Ronneburg Restaurant

My daughter and I celebrated my Birthday here Oct. 5^th. We were greeted by two people who made us feel very welcome. Our waitress was the best I’ve had anywhere — she was terrific! She immediately brought the side dishes for the family style meals. The fried potatoes are just like Grandma made. I had the ham (very tender and a 1# portion. Wow!) My daughter had a steak cooked just how she wanted. She had a piece of chocolate pie and I had the most decadent chocolate pecan caramel cake!!! We will only go to the Ronneburg when @ the Amanas. Thank you for making my Birthday a very, very, special one. I would give you 10 stars, if possible.

This was my favorite restaurant during a recent trip to eastern Iowa!
We spent a rainy afternoon in the charming Amana Colonies visiting with family. They have been to Ronneburg Restaurant before and enjoyed it so we decided to have dinner there. We were seated fairly quick and our waiter was very professional and kind, even when our rambunctious party got a little tipsy.
I ordered the small smoked sausage plate that came with a few sides — coleslaw, rye bread, sauerkraut, green beans, and crispy potatoes. I kid you not — EVERYTHING was perfect and EVERYTHING was delicious. The sausages were fresh and perfectly seasoned. The green beans and coleslaw were fantastic and the sauerkraut was perfectly pickled and not too salty. I tried a few bites of the Amana-​style cottage cheese (same as regular but with fresh chopped chives) and it was also very good. The house wines were above-​par and I enjoyed my glass of Chardonnay. We got a couple slices of chocolate cream pie to go and ate them gleefully at home. Very rich, decadent, and the crust was still crisp.
I definitely recommend having dinner here if you’re visiting the Amana Colonies!

I’m not sure where anyone else reviewing this place has ever eaten but we thought it was horrible! My German ancestors be mortified? Nothing was homemade, over cooked tasteless entrees accompanied by canned corn. We’re in Iowa for heaven’s sake, CANNED corn?! The dusty plastic flowers on the table were the frosting on the cake. NEVER AGAIN will we eat here!

We were here yesterday for lunch. We were here many years ago for a family style breafast which was great so we decided to come back again, This restaurant has been in business since 1860. Before that it was a communal kithcen for the original German settlement there. Lots of history here which has been preserved. The staff is very willing to educate you in it also which adds to the charm of this place. The restaurant is very clean and the service very good. The place was packed and we had a 20 minute wait. If you have group I would suggest a reservation especially for the breakfast,
My wife had a salad. Good sized but nothing fancy. She said the blue cheese dressing was really good. The only problem was that it was on too small of a plate so everything kept falling off the plate. I had one of he family style dinners. This not only meant large portions but also 6 sides that were refillable as many times as you wanted. They were large enough that one person could probably not get past one round. The sides were German style pan fried potaoes, corn, pickled beets, cole slaw saurkraut, dressed up cottage cheese all of which were very good. The plate also came with spatzel and some pickled cold kraut. And or corse bread and butter which is a staple of traditional European meals. I chose a 2 meat plate which my choices were the veal schnitzel and a Jaeger schnitzel. Both were hearty portions. This was the weak link in the meal for me. I have had many of these schnitzels before but these were just ok and nothing special. Maybe even a bit bland compared to others I have had. The mushroom sauce on the Jäger version was blah. They did provide a very nice gravey for you to pour on the rest of the meal as you like. There was also a selection of fresh pies, sandwiches and other smaller plates to choose from on this menu.
I would have given this place 4 stars had it not been for the meat in my meal. I would try this place again to sample something else.

Best Wiener schnitzel in Amana It also Comes with family style meal, a perfect comfort dinner!

Delicious German food. I had the chicken schnitzel. It was very good! The family style sides were delicious, especially the cottage cheese and potatoes with gravy. The waiter was friendly but service was a little slow. Otherwise it was a very good meal.

I know nothing about German food but if this is an example of German food I sure don’t like it. Bland, served cold. Canned corn, instant mashed potatoes, canned gravy, store bought bread on the side. Sauerbrauten was just plain disgusting. 2 bites left an horrible aftertaste in the mouth. The waitress never asked why the plate was pushed to the side uneaten. Paid and left never to go back.

Nice people and so fancy German style dishes.

We both had the Wiener schnitzel which was good, but the best part was all the delicious sides that came with it! Cole slaw, cottage cheese (nothing like store-​bought), pan fried potatoes, Spaetzle, sauerkraut, pickled beets, fresh corn, bread. Good service and nice atmosphere. We ate at the restaurant next door last night and this was far better!

Late Friday lunch. Sweet server.could not have been more friendly and accomodating.
Can I have more sour kraut? More mustard? Can we buy some of this delicious sweet tomato dressing? (The cook could only sell us two cups as she had to use the rest later). We thought it was something they might have bottled up it was so good. Large salad. Lots of usual ingredients.

