Eldon's, where the food looks good and tastes better

Just ask anyone who has tasted the 24-ounce bone-and-ribeye steak or maybe the rotisserie pork loin at Eldon's Restaurant, which Eldon and Regina Roth, founders of Beef Products Inc., and their daughter, co-owner Jennifer Letch, opened Feb. 9, 2010, in the former Tony Roma's site on Singing Hills Boulevard.

One year later, customers are singing the praises of the BPI meats that are the staples of Eldon's menu. But the overall quality of the steak restaurant's decor and food has left many with the false perception that the menu prices are as high as a New York City skyscraper. Not so, says Dave Ferris, who served as the restaurant's first manager.

"I think there were a lot of preconceived notions that this was an extremely expensive place in the beginning. But then, once people come in, they realize it's not," Ferris said. "I priced the menu and we're very competitive locally. We'll match anybody in town. And I always tell everybody we've got the best $8 hot beef sandwich in town for lunch. So when people come in, we have found that once we get a customer here, we get them back."

And folks expecting "fine dining" to offer some tiny tidbit on a big plate won't find that at Eldon's.

"You get a full meal here," Ferris said. "You get a full salad. You get a full steak, your potatoes, your vegetables, everything. It's a nice, nice dinner and beautifully presented."

With its sleek, California craftsman embience, Eldon's is a little different from Sneaky's, the popular family restaurant specializing in chicken that Ferris started in Sioux City more than 30 years ago.

"Yeah, it's a significant change," he admitted, "but it's still about serving people and putting out food. It's just a different commodity. It's definitely a change, but it's a good change."

As part of a $400 million expansion of the Roths' South Sioux City complex, BPI, the world's leading boneless lean beef manufacturer, developed Certified Tender meats. And it is that quality meat that helps keep customers coming back, Ferris said.

"We do have some seasonings that definitely enhance it, but the meat itself is spectacular. And everything in the kitchen is fresh. We make everything from scratch," said Keith Wittrock, Eldon's executive chef. "So whatever you're making, it just makes everything better."

This search for freshness has made Eldon's probably the largest customer of Sioux City's Farmers Market every spring and summer, Ferris noted.

"We make our own homemade bread every day," Ferris said.

"And we make all of our own ice creams from scratch," Wittrock added. "We make all of our own condiments and everything from scratch here."

Wittrock, a native of Primghar, Iowa, was brought in from a Minneapolis restaurant to take charge of the food, and he has done a "wonderful job with it," Ferris said, also noting the contributions of Melis Spencer, the sous chef who has charge of Eldon's desserts.

"And we're serving BPI-certified steaks. So it doesn't get much better than that. They take great quality meats. They tenderize them and make them better.

"We actually served them the first month or two and didn't even put out steak knives and failed to realize it. So it's very tender meats and very high-tasting in quality."

The Eldon's experience isn't just limited to the food.

"No. 1, it's a beautiful place," Ferris said. "And I feel our service is second to none in the community. It's a good, friendly staff. They're very attentive to the customers' needs."

And while Eldon's Prime Rib remains the best seller, followed closely by the New York Strip, if you don't want a steak, fresh fish is flown in daily. And Wittrock's personal favorite at Eldon's is the rotisserie pork loin. "I think pork loins are probably the best product they do," he said. "We actually do an apricot glaze on it. That one is probably my favorite."

Ferris' fave is the 24-ounce bone and ribeye steak. "It's absolutely the best steak I've ever had," he said.

And as for the prime rib, he noted, "You only have to watch it on the rotisserie for about two hours to realize that something great's going to come when you cut that piece of meat open."

For the children, the menu offers homemade pizzas, hamburgers and chicken nuggets -- and the "best mac 'n cheese in town," Ferris said.

The menus change seasonally. So a new addition to this year's menu will be "an extremely high quality bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, once the home-grown tomatoes get out," Ferris said.

"This year, we're going to get the bacon from BPI. So we want to do a phenomenal BLT, using the garden tomatoes," Wittrock said.

The key, Wittrock says, is that the food tastes better than it looks ... and it looks good.

"It tastes better when it looks good," he said.

Added Ferris: "It's kind of like a car drives better when it's clean."