Buddy’s Place

This is a nice little small town place, clearly geared toward serving locals over travelers. We ran across it traveling the scenic route between Des Moines, IA and Columbia, MO.
Buddy’s has a wonderful home town feel that is familiar to me from growing up in a small town myself. The floors are a little sloped, the décor has walls covered with new and old signs, the tables and chairs are mixed and matched. Keno is offered, but we didn’t play.
I. LOVE. The. Place.
We were strangers, but made to feel at home by both waitresses who were on duty.
We ordered Buddy’s special #4, a «Big» breaded tenderloin, split for 2, with homemade fries. The fries are perfect, and the tenderloin is one of the best I have ever enjoyed — juicy, tender, perfectly crisped homemade breading, enormous (really not kidding, freak of nature huge). For us, it was food for 2 and then some.
Plan on cash, or use their ATM with an affordable $ 2 fee. They don’t accept plastic.
Incidentally, we were happy to be back in 5 bars of Sprint 4g LTE data coverage in the restaurant.
The full package:
Great food in plentiful quantities
Super affordable (the plate for 2 was a wallet sparing $ 10.50, and Pepsi was $ 1)
Great small town atmosphere
Over the top service
In summary, we each ate about ¹⁄₃ of of our ½ tenderloin gorged on fresh cut fries, and were billed a whopping $ 11.50 +tax +tip and left feeling stuffed and happy.

Gluten Free in the middle of nowhere! :) We spoke with the manager and she was very accomodating for my nephew and myself. We had the grilled tederloion (without breading), mashed potatoes, and tater skins that were microwaved instead of fried. Her mother has celiac disease so it was refreshing to be so far from a major city and have someone knows how to serve gluten free!