Iowa Restaurants

There's a dish to satisfy every taste at Spaghetti Works, where diners can customize meals to their hearts’ and mouths’ content. Plates of fettuccini or whole-wheat mostaccioli can be enjoyed with sweet italian sausage, beer-cheese sauce, and a wide variety of other toppings. Meanwhile, the restaurant's cooks also prepare classic Italian dishes, such as homemade lasagna and shrimp scampi, and craft gluten-free pizzas and pasta bowls. Diners can cap meals with beer, wine, a cocktail, or more than 20 flavors of Italian sodas.

Known as a family-friendly establishment, Spaghetti Works delights both children and adults with its quirky decor. All three locations feature red-checkered tablecloths and vintage model T trucks, the backs of which hold salad bars with all the fixings. And at all three locations, guests can admire the setting sun from an outdoor patio—a sight almost as beautiful as that of a kitten hatching from its shell.

Jazzercise is 60 minutes of cardio, strength training, and stretching that incorporates moves from hip-hop, yoga, Pilates, jazz dance, kickboxing, and resistance training with handheld weights. Dancing With the Stars multiple-champion Cheryl Burke is a big fan of Jazzercise's improvisational workouts, though luckily you won't need her dance moves to get the most out of your class. If you're prone to first-class jitters, though, you can review the basic moves online before you go. Expect to burn off up to 500 calories with each go-round.

Licensed and trained in outsmarting gravity, the pilots at Advanced Air Incorporated teach their trade to all newcomers, regardless of experience. Before the flight aboard a majestic Cessna 172, students receive expert insight from ace pilots, learning the ups and downs of controlling a mechanical bird. As each flight commences, instructor copilots will handle the complicated calculations and gizmatronic gadgetry before passing the reigns and putting students in control. Throughout the process, the instructors happily answer any questions regarding the experience, the plane, or how to get a scarf to flap vigorously on a calm, windless day. Once the plane lands, pilots-to-be are debriefed and provided with a logbook, where they can record their journey and note that flying is a lot like surfing web-based satellite maps, only with significantly less loading time and far more double-handed high-tens.

Featuring professional staff members, an impeccably maintained course, and true-rolling greens arranged according to the position of 18 miniature meteor craters, The Ridge offers a golf experience for clubbers both skilled and woefully handicapped. A full round of evasive holes ($25 weekdays, $27 weekends) tantalizes cleek caressers and promises more excitement than a ruptured appendix. A golf-cart rental ($15) and a medium bag of range balls ($5) are included in the package, as well as a caged self-loathing that, according to The Ridge’s policies, can be unleashed upon any golfer who putts an eagle.

Barley’s builds culinary character by guiding its delicious menu of traditional burger and steak fare through a series of exhausting yet rewarding victual rituals. Start with homemade flour chips ($5.95) with cheddar cheese and salsa as a way of making peace with growling stomach Gorgons. Equip both fists with a smokehouse burger (with cheddar, barbecue sauce, and bacon, $7.95) and a guacamole burger ($8.45), or contemplate the trinity of a triple club ($7.95) served with ham, turkey, bacon, and more between two slabs of marble rye. There are also a number of options for the vegetarian crowd, including the garden burger ($7.95) and garden Philly ($7.75), each stocked with 100% vegan patties. In between bites of burgers, steaks, and salads, sip on some fresh-squeezed ales and lagers from the bottle or tap, with varieties spanning the intoxicating rainbow from micro and macro brews.

A procession of blips and blinks marches through Planet X's arcade room. The noise and neon spills over and accents the facility's surroundings, where guests can zap their least favorite cousins during laser tag, release pent-up road rage in bumper cars, or just stand, flabbergasted by the number of activities available. Though interactive entertainment is its bread and butter, Planet X also features a sports lounge with flat-screen TVs, beer, wine, and views of the kitchen staff tossing pizzas by hand.