Goosetown Cafe on Iowa City’s Northside evolves after 2022 reopening

A former breakfast and brunch cafe in Northside Iowa City has reopened this year with a new menu that embraces seasonality through an ever-changing menu.

The transformation of Goosetown Cafe started in January, when owners Peter and Kathy Kessler reopened after a short closure and brought on a new chef. Although the original concept for the restaurant was always based on local food, the concept wasn’t finished cooking under its operation as a mostly breakfast and brunch cafe, with cocktails and other eats as an afterthought.

“We accomplished a lot of that, but not fully,” Peter Kessler said. “What we’re doing now is what we wanted to do from the start. It took three to four years to put things back in place and figure it out.”

As the Kesslers reopened, Executive Chef Chris Grebner’s background was the fit they needed to get the vision off the ground.

Although the transition from breakfast and brunch to lunch and dinner was a response to customer demand, the transformation of the menu has been done organically by the product sourced from local farmers, the vast majority of whom are located within 20 miles of Iowa City.

Salads and sandwiches became items meant to be shared, and the menu changes weekly, with two to four items added and removed each week in cadence with the changes of the season.

“We know that when we go out, we like to get a good variety of food that’s on the menu and that’s recommended,” Kathy said. “We wanted people to be able to do that here.”

Ingredients aside, Grebner said the menu is shaped by the seasons and influenced by the feelings of eating out with people you care about. The result is an eclectic menu featuring everything from squid and potatoes and pappardelle to pork shoulder and burgers.

With a mix of European influences from Grebner’s classical French training to Midwest comfort food served in a country-style vessel, even simple plates offer a more refined take at Goosetown. Liberal use of creme fraiche and options that elevate even simple dishes — like chermoula and burnt onion sour cream with roasted carrots — take local ingredients a step further.

With many ingredients unlisted on the menu as a measure of practicality — for lack of space — farm-to-table is embodied at Goosetown without becoming a measure of self-promotion.

What the menu sets out to accomplish through its renewed commitment to sustainable, seasonal sourcing is not a menu that can point to any one country as its motherland, but an experience that returns the value of dining to a pastime that’s about more than just nourishment.

The style of cooking Grebner takes to heart is one where the product takes the main stage, rather than a formula of meat, vegetables and starch on each plate.

A Webster City native, Grebner moved to Iowa City in 2011 from Oregon, where he attended culinary school. He knew he wanted to start something, he just didn’t know quite what it was. After a winter of conversing with local farmers, he started The Farmer’s Table and produced on-site meals with farmers every month for six years.

Later, he was part of opening Walker’s Homestead west of Iowa City in 2018.

The goal, to bring consumers and producers together, became the foundation to his career’s eventual segue back into restaurants.

“For the longest time, I thought I was running away from restaurant work,” he said. “I felt like I had done my time.”

But with the sting of commercial food service taken out of the grind of restaurant cooking, he’s able to focus on his joy in letting the earth’s bounty speak for itself. And if a customer requests a substitution for an out-of-season product, the chef accustomed to educating consumers on seasonal eating takes some pleasure in turning down the substitution.

“I take great joy in that,” he said with a laugh.

While many have recognized that their relationship with food is broken, with little done about it by and large, seasonal eating is one way to adjust expectations. But what’s more is that staying in touch with the natural cycle of products keeps things interesting, even if challenging at times.

“The dish that embodies us most is the one that’s next week. It’s what’s coming next,” Grebner said. “That’s what I’m most excited about, week to week.”

“It isn’t one dish. It’s the style in which we’re serving this food,” Peter Kessler said. “Dishes of flavor that are meant to be served.”

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