December 21, 2008
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Iowa’s Steakhouse Culture
Primal Instincts
Iowa Steakhouses
Searing over an open flame, freshly cut beef emits a primal scent that encouraged our human progenitors to straighten their spines, walk on two legs, fashion weapons and cook with fire. It also seduced them into misbehaving. As beasts of burden and milk producers, living cattle benefit far more people than dead cattle. So, in parts of the world, cows were made sacred, to shame the rich and powerful away from selfish temptations.
Within the time that humans have lived on this planet, beef has been available for mass consumption a brief moment. This wonder came about on the American Great Plains. First, the abundance of buffalo and the invention of the long rifle made meat the easiest food to procure. When the buffalo were gone, the hunger for red meat remained, as did the grass that made it grow. Cattle were imported and bred to survive on the range. They were driven to stockyards near thriving grain and transportations centers in Sioux City, Omaha and Kansas City.
In the second half of the 19th century, beef became an international obsession and the American range was transformed into the largest feed lot ever known. The lust for cow flesh increased cattle populations in Midwest states some 30 times, between the Civil War and 1880. Because Iowa grew the most corn, it was in the center of the new food economy, when food drove all economies. Iowa beef democratized self indulgence. Since the 19th century, Americans have been eating about one third of the world’s meat, with about 1/15th of the world’s population. This has only been possible because we grow so much surplus grain.
It also explains why the great traditional steakhouses of Iowa are predominantly in the western part of the state, clustered within a short cattle drive of Omaha and Sioux City. Our steakhouses have always been places where Iowans go to celebrate the great occasions of life. In smaller towns, they often served as surrogate country clubs. Archie’s Waeside in LeMars, The Fireside in Anthon, Bogie’s in Albia, Pete’s in Hartley, the Mineolo, the Hawarden, Theo’s in Lawton, the Redwood in Anita and Down South in Iowa Falls all annually host wedding parties by the dozens. Some host at least one every week of the year.
Near Sioux City and Omaha, steakhouses grew naturally, out of pride and local convenience, in the days when most food was local. In more densely populated eastern Iowa, fewer cattle ranged and more diverse inspirations drove the creation of stylish restaurants. There, steakhouses often developed a wood and leather aura that was both macho and a bit dangerous. Their mystique fermented when liquor was illegal and “supper clubs,” “roadhouses” and “steakhouses” skirted the law. Iowa’s most famous steakhouse ever was The Lark, in Tiffin.
“Johnny Agnew built the place after WWII, when the local sheriff turned his gaze away from such illegal activities as slot machines and liquor by the drink,” said Bob Thompson, who bought The Lark in 1976 and ran it until it burned down in 1999.
“In it’s wild prime, Tiffin had five spots, but when liquor by the drink was legalized, only “The Lark” survived, because it always had great food. By the time I got it, booze was legal and the new sheriff didn’t allow slot machines, so it was strictly about good food and service.
“Sometimes The Lark was so busy that two hour waits were average. We served 960 dinners one night, in a restaurant that seated 275. Our crowd came from Johnson County, Iowa County and Cedar Rapids regularly, but on special occasions, like prom nights, people would come from as far away as Davenport, Fairfield and Burlington. That was the only time I would cheat on the waiting list, I would try to get those kids in and out faster.
“We did lots of rehearsal dinners but we never accepted a wedding party. They always wanted Saturday and we couldn’t afford to tie up the place on a Saturday night,” he recalled.
In all parts of the state, steakhouses are the great culinary tradition of Iowa, the proud final link of a food chain that stretches from the cornfields through the cattle barns to the kill floors and the dining rooms of the best fed people in the history of the world.
Theo’s Steak House & Lounge
Ted and Marge Herbold opened Theo’s in 1976. Legend has grown with the number of trophies on the walls and tables. Every January on the last weekend of hunting season, the Theo’s hosts a Big Buck contest for the largest antlers hunted. This attracts up to 80 entrants and the winners are mounted and hung on the walls. The Iowa state record for the largest antlers was set here one year.
There are lots of taxidermic artworks here, Cape Buffalo from South Africa, caribou from Alaska and European boars and bison from the Black Hills, all trophies of Herbold and his customers. All have names, as does the large painting of a floozie.
The prime rib is untrimmed, overnight in the Alta Sham. Certified Angus steaks from Willer Farms are flame grilled. Theo’s grinds their own burger from sirloin trim.
French onion soup is regular draw. Soup is always on the salad bar which includes a bounty of fresh local product in season, including herbs, tomatoes, sweet corn, peppers, cucumbers and cabbages. Dessert comes with all entrees.
