Occasionally, when I tell someone I lived in Iowa for a couple of years, I'm asked my opinion of Maid-Rite. "Don't have one," I say. "Never ate there."The reaction is similar, I imagine, to what would happen if you told someone you were from St. Louis, and they asked your opinion on T-ravs, and you claimed never to have eaten one. The Maid-Rite loose-meat sandwich is an Iowan thing, like the smell of hog shit or the cow sculpted out of butter at the state fair (a.k.a. "The Butter Cow"). The ori
Wikimedia Commons"Tables? Your coffee shop has tables?"When I was in grad school in Iowa City, there was this coffee shop with rude signage. Sure, the place seemed cozy, with its local art and overstuffed couches, but those accoutrements belied a dark truth: This coffee shop did not like you. It could, perhaps, tolerate you in small doses, but everywhere there were signs (literally): DO NOT OCCUPY A TABLE FOR MORE THAN ONE HOUR.Doing research for your thesis? Preparing for the bar exam? Grading
Jennifer SilverbergThis week I visit Mattingly Brewing Company, the small brewpub in Benton Park. When I was a grad student in Iowa City, my classmates and I often hung out after our weekly writing workshop at this bar called Martinis. Six days of the week it was a cesspool of underage corn-fed coeds and frat boys looking to screw 'em, but on Tuesdays it became the refuge of several dozen wannabe Hemingways and their bruised egos. There we drowned our dreams thanks to what remains the most incre
​Don't you know? Gut Check has a Twitter account. You can follow me @gutcheckstl. Here's some of what you missed this week:When I heard about the "zombie attack" at an Iowa City restaurant, I thought, "Must've been Pancheros." And, yup, it was. #iowacity9:56 AM Oct 27thFor non #iowacity types, in the realm of faux burritos, chipotle > qdoba > pancheros. but it's open late in a college town. also: zombies.10:03 AM Oct 27th
