places like The Silver Moon Supper Club and hopefully remember more about my meal.  

 

(Update - It wasn't long after my entry about the Silver Moon that Monte Jones shut the place down.  I know a lot of people were unhappy about his decision.  It was actually a cool place and one that would have worked well in a much larger metro area, but maybe not so much in Fargo.)

Timmerman's Supper Club - East Dubuque, IL

Timmerman's Supper Club has been serving the Tri-State area of NE Iowa, SW Wisconsin and NW Illinois for nearly 50 years.  It had been a LONG time since I was last in the place and when Cindy and I were up in Galena for her birthday, we decided to head to Timmerman's for their famous Sunday morning brunch.  Cindy's not big on buffet brunches, but the selection is so extensive at Timmerman's brunch that we knew we couldn't go wrong. 

Bob and Helen Timmerman met in the mid-30's and married soon after.  Not long after World War II broke out, they opened a bar in Happy Corners, WI.  In 1943, they had a chance to buy the Chateau Supper Club just north of Dubuque and they moved over there.  The Chateau was a favorite place for receptions and parties and the place was known for Helen's fried chicken. 

Nearly 15 years after opening the Chateau Supper Club, they leased the Circle in East Dubuque, offering fine dining and live music.  In 1961, they built Timmerman's Supper Club in its current location, high on a bluff overlooking the meandering Mississippi River (see map).  Timmerman's opened Labor Day weekend in 1961 and featured live jazz trios playing on a regular basis. 

Timmerman's modernistic architecture style brought in customers from miles around as it was always busy.  One Saturday evening in the 1960's, Timmerman's served over 900 meals in their dining room.  It was quite the goldmine for the Timmerman family.

However, in 1970, Bob Timmerman passed away and Helen kept running the day-to-day operation.  The road up to Timmerman's opened the top of the hill for development and along with a number of commercial businesses that built new buildings on top of the hill, Helen Timmerman opened Timmerman's Motor Inn (now called Timmerman's Hotel and Resort) at the opposite end of the parking lot.  Helen Timmerman retired from the business in 1985 and passed away in 2002.  The Timmerman family sold the restaurant and the hotel and the two are now run as separate entities. 

I'd been to Timmerman's a couple times before years ago when I took two separate Dubuque-area dealers out to dinner in the 80's and 90's.  Cindy had been there before, as well, and she said it was probably back in the mid-80's for her.  Timmerman's main menu focuses on steaks, fish and seafood, pasta, chops and, of course, Helen's original recipe fried chicken.  One of their features which I've had in the past is their Pork Normandy - pork loin medallions that are covered with a wild mushroom, shallot and pea pod cream sauce.  It's damn good, I'm tellin' ya. 

Timmerman's Sunday buffet has an omelet bar, fresh sliced ham or roast beef, breakfast and lunch dishes, pastries, fruit, salads and even tacos.  It was packed around 11 a.m. when we showed up, but with Timmerman's large dining rooms (they can seat about 350 people) we were able to be seated right away, albeit at a table not next to a window with a panoramic view of the river.  Our waitress came around to take our drink orders and she invited us to go to the buffet at any time. 

While the buffet is huge, there's still a long line of people milling about the two sided buffet.  Quite honestly, I was still pretty stuffed from our dinner from the night before at Fried Green Tomatoes.  I knew that if I had enough food at Timmerman's I wouldn't eat the rest of the day (and I didn't). 

The line for the omelet bar was pretty long, about 8 or 9 people deep and the guy could only make four omelets at a time.  I opted for Timmerman's Eggs Benedict, a slice of roast beef and a slice of ham, and some of their bacon and sausage.  Cindy got a slice of roast beef, some potatoes and some scrambled eggs. 

Quite honestly, the roast beef was overcooked and dry.  The ham was good, however, and for a buffet Eggs Benedict, it wasn't bad.  We went back one more time to try some other things that were on the buffet, but I had another slab of ham to go along with some veggies off the relish tray they had.  I also had one of their cinnamon rolls which wasn't that bad. 

