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    Maid-Rite

    4.6 (41 reviews)
    Open 7:00 am - 3:00 pm

    Maid-Rite Photos

    MAID-RITE ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Casual
    Moderate noise
    Good for kids
    Outdoor seating

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    Recommended Reviews - Maid-Rite

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    Reviews With Photos

    Fluffy omelets with toast
    Patti C.

    Great place to grab a breakfast or lunch . Friendly service with everything handmade makes this tiny diner charming. Countertop stools and old fashioned flair with a touch of home cooking gives you a hearty breakfast at a reasonable price. Light fluffy omelets and "made rite meat" are tasty . The service is fantastic with friendly help. A real hidden gem although it is a chain, this one is a joy

    Simple two eggs and two toasts
    Matthew K.

    Giving this 5 stars because it's exactly what you want in a diner. Food not exquisitely gourmet or anything but exactly what you would want Ina diner and the home made jam was really tasty. Servers were the best. Such great people. Chatted to them for a while and both chef and server just great humans. Perfect ambiance for sitting belly up to the counter and having a morning get up and go breakfast.

    Inside
    Shelley C.

    Gotta love the GPS that guided us to this location. I was actually asking for info on how to get to the city. Ending at this tiny little mecca was a super bonus! I guess this little treasure is the center of town, or Karma felt we should show up here. Either way, it was worth it to sit on a bar stool in cramped quarters, order a sumptuous burger and fries, then watch the waitress craft an excellent butterscotch milk shake. Loose meat burgers are something super old school. NuWay in Wichita, KS is the only other loose meat burger I have ever had the pleasure of eating at and it was established years ago, too! This loose meat is akin to eating a sloppy Joe, but with less slop. Oh, who am I kidding? It is a delightfully tasty mess on a bun, not too greasy, but enough that you need to buy stock in napkins before it's over! The fries doubled as edible chopsticks for all the meat that fell off the bun, by no means shorting the bun any meat! There is something special about a loose meat burger. No matter how you hold it, you WILL lose some into the basket! The butterscotch shake was sweet, tasty, delicious, filling, cold... I could go on and on with description. One thing for sure was that we were full when we left. It's no wonder they have been around for so long. Keep on doing it the same way and you won't go wrong. If you are reading this, figure out how to go eat there!

    One of the oldies but goodies!
    Jerry M.

    This Grand Dame of Diners has been open in downtown Cedar Falls since 1947. Maid-Rite was founded in 1926 in Muscatine, Iowa, by Fred Angell. A butcher by trade, Angell created a recipe for his loose-meat sandwich that a friend said was made right. He opened his Maid-Rite restaurant in Muscatine, the first fast food restaurant. Angell offered car-hop service at his second restaurant, a concept copied by White Castle and A&W not long after. Angell sold four franchises by 1930, which are still in operation. Several of the original Maid-Rite stores are extant and are historical landmarks - the Maid-Rite in Springfield, Illinois offered the first drive-through window. While this particular restaurant is not on the National Registry of Historic Places, it is certainly a local landmark. A throw back to diners before the days of portion control, rigid menus and cartoon mascots, this restaurant serves up Maid-Rite sandwiches the same it was done 65 years ago. A classic Coca-Cola button sign on the roof belies the fact that the restaurant pours Pepsi products, but it's still a great vintage sign. The building also sports neon signage, another great throwback to earlier times. While the diner is showing it's age, it is clean and maintained. If you're looking for a fancy dining experience with uniformed wait staff, silverware, china and linen napkins, you're in the wrong place. On the other hand, if you would like a great sandwich, don't want to spend a lot of money and relish a dining adventure, come'on over to Maid-Rite in Cedar Falls!

    Menu
    Kayla B.

    This place is absolutely adorable, and a definite throw-back to when food was made before your eyes, small businesses were the norm, and customer/service interaction was just standard. Loved eating here. STUFF TO KNOW: -They serve breakfast until 11AM. -They have daily specials - and all of the prices are super inexpensive. -They can make food to-go or sit-down. -The only seating is a single bar with bar stools that runs down the entire length of the building. Depending on how busy they are, you might end up sitting right next to someone else. -The parking lot doesn't really accommodate too many cars. You should be prepared to park on the street - luckily, Cedar Falls has free downtown parking, so it's not a big deal. -They DO take credit cards. -This location is located downtown off one of the side streets of Main Street. It's very easy to find. Pros: -You can watch them make your food - and nothing is already pre-cooked to serve to you. While some of the food (mini donuts, etc.) comes in giant freezer bags that they take it from, you can watch as they pull out the bun from a bag of 8 buns, put a slice of cheese on it, add all of the toppings, and add the hamburger meat right onto the buns. It's amazing just to watch food be made right in front of your eyes. -Food is very, very inexpensive. I had a bag of chips, a refillable soda, and a Maid-Rite for $5.50. Not too shabby! Our waitress even asked if we wanted a soda fill-up with a lid to go after we'd paid our check (free of charge!) -Staff is amazing. You get nice, personalized attention with great care. It has that "home diner" type of feel to it. You can tell there are regulars here, as the staff gets into conversations or helps someone solve a crossword puzzle. Our cups never got low, she handled everything promptly, and checked in regularly. -Maid-Rite tasted good - though not insanely filling. I'd probably want to get two Maid-Rites next time around - or it seemed that the Mega-Rite was a pretty popular option. Bag of chip options were standard Frito-Lay product options. They serve Pepsi products on fountain. -Has an amazing old-school feel. It has the red/white color scheme everywhere, the "diner" type of food storage, hand-written checks, a pie display case, and more. It just feels so comfortable and well-loved. Cons: -The ONLY con I can think of is that Maid-Rite needs to throw a bit of extra love and care into building upkeep. You can see the surfaces that the employees are cooking on - and they're immaculately clean. However, non-food surfaces could use love. The cabinet's white paint is chipping, and the fabric on the stools is breaking. It's minor things like that that bring the presentation a bit down. -Parking is not-so-great. I tried to park in their lot - I probably won't do that again. Another car blocked me in, and it just wasn't too fun to get out of. (It was pointed out to me that this place's parking lot was probably designed when cars and buildings looked way different downtown, and that's probably true.) -Space is a bit limited. You have room to walk up to the bar, but that's about it. it's definitely a very compact arrangement. There's enough space between the bar stools to not feel TOO uncomfortable if you sit next to a stranger, though. (The woman next to me was doing a crossword puzzle, and I never felt like I was in her way.)

