Address:
Whistle Stop Cafe
1102 Story Street
Boone, IA 50036-2222
(515) 432-9422
The Dish:
Western 3 Egg Omelet
Hashbrowns with Everything
Pancake
Soda
Everything x2
$29 (Tax and tip included)
Grade: 1 Fork, 1 Spoon
Not to be confused with the Fried Green Tomatoe’s version, this cozy little Cafe resembles smaller dinner/cafe’s from the era when Steam ruled the rails. Not that I would know, I just think it is probably pretty accurate.
Ambiance: Don’t expect a fancy smancy Cafe here. The resturant would be at full capacity at 36 plus four or five employees, and it would be tight then. But I like that, there is a U shaped counter which patrons dine and converse at. If your more of the booth type, they do have a few of these available. Being a hotspot for breakfast you can always listen in on the latest gossip, and farm news from other patrons (probably regulars).
Menu/Price: You could deffinantly eat here and be satisfied for less than $6. We of course wanted to try the normal breakfast items so our bill was more like double that per person. Honestly, the place is similar to Waffle House in the sense that breakfast holds the prominent place on the menu followed by a collection of sandwichs for their lunch crowd. Nothing on the menu was over $7.
Meal: The pancake was pretty awesome. It filled the plate and was fluffy enough to do rhytmic gymnastics on. The syrup provided was warmed in a stanless steel container (love those!). Western Omelet was filled with cheese onions and peppers, not sure what made this a “Western Omelet” or perhaps our waitress misunderstood us. Eitherway it was great! The hashbrowns we’re more like “home fries” which sorta dissapointed me. Not because they were bad, they were quite good however I was just expecting shredded potatoes.
Service: Hard to say it was bad, as our waitress was super nice to us and the others she was tending to. However it seemed that they were shorthanded. I try not to knock that when I review as it might be because a shift change, break, illness or something of that nature causing a staff shortage. It is also possible it is a poor management decision. Who knows, but we did wait a bit longer for our food, but it was worth it. Others waited as well but they fit the typical “regular” crowd and probably were to engrossed talking about crop prices to notice.
Overall: Not bad at all. I think it is deffinantly worth the wait and worth repeating the visit. The pancakes I’ll do again, not sure if I’ll do the “hashbrowns” again so long as they are called hashbrowns. I am weird like that though.