Overall, I'd give Timmerman's an above average rating for their Sunday brunch buffet, mainly due to the large selection of food they have.  In fact, they may have too much food.  If they'd cut back on some items and focus on others it could be a lot better.  But I don't think that Timmerman's would do that.  

As Cindy and I were talking the night before, we're not that far away from Timmerman's and the Galena area.  It's just about an hour drive from our home to Timmerman's Supper Club and we agreed that when the weather turned nice we were going to make the trek up to East Dubuque and order a meal off the menu.  I'm hoping it's just as good as I remember from years ago.    

Cerar's Barnstormer - Monmouth, IL

When I was having trouble with my car earlier this summer, the car dealership I had originally bought the car from was located in Monmouth, IL.  We were talking to our neighbor, Ann Blough, about having to take the loaner car back down to Monmouth and pick up my car.  She said, "Oh, my gosh!  Have you guys ever tried that restaurant down there in Monmouth?  It's on the west side of town and, oh my gosh, is it wonderful!" 

She went on and on about this place and Cindy asked her what the name was.  Ann said, "Geez, I don't know.  But you can't miss it.  It's on the west side of town by the highway."

Monmouth isn't that big, so we figured any nice place along the by-pass on the west side of town would be easy to find.  After getting my car back from the dealership, we took off in search of the "great" restaurant.  And we did find it rather easily - Cerar's Barnstormer.  (See map)

Now, I used to drive on the Highway 67 by-pass for years when I worked for a couple companies based out of St. Louis.  Not once did I ever notice Cerar's Barnstormer, nor had I ever heard about it.  And it's been there since the mid-80's!  While it's sort of tucked back from the by-pass, it's still rather visible from the road.  It's not so surprising to my wife, however, who has said that I wouldn't notice a pink elephant in a tu-tu if it were walking down the street.  She says I'm not very observant. 

Restaurant veteran Bernie Cerar opened Cerar's Barnstormer in 1985 near the site of what was the old Monmouth airport - hence, the "barnstormer" moniker.  The restaurant is decorated with pictures and models of planes as a tribute to some of the daring pioneers of the air that flew out of the small airfield near where Cerar's is located.  Bernie Cerar retired in 1999 after 40 years in the restaurant business.  His son, Kevin, took over the day-to-day operations of the restaurant.

We got into Cerar's around 6 p.m. and we were were greeted at the host stand by Kevin Cerar, who, in a booming voice, said, "Folks!  Welcome to Cerar's!  How many tonight?"   It sounded more like an announcement than a greeting, but it also came off as very sincere.  I immediately liked the guy. 

We were seated in Cerar's main dining room.  The decor looked like it hadn't changed since the day they opened over 24 years ago.  Not that there was anything wrong with that.  I sort of like old steak houses/supper clubs and Cerar's had that old time feel to the place. 

We were given menusand we were soon greeted by our waitress.  Cerar's menu is varied and very typical of the supper clubs you find throughout the Midwest in these smaller towns.  Beef and seafood are prominent, but they also feature chicken, pork, sandwiches, salads and a raft of appetizers.  Cindy ordered up a house Cabernet while I had a beer - I'd just driven about 1300 miles in four days.  

Although Ann told us that their pork chops were to "die for", I was looking at some of the beef offerings Cerar's had on the menu.  But one seafood thing caught my eye - the Blackened Cajun Combination.  They would take a salmon filet, season it with cajun spices, then pan sear the fish in a cast iron skillet.  They'd serve it with shrimp sauteed in white wine, lemon, cajun spices and a dash of Tabasco sauce.  And for a finale, they'd pour the cajun sauce over the fish and shrimp.  Oh man!  Did that sound good.

I did find the pork chops that Ann was talking about on the menu.  It's a grilled thick cut chop served with scalloped apples.  You could get it blackened with cajun spices, as well.  I thought about it for a minute, but I went back to looking at the beef.

Cindy, on the other hand, was looking for seafood.  Cerar's had plenty of seafood to choose from on the menu.  Lobster, shrimp, salmon, even farm-raised catfish.  But she found the orange roughy on the menu and decided that's what she was going to get.  

