Chrome Horse Saloon returning to NewBo

CEDAR RAPIDS - More than three years after it left the neighborhood, Chrome Horse Saloon is headed back to the New Bohemia district.

The owners of the restaurant and bar plan to open a second location in NewBo around the start of the new year. The current Chrome Horse restaurant, 1140 Blairs Ferry Road NE, will stay open.

The NewBo location, 1201 Third St. SE, will occupy about 13,000 square feet on the ground floor of buildings that previously housed Newbo Alehouse and NewBo Sushi. Both of those restaurants closed after the 2016 flood.

Chrome Horse owner Derek Collins said the NewBo location will have a similar setup to the Blairs Ferry location. That includes a bar, a restaurant, a banquet space and a patio for live music events.

Collins and his partners also will try something new, he said. The middle section of the space will be used for a restaurant specifically just for breakfast, Collins said. The breakfast restaurant will be open in the morning and could be used as overflow space for the lunch and dinner restaurant later in the day.

The original Chrome Horse had occupied about 6,000 square feet in the National building, 307 12th Ave. SE, also in NewBo. A fire in June 2014 caused significant damage, though, and the restaurant closed, then reopened on Blairs Ferry.

Collins said Chrome Horse never would have left NewBo if space had been available.

'If this place would have been open when we did Blairs Ferry, we would have done this. One of my partners always says, ‘We were NewBo before NewBo was here,'” Collins said.

Asked if he thinks his restaurant's atmosphere of live music and motorcycles will fit with the emerging aesthetic in NewBo, Collins had no doubts. He said he wants the space to appeal to both bikers and cyclists alike.

'We'll take the spandex and the leather,” Collins said.

The National building now houses coffee shop Brewhemia and Mexican restaurant Caucho.

Chrome Horse's NewBo location likely will be open from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. for breakfast and then 11 a.m. to at least midnight for lunch and dinner.

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