Just rented out their back room a month ago. Great space. Going to miss that place.
Best downtowns in Iowa?
- Thread starter Kinnick 4 Prez
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Decorah obviously. Perhaps the best small town in Iowa. Solon, obviously. Orange City is a nice college town. And to add an oddball that many probably don't know about...Earlville. It might be the cleanest, most well kept small town there is. Some towns seem to have a ingrained culture of people who work hard to maintain their properties. Earlville is that way.
Well, for one it’s “Mount” because it’s literally on a hill, and you can overlook the countryside on the town’s edge. It’s the home of Cornell College, so it’s got lots of cool shops and restaurants for a town its size. Great bbq place and a great wood fired pizza place. There’s also usually some fun festival going on in town, most popular being the Chalk the Walk. The campus is right downtown and peaks the hill with uniquely ornamented brick buildings and steeples. Their college football stadium sits right next to downtown and has an old brick street and railroad tracks running right by it, while the view across the field from the stands is a view of rolling farmlands framed by towering oaks. Theres a town park in the center complete with large gazeebo for performances. It’s got a mini Iowa City feel. Just very different, and I dig it.
Monticello downtown is the best it has been in a long time. Blind Pig restaurant opening gave Main Street an extra boost recently. And a top notch football program. 😉
Cedar Falls, Pella, and Winterset are all up there for me. Adel has a lot of potential with their town square
We stayed at the Blackhawk when we were in CF for state football. I came away really impressed with their downtown area and plan to go back again for a weekend trip when it warms up. It was freaking cold and windy when we were there in Nov and couldn’t really enjoy everything there was to offer.Cedar Falls downtown was a complete dump when I was growing up and now it is really outstanding. Lots of nice shops and restaurants, the Community Theater, the Black Hawk hotel, and its close to the river. I think its always underrated in these discussions because of how run down it was 25+ years ago.
I'm not sure what Traer's downtown is like today, but I always thought the spiral staircase was cool and a nice center feature for a small town downtown.
As a 1982 UNI graduate, I remember it being cold and windy in CF from October through April!
I take it you like antique shops and other small shops selling the same junk. Mentioned the bbq (bigs) which isn’t that great, I think it was much better when it was in the old house. The wood fire pizza must be the wine bar, but other than those two si senior and a couple of crappy bars, what other restaurants do they have?
I will admit it does have potential because of some of the reasons you mentioned but someone in the community or a city employee needs to step up and demand some improvements be done.
If you truly think this town is great, you need to get out more.
The kids and wife love Silver Spider. The chocolate store across from that is killer. I haven’t been to Big’s since it left the house. Etc.
Yes, I actually don't mind their beers, no pic is a beer snob though, it's Miller Lite or nothing. We'll hit Pulpit for one if we're in town and it's nice enough to sit on the patio.
Cedar Falls is nice and clean. Has a lot of restaurants. Sturgis Falls Celebration and College Hill Arts Festival.
