Best places to stay/eat

Have a trip to Ames coming up. Wondering where the best places to stay/eat are. Any suggestions?

Best places to stay/eat

Hickory Park is the best (local) place to eat. Large reasonable menu and tons of ice cream selections. We live in Des Moines, about 30 miles, and drive up just to eat

www.hickoryparkames.com

Best places to stay/eat

If you like pizza, I also recommend Great Plains Sauce %26amp; Dough Co. in downtown Ames. The whole wheat crust pies are great!

Just a clarification: Great Plains Sauce %26amp; Dough has pizza pies (vs. dessert pies).

There is a really good Indonesian restaurant called Bali Satay. It is right on Lincoln Way across from the lake. My suggestion is go for lunch and you won%26#39;t have to deal with crazy college kids.

There is also another BBQ place called Battles and it is on Welch.

There is also a hole in the wall Chinese place called Chinese Home Style Cooking. You have to be a little adventurous to try it, but it well worth it.

I%26#39;m going to brave heresy and say that I think Hickory Park is overrated. Sure, it%26#39;s good classic homestyle Iowa food, and probably worth a stop since it%26#39;s part of the local culture, but in my opinion there are better restaurants than HP.

My very favorite is The Cafe which serves locally sourced foods when possible and is dangerously yummy. The menu is seasonal and I think they have very reasonable prices considering the high quality of food and cooking.

www.thecafeames.com

I second the Cafe suggestion. It%26#39;s fabulous! I also really like The Spice on Main Street. It%26#39;s very tasty Thai food. http://www.thespiceames.com/.

As far as where to stay, Gateway is an Ames classic and a pretty nice place. http://www.gatewayames.com/. Their site seems to be down right now...not sure why.

There%26#39;s also a very cool B%26amp;B called The MonteBello that I highly recommend. http://www.montebellobandbinn.com/.

I agree with the Gateway as a good place to stay. Reasonable priced and very nice. For restaurants, my favorite is Cafe Shi which is Asian inspired. Very good and locally owned. It%26#39;s on Grand avenue right north of the North Grand Mall in a shopping area called Northern Lights. If you%26#39;re staying at the Gateway, the West End Pub is good food also. Just get back on Hwy 30 and go to the next exit west (South Dakota Avenue) and it%26#39;s right there at the exit. If you%26#39;re into organic food, we have a great organic coop grocery store called Wheatsfield that is one of my favorite places in Ames. It just opened it%26#39;s new expanded store featuring a deli that is awesome. We love to get deli food and head out to Aida Hayden Park right north of Ames on Hwy 69 for a picnic.

I agree with the other post that Hickory Park is overrated. If you want BBQ, Battles is much better. Hickory Park is one of those very touristy things that people who come to Ames think they have to try. It used to be very good when it was a small ';hole in the wall'; place that could only seat about 20 people at at time. It%26#39;s now mass produced food and not near as good as the orginal.