any good spots in Quincy, Illinois?

I will be driving from Chicago to Quincy in May. I am only going to be there one night, but I was wondering are there any interesting food stops along the way or there?

I have done a search for Quincy Illinois on LTH and didn’t get any hits.

Dodger

We spent the night in Quincy last year and enjoyed a great meal at The Pier. The restaurant is built a top one of the old bridge piers and has great views of the Mississippi. I had the stacked steak and my partner had salmon, both were very nicely presented and very good.

http://www.thepierrestaurant.com/

How did I ever miss this thread? Jimthebeerguy and I are from Quincy! Let's see...Quincy just got its first Thai restaurant, located on Broadway, east of 36th street.

There's a Chinese buffet by Wal-Mart that is very good and very large (called Best Buffet).

What else? I'll talk to Jimthebeerguy about this.

Initial thoughts, the Plaza on North 12th street is pretty good, their horseshoe is usually good.

For tavern food, Mr. Bill's is the default though their service sucks and they are always ridiculously busy.

The Pier is good but middle of the road, their menu was pretty limited the last time I went.

I hear a lot of good things about Jorge the Crook's down by the riverfront, though I have not been there myself.

The Patio on 4th Street has a decent steak, but nothing compared to what you're going to get in Chicago.

I hope this has helped, I will revisit this thread tomorrow to see if I have anything to add.

thanks for the info. What is a horseshoe at the Plaza?

We are leaving on 5/15, so there is time for your thoughts. I will report back on 5/17.

D.

If you want to take the drive over to Hannibal Missouri, there's Bubba's BBQ, down by the levee in a cool old warehouse. Decent que and cajun food. Hannibals about 20 miles away from Quincy.

dodger wrote:thanks for the info. What is a horseshoe at the Plaza?

A Horseshoe Sandwich is a central Illinois specialty, originating, I believe, in Springfield.

It consists of a bottom layer of toasted bread topped with either hamburger patties or sliced turkey (recently I've seen versions with "Buffalo style" chicken attempting to replicate, I suppose, the flavor of hot wings), followed by a layer of French Fries, all smothered in a Welsh rarebit style cheese sauce. Pretty darned tasty and full of calories too! Definitely worth trying while you're in the area.

Buddy

The reason I mentioned the Plaza specifically for their horseshoe is that most places in Quincy use canned cheese sauce. The last time I had one at the Plaza, they used something closer to a mornay sauce, rare in Quincy but the way the dish should be served.

The Pier really is sort of the flagship restaurant of Quincy, the ambience is really nice and the dining area offers a great view of the river and people rave about it all the time. I had a couple of indifferent experiences there but it's been some time since I've been back and things may be different now.

Quincy is apparently due to get its first Thai restaurant soon, which is somewhat astounding, as people in Quincy generally do not like new things (new restaurants are OK, as long as they're serving the same old stuff). It will be interesting to see whether it turns out to be any good and whether it thrives.

Thanks for everyone’s advice. I sent the recommendations to our hosts in Quincy and they selected the Patio on 4th Street for dinner. There was five of us. We had two 7 ounce filets, a rib eye, chicken & vegetables stir fry and the 20 ounce T-Bone. The lady who had the chicken & vegetables said it was good, but she wasn’t that hungry and took over half of it home. The lady said the rib eye was only “ok” and left about half on her plate.

I had the T-Bone, which was not very tasty. I had ordered it medium-rare and told them it would be ok to under cook, rather than over cook. Well they over cooked it and it just was not flavorful. I was disappointed. The spinach salad was very good.

The hit of the night was the 2 filets. Both of them raved about the meat, perfectly cooked and very tasty. One of them even said it was close to some of the better ones he has had in Chicago. These 2 guys along with me are from Chicago, while the 2 ladies were from Quincy.

The next day my friend and I had lunch at Kelley’s on Broadway (I think) prior to driving back to Chicago. The restaurant was on the way and it had been recommended by our hosts. We both had the soup, salad & dessert bar with a sandwich, a great value. We both thought the selection was nice and everything was very good. They had warm cinnamon rolls for dessert – WOW.