I found what I was going to get - the roasted beef tenderloin.  I like a good, thick steak that is cooked indirectly over water on a Weber grill.  Cindy sort of likes the steaks cooked directly over a flame, but every once in a while I want to taste the full flavor of the steak without the taste you sometimes get when cooking it direct. 

Cerar's bastes their roasted beef tenderloin filet in olive oil, then season the beef with rosemary and their special spices.  The filet is pan cooked and they keep all the oil and juices to be poured over the steak when it's put on the plate. 

Cindy and I finished our garden salads before the meal and the waitress came and said our entrees should be up at any time.  I ordered a glass of the house Cabernet like Cindy had which was pretty good for a house wine. 

It wasn't long after that when our meals showed up.  Cindy's orange roughy was a large filet and was not fishy smelling or tasting in the least.  She said, "Oh, boy.  This is really good."

My roasted beef tenderloin filet was very, very good.  It was juicy and tender, and the oil and juices from the pan that they put on top of the steak before serving didn't take away any of the original meat flavor.  It was a very pleasant surprise. 

Cerar's began to fill up pretty quickly as we were finishing our meals.  I can understand why they do the business they do and have been for over 20 years. 

I asked the waitress if I could get a copy of the menu.  She said the only ones they had were the original menus, they didn't have a "to-go" menu printed up.  She left for a moment to check to see if she could get one for me.  A few minutes later, Kevin Cerar came up to our table with a menu.  He said, "Are you like me and like to collect menus?" 

I explained to him that I was somewhat of an amateur food critic and that I liked to tell people about the places I've visited.  He said, "So, how did we do?  Was everything perfect?"

I said, "This was excellent.  The food was great, the service was great.  I love the ambiance of old places like this.  Don't worry, you got a high grade in my book."

Kevin laughed and said, "Well, I hope that you come to visit us again."   

And we will. 

I love finding old supper club-style steak houses in little towns or out in the middle of nowhere.  Cerar's was a pleasant surprise to find, considering I'd been driving past the place for years not knowing that one of the best steak houses in Western Illinois was just off Highway 67 on the west side of Monmouth.  It's worth the drive to go to Cerar's Barnstormer. 

Tillerman - Las Vegas

As I've said in previous posts about dining experiences in Las Vegas, it's difficult to get a large group of 10 or more people to get into a good restaurant during the annual CES trade show.  Given that it was a Friday night, I was having a helluva time finding a place that would be able to get us in before 9 p.m.  I finally decided to try an old stand-by, the Tillerman restaurant on East Flamingo (see map).  Surprisingly, they said they would be able to get us in.

The Tillerman is one of the "old school" supper clubs that have been on the Las Vegas valley landscape for a number of years.  Since they first opened in 1980, the Tillerman has been one of the favorite places for local residents to dine in Las Vegas.  And while I've eaten there two or three times previously, I hadn't been there for quite sometime until we were out in Vegas for CES this past January.  

There were 12 of us who ended up at the Tillerman for a 7:30 reservation.  For a Friday night right in the middle of CES, we were very surprised it wasn't more busy than it was.  I'm guessing the restaurant was possibly three-quarters full.  There have been times in the past that I've waited up to two hours to eat at the Tillerman.  But we noticed that a lot of restaurants were able to get larger groups in with little to no problems at this year's CES.

We ended up being seated right away at a large rectangular table in the main dining area.   There are four main dining areas in the Tillerman, including a mezzanine that overlooks part of the restaurant.  The main room has a high ceiling and features a number of indoor trees to give it more of a cozy, outdoor feel to the place.

The menu at the Tillerman is massive and varied.  While they're well known for their steaks and fresh seafood, they also offer pasta dishes, chops and chicken.  And they're pretty proud of their food at the Tillerman.  It's not cheap.  I don't remember it being all that expensive, but I've begun to notice that a lot of the old time restaurants in Las Vegas have raised their prices - some of them tremendously - over the past few years. 

For example - an 8 oz. center cut filet is $49 bucks at the Tillerman.  An Asian style Chilean sea bass is $42 bucks.  A 10 oz. Flat Iron steak with seafood ravioli is just a shade under $40 bucks.  And that doesn't include the side dishes such as baked potatoes, rice, Bearnaise sauce and sauteed mushrooms that range in price from $4 to $7.  There were a number of surprised exclamations from the guys in our group over the pricing.  And remember, we tend to eat a little more upscale when we're together as a group.

