Dining / Restaurants

Service, prices keep Maid-Rite customers coming back for decades

By Stephanie De Pasquale | Saturday, September 06, 2008 | () comments

Larry Fisher/Quad-City Times The Maid-Rite restaurant at 1622 Rockingham Road in Davenport offers daily breakfast, lunch and dinner specials. Buy this Photo

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Four or five times a week for the past 11 years, Jeanette Holmes has come to the Maid-Rite on Davenport’s west end, eaten breakfast and then stayed for coffee, friends and the Wonderword word search puzzle in the Quad-City Times.

“That’s my time out,” Holmes said. “That’s my quiet time.”

Holmes’ favorite breakfast item is pancakes with strawberries, but she’s been trying to cut back and order it less recently. When she’s not eating pancakes, Holmes orders the classic because she says the price is reasonable. The classic with a cup of coffee comes to $5.02 with tax and includes two eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns and toast. On Saturdays the price of a classic drops to $2.99 between 6 and 11 a.m.

Holmes said the only thing that keeps her from coming to Maid-Rite for breakfast is a doctor’s appointment that she has to fast for.

Dawn Stewart, Maid-Rite manager, has worked at the west-end restaurant almost as long as Holmes has been coming in for breakfast. Stewart said Holmes is just one of several customers who eat at Maid-Rite several times a week, and she even has one customer who eats all three meals a day there.

“We have a lot of first-name basis. We can tell what car they drive when they pull into the lot to know what to cook,” Stewart said.

A friendly atmosphere, low costs and being one of a few sitdown restaurants left in the west end is what keeps customers coming back, Stewart said.

In addition to the classic, other Maid-Rite specialties include the original Maid-Rite, which is $2.90 for the loose meat sandwich, $5.45 for a sandwich and fries and $6.85 for the sandwich, fries and a shake. On Mondays and Fridays the sandwich price drops even lower to 99 cents. On Thursdays Maid-Rite offers a triple cheeseburger with fries and a drink for $4.95. Most of the lunch and dinner entrees are under $7.

Maid-Rite manages to keep its prices low because even though it is corporate-owned, each establishment can set its own prices. Stewart also makes sure only to order what they need, and every meal is made to order to ensure nothing is wasted.

But while price is a big factor that has kept customers like Holmes coming back for more than a decade, the service is really what draws Holmes back again and again.

“They’re just really good to me,” Holmes said as her coffee cup was refilled more than an hour after she finished her pancakes with strawberries. “They know me when I come in and they say ‘Hi’ to me and ‘How are you?’ They’re very nice.”

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.

$10 or less

What: Maid-Rite

Hours: 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

Where: 1622 Rockingham Road, Davenport

Specialties: Breakfast classic, Maid-Rite, triple cheeseburger

Where’s your favorite spot?: Do you know of a Quad-City area restaurant, bar or entertainment venue where a meal or a night out costs $10 or less per person? Give your ideas to entertainment reporter Stephanie De Pasquale.