By Jim Duncan CVFDude@aol.com
Providence
Café
 Iowa
is never so lovely as in October,
when locals drive hundreds of
miles just to dine at a table
with a spectacular view. One can
do quite well without leaving
town, too. Some of the nicest
places to eat in Des Moines are
restaurants operating in the margins
of another mission. The Des Moines
Art Center, Living History Farms,
Prairie Meadows, Des Moines Botanical
Center, the Cub Club and the Iowa
State Historical Building all
offer surprisingly good food along
with one-of-a-kind ambiance. Yet,
none of those places have the
town’s best view of autumn.
That distinction goes to Providence
Café, which opened late
last spring in the White House,
the venerable community center
of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in
Iowa. The White House has tried
food service before but never
as professionally as now and not
at all since 2003. Ron Wheeler
and Mike Scopa are serving breakfast,
lunch and dinner in a remodeled
café that features an old-fashioned
lunch counter with stools, plus
tables, chairs and a picture window
with a view from the Des Moines
River bluffs. Picnic tables sit
directly above the river, too,
for outdoor dining in nice weather.
Providence Café is the
kind of place one expects to find
in the gritty fiction of writers
like Nelson Algren and Raymond
Chandler. Algren declared three
basic rules to a good life: “Never
sit down at a card game where
the dealer is named Doc; never
eat at a place named Mom’s; and
never sleep with anyone who has
bigger problems than you do.”
Providence Café refutes
that last rule emphatically.
It’s been joked that AA works
by getting people addicted to
good stories. As in the meeting
hall next door, Providence Café
offers the real possibility that
the guy sitting next to you has
problems that put yours in perspective.
That can be as comforting as chicken
soup. One guy told me that he
was glad to be here because his
alternative was to be following
his “slut wife” to his brother’s
house and committing a double
murder that he “might later regret.”
That kind of story does more for
hashed browns and eggs than Tabasco.
Not that the short order work
needs any help. It’s first rate.
Hash browns and eggs are reliably
delivered with bacon, sausage
or steaks. A steak and eggs special
I ordered last week brought a
thick sirloin, perfectly cooked,
with hashed browns, buttered toast
and jam for $6. Prices like that
seem to come out of a Chandler
novel, too. The menu is simple
and short, as good short order
grills should be, yet breakfast
choices ranged in complexity from
biscuits and gravy, to a lavish
French toast foster, which included
bananas and ice cream.
Top local products like Graziano
sausage are used here. In fact,
a Graziano hoagie at $6 is the
most expensive item on the menu.
Burgers, salad and home made soups
filled out the lunch fare. Burgers
came with a choice of fries, onion
rings, potato salad or home made
pineapple coleslaw. Spaghetti
with good meatballs or sausage,
and penne with Cajun cream sauce,
sausage, sun dried tomatoes and
fresh basil, completed the entrée
menu.
This café is open to
everyone. AA is a fellowship of
men and women who share their
problems and experiences in hopes
of solving common problems. The
only requirement is to come with
a sincere desire to not drink
alcohol.
1400 Pennsylvania Ave., 262-2884
Mon. - Fri. 7 a.m. - 2 p.m. and
5 - 7:30 p.m. ; Sat. 7 a.m. -
noon;
Sun. 8 a.m. – noon
Side dishes
Des Moines’ Smokin’ Clones, captained
by Smokey D’s BBQ co-owner Darren
Warth, will compete this month
at the Jack Daniel’s World Championship
Invitational in Tennessee. That
is competitive BBQ’s holy grail
and an event in which the Des
Moines team has won top honors
in the past. … Casa di Vino will
hold a tasting of its new wines
on Tuesday. CV
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