And the wine list is also sort of expensive, but they had a great selection of wines.  Since some of us were going to eat seafood, I initially ordered up a bottle of white and a bottle of red.  The white wine was the Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc wine, a wonderful dry white wine that is one of my favorite whites.  The red we got was the Paraduxx blend that is from the Duckhorn winery that I like so well.  It was a great tasting and very interesting red that everyone seemed to like.   But the Tillerman wanted about $45 bucks for the Ferrari-Carano wine - a wine that you can easily find in stores for around $15 bucks a bottle.  And the Paraduxx - while somewhat expensive in stores at around $40 to $45 bucks - was priced at $115 at the Tillerman.  We knew it was going to be a pretty expensive bill to get out of the Tillerman.

In addition to the choices on the menu, the Tillerman offered some specials that evening.  I went pretty basic, however, in my choice.  For my main entree, I went with the 10 oz. "baseball-cut" sirloin steak with a side of broccoli in a hollandaise sauce with a side of peppercorn sauce for the steak.  That, alone, was $49 bucks for the whole shebang. 

But along with the main entree, they brought out a couple of "lazy Susan" salad bowl servers and placed them on our table.  You served yourself the lettuce, toppings such as cherry tomatoes, croutons, and small veggies; and a selection of homemade dressings including a very good creamy bleu cheese.  It was plentiful and good.

Along the way, our waiter was efficient, but rather stiff.  I would have liked to have someone with a little more personality waiting on us, but he did his job well, staying on top of our needs which can be pretty tough with a large table. 

Our dinners showed up and my steak was good.  It wasn't outstanding, but it was good.  It was cooked to a perfect medium-rare, and I enjoyed dipping a few pieces into the peppercorn sauce to give the meat a little more zip to the taste.  The broccoli was perfectly cooked and the hollandaise sauce wasn't as heavy as I expected it to be, which was fine with me. 

As we finished up our meal, the bill was brought to the table.  With tip included into the bill, it came to just under $1200 bucks.  No one - and I mean, no one - wanted to sign the tab.  Not only was it nearly $1200 bucks, but we didn't think it was worth $1200 bucks.  It was good - don't get me wrong - but we'd all had more fabulous meals with spending a lot less money.  Finally, I was the one who took the bill and presented my company credit card for the meal.  It was pretty tough to sign the charge slip and even more tough to write it up in my expense report about six weeks later. 

The Tillerman is very good, but - man - is it expensive.  In my opinion, it's not worth the money we paid to eat there.  Sure, the service was good, the food was good, the wine was good, it was a comfortable atmosphere and we were able to get out of there in under two hours.  But that's a lot of money spent for the level of food we got. 

(Update - I found this article that talked about the closing of the long time Las Vegas iconic restaurant in February of 2011.  A new owner who sunk a lot of money into the renovation of Tillerman couldn't make a go of the place.  Coupled with the recession and a horrific monthly lease she had to pay on the property, she couldn't make a go of the place.  Too bad.  It was a place that helped those realize what the old Las Vegas was like before all the mega hotels/casinos and the 4 and 5 star restaurants came to town.)  

Donny's Glidden Lodge Restaurant - Door County

When we were finishing our dinner at Schartner's on the Shore that one evening, a family of four people came in and said they were hungry and tired of looking for a restaurant that came highly recommended to them.  I heard our waitress talking about the place to them and I asked her when she came back to give us the bill what restaurant were they looking for.  She said it was Donny's Glidden Lodge Inn that was located on the other side of the peninsula from Schartner's (see map).  I figured that if this family was looking for a place like that, we needed to see what it was all about.

Donny's Glidden Lodge Inn is part of the Glidden Lodge, a very nice hotel on the south shore of Door County on Lake Michigan.  The restaurant is actually not part of the lodge, but privately owned.  We soon found out that Donny's is one of the top places to eat in Door County.

