The Jewel of Cedar Falls, IA: The Broom Factory Restaurant

This place is a wonder. The building dates back 150 years, and has seen duty as a cornstarch factory, a wooden pump factory, an oat mill, a broom factory, a pickle factory(!), a soda bottler, and a hand-powered wooden washing machine factory. It has been a restaurant since 1976, when Dorothy Stitt bought it.



The orange neon sign you can't make out says "Immediate Seating;" it's supposed to give the town of Cedar Falls a heads-up about how long the wait is. We were there prime-time on a Saturday night, and I'm sure the sign stayed lit the whole night. In fact, I'm sure it's always lit; popularity-wise, the restaurant has certainly seen better days. There is a beautiful bar, which was unmanned and empty, and (we were told) has been for a few years:



Dorothy, too, has probably seen better days; though she greets you when you walk in, and is world-classedly charming + friendly, she is somewhat slowed by an oxygen tank. Still, it is clearly Dorothy's place. The walls are decorated with her paintings (farm-time landscapes, mostly-- some painted on actual barn doors). In the lobby she displays her egg sculptures: using (among other things) dental drills, she fashions scenes out of ostrich and emu eggs:



(Incidentally, she raises the emus herself.)

The restaurant overlooks the Cedar River, and sits next to an active railroad bridge. (Two trains passed during our dinner.) The second floor has a number of function rooms, where they host weddings and cooking classes. All of the fixtures are old and interesting, and together with Dorothy's unique art, gives the place a kind of folksy, House-on-the-Rock feel.

So the last thing you'd expect from a place like this is good food. Which is why my mind was basically blown when, lo, there it was: very good food. If I had put 2 + 2 together-- the emu on the menu = the emu raised by Dorothy-- I would have gone with that for sure, but I let the waitress talk me out of it. Instead I had the "Amish Chicken," which looks like this:



Fine, right? Perfectly ordinary looking chicken, right? Except, it was exceptional. The chicken has to marinate for a day, and I was almost too early to order it. There must be some smoking involved, because the bird-- in addition to that perfect crispy-outside/juicy-inside ratio-- had a faint, beautiful hint of smokiness. It was really wonderful. My companion's beef medallions were not as super-terrific, but came with a very tasty whipped rutabaga accompaniment.**

We tried two of the three house-made desserts, bread pudding and pecan pie. Both were delicious; of special note is the bread pudding's ultra-rummy sauce.

The chef is Alex Martinov-- "Chef Alex--" whose Special Award from the Beef Industry Council is displayed along with lots of other Broom Factory-related news clippings (including those charting the career of a Young and the Restless star who once worked there). Chef Alex, a native Bulgarian, graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris; I have no idea what he's doing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

In sum: the Broom Factory is a living improbability on six or seven levels, not least of which is its delicious food. If you have reason to be anywhere near Cedar Falls/Waterloo, well, it's pretty much a no-brainer.


The Broom Factory Restaurant
125 West First Street
Cedar Falls, Iowa
(319) 268.0877
http://thebroomfactory.com


** Actually, this may have been whipped parsnip? Now I don't remember.

Chef Alex, a native Bulgarian, graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris; I have no idea what he's doing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Well, uh, probably my first guess wouldn't have been, "Because he was on the lam for trafficking Eastern European prostitutes." But then, I never get the Final Jeopardy questions, either.

I suppose if you were trying to hide from Interpol, you could do worse than the Broom Factory in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

But what doesn't fit is why he made himself a regular on a local television show. I mean, that's the first rule of Eastern European prostitute trafficking.

Really, you can't help but feel sorry for Dorothy, who is very obviously a decent person, and has put her whole heart into running a special restaurant. I'm sure this story is not funny to her. Maybe the food at her restaurant will continue to be as terrific as it was when I visited-- I hope so.

Wow. Based on my brief restaurant kitchen experience as a kid long ago, I'd say that the overqualified foreign chef with (possibly) something to hide, working in an obscure restaurant is a "type" that is not entirely uncommon... I'm reminded of a culinarily gifted Egyptian dude who cooked at a strip-mall place in Tampa, after being in Anwar Sadat's security detail. Seriously.