Iowa Beer Wine Shop - Altoona

We were ordering dinner with our neighbors. Ordering for a party of 8, pick up at the drive-thru. 2 separate orders, two Groupon's. I've lived close to here about 11 years and I've been missing out! Placing our orders via phone from the online menu was as easy as easy can possibly be. Both families ordered the same meal, plus 2 kids chicken strips. Once we were at the drive-thru we realized we only ordered $36 worth of food each and we needed at least $55. (Otherwise you forfeit your remaining balance on the Groupon . The employee at the window actually realized this and brought it to our attention. So, one family added 4 more meats and I added 5 sides and an order of chili cheese fries. They included napkins, plastic ware and disposable plates! Our families devoured this food! I mean, we looked like starving cavemen. Baked beans were nice and smokey, burnt ends were wonderfully caramelized, potato salad was light and delicious! Meat to melt in my mouth! Pork, turkey, sausages! I could go on and on! The chili cheese fries weren't what I expected, but I'll try anything once , the potatoes are thick cut wedges, lightly battered and fried. Topped with what appeared to be homemade chili and Gehl's cheese. In my humble opinion and excessive eating and love for all food, including nacho cheese, it's the best cheese to consume. It's been 2 days and I'm down to the last of the leftovers. Yes, every evening I dip into Claxon's to-go box, toss some meat in the microwave (with their awesome BBQ sauce! and put myself into a bedtime coma.

Service was great, really nice people. I just wish the food was a tad bit better. We came an hour after it opened and my food looked really good but when I bit into the chicken it was super dry and hard. I tried the prime rib which was really good, the fried okra was really salty. Overall I think the smoked meats were okay, but tasted like they have been sitting out.

Bbq in iowa. who would have thought, but we wanted to give it a try. really nice building that day and upon walking in the place is huge. they have an expansive menu and we quickly settled into the menu. 1) mushroom appetizers. it is stuffed with boursin cheese. they were decent. basically stuffed mushrooms with cheese, broiled and served with parmesan cheese toast. was supposed to come with au jus, but non-present on the plate. I may pass on this. the toast does not make sense with the mushroom. 2) 2-meat plate. opted for the brisket and pulled pork and the two sides I went with sautéed zucchini and fries. the fries are huge and pretty decent. could use a few more minutes in the fryer. the zucchini was topped with a lot of parmesan. as for the meats the brisket was the winner of the two. the pork just felt like it lacked the smokiness and needed a lot of sauce. the brisket was nice and tender. had a nice color to the bark, but needed more seasoning, but good. 3) Burnt ends with bbq beans. the beans was pretty good. the beans and the side salad (with the house made blue cheese dressing which is really good). i like burnt ends and they typically sell out fast and early. when I have had them numerous times in the past they were still moist, but these were really dried out. perhaps since we arrived for dinner? Still it was decent, but drier than I am used to. 4) Kids menu is lacking. it is mac and cheese, a burger, cord dogs, dino nuggets or chicken strips. why isn't there a bbq kids option such as smoked sausage, smoked chicken legs or something bbq related. that was a shame. Would I come back? Likely when visiting the area again and they have a large menu to pick from. I would probably come back for lunch to see if the food is just fresher then.

We also had sirloin steak with green beans and zucchini and caesar salad with cole slaw. Staying may have been an issue, but the service and quality of food were great. I also had a strawberry margarita with salt. After a long day, it was amazing! No pictures of the main dishes, sorry I was hungry!

We sat down 8:11 pm, by 8:53 still had no food other than appetizer. Very loud, obnoxious table across from us. Waitress was very cheerful at beginning when we were seated but shortly after caught an attitude. The way the waitress was dressed made her look like she should have been working for hooters. They were out of a lot of food items as well. We asked the waitress how much longer the food would be, she said it was coming, that was 5 minutes ago and still avoided our table. Since we had to wait for almost an hour and didn't get updated very much and they were getting ready to close we left. If I could give no stars I would have! Basically I would definitely go anywhere else if you decide you want to try Claxons.