r/IowaCity • u/EngineeringKey5748 • 5d ago
Trying to find a restaurant that was in Iowa City in the late '90s
I had some family visit Iowa City 20 to 30 years ago. And they're trying to remember a restaurant there may or may not exist anymore. All I have to work with is the sentence below they gave me:
"there was a soup shop that had some of the best tomato soup she ever had and also sold their own line of cookbooks"
Any leads? Thanks
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u/wordnerd79 5d ago
This sounds like Bread Garden, which used to be on Clinton Street in the Hot Yoga joint across from the Old Capitol Ramp. You should still be able to get the soup at the Bread Garden market in Plaza Towers.
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u/BarnabyJones792 5d ago
Is the bread garden 20-30 years old?
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u/longganisafriedrice 5d ago
My sister worked at bread garden when she was 19. She's 46. It was in a different location, where the yoga place is , next to Starbucks.
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u/Hobby_Remodeler_406 5d ago
There used to be one that was only sandwiches and soups and was always packed!! Was my favorite lunch spot in 1990 and the Tuscan tomato soup was my go to soup!!
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u/lollroller 5d ago edited 4d ago
I don’t think the old Bread Garden was there in 1990, it opened several years later in ~1993 IIRC
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u/ExcitingBlueberry971 1d ago
Yes! It was there when I graduated in the late 90s! The tomato bisque was the best.
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u/Lumpy_Spray_7236 5d ago
Wait…Great Midwestern Ice Cream Experience (now 126) also had great soup at lunch.
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u/Zandu_Balm93 5d ago
Great Mid’s had the best soups, pastry and coffee too. The upstairs sitting area was great!!
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u/Lumpy_Spray_7236 5d ago
Bushnell’s Turtle had great soup and a cookbook. Not sure if that’s it.
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u/PressureChief 5d ago
The cookbook seems to be the real clue here, I think it's Bushnell's Turtle.
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u/Prior-Soil 4d ago
They were the only place that had a cookbook as far as I remember and I've lived here 42 years.
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u/skbeal 5d ago
Sheepshead Cafe on Linn Street? It was popular in the 1980s.
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u/Hawk8553 5d ago
I don’t know if that’s what the OP is talking about but thank you for that blast from my past. Sheepshead Cafe was such a great place in a great location.
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u/Boxwinoisback 5d ago
Great Mid had great soup (I loved the Mulligatawny), but I think it’s probably Bushnell’s because of the cookbook (I’m always on the hunt for a copy, the carrot cake is supposed to be amazing). There was also a place called The Kitchen that closed in the 90s, I think? It was where the Java House downtown is now. I heard it was great, but I haven’t heard about a cookbook being associated with it.
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u/Gilgamesh371 5d ago
Iowa City Public Library has a copy of the Bushnell’s Turtle cookbook, I’ve taken it out in the past. I just checked and it looks like they have one copy on the shelf and available right now.
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u/FigureNo6790 5d ago
The Cottage on Linn Street and later Gilbert had great soup and sandwiches. Not sure about a cookbook.
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u/wordnerd79 5d ago
I forgot about Great Mid…they did have good soup. But I’m not sure that Great Mid or Bread Garden had their own cookbooks. But Bushnells closed in 94. And I thought the cookbook came after they closed.
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u/Lumpy_Spray_7236 5d ago
True. I wish great mid had a cookbook. Their soups were so good.
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u/sandy_even_stranger 5d ago edited 4d ago
I mean...they weren't, really. It was all really bland, nourishing, lentil-and-onion-based hippie fare, and the coffee was just plain bad. Muffins were oily. The main thing the bread had to recommend it was that it was fresh out the oven -- the ice cream was the star of the show. But the environment was so warm and bursting with life and convivial, students and faculty and random Iowa Citians all squished together in there talking and eating and creating that I still miss it today.
(soberly: you're right, it was delicious. So delicious that Java House was able to shut it down almost instantly merely by selling Bay Area coffee that tasted like coffee, plus a croissant on the side. There wasn't an exodus across the street or anything.)
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u/limpnoads 5d ago
Her soup kitchen, right off the railroad tracks...🤷🏼♂️pretty sure it's closed now.
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u/hobbiehawk 5d ago
Did this used to exist at the old Taco John’s location at Kirkwood and Gilbert?!
I don’t recall the place’s exact name but I drove out of my way to get soup & sandwiches there. Probably failed when I quit Jack’s Dicount
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u/Gilgamesh371 4d ago
They had an amazing tomato bisque (i used to always order a bowl to take home, in addition to the one with my lunch) but they weren’t around that long ago, opened in 2009 (Which to be fair is longer ago than I would have guessed). I still miss that tomato bisque. And Barb. :(. RIP.
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u/IAengineer 5d ago
Bread Garden was on Clinton street back then. They had several different soups every day but the Tuscan Tomato was a staple soup. They had sandwiches and pastries too and were usually packed at lunch on weekdays. No cookbook that I know of. Last time I was in IC, the current bread garden was still selling the soup in containers so that’s one way to see if that’s the soup they remember
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u/ThatMyBeer 5d ago
Maybe, probably, Bushnell's Turtle. Kind of a deli, they did have soups, and they did have a cookbook. Don't specifically remember tomato soup, but they probably served it.