Red Bones Cafe and the Benefits of a Good Tagline

“Food for the soul.” That’s the slogan for Red Bones Café, the most recent restaurant we attended for our Eating Siouxland class. I like the sound of that – “food for the soul.” It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and excited for some home-style food. But as always with a restaurant, the food is the determination of how accurate that slogan can really be, and I think Red Bones Café delivered that message perfectly.

Signage above the door at the Red Bone Cafe

To be completely honest, I had no preconceived notions of what to expect from the Red Bones Café, in fact, I had never heard of them before this class. So with a quick a Google search and browse of their Facebook page, not to mention a few suggestions from others in the class, I quickly decided that I was going to have to try out their catfish for myself.

After a minor mishap with the GPS, which apparently isn’t a fan of some of those goofy streets downtown in Sioux City, I arrived at the Red Bones Café. The yellow painted building certainly stuck out in it’s location, both for it’s size and color in comparison to the buildings around it. Their large sign above entrance was noticeable, but was only really visible to drivers coming from the one direction. Their logo appears a little too ornamental, which potentially could lead to some readability issues, particularly with the color scheme on the sign, and the black text with an orange outline on a dark background. That’s not to say the ornamental typeface was an entirely bad choice, just an area of improvement. They also had their “food for the soul” slogan on the board, but lights seemed to be blocking it from the passerby.

The dining area had an “at-home” feeling

Entering the restaurant, the first thing that struck me was their decorations, color scheme, and overall appearance of the dining area. It fit their personality and their food perfectly. It felt like I just stepped into someone’s home kitchen and was prepared to eat the daylights out of their home-cooked meal. I also noticed that the dining area isn’t very large, so with a large group like ours, the place filled up quickly. It felt a little crowded when it got really full, but it wasn’t entirely a bad thing because of the environment and that “at-home” feel. You could even see some of the waitresses and cooks preparing the food through the back, which, again, added to that “at-home” feeling.

The menu was large, single sided, color print. I was pleased to see that they had kept the ornamental font they used in their logo to only their logo and it didn’t become a reoccurring theme throughout the menu. Their menu was more or less easy to navigate as they had their items sectioned off nicely, but the text was centered within columns, which did lead to a readability issue. Their menu was full of southern-style foods, fried chicken, fried catfish, country-fried steak, baked beans, collard greens, and more. They had a nice variety of items and there seemed to be something for everyone.

Fried Catfish, baked beans, mashed potatoes, and cornbread.

As I said earlier, I ordered the catfish, and I added baked beans and mashed potatoes and gravy for the sides. The waitress who helped us was very friendly; service was clearly a priority at Red Bones. When the food arrived, I was impressed by how much they gave you. The presentation of the food was good too, with the baked beans in a cup on the side. After a few quick photos, I dug into the catfish. It had good flavor and was definitely catfish, though the breading wasn’t my personal favorite. It was a bit too much breading in relation to the fish and it was corn meal breading, which is not my first choice. Most of this is because I like the way my family breads fish with a cracker and a potato flake mix. This is not to say the flavor was not good, there was just enough catfish flavor to go along with the breading. The mashed potatoes and gravy were also good, with the gravy as the highlight there. The gravy was flavorful without being too salty and went really well with the potatoes and other food choices. The baked beans were my favorite part.  They were a little sweet and a little tangy with right amount of spices that didn’t overpower. The pieces of sausage in the beans were a nice addition to the flavor.

The peach cobbler dessert.

For dessert, I shared a peach cobbler with a friend. It was good and tasted like something you’d expect from a home kitchen.  You could still taste peaches and the cinnamon flavor was at the right level. Unfortunately, the whipped cream they added had melted some, which is not something I prefer, but I would definitely order it again, but ask for it without the whipped cream.

It was an overall good experience eating at Red Bones Café. The food was flavorful and the atmosphere fit what they were going for. Their identity could use a little work and their menu needs a few typographical changes, but neither was overly detrimental to their business at this stage. My clear favorite of all their identity is their tagline. I think it represented what they wanted to accomplish well and I hope they keep that around for years to come. I would like to go back in the future, but next time I think I will have a harder time deciding what to get because there are so many things on that menu that I’d like to try!

An hour’s worth of doodling led to this quick idea.