Niland's Cafe

Niland’s Cafe is located at the junction of the Lincoln and Jefferson highways near Colo, Iowa. The current building was built for a cafe in 1930 and has been an operating restaurant most of the time since.

When you first enter the restaurant, there is a room with a diner counter that takes up a good portion of the floor space, with a few tables around it. There is a second room off to the left that is a regular style dining room with plenty more seating.

Our server was super friendly, and the silverware on our table was rolled in cloth napkins.

I was amazed that after ordering, my Reuben arrived in only 7 minutes! It was a beautiful sight on the plate. The thick bread had been buttered and grilled just right! The corned beef looked like it was shredded corned beef brisket, and it tasted excellent. The sauerkraut layer was somewhat light, but it turned out to be well balanced as it combined with the dressing and danced through the loose shreds of corned beef.

Overall, the Reuben had a deep beefy taste that provided the perfect amount of juicy flavor with all of the ingredients participating but not overpowering one another. This is a Reuben that lived up to—and went beyond—my expectations.

I had paid extra for a side of “onion rings” to accompany my order, and was somewhat dismayed when noticing rather quickly that instead of normal onion rings, they brought onion strings or onion tanglers (see the photo above). I’d never had that served to me before under the guise of onion rings. The “onion rings” are definitely not worth ordering, I regretted making that choice because they tasted pretty bad by themselves.

For dessert, we ordered slices of the blueberry pie, warmed, with ice cream. The pie was delicious.

Overall, I heartily recommend a stop at Niland’s Cafe to enjoy the food that they provide, especially the Reuben. And while you are there, you can stop at the service station museum next door and learn a lot about the Lincoln and Jefferson Highways and their impact on the small town of Colo, Iowa. There is a nice collection of local memorabilia along with other highway-related exhibits.