August 16, 2009

• Mr. V’s

   

  The Original Mom & Pop Cafe

  The year was 1947. India was born as an independent nation, the first Jews immigrated to Israel, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play major league baseball in 60 years, Congress overrode Harry Truman’s veto to create the Taft-Hartley Act, Des Moines was governed by a board of commissioners and Mr. V’s opened for business at its present site on Indianola Road, which is now called Indianola Avenue. Because the Latin King also opened in 1947, it’s hard to be sure which restaurant is now Des Moines oldest. Mr. V’s is certainly the most nostalgic.

  

  “Mom & Pop” in every sense of the term, Mr. V’s began serving the southside when current owner Joe Vivone was in elementary school. Joe and his wife Eleanor run the place now more like a community center than a restaurant. On a slow day, I’ve walked in to find them watching soap operas, Wheel of Fortune or the news. The café has two rooms, one with table cloths, a fireplace, art on the walls and Venetian glass on the mantles. That room is rarely used. Customers prefer a less formal room highlighted with a full sized bar and a Budweiser sign, even though Mr. V’s serves no alcohol at all. That room is decorated with an old fashioned gum ball machine, family photos and a large screen TV. Guests might bring their own wine or beer and anyone who asks if there’s a corkage fee is answered with a look of consternation. Customers mostly have been coming for ages and are on a first name basis with Joe and Eleanor. “I know a lot of pensioners and fixed income senior citizens who depend upon Mr. V’s in the same way they depend on their local parish,” explained Café di Scala owner Tony Lemmo, one of Mr. V’s fans.

  That’s understandable. I can’t think of another place in town that serves such good food for such reasonable prices. That’s a neighborhood service. Lots of restaurants retire their mortgages and thus reduce their overhead but few of them pass their savings on to their customers in the form of lower prices. Mr. V’s does.

  

  Sandwiches ran $2.50 – $3.50. Dinners cost $6 – $14 and they included some of the best plates of their kind in town. A pork sandwich at $2.50 included what most places refer to as a grilled tenderloin on a toasted and buttered hoagie bun with condiments. A pork tenderloin treated the same cut of meat to a crunchy coating and deep frying. 

  

  Fried chicken dinners delivered old fashioned servings – two breasts and two wings in a white meat order, or an entire half bird in a regular order of super crispy, deep fried chicken.  

  American fried potatoes were hand cut and crisply fried. Salads featured iceberg lettuce and an array of dressings that likely would have been on a 1950’s menu too. Hamburgers were right out of the 1947 playbook – irregularly formed patties, clearly not frozen, were fried with a good sear and served on a hand cut bun from a loaf of crispy crust Italian style bread. The burger menu included a BLT burger that was served with a slice of home grown tomato.

  The super stars of this menu though are pasta.

  

  Both cavatelli and ravioli were home made and ranked with the best anywhere. They were served in a sweet, thick marinara that tasted like the old southside – tomatoes reduced to paste in a meat bone stock with just a minimal trace of vegetable forms. As for dessert, enquiries were answered with the same look one gets asking about corkage fees.

  Mr. V’s

  206 Indianola Ave., 243-9964
  Mon. – Fri. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. – at least 8 p.m.; Sat. 5 p.m. – at least 8:30 p.m.

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