Tasty Freeze and Taylor's Maid-Rite

After the Bontrager concert, Papa surprised us by taking us out to Tasty Freeze where we ordered chocolate dipped ice cream cones ($2.50 each).  Considering how big our medium cones were, we had a hard time imagining large ones.  It was a challenge to eat mine before it melted!

Through the front window we could watch the cones being dipped very skillfully.  I've never tasted a bad chocolate-dipped ice-cream cone; we picked a never-fail winner.

Our next stop was Taylor's Maid-Rite.  

 

We waited a minute for the waitress to attend to us and ordered 3 Maid-Rites with cheese ($3.05), and for me no other condiments.  We were served very quickly.  

Maid-Rites, which are made from loose fried ground beef scooped into buns, are potentially messy food.  The key to success is to eat your Maid-Right with the interior wrapper around it to catch the loose meat that falls from the burger as you eat.  Afterward, open your wrapper and scoop out the remaining ground beef with your spoon.  

The Maid-Rites were surprisingly tasty.  I still prefer regular hamburgers, but it's good to have a little variety.  

 On the counter there were pamphlets with the history of Taylor's Maid-Rite, and the waiter was helpful in answering our questions and telling us what he knew.  The Taylor family bought the Marshalltown Maid-Rite franchise in 1928 for $300 and the restaurant is now owned by their granddaughter.  One night in 1955 the Taylor's moved the Maid-Rite from the original building across the street to its current location.

Maid-Rites are something different.  You may like them or you may not, but they're something that should be tried at least once in a lifetime.