Hawarden Steak House
Seal Van Sickle returned from WWI with a vision in his mind. He cut timbers and dislodged stones from the bed of the Sioux River and carried them uphill to Hawarden, where he built a restaurant in the image of that vision. The timber beams and posts are still in place and the stone fireplace is still working, though it has been converted to gas.
The kitchen is special too. He uses an Alta Sham oven, designed especially for slow roasting prime ribs, to prepare pork loins and prime ribs that take 8-10 hours. The salad bar is completely home made and steaks are flat grilled. The bread comes from Casey’s bakery in Sioux Center.
Restaurant seats 80, plus 45 more in the “Rendez-vous lounge,” once a speakeasy where Van Sickle’s original art still adorns the walls. The “Mermaid” was the centerpiece of the speakeasy days as Carrie Westling remembers working there in the 1920’s.
“I worked there for Seal and Lottie, they were absolute peaches. Seal didn’t sell hard liquor when I was there, just beer. I don’t know what a speakeasy is. I was the only one who was allowed to wait on people in the private basement room, where Seal and his friends played poker. I got some great tips off those guys.
“The years I was there were the happiest days of my life. I can still see Seal and Lottie when I go there, so much of the place is still as they had it. The back room is exactly the same, every picture that Seal painted is still there on the walls. There’s a salad bar now where the entrance used to be and the kitchen is little bigger, but its so much the same I still see them there,” she recalled.
Archie’s Waeside, LeMars
National Public Radio’s “Spendid Table” named Archie’s America’s Independent Restaurant of the Year. Gourmet magazine’s Micheal and Jan Stern have praised it. Two handful’s of pilots from Des Moines meet here for dinner, regularly. What drives such devotion?
Archie Jackson opened the simple hard wood paneled roadhouse in 1949. His daughter Valerie Rand ran it from 1973-94. Grandson Bob Rand runs it today. The wine cellar is extraordinary by any standards, and mind boggling for a town of 9000. Behrens & Hitchcock, Paradigm, T-Vine, Cuvee Lola unfiltered reserve are among the labels that set Chicago visitors to roll their eyes, in delight. And promise to return. Over 500 choices including a bakers dozen of state wide exclusives.
The butcher shop has the finest aging cooler in the state, with 14-21day hangings for all beef cut here. 270 seats in the dining room are all booths, and each booth is decorated with an antire village of porcelain models, lit.
4000 pounds of beef a week. So when a customer asks for a 28 ounce bone in NY, Bob says, “I’ll go cut one myself. Someone at the next table overhears. Before the evening is over, Bob has cut and served 5 mammoth steaks this way, and he trims them down to the point that his wastebasket could make most French chefs weep.
The place expanded over the decades and now accommodates most of Rand‘s childhood home, as a wine cellar.
Scratch salad dressings, including a Russian Toss which is vaniagrette elsewhere. And 1000 Island dressing that people try to take home, (made from beets, onions and extra thick home made mayo. Salads, soups, even potato dishes including hash browns, cheese and onion hash browns are all scratch made.
“”We have to age more of our steaks off premises now, we just can’t keep the volume on hand here.”
On a Saturday, people wait to get in, in lines that move through the bar and out the front door and 25 yards down the parking lot driveway. In the summer, people stroll through the adjacent vegetable gardens, which supply the restaurant with fresh home grown, while someone hold their place in line. They only take reservations for 8 or more, others are first come.
They do 115,000 – 125,000 meals a year, open five nights. 15% of their business is gift certificates, they are open from 9 am to sell them, and there are lines the month before Xmas.
The place is recession proof, Their biggest year ever was the fiscal year that began on Oct 1, 2001, immediately after 9-11, when most high end restaurants tanked. “I think people who normally travel, stayed home, and dined out more,” Rand explained.
Burger is ground on premises and all of it comes from the trim of midsection muscle meats. The relish tray here includes corned beef that is made on premises, from briskets, rounds and flanks. Made in 50 gallons drums in the aging house.
Rand hosts 50-60 wedding parties a year. “We do at least one every week of the year.” said Bob Rand.
The Benny Weiker, named for a good customer of years ago who used to be a cattle buyer in the Sioux City stockyards, is an eighteen-ounce, center-cut, 21-day dry-aged filet mignon. When he can get them, Rand buys lamb chops from Iowa Lamb of Hawarden, a legend in their own right. (West Coast purveyors have told us the best lamb in America comes from small ranchers in NW Iowa.) Bob dry ages the lamb chops and they fly off the menu.
Employees are family. Mom Valerie has been here 50 years, ran the place from 1973-94. Still works here. Others have 41, 32 years, three waiters have over 20 years here, two kitchen helpers.He also believes that aged beef does best cooked at 400-500 degrees, not the 1000 degrees that most beef aficionados believe in. His is perfectly seared. The bone – in rib eye is to die for and the Stearns called the filet the best they had ever sampled.
