Northwestern Steakhouse

♪♪ [Kohlsdorf] From Music Man Square and Meredith Willson's boyhood home to Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School architecture, Mason City is a great place to explore Iowa history and culture.

If you work up an appetite, check out another local landmark, the Northwestern Steakhouse, where sizzling Greek flavors have kept diners coming back for more than a century, thanks to a secret ingredient - [Bill Papouchis] Consistency.

The product.

If you eat here once, you usually come back.

The best compliment I've ever gotten was people haven't been here for 50 years and they said, this is the same as I remember.

It's like really?

So that, yeah, I really take that to heart.

[Kohlsdorf] Opened in 1920 as Pete's Place, the restaurant was a partnership between Greek immigrants Pete Maduros in the front and Tony Papouchis in the kitchen.

They moved to this location in 1954, and a decade later, Tony took over outright.

That's when the restaurant was renamed the Northwestern Steakhouse.

Today, Tony's son Bill and his wife, Ann carry on the tradition.

[Ann Papouchis] My first date, he brought me here, and I had no idea that it was a part of his family.

Kind of came into it not knowing what was going to happen.

And, here we are, you know, Bill and I, 40 some years later, almost half of its life.

[Bill Papouchis] Yeah.

[Kohlsdorf] The Northwestern is well known for its filet mignon, sirloin and New York strip steaks, in addition to a signature side.

[Bill Papouchis] Spaghetti with parmesan.

And then we use the steak juice on top.

And that's a pretty good seller.

Yeah, we sell quite a bit of that, just that alone.

[Woman Diner 1] I moved to Mason City in '93, and every time my dear girlfriends come down to visit me, we like to come to Northwestern Steakhouse because it's the best steak ever.

[Kohlsdorf] The eatery is just as well known for its quaint size.

[Bill Papouchis] We've heard that a lot.

Why don't you expand?

Expand.

Like no.

Or move.

Even move to a different place.

But there's too many memories here with my dad.

[Woman Diner 2] Been coming here for years.

[Girl Diner] I'm the fourth generation to be coming here.

[Woman Diner 3] Everyone at this table had the filet.

[Woman Diner 4] If it was my last supper and I was to die tomorrow, this is where I'd have my last meal.

[Ann Papouchis] I'm so appreciative of all the customers that we have.

One family who's six generations and several five generation families that come in.

[Bill Papouchis] It's just hard to believe that we've been around that long.

When my dad was around he would tell me stories about the Depression and some of the bootlegging that went on or whatever.

I cherished some of those memories with him and stuff, and every now and then something will make a noise up here or something, you know, like, oh, he's still around here.

You know, he's still keeping an eye.

That's mostly why I wanted to stay in this building.

There's just a lot of memories and stuff here.

[Diners] Cheers!

♪♪