The Comeback Café
804 Commercial St.Grinnell, IA
(641) 236-0176
How does a small town keep a secret this good? Few students eat at the Comeback Café, probably because it is farther than one block from campus and because the establishment is mysteriously lacking a sign. But this does not trouble me; I don’t want students to know about the Café. I like the restaurant the way it is: a laid-back, clean lunch place filled with Grinnell town families and beautiful natural light. Students would just clutter it up if they realized it is the most fantastic sandwich place in town. Stay away. If too many sandwich-grubbing college hoodlums start coming, distinguished senior citizens may have to wait for seats.
I rode my bike to the Café on Tuesday, when the sky outside was cold and a cruel blue, but the warmth and charm inside shone out the restaurant’s large windows. I had been to the Comeback Café four times before this trip and I ordered the Bangkok wrap ($5.95) all four times. The Café’s menu contains three key secret ingredients: pineapple, crunchy chow mein noodles and candied pecans. These three simple items deliver an unexpected sucker-punch of deliciousness to many of the Café’s dishes—the kind that makes you dissect your sandwich after one bite, desperate to know what could make that complex spiral of flavors. The Bangkok wrap combines all three of the Café’s secret ingredients with cheese and spicy Thai vinaigrette sauce. I can’t stop thinking about it. Late at night in Burling, staring at the wall while writing a paper, I often imagine that the wall is made of delicious, delicious Bangkok wraps.
Today, however, I decide I must force myself to try new things, such as the Michelangelo wrap ($5.95) which promises a new world of red bell peppers, pesto and black olives. The waitress comes: she is young and friendly. I really, really want to order the Bangkok wrap. I want to eat that wrap every day of my life, but especially right now. I reluctantly force my mouth to form the word “Michelangelo” as my taste buds shed a few small tears. My friend orders the Honey Club and a Crispy Sesame Chicken Salad for $6.45.
Nestled into the comfy chairs at a small side table, my fellow diner and I gaze around the room. To our left is a round table stuffed with two mothers and many adorable toddlers. Sitting around the long table by the door are nine wizened, white-haired old ladies wearing Christmas sweaters. They’re adorable too.
The Honey Club arrives, a charmingly normal wheat-bread sandwich layered with deli meats, just like your mom would make it. The Michelangelo is, indeed, filled with red peppers, pesto and olives, but I wish the cheese was melted and the whole thing was more saucy. My friend’s Crispy Chicken Salad is sprinkled with pineapples, candied pecans and chow mein noodles. I scrape up the last remains from her plate and swoon over the Bangkok wrap-like flavor.
“This place is the best in the world,” my friend says, grinning at the newborn and wrinkled faces around us, “I didn’t know it was here.” Good, good, I think, this is the kind of place you only let your really good friends know about.