I would definitely go to Kelley’s again.

D.

Thanks for getting back to us! I can't imagine I'll ever go to Quincy again but we did enjoy the area.

Shoot, I forgot to mention Kelly's, so I'm glad your hosts recommended it.

We were there at Kelly's ourselves, on Mother's Day. They are famous for the soup you mentioned - the cheese soup is very good, and they truck down cheese from Wisconsin once a week.

Jimthebeerguy's college roommate's wife's brother works as a cook at Kelly's, and I believe he oversees the soup.

What else? Oh yeah, their cinnamon rolls are OK, but mine are even better, if I do say so myself! I will bring some of mine to the next LTH picnic/get-together.

I'm sorry the T-bone at Patio wasn't good. That's disappointing to hear. Jim and I went there fairly often for dates. I really liked their steaks, and thought they were the best in town (but we never made it to Jorge's before we moved, and Jorge's may have been better for all I know). (My best friend's brother used to work as a meat cook at the Patio - funny how I'm listing these "friends of" and "brothers of" for restaurant employees - that's what Quincy is all about! I tell Jim at least twice a month how thankful I am that we moved to Chicago! It's the "everybody knows everybody" part that gets a bit tiresome at times, because the corollary is "and everybody is in everybody else's business.")

During our trip we discussed the horseshoe and the 2 hosts from Quincy both admitted they liked it. I mentioned that the Plaza on 12th street was recommended for it. They said that it closed about 6 months ago, but that was one of the places that had a good sandwich. The waiter came by and I forgot to ask why it had closed.

You are right about the cheese soup, I really liked it.

d.

I had another trip to Quincy last week. The first night the group ate at Ruby Tuesdays (not my choice) and the second night we ate at Kelley’s. I had the cheese soup (again very good) and the prime rib (good). But what impressed me were the $3 cocktails. I can’t complain about that.

On my drive back I stopped at a restaurant I had seen on the way there, but was not hungry at the time. This was The Classic Diner in South Jacksonville, IL. It is exit 64 (route 267) off of I-72. It looks like a classic diner from the outside. Inside it had an additional (smoking) room that I had not expected.

It had a huge menu and I wanted to try everything but I settled on the blueberry pancakes with a side of ham. They were good, but didn’t seem much better than I have had in Chicagoland. I didn’t think it was as good as Walker Bros. for example. The atmosphere was great and of course the waitress kept calling me “doll”.

Bottom line if anybody finds themselves in the area I would recommend giving them a try for breakfast or lunch.

D.

dodger, are you a Thai fan? A new Thai restaurant just opened up across the street from Ruby Tuesday. Jimthebeerguy and I tried to check it out, but it was closed at the time we went (10pm or so).

We're heading down there in a couple of weeks to say goodbye to my parents, who are moving to Spokane, WA on Nov. 1st. Maybe I'll get a chance to try Taste of Thai at that time.

Had a pretty decent meal at Jimbeana's in Quincy last August.



It's basically a bar with a pleasant little dining room off to the side. The menu is heavy on fried fish—catfish, buffalo, walleye, crappie and others. Here's the catfish.



A very nice cornmeal crust encased what was likely a local fish. These days, so much farmed catfish tastes about the same as tilapia but this guy had a distinctly muddy flavor. Not my favorite, to be honest.

Buffalo showed off the scoring technique used to make this bony fish edible.



A surprisingly tasty preparation, in addition to reducing the bone problem, the scoring also increases the surface area for the breading. I'd never had buffalo prepared this way but would order it again.

Jimbeana's
120 S 10th St
Quincy IL
217-224-3465

Any new insights on Quincy? I've got a speaking gig there Monday night, so I'll be driving during the day -- but I'm hoping I can arrive early enough to have dinner before I have to be at my destination (due at 6:30, so need a place that opens early so I can be out the door by 6, not just sitting down).