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Coach’s Corner

West Des Moines’ Eighth Street is unique among local suburban commercial strips. Designers call it “pre-postmodern,” meaning it was designed when things were built to last, rather than to be bulldozed and rebuilt two decades later. Eighth Street bred much of the best about Central Iowa’s food scene. Two restaurant legends began their careers there — Paul Trostel opened a Cork & Cleaver at the same address where Jimmy Lynch would later open Jimmy’s American Café.

While both moved on to other parts of town, Eighth Street re-energized itself with minimalist makeovers. While most other mid-’70s motels have been downgraded, or blasted to rubble, the 30-year-old Best Western remains a Best Western. A lavish Camelot-themed restaurant was transformed into a preschool. Lynch’s old French bakery is now the city’s best South Asian restaurant (Tandoor), thanks to a restaurateur from Chicago and a chef from Los Angeles. Garcia’s of Scottsdale moved into a venue deserted by Country Kitchen. Yet, the best example of suburban archeology is found at what is now Coach’s Corner (CC). This venue was once the area’s first white tablecloth seafood restaurant (8th Street Seafood), the first new wave Italian ristorante (Giovanni’s), and a high-roller men’s club (Fratello’s). Suddenly, it’s a unique sports bar. In any other suburb, each change would have involved at least $1 million remodeling job. Here, the old forms were respectfully incorporated into each incarnation.

Coach’s Corner is thus a sports bar that appears to have spared no expense in pursuit of a nautical theme design. This place would fit well in Newport or Cape Cod. Teak and mahogany panel the walls and ceiling, giving diners the impression they are at the captain’s table in the hull of a great clipper ship — albeit one that has been equipped with several high definition, wide screen televisions. The bar still stocks the city’s best collection of high end cognacs, vodkas and whiskeys while the menu pays homage to both Giovanni’s and Fratello’s with good medium crust pizza named after each. In fact, the best of Fratello’s menu seems to have become sports bar fare without alterations, other than a reduced price or two.

When asked “What’s the best place for chicken fingers?,” we’ve long been answering “Fratello’s.” Happily, they are still superbly well done at CC, with a parmesan crust. So were the wings, that sine qua non of sports bar food. It gets even better. Shrimp cocktails were appropriately Vegas Strip quality. Mac-n-cheese bites and calamari were both happily out of the norm. So was the freshly breaded, thick pork tenderloin.

What really elevated the menu above other sports bars was the grillwork. My burger was perfect, totally seared on both sides without being charred or overcooked. My ribeye steak passed those same criteria too. The house special ribs had the appearance of the grill work while the meat seemed slow cooked — it easily came off, without slipping out of the bone — the ultimate competition test of ribs.

Not everything worked at the caliber of the bar and the grill. Even though the place is still new, it sported menus with some annoyingly different prices. The French dip and the Reuben were undistinguished with what appeared to be reheated, pre-sliced rounds of beef. Salads and sides were quite ordinary, as in less-than-fresh lettuce and frozen fries. Servers did not seem comfortable with the sports bar model — on three occasions we were initially assured we could watch a game, then told much later it wasn’t possible. These were games one could watch on basic cable, at times when most TV’s in the bar were showing non-sports. Yet, on a fourth occasion, a more persistent server found a really hard-to-get game for us.

Food skinny

Mike Wellman sold Wellman’s Pub (2920 Ingersoll) to Tom Baldwin (owner of Drink, Crush and other bars in the suburbs) and Collin Caffrey (owner of Third Base sports bar)…Chef Joe Godfrey has opened Joe’s at Northland General Store, serving pasta specials daily for $6 including a drink and bread. CV

By Jim Duncan CVFDude@aol.com

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