The Old Lincoln Highway snakes across
the Missouri River Basin at the foot of Western Iowa’s Loess
Hills. Crescent, Iowa, home to 537 people, lies along the two-lane
blacktop halfway between Council Bluffs and Missouri Valley –
about 15 miles northeast of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area.
Crescent wouldn’t immediately draw your attention. The Old
Lincoln Highway doesn’t see much traffic; with Interstate
29 four miles away, you probably wouldn’t drive it unless
you live in the area. Along the old highway in the center of town
rests an old brown building attached to an old brown house. The
building – unimposing as the city of Crescent itself –
is home to the Pink Poodle Steakhouse and what some consider the
best prime rib in a four-state area.
The Pink Poodle doesn’t have any portrait windows, fancy
lighting or neon signs. The asphalt parking lot runs right up to
the building. The restaurant’s sign is an old back-lit plastic
light – big enough to identify, yet to too small to grab anyone’s
attention.
With its drab exterior fronting its delicious food, the Pink Poodle
is the type of place that you would see in an “Iowa’s
best kept secrets” article.
Except the cat has been out of the bag for over 40 years. The little
steakhouse in the little town is well-known across Western Iowa
and Eastern Nebraska. Diners come from Council Bluffs, Omaha, Missouri
Valley, Sioux City – even as far as Lincoln, Nebraska, and
Rockport, Missouri. And they’re not coming to the Pink Poodle
for fancy visuals or unique themes.
“I think people expect it to be pink at first,” owner
Doreen McNeil says. “We really don’t even have anything
pink here.”
Unless you count the prime rib. It’s the best, McNeil says,
and so do the customers who polish off more than 150 pounds of it
every weekend. The seasoned rib roasts are loaded into a wall of
special ovens at 9:30 each morning and are slow roasted throughout
the day. McNeil doesn’t know the recipe for the special seasoning,
doesn’t care.
“The guys who cook it are the only ones who know the recipe,”
she says. “And that’s fine with me as long as they keep
it coming.”
Daniel Feinhold and Joe McNeil, the two guys who know the recipe,
are part of the staff whose hard work Doreen McNeil credits the
Pink Poodle’s regional customer base. Some employees have
worked at the restaurant their whole lives. Doreen McNeill herself
began as a waitress in 1983 and worked until she took over for the
late owner Mary Jo Paulison in 2003.
Bartender Tonette Muell has served drinks every night for 25 years.
Her mind is a virtual recipe rolodex. It has to be, McNeill says,
because the Pink Poodle serves up more than your everyday rum and
coke.
“A lot of the older customers like to have some of the drinks
you don’t hear of anymore,” McNeil says. “Not
many bartenders, I’m guessing, know how to make a Manhattan
anymore.”
Manhattans, Old Fashioneds and Rusty Nails are popular before dinner.
The Pink Poodle also offers a list of after dinner ice cream drinks
– such as Grasshoppers or Mudslides. They also feature a red
wine selection – after all it’s a steakhouse.
It’s a steakhouse that is as rich with history as it is with
flavor. The building was built in the 40s, originally as a house
with a bar and motel attached. It was turned into a restaurant in
the 50s, changed ownership in the 60s and was dubbed The Pink Poodle
in 1964, purportedly because the owner’s wife bred apricot
poodles.
The Pink Poodle burnt down in 1972 and was rebuilt in 1975 with
the roof supported by wooden arches salvaged from a nearby building
that had been recently ravaged by a tornado. The prime rib has been
roasting six nights a week (closed on Mondays) ever since.
It’s an old building, McNeill says, and the key to maintaining
it is keeping it clean. She’s picky – even obsessive
– about cleanliness. She’ll be the first to tell you
that. Debbie Volker, who cleans the restaurant every day to McNeil’s
lofty standards, will be the second.
“It’s because I have a son and I know how picky I have
to be when I have other people clean for me,” she says. “I
don’t want ‘boy’ clean. I want ‘mom’
clean.”
And so the old brown building always looks new inside. And the
bread is baked fresh and the prime rib melts in your mouth. But
despite the Pink Poodle’s understated façade in a little
town on a remote Iowa highway, a lot of people – it seems
– already knew that.
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