The Newton Hy-Vee is adding a Market Café restaurant to its store, with construction scheduled to take six to seven weeks followed by a week-and-half-long training period.
“We’re in our second week of remodel putting in a Market Café,” Newton Hy-Vee Store Director Todd Fox.
Hy-Vee’s corporate office has been implementing different restaurant models into its stores, such as the Market Café or Market Fresh Grill.
“Corporate decided for the size of our town, we would have had better success with the Market Café,” Fox said.
The café menu features chicken wings, nachos, flatbread pizza, burgers, chicken sandwiches and more.
“I’m really excited about the menu,” Fox said. “They debuted the burgers, and it’s a different type of burger that we haven’t carried before made with different flavors that they put together. Our chefs did extensive testing with panels and groups. The burgers are really good. Some of the features on our menu are also carried at the Market Fresh Grill from the Urbandale and Waukee stores.”
The Market Café also will feature a beer and wine bar. The bar will have four draft beers and a limited selection of bottle beers. The restaurant will have a limited selection of wine by the glass or certain wines by the bottle as well.
“We will feature a couple of domestic choices on tap and a beer that is brewed in Des Moines at Confluence Brewery,” Fox said. “We will have a couple of Iowa beers by the bottle. Millstream Brewery will have some representation as well as a beer brewed in Knoxville.”
Hy-Vee will continue to have special dinners like the store has had in the past.
“They will be more ran out of the café as opposed to the buffet style, but as far as prices go, they will be comparable,” Fox said.
The restaurant daily deals have been planned for the café, including Monday being $5 Wings Night and a half-priced wine night. The restaurants will have Sunday brunches, including a Bloody Mary bar to make your own Bloody Mary with your own ingredients.
All of the kitchen departments will still be available just like they are now. Chinese, Italian and kitchen customers can go right into the restaurant, sit down and enjoy their meal just like they do now, Fox said.
One big change will be the elimination of the all-you-can-eat salad bar. Fox said customers will have to pay for each salad individually now.
The restaurant will add five full-time positions and 35 part-time positions to the Newton Hy-Vee.
“We have filled the full-time positions from within the store, but we are hiring for the part-time positions for wait staff, bartenders and line cooks,” Fox said.
The café will continue to open at 5:30 a.m. and stay open until 9 p.m. each day. Fox indicated that if demand calls for it, the café will remain open to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.