De Burgo and Other Iowa Styles
Iowa steakhouses distinguish themselves from one another with personal idiosyncrasies. For instance, almost every steakhouse in Des Moines serves “steak de Burgo,” though recipes differ so much the name is meaningless. Half of Des Moines thinks it means a heavy cream sauce, the other half, an olive oil/butter, basil and garlic treatment. Which would be the same thing as “Greek style” in Mason City’s Northwestern Steak House. Others personalized touches vary.
~At The Bison, in Nora Springs, Brian Prough serves Whitewater bison from Bernard, and frequents local farmers’ markets for the freshest produce. His de Burgo uses a red wine reduction.
~Kochie’s, near West Union on the Little Turkey River, keeps two large gardens for the freshest ingredients, and has its own smoke house and aging cooler.
~Kibba, at the Palm’s in Fort Madison, is a Lebanese specialty that combines bulgur wheat and beef.
~Karaoke is performed at the Fountain City in Goldfield.
~Binoculars come with the window views at the rustic, hillside Knotty Pine, outside Afton.
~Big Steer in Altoona has a giant cow sign valued at $64,000 by insurers.
~Rube’s, in Montour and Booneville, supplies themselves with locally raised beef.
~Jack & Arnie’s in Janesville, and J&A South in Reinbeck are supplied with prime local Angus, from the Janesville locker.
~Jake’s in Walker uses aged beef from the hometown Moore’s Locker.
~Bob Welch converted a Central Tractor Equipment store in Iowa Falls into Out South Steakhouse, building a walled structure within the old walls and a salad bar within two canoes. Down South gets as much meat as possible from the Hubbard-based Our Family Farms.
~Trostel’s Greenbriar, in Johnston, will serve steaks with any classic European sauce in their vast repertoire.
~Hawaii native Cy Gushiken offers acrobatics and stand-up comedy, as steaks grill on hibachis at his Ohana in West Des Moines.
~David’s in Perry serves steaks from the Wholesome Harvest, an organic conglomerate of mostly Iowa farmers centered in Edgewood. David North’s sizzling oak plank servings are a Swedish touch.
~In the early 1950’s Vera Neuhaven made the Morris Inn famous with her personal recipes and scratch cooking. Present owners Tom and Kelly McLean still base the menu around Vera‘s recipes.
~The Pines in Atlantic has a fine dining level, one room in Amish décor, another in Native American; and casual downstairs with a farm motif.
~At 801 Steak & Chop House in Des Moines, all cuts but the filet are high end prime from Stockyards, the nation’s finest purveyor of beef.
~J Bruner’s in Clarinda serves a chicken livers Parvano appetizer that draws fans from as far away as Japan.
~Kalmes, in St. Donatus, serves bison, from the local Iowa Bison, Co., Luxemburgo pizza and buttered noodle side dishes.
Extreme Steakhouses
Oldest
Iowa has at least seven steakhouses that date to the 19th century.
~Doug’s Steakhouse in Gutenberg is in a building that was built in 1809.
~Kalmes’ has been in St. Donatus, though not in the same building, since 1850.
~Breitbach’s in Balltown has continuously operated, in the same family and location, since 1852. It burned down in 2008 but is going to be rebuilt.
~With an original spindle staircase and a wood burning fireplace that is always lit, Hoover House in West Branch dates to 1870. .
~Bonaparte’s Retreat in Bonaparte is in a grist mill that was built in 1883.
~The Doon, in Doon, was built in 1889 and still has its original pressed tin ceiling.
Smallest Towns
Iowa steakhouses are travel destinations, luring city folk back to small towns.
~Breitbach’s in Balltown (pop. 73), has 247 chairs and none have been replaced in over 75 years.
~Kalmes’ in St. Donatus (pop. 140) keeps a Luxemburgian theme.
~Southern Country is one of just three remaining buildings in Craig (pop. 101).
~The Mineola (pop. 150) frequently serves 600 meals on summer Thursdays.
~The Wiota (pop.149) is just a few miles from famous steak houses in Anita and Atlantic.
Biggest Steak
Fireside in Anthon features a $26 cut of steak that can weigh over 4 pounds.
Accolades
During an Iowa caucus cycle, New York Times’ legendary publisher Arthur Salzburger, jr. joked that 801 Steak and Chop House is better known in Manhattan than it is in Des Moines.
Henry Schneider’s Iowa Beef Steak House in Des Moines won Money magazine‘s nod as one of the six best in America.
The National Pork Council named Pete’s in Hartley the Restaurant of the Year.
A Boston newspaperman called Rube’s in Montour the best steakhouse in America.