The Glidden Lodge has been serving vacationers to Door County since 1937.  The restaurant has been in existence since the 1960's.  In the 90's, Donny and Rita Zellner bought the restaurant after running their own supper club for over 15 years in a small town south of Door County.  They specialized in both steaks and German food.  In 2005, Donny and Rita retired and leased out the restaurant to their son, Tim, who was the bartender at the restaurant; and Andy Mueller, a young chef who had worked at lodges in the northwest part of Wisconsin.   Tim and Andy did away with the German food, offering only sampler platters on Wednesday nights, and sticking to mid to upscale recipe items.  Steaks and seafood are the main items on their menu. 

After a winding, 20 minute trip down the very scenic Glidden Road, we came up to the Glidden Lodge on our right.  We pulled into the parking lot at Donny's and went inside the stone-walled restaurant.  We were met by Tim Zellner and he told us it would be a couple minutes before they were able to clear a table for us in the dining area.  We took a seat in the bar area, which featured a large stone fire place, a small bar and a couple televisions.  It wasn't long before a waitress came and got us and sat us in the smaller of the two dining areas in the restaurant.  

This picture is a panoramic view of the main dining area at Donny's.  It truly looked like a north woods establishment made with stone walls, wooden ceiling beams, hardwood floors and tons of windows to look out onto the lake while you're eating.  It was elegant, but not very pretentious at the same time.  We felt very comfortable wearing our shorts in the place. 

It turned out they were serving prime rib that evening and that's what I ordered up.  Cindy got the seafood special that evening - a whitefish platter with a lemon dill sauce.  Boiled potatoes and vegetables came with Cindy's, while I opted for rice with my prime rib.  Along with the meal came a very good salad bar that featured in house dressings and a very good homemade chicken noodle soup.  The waitress explained to us that a number of years ago Donny took out the salad bar and put in additional seating in place of the buffet.  She said that some long-time customers were so upset, they boycotted the place until Donny brought back the salad bar.  Within months, the seating was gone and the salad bar was back. 

Not long after we finished our salads, our main entrees showed up.  My prime rib was a perfect medium rare, a nice full juicy cut.  Cindy's whitefish platter was also plentiful, and the lemon dill sauce was very, very good, but also very, very rich.  I was overly happy with the meal. 

Cindy wasn't able to finish her fish because of the richness of the sauce and the large portion she was served.  The waitress, however, didn't hesitate in asking us if we'd like to see the dessert menu.  Cindy was about ready to explode and decided against it.  I wanted to see what they had for dessert just for kicks and while some items were tempting (the homemade cherry pie, among others), I declined on additional food after downing a good-sized prime rib. 

With some wine for dinner, the bill at Donny's came to about $120 bucks for Cindy and I, including tip.  The waitress was friendly, efficient and had a great sense of humor.  We thoroughly enjoyed the meal and the ambiance at Donny's Glidden Lodge Restaurant.  It was definitely a very good meal.

Schartner's on the Shore - Sturgeon Bay, WI

After we witnessed the authentic fish boil at the White Gull Inn, Cindy and I decided to go out for a nice dinner.  We got back to our hotel in Sturgeon Bay and picked up a number of menus from the front desk, checking to see what the area restaurants had to offer.  We decided on a place just walking distance down the street from the hotel.  When we returned the menus to the front desk, the girl asked, "So, where are you going?"  After I told her our choice, she said, "Oh, my gosh!  I'm sorry, you guys.  I should have pulled that menu out.  That place closed up earlier this year.

We ended up looking at the menus again and settled on a little supper club just outside of town called Schartner's on the Shore (see map).  The girl said she'd never eaten there, so she wasn't familiar with the place.  We decided to give it a try.

We pulled into the parking lot around 8 p.m. and there was only a couple other cars there.  Actually, the "on the shore" part of Schartner's is a misnomer.  They're about 200 feet from the lake, across the road.  In fact, you can't even see the lake from the place as there's a bunch of trees in between.

Schartner's is a typical north woods supper club with pine paneling, a large bar and pictures all over the wall.  One thing that I noticed right off the bat, however, is the large amount of St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia on the walls.  It was actually pretty interesting to see what they had on display.

