There is a mystique to food truck dining that’s difficult to describe. If you’re a food truck fan, you know what I mean. It’s an adventure, a quick stop for lunch more satisfying than fast food. Often messy to eat, food truck fare brings us together in the dark after an evening with friends or […]
Food & Drink
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Mill is closing after nearly 60 years in Iowa City
A longtime Iowa City institution is officially closing its doors after 58 years, according to a Facebook post on the business’s page Thursday afternoon. The Mill is known for its pizza and spaghetti, vintage pew seating, vine-draped patio and, of course, its performance space.
Posted inCommunity/News
Put your money where your mouth is: Black-owned restaurants in the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area
The Eastern Iowa area is blessed to be home to a plethora of businesses owned and operated by black chefs and entrepreneurs. We’ve sung their praises in these pages before, but we haven’t covered them all yet—something that we aim to rectify in coming issues. In celebration of our black community, we’ll be focusing on […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Wine, dine and donate: Brix contributes more than $13,000 to fellow downtown businesses and arts organizations
When Nick Craig, owner of Brix Cheese Shop and Wine Bar in Iowa City’s Northside Neighborhood, was making plans for his girlfriend’s April 19 birthday, he knew the couple couldn’t celebrate the way they would under normal circumstances. He and Lacy Laughton would usually mark the occasion by going to a performance or eating at […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Life without restaurants
“It is a happy condition of affairs that philosophers, poets, merchants and artists can join together at a dinner, and without a blush perform the function of feeding themselves open in public.” –Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living On March 13, I consumed one of my last meals in a restaurant for the foreseeable future. […]
Posted inBread & Butter Dining Guide
Joanna’s Premium Tonic Syrups are designed to elevate your mixed drinks
A self-proclaimed lover of entertaining guests, New York native Joanna Mouming thoroughly enjoys hosting dinner parties for family and friends. Following one such night, her friend’s son noted, “She has a way with ingredients.” Over a decade later, this offhand comment
Posted inBread & Butter Dining Guide
From Momofuku to Main Street: Chef Sam Gelman returns to Iowa City
If you’re hoping to have a career in the restaurant industry, you better be open to change, says Sam Gelman. His own career has taken him from unpaid kitchen jobs in Iowa City to overseeing two of the most anticipated North American restaurant openings of the
Posted inBread & Butter Dining Guide
Prairie Kitchen Store will supply Iowa City with tools for the kitchen
Nearing retirement from her position in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, Susan Felker was hungry for more creativity and deeper engagement in her life. She and her family, husband Kevin and son Alex, began fantasizing what their next endeavor
Posted inBread & Butter Dining Guide
Local mushroom growers supply area restaurants and stores with specialty fungi
The word “mushroom” often elicits a rather standard image to the average consumer’s mind: a circular, white, umbrella-like capped fungi with a stubby trunk. However, businesses in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids corridor aim to expand consumer knowledge
Posted inBread & Butter Dining Guide
Kalona SuperNatural does dairy the old-fashioned way
In a world dominated by heavy processing and technological advancements, it’s become rarer to find simple, truly all-natural products on grocery store shelves. But Kalona-based dairy producer Kalona SuperNatural aims to bring the age-old tradition of leaving
Posted inBread & Butter Dining Guide
These tried-and-true area restaurants know a thing or two about what it takes to survive
Jack Piper, co-owner of Jimmy Jack’s Rib Shack and Basta: “Both of us started when we were like 16. [Co-owner] James [Adrian] started in the Hy-Vee Deli and worked his way up to a restaurant called Commander’s Palace, which won all kinds of accolades. I started as a busboy
Posted inDining Guides
LV Recommends: Sustainable grocery shopping made easy
The United Nations recently released a report outlining food’s outsized impact on creating global warming. Unlike many climate reports, this one had an upside: food production has the potential to be one of the greatest solutions to the climate crisis, and the methods
