♪♪ [Kohlsdorf] We're taking the Avenue of the Saints to Iowa City, where two local legends have teamed up to preserve a classic diner tradition nearly a century in the making.

Just blocks from the University of Iowa campus sits the Hamburg Inn No.

2.

Since the 1940s, this cozy diner has served as a gathering place for students, writers, and locals alike.

Inside, you'll find Formica tables, old photos on the walls, and a menu that spans farm fresh eggs and pancakes to smash burgers and signature pie shakes thick enough to stand a spoon.

[Boy Diner] My favorite one is French silk.

It's the best thing ever.

[Male Diner] My first time, Jamar told me to come.

This is some of the best food I've had in Iowa.

I'm not gonna lie.

[Female Diner] I'm in Iowa City here with my sister who lives nearby, and I asked her before I go back I wanted to have the best pork loin tenderloin sandwich, and she brought me here, and it was excellent.

[Kohlsdorf] The original Hamburg Inn sold nickel burgers on Iowa Avenue near the Old Capitol.

This location opened on North Linn Street in 1948, hence number two.

After an ownership change in 2016 and tough pandemic years, the eatery's future looked, well, shaky.

That's when a hometown hero called an audible.

[Nate Kaeding] I'm a local local.

I was born and raised just up the street on the mean streets of Coralville, Iowa.

Grew up in the 80s and 90s here and went and played college football here in the early 2000s and a lot of great memories of the Hamburg Inn.

[Kohlsdorf] After his career at Kinnick, Nate Kaeding was drafted by the NFL's San Diego Chargers.

He would spend nine seasons with the team, becoming one of the most accurate kickers in the NFL.

But eventually this Hawk flew home.

In 2023, the Hamburg Inn became the third restaurant venture for Keating's current team, Gold Cap Hospitality.

[Nate Kaeding] We got a great reaction.

I mean, this has been such a beloved place.

I think people generally were excited, but that we also felt a fair amount of pressure.

We worked with Dave Panther, the old owner, as well as looking at a bunch of old photographs and trying to find a real tasteful way to kind of bring it back to life, lighten things up, put some new light fixtures, some wallpaper, kept the cool memorabilia and the photographs from people visiting here.

Dave Panther, the previous owner, founder, his founding family of the Hamburg Inn, was really a genius marketer and knew in the early 2000s, late 90s that Iowa had this really special place first and first in the country for the caucuses.

All the candidates coming to town with them come local and national media.

There's no better way as a business owner than have a bunch of cameras show up.

He came up with this coffee bean caucus idea, which is you put a big jar of coffee beans, you come in, you've got all the candidates, their own little mason jar, and you take the coffee bean, put it in the jar, and you get to place your kind of straw vote, right?

[Kohlsdorf] The Hamburg Inn's iconic political status was verified when it was featured in an episode of NBC's The West Wing.

[LynNell Hancock] My family moved here in 1962, and we lived right around the corner from here.

My dad, on Saturday nights would order hamburgers by phone from Hamburg Inn No.

2, and then he'd say, Little Nell, let me time you so you can run back here and get them.

It feels like the old diner.

It's a little more lively than it used to be, but the floor is still the same, I think.

And the booths and the color, which is very retro and funky and just feels like home.

♪♪