B&B Grocery

2001 SE 6th St., Des Moines, IA - (515) 243-7607

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Posted By Michael Stern on 10/19/2012 9:24:00 AM

Although it is a sideline at B&B, which primarily is a grocery store, meal service is not to be missed. It's a do-it-yourself affair: step up to the butcher counter and order what you'd like to eat, from breakfast burritos to heroic "killer sandwiches" and a terrific Iowa tenderloin. The tenderloin is what we would call Des Moines-style, meaning that it is fairly thin and ridiculously wide, so wide that many customers fold it over once or twice inside the bun so the sandwich can actually be picked up. Still, that ribbon of pork inside crunchy crust is juicy and sweet.

You don't find too many places like B&B any more. It is an old-fashioned neighborhood market with butchers who do everything from making sandwiches to processing deer. Signs above the counter advertise the "whole hog special," which is 73 pounds of pork in various forms, and the "1/2 of 1/2 beef," which includes steaks, ribs, roasts, and burger meat. Dining takes place at a makeshift eating annex of counter and stools to which you tote your sandwich. Décor includes newspaper headlines from years past as well as a vintage advertisement for the Des Moines Register titled "Business Success is achieved by those who early learn to manage money." The ad shows how John and Archie Brooks got their early business education as paper boys, starting in 1917.

Scorecard

Overall: Legendary - Worth driving from anyplace

Tenderloin	Dad's Killer Sandwich
Quadzilla	Deep Fried Bacon

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"You know you are in Iowa when the tenderloin is comically huge. A sandwich of this girth demands strategizing: How do you get condiments on the parts of the pork beyond the bun? Some people fold the meat over once or even twice so that it is held in a closer orbit to the bun."
Michael Stern

"We were given these pieces of deep-fried bacon as a lagniappe while we waited for our tenderloins to fry."
Michael Stern

"The dining area at B&B provides plenty of reading material above the counters."
Michael Stern

"The Brooks family grocery dates back to 1922. They moved into this building forty years after that."
Michael Stern

"At one time, B&B was strictly a grocery story, but when hungry customers saw what the butchers made themselves for lunch, they demanded sandwiches of their own. The original Killer is turkey, roast beef, ham, corned beef, three kinds of cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, mustard, Miracle whip, and Italian dressing on a hoagie roll. "
Michael Stern

"Order your food at the butcher counter."
Michael Stern

"B&B is an old-fashioned grocery with butchers who really know how to turn a carcass into cookable cuts."
Michael Stern