One of the bucket list restaurants on my list isn’t really a restaurant at all. It is an old gas station/cafe that used to sit along side the old Lincoln Highway. The Youngville Cafe. It went out of business in the 1960s, but is being preserved. To help maintain the property, it opens for lunch during the summer months on Tuesdays.
For more information and what might be one of the last pictures of Youngville Cafe before some jagoff stole one of the fuel pumps, click on the link below:
Birthday Road Trip: Youngville
Since it is open only like 50 hours a year and while I work and most of my friends work, I haven’t made it there. But while I’m not exactly overflowing with PTO, I do have over 300 hours, so I felt okay taking 6 hours off and driving the nearly 2 hours to check it out. And fortunately for me, my friend Willy is still engaged in pre-retirement and was staying in nearby Cedar Rapids watching a cat.
The first Tuesday they were open for the season we hatched a plan to meetup there and have a meal.
Full disclosure, we knew going into it that this was about the experience and not about the food.
Here are the cell phone pictures from the experience:
Willy got there before me and was first in line. So we were the first customers of the season. Like Black Friday rock stars. When Black Friday was a thing.
Looks like it had a chimney back in the day.
Cash only if you ever decide to make the trip.
Remember, more of a fundraiser than a restaurant.
Can’t go wrong with some Millstream.
I got the grilled cheese with ham and the grilled tenderloin because the sizes were small and cheap and I needed to fuel up to take on Mount Trashmore.
Patriotic ketchup.
The grilled cheese was better than the grilled tenderloin.
But the pie was the actual showstopper!
The pies are made by a 93 year old woman named Connie.
So good I could have licked that plate!
I’m not going to give you a real review of the food. It is fundraiser food. It is very meh. Except for the pie. The pie is next level! I should have got some pie for the road! But you aren’t going here for the food. You are going there for the experience. The experience is worth it. At least for history peeps like me and Willy.
I can cross this off my bucket list of Iowa Restaurants. Here is the current list:
- Iowa Bucket List Restaurants
Youngville Cafe – Benton County- Dixie’s Biergarten – Decorah
- Milk & Honey – Harlan
- 7 Hills South – Clinton
- Sfumato Pizzeria – Carnes
- Three C’s Diner – Corning
- Emerald Isle – Imogene
- Lid’s Bar & Grill – Waukon
- Belmond Drive-In – Belmond
- Larsen’s Pub – Elk Horn
- St. Olaf Tavern – St. Olaf
- Dinky Diner – Decatur
- Pioneers Pub & Grub – Casey
I think that is the entire list. It grows every time I watch a new episode or Road Trip Iowa. Next Sunday’s food adventure will involve Jefferson’s town festival.