The Vine Tavern & Eatery

Over the 30+ years that I have been going here I have on occasion had some terrific burgers and wings, but yhey also consistently rack up having the worst and rudest service in all of the Iowa City area, in particular Max and company behind the bar.

The Vine has one of those great dive bar feels like the bars on the east side of Austin. From the minute Hubs and I walked in, I felt comfortable and at ease.
Inside is dark and welcoming, the bar spacious with plenty of seating. The staff is friendly but manages to give you a respectful amount of space in which to enjoy your conversations relatively uninterrupted. Enough TVs to watch a game. And, decent bar food to satisfy your hunger.
The have a complete menu, but we haven’t gotten to try it because we have settled for the good bar appetizers everytime. I suggest that you try the sampler plate because they let you choose what you are having on the sampler. Hubs and I have shared the wings and a sampler plate and have been able to walk away feeling like we’ve had a full meal.
If you do select the sampler, try the potato skins and cheddar bites. Since the plate lets you get 5 different items, we double them up and get pretzels to boot. With some good beer and conversation, this is living!

I don’t remember any of the food here — probably because I totally wasted! Great bar in any case. Got down with the bricky, plant-​strewn ‘70s chic.

This is my favorite dive bar around Iowa City. The $ 3 steins on Friday are a tremendous deal and the atmosphere is always great. It’s off the beaten path from the usual downtown places so it is not as loud and you can make actual conversation.

The food was pretty good, I got the Monte Carlo which on Mondays are a couple bucks cheaper. The atmosphere is really a dine kind of bar, it’s dark and there’s sports on the TV everywhere you look. The one thing I didn’t like was the waitress, she just looked like she didn’t care about her job or that she was too good for it. She didn’t really smile and didn’t give us a welcome or friendly attitude. Overall the food was the best out of my overall experience, the atmosphere was dark and it was empty, granted I went in the middle of the day during the week and the waitress was just a plain Jane, nothing special so the Vine to me isn’t a memorable restaurant or a dine in bar but the food was okay.

This is my favorite place to eat in Iowa City. My personal favorite item on the menu is the Little Jo’s and fries. They’re mini burgers. Their wings and sweet potato fries are great too. As of last year there is now outdoor seating as well.

Such a great place to eat! Phenomenal beer specials and the food was delicious. If you’re a fan of the TV Show «How I Met Your Mother» this is the Iowa City version of McClaren’s. I will definitely be back the next time I am in Iowa City.

Kind of a dive atmosphere.
GREAT burgers!
Lots of beer choices.
Ok service.
Reasonable prices.
Good tvs for soccer and football watching.

Kind of a dive atmosphere, but the food was actually quite good. I got a blue cheese burger and my date got a buffalo chicken wrap which was awesome. We got nachos as an appetizer – this was tasty and big enough to be an entire meal. The beer selection wasn’t fantastic, but the prices seemed reasonable. Service was polite, helpful, and attentive.
Seems like this would be a good place to watch a game – they have a lot of TVs for the space.

The food was great — the service needs help. Not very friendly, not very attentive, took forever…

Great for Happy Hour! The wings are delicious and various flavors. It is kid friendly!

A local told me to hit this place up. Dude was on the level. Beers and mixed drinks were a dollar apiece (Monday special) and the wings were all kinds of awesome. A little more restaurant than bar, but the wait staff is solid.
Come here on a Monday. It’s the best $ 15.00 you’ll spend all week.

Nice to see some things never change. It’s been over 5 years since being here and it was just as fantastic as I remember it. We got the smoky mountain BBQ and hot boneless wings and the sauces were just a flavorful as I remember them.

Best wings in Iowa City … quite possibly in all of Iowa!

I really enjoyed the atmosphere most when I ate at Vine and I will definitely go again. I would recommend their wings over all else and I’d say the best time to stop in is during a Hawks game (if you can get a seat). I give it only 3 stars because I did not receive great service the night I went, and my burger was just a bit above average. However I do recommend going, just not over a place like Stella.

The place has definitely gone through changes. They recently renovated the entire space and it was a much needed upgrade. They have great specials Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. LOVE their wing sauce selection (pretty big menu as well) and you can’t go wrong with the stein specials. Really great place to watch sports with their brand new TVs. Comfortable and friendly atmosphere — very informal and good place to hangout with friends and family.

Went to Vine for the first night a few weekends ago. Heard their wings were some of the best in town. I thought they were good, they are pretty thin and crispy which is how I like wings but for someone who wants a lot of meat on their wings this is probably not the place to go. We got the Maple Hot sauce on the wings, but we tasted absolutely no sweetness. I honestly think they just put regular hot sauce on them. However, they still tasted good so no complaints.
Also ordered the French Dip sandwich, just mediocre. The meat on the sandwich was a little fatty and grisly, and the au jus really had to flavor at all. The fries were pretty decent however.
We were there for happy hour which is pretty decent and we got some good beer for relatively cheap. Service was fine. Only other complaint is that a table of about ten males sat down right near our booth and were talking abnormally loud, essentially screaming to the people sitting right next to them. That ruined the meal a little.

The absolute worst, most appalling service I’ve ever experienced, on any given night of the week. Understaffed with incompetent employee’s, there are next to zero redeeming qualities of the Vine in Iowa City (however, no complaints with the Coralville location). The food is good, but make sure you call ahead three weeks in advance to have your order started, because that’s about how long you’ll wait. If I owned or managed the Vine (in Iowa City), I’d be embarrassed.

I feel like you can always tell a place by their salads. If a restaurant cares enough to give you good quality ingredients in a salad they probably put love into the rest of their food. (I’ve worked in a good number of restaurants in my day). This was not the case here. I’ve eaten here 2 times and I don’t think I’ll be eating here again any time soon. The first time I ordered a salad that came to me with brown/​slimy iceberg lettuce. Which I couldn’t eat.
The second time I ordered chicken strips and fries. They were good, but the same old thing you can get anywhere else.

By far the best bar in Iowa City. I was quite a regular there in college and
loved every minute. Their hot wings are the best in town. The rest of the food is decent bar food, but I come for the drinks and atmosphere.
Drink the $ 2.50 Vine steins and $ 1 Apple pie shots!
Oh and the bloody mary’s are the bomb!