We ate next door at the Ox Yoke on Saturday night as we were staying overnight at a local B&B. Had some great German food that was very comparable to the food we had in Germany when we lived there for over a year. Staff was very knowledgable about the area, it’s history and German heritage. Thumbs up.
Came to the Ronneburg on a Sunday afternoon. Only one front desk person had any idea what was going on the in the world. The other was nuts. We even considered walking out because she was annoying us and kept babbling about random stuff and we just wanted to be sat in a professional manner but apparently the other staff at the desk was seating a customer and this woman couldn’t seat us in the time being? Whatever. The girl came back and was professional and very nice. Okay, feeling better now. Our waitress took an eternity to get from her station to the table. I mean an eternity! We could have eaten an entire meal in the time it took her to bring us water. She was an older woman and we could tell it was difficult for her to get around… get her out of there! Poor management. She was pretty bland and to-​the-​point, nothing personal about her. Took her forever before she came back for our order. Couldn’t spit out a direct answer to our questions. Took her forever to bring us our food, and there was a massive lag in between the refills on our family-​style.
In the meantime, we had a chance to look around from our seats. It’s pretty homey, although a bit outdated but I understand that’s all part of the appeal. Could use a few touchups but it was clean and cozy. I noticed they were not too busy and yet there were really only two staff members that even appeared to actually be working hard. The front desk gal was working hard with the busser while everyone else stood around and talked, meanwhile we sat hungry. The sauerbraten tasted like leather (with the same consistency) and my husband’s jaeger schnitzel was processed slop on a plate in salty breading. None of the sides were German except for a few, and even those were less than authentic. Pies are not homemade but are frozen and shipped in. Ox Yoke has homemade pies. Food wasn’t even comparable to next door at the Ox Yoke, and the service was by far some of the worst we’ve experienced. She took forever for our bill and couldn’t even take it up for us, we had to go up and pay ourselves like a café or something. Had to deal with the nutty woman at the desk who babbled on about random things and when we asked questions, she had no answers yet the 14-​year old front desk gal who sat us and was running all over doing everyone else’s work had the answers we needed. Crappy staff. Only saw two people in the whole restaurant who were working hard. Ox Yoke was very good with keeping their staff busy. Where is the management here?
Walked through the restaurant just to take a peak and the bar was closed in the middle of the day when everyone is out an about… bad business? There were also bees flying everywhere. Not sure. Employees just sitting at the bar eating and talking, doing nothing. Was mind blowing.
Bad food, bad service. Go to the Ox Yoke!

New owner since we were here last. But very friendly an clean Family style chicken and other German food everything is good

The twin pork chops are some of the best pork chops I’ve ever eaten. The family style with all the fixin’s is the way to go. Our server JC was curteous and enjoyable and made our experience fun. Love this place.

Great authentic German food and a very friendly atmosphere.
Went there with family and we ordered an assortment of dishes and everything was so tasty. I just wish I had left room for some dessert!
They even honored a hand written discount note given to us by a local shopkeeper.
A must when visiting Amana.

I recently visited this restaurant as part of a side trip I took when my mother and I went to see my son at his school for family weekend. We were both rather disappointed. The soup was very good and the waitress was nice. That is where the positive side of this review stops. My mom had the Reuben and it looked like sliced lunch meat (3 thin slices) and didn’t taste much better. My mom didn’t even finish the sandwich. I had the chicken schnitzel sandwich which wasn’t bad, it just didn’t have much taste. I doubt we will be returning.

I took German in High School and my brother served in the Army in Germany so this makes me a German food expert, yah?
We were driving from our place to Ames and decided to stop in the Amana colonies for lunch. Much to my delight, the restaurant specialized in German food and it was great. I had weinerschnitzel with spaetzl and sauerkraut. It was all sehr gut. I ate every bit of it and some of the sausage that my table companions had split.
Plus, my favorite pie in all the world for dessert, Pumpkin.
If I could, I would return. Just to make sure it was as delicious as the first time.

I was hesitant going here because of the other Unilocal reviews. But I wasn’t disappointed.
We had the family style breakfast. The pancakes are out of this world. Firm eggy and crispy. It also came with a mound of bacon! Can’t go wrong there.
The service was great! She was super friendly and made sure our water was always full.

Food and service were ok. I’ve been to the ox yoke in the past and had a better experience. Overall good but not great.

I was greatly disappointed with our visit to this restaurant tonight on my 15^th anniversary.
Upon arrival, we were seated immediately; however, we waited for over ten minutes before we were even greeted by someone.
When the waitress finally appeared, she didn’t ask for drink orders nor explained the menu, she just wanted our order. She said everything was good and didn’t take any time to help us choose (it was our first time at a «German» style restaurant).
From there things got much worse. There was an enormous lag in between each course (when we were ignored at best) and when she finally did return, the waitress spilled a glass of water on our table, left to get a new one, and never returned with a towel to clean up the water which, at this point, had run entirely across our table. We asked the host to help and he stood there, flabbergasted that there was water on our table. He went to retrieve a towel and returned with two small napkins and then couldn’t understand why we needed more. It was almost comical if I weren’t so annoyed.
We eventually received our dinner which was marginal, the sauerbraten was painfully dry. When we left, the host struggled for many minutes with the credit card machine. Overall, the food was not impressive and the service was seriously awful. This is a long enough post already, but I could go on about the poor service. I will NOT return here. Ever.

So far the sides were delicious, not fancy looking but simply delicious. Cole slaw, cottage cheese, pickle beet.