    Restaurant exterior

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    12 years ago

    place is dirty nobody wanted to wait on us the help is lazy we waited forever and the food sucked wont go back!

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    Bigfoot Betty's - Popper Burger- I added a shmear of their wonderful strawberry sauce.

    Bigfoot Betty's

    3.7(27 reviews)
    0.1 mi

    Pork tenderloin for breakfast! Talk about breakfast of champions. We found this new-to-us place…read morewhile visiting Cedar Falls mostly because my sister is obsessed with all things Bigfoot. The decor did not disappoint on that count! The owner was super sweet and funny, and found a Bigfoot baseball cap for her while promising to get some more swag purchased soon. She had actual breakfast and gave it an A--scrambled eggs, pork sausage, hash browns with cheese (had to get some cheese in there somewhere). I'm not nearly as big a fan of traditional breakfast and I hadn't had my tenderloin fix on this trip yet. Bigfoot Betty's fit the bill. French fries were delicious too and the fresh veggie add-ons. Ain't no tenderloin like an Iowa tenderloin.

    I really wanted to like this place because the atmosphere was great and the employees were…read moregenuinely nice and ordering with our server was also a smooth and pleasant experience. However, things quickly went downhill. We were told they were out of funnel cake fries....which, okay, that happens, but then also out of fried pickles? That started to feel a bit questionable. While sitting there, we kept overhearing staff apologizing and saying they were understaffed. I understand that staffing issues happen, but good management should adjust accordingly by limiting capacity, reducing hours, or temporarily closing, rather than letting service suffer this badly. We arrived around 12:50, ordered at 1:00, and didn't get our appetizer until 1:50. Our main food didn't come out until after 2:00. That kind of wait is just not reasonable. To make matters worse, my tenderloin bun was extremely soggy and the food overall was very greasy. If you're going for a tenderloin, you're honestly better off heading to Starbecks, Cindy Lou's, or King Bucks. Great vibe and kind staff, but the long wait times, lack of menu items, and disappointing food quality made for a frustrating experience overall. And let me tell you this..... 2 kids meals, 2 adult meals, and 1 appetizer was $80 DOLLARS BEFORE TIP... I get that things in this world are expensive, but we can go to Sakura Japanese Steak House and get hibachi and sushi and feed the family for about the same cost.

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    Bigfoot Betty's - Another interior view

    Another interior view

    Bigfoot Betty's - Kraken Onion Rings

    Kraken Onion Rings

    Bigfoot Betty's

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    Jersey Mike's Subs

    Jersey Mike's Subs

    3.2(5 reviews)
    3.5 mi

    Today is there grand opening as of 10am!…read more My sister and I popped in around 11am and it was packed. There had to be between 30-40 customers in the store while we were there. It was a steady pace and they had a great set up going. We were only in there for about 25 minutes. I think they must have had all there workers there today for the opening because there was at least 12 people working. They had a chain going for cold sandwiches and a seperate one going for online orders. I liked that they actually had a pick up stand set up for online orders its the first time I have seen one of those at a Jersey Mikes. The manager was all over the place helping where he could and even stepped in to make our sandwiches on the grill. My sister and I ordered a chicken philly (16) & big kahuna chicken (55) gluten free allergy. Absolutely wonderful. The only thing I have to say is that the gluten free bread was drier than I am used to and it was falling apart. I also watched someone make a gluten free cold sandwich while I was there and all I could see were bread crumbs all over the counter so I hope there was not too much cross contamination for them.

    Third visit there, once again had to leave as the service is so painfully slow and who has two…read morehours for lunch. The one time we did wait it out it took 50 minutes to get our food. The bread is underwhelming at best and the sandwhich was not even decent, bland and blahhh. There are tons of workers in there, but no organization, no communication and we, the customer, are left staring at them and they don't seem to care. The inside is tiny too, so good luck folks. And for those who order online, the people standing there waiting for their online orders were NOT Happy at all. We won't be back and that sucks as we've wanted one in our area for a long time. Save you time and money, go elsewhere.

    Photos
    Jersey Mike's Subs
    Jersey Mike's Subs
    Jersey Mike's Subs

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    Maid-Rite - diners - Updated May 2026

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