The owner, Willie Schartner (right), a congenial man in his early 50's, greeted us and told us we could sit any where we wanted.  We took a larger table near the kitchen to get away from a rather boisterous group of diners on the other side of the restaurant. 

Schartner's on the Shore has been around since 1986 when Schartner, a local realtor, and his wife bought Leo's Tavern and Restaurant from Leo Hinkle who had ran the place for 35 years prior.  Before Hinkle bought it, it had been in business for 30 years prior to that.  So this marked the 88th year the place had been a bar/restaurant.  That's pretty impressive, if you ask me, for a north woods establishment.

It was a slow night for Schartner's on the Shore and there was only one waitress working.  The Green Bay Packerswere on television that evening playing a pre-season game in nearby Green Bay.  Schartner was glued to the set behind the bar, even though it was  pre-season game. 

The menu at Schartner's features your typical Door County staples - white fish, steaks, chicken and pork chops.  We both wanted steaks so Cindy got a New York strip while I got the rib eye.  We both ordered house salads and got potatoes for our sides. 

While we were eating our salads, the group of people on the other side of the restaurant got up and left, leaving Cindy and I as the only ones in the restaurant.  This afforded me a chance to get up and look around at the Cardinals memorabilia Schartner had on his walls.  It turned out that Schartner used to play a lot of baseball in his earlier years, including playing semi-pro baseball in the Door County area. 

During a break in the Packers game, I asked him, "OK, how did a guy who lives in Door County get to be such a big St. Louis fan?"

He said, "I used to be a big Milwaukee Braves fan until they moved to Atlanta in 1966.  I was so devastated by the move, that I vowed I'd never be a Braves fan again.  I decided to become a Cardinals fan because I really liked Bob Gibson and those teams in the mid to late 60's." 

I told him that I spent an afternoon at Bob Gibson's home in Nebraska a number of years ago (see that story here).  He said, "Really?  No way!"

I told him the basic circumstances of me being with Gibson and he just sort of looked at me in a funny way.  Then he clammed up, went back to watching the game and barely talked to me the rest of the time we were in there.  I figured he'd want to know more about my visit with Gibson. It was sort of weird, to say the least.  I don't think we even got a "Thank You" from him when we left.  Maybe he was jealous, or maybe he thought I was full of shit, I don't know.  But he certainly had an impressive display of Cardinals memorabilia, the best I've ever seen outside of the greater St. Louis area. 

Our steaks showed up and they were cooked to perfection.  The cuts of meat were large and tender, they were juicy and flavorful, and even the cheddar cheese cover potatoes were very good.  Since we were the only ones in there (until right before we finished our meal), she was very attentive to our needs.  

With drinks and tip, the bill at Schartner's on the Shore came to about $55 bucks.  It really was a good experience as I just love these type of north woods supper clubs.  If you're a Cardinals fan and want to see some great baseball memorabilia, or if you're looking for a good steak at reasonable prices, Schartner's on the Shore is a great place to go.  Just don't tell Willie Schartner that you spent an afternoon at Bob Gibson's house.

(Update - Willie Schartner sold the restaurant to Eric and Marja Johnson in 2009 and they changed the name to The Cabin of Sturgeon Bay.  It appears from their menu that they have a lot of the same items to choose from when it was known as Schartner's on the Bay.)

The Overlook - Nashville, IN

When Cindy and I were spending the night in Nashville, IN recently, we went out for a nice meal at a local restaurant called The Overlook. The Overlook is part of the Salt Creek Golf Retreat just outside of Nashville (see map). The complex includes a hotel and private condos along with a picturesque 18 hole golf course.

We got to the restaurant a little before 8 p.m. To get to the restaurant, you have to go to the front desk area of the hotel and take a long hallway back to the restaurant. On one side of the main lobby is a large hall that was hosting a wedding reception that evening. We thought it was sort of odd as it was a Sunday night.

It turns out the Overlook closes at 8 p.m. on Sunday night. We got there at 7:55 and asked the hostess if it was too late to get a bite to eat. She said, "Oh, no. Come on in."

