For a neighborhood bar, it's hard to go wrong with a menu featuring good food and cold beer.
Miles Inn has taken that philosophy and run with it. The Morningside neighborhood bar at the corner of Fairmount Street and Leech Avenue is famous for two things: the Charlie Boy loose-meat sandwich and what it touts as Siouxland's coldest beer served in a frosted glass schooner.
“The key to success here is simplicity. The Charlie Boy and the schooner is a trademark that makes us different from any other little bar,” said Denny Lias, who along with wife, Julie, bought the bar five years ago.
The Charlie Boy is the main draw here, a must for many former Sioux Cityans when back for a visit.
“It's kind of a mainstay for us when we come back and play golf,” Roger Lorenger, a former Sioux City resident now living in Denison, Iowa, said on a recent afternoon as he sipped on a frosty schooner of beer.
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It's not uncommon for impromptu family reunions to pop up at Miles Inn during the holiday season, when out-of-town relatives come in for Charlie Boys.
Morningside College alumni flood the place during the school's homecoming weekend and before and after football games on Saturday afternoons.
“The thing of it is, it's passed down generation to generation and family to family,” Denny Lias said. “We'll have a father come in here with his 6-year-old son on a Saturday morning and say 'This is his first Charlie Boy.' He'll probably be back here at age 21 for his first beer.”
It's fitting, since Miles Inn is rooted in family. Charlie Miles opened the business in 1925. It was a place you could buy milk, bread, beer and other necessities. It wasn't until the 1940s or '50s that it became a bar.
Miles named the signature sandwich after his son Charlie Jr. sometime around 1950, Lias said. The sandwich, which is topped with cheese, ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles, caught on with the nearby packing plant and stockyard workers who frequented the bar.
The Charlie Boy has developed into one of Sioux City's great dining secrets. The recipe isn't even written down to make sure no one can steal a copy.
“When we purchased (the business), that was the last thing we got,” said Lias, who worked in the bar for weeks before the sale was final to learn the recipe.
Still, people try to duplicate the Charlie Boy. Many who try bring in samples. None of them have gotten it right, said Lias, the bar's first owner who is not a member of the Miles family.
“There's too many ingredients in there for anybody to hit it 100 percent,” he said.
For many patrons, the recipe can remain a secret. They just want to stop in and enjoy a Charlie Boy.
“This is a landmark here in Sioux City,” said Lorenger, just before walking up to the bar to order a second round of Charlie Boys for his table.