She sat us at a table that had a great view of the 18th fairway and green. A few golfers were still out on the course at that time of night so we had a great view of the action. The table in the foreground in the picture at the right is the actual table we sat at for our meal.

The place was about a third full when we sat down.  And they must not adhere to the 8 p.m. closing time on Sunday nights as there were at least two or three more sets of people that came in to dine after we were seated.

The Overlook had kind of a "modern rustic" theme to it.  It looked like at one time they tried to make it look like a lodge with two large fire places at either end of the room.  But the paint scheme was sort of a subdued pastel that gave it kind of an elegant look.   The tables weren't cramped and you weren't encroaching on anyone's space in the restaurant.

Our waitress, a nice middle-aged lady, came over to get our drink order and to tell us about the specials.   I said, "Geez, we're coming in at closing time.  Are you sure this is all right?"

As she handed me the wine menu, she said, "Oh, yeah.   We say 8 o'clock on Sundays, but we normally keep serving up past 9 p.m., especially in the summer when we get a lot of people staying out here."

The specials, which I really can't remember, didn't appeal to us as much as some of the items on the somewhat limited menu.   For main entrees, they only had 10 things to choose from - 3 steaks, 3 seafood dishes, chicken marsala, roasted pork pinwheel, chicken piccata and chicken fettuccine Alfredo.  But, quite honestly, they all looked good and I sort of like restaurants that try to focus on a small number of items rather than try to please everyone with a huge menu.   A lot of times they get spread so thin that the food suffers.

Cindy got the salmon filet, grilled and topped with a creamy lemon dill sauce.   It was then topped with shrimp and roasted almonds, and served on a bed of rice.   It did sound very good, but I went with the peppercorn encrusted filet, topped with a Bearnaise sauce.   I had my choice of potatoes, so I went with homemade hash browns topped with cheese and onions and green beans was the veggie of the day.

Cindy wanted some wine, so I ordered a half bottle of white wine.   There were only about three or four total wines on the list that I was familiar with, so I talked to the waitress to see about a couple of the whites they had listed.   She suggested a Steele Shooting Star Sauvignon Blanc.   She said it was probably her favorite white wine on the menu.   I wasn't familiar with it, so I told her we'd give it a try.  She said, "If you guys don't like it, then I'll get you another bottle of something else.   That way I can have an open bottle to drink after I get off work!"

It turned out that she wasn't going to be drinking out of our bottle after work.   It was a very nice wine - light, yet crisp with a nice dry fruit finish to it.   I would have rather gotten a red, but the white was going to be fine.

While we were waiting for our meal to show up, a guitarist-singer was entertaining in the restaurant that night.   He played mostly 70's and 80's music and did a very good job. Combined with the full picture window view of a beautiful course, the setting sun and the music, it was a very relaxing evening.

Our food came out and I have to tell you that it was very, very good.   Given the look of the restaurant, the great service we were getting, the atmosphere of the place, I wasn't disappointed in the food one bit.  My steak was a wonderful taste mixture of the cracked peppercorns, Bearnaise sauce and perfectly cooked medium-rare beef.   Actually, I will say the hash browns were just "so-so".   But that didn't matter.   I usually only take a couple bites of my potato when I get a steak and a potato side.

But Cindy's grilled salmon with the creamy lemon dill sauce was as good as advertised.   She gave me a couple of bites and it was outstanding.   I've got to figure out how to make a lemon dill sauce sometime. It was very delicious.

We got our bill and it was just over $80 bucks before tax and tip.   Our waitress, who was very good, got a nice tip.   And on the way out of the restaurant, I walked over and threw five bucks into the tip jar in front of the guitarist.

Sometimes when you find places like The Overlook out of the blue, it helps add to the magic of the experience.   But everything about the place was damn near perfect.   It's been a few weeks since we've been there and we still remark about how great The Overlook is.   If we make it back to the Nashville area, we'll probably stay at the hotel and have a couple more meals at The Overlook.

(Update - The restaurant at the Salt Creek Resort is now called the Brown County Steak and Seafood Company.  I don't know if it's the same people who run it, but I'm guessing it's not.  Still, it may be worth trying out if you're looking for something a little more upscale in the Nashville area.)