Olde Heidelberg Restaurant Tavern & Motel

Good food and friendly service but with a little more imagination and effort could be so much more. But don’t let that discourage you — worth a visit for the unique atmosphere of the 150+ year old former inn and stagecoach stop (Hint: cheap and clean hotels rooms available next door if you are visiting the area).
Gourmet food it’s not, but if you are looking for classic old German style peasant food, this place is for you. Step back in time as you walk into the Heidelberg and prepare to experience hearty servings of Waterloo county food with an emphasis on pig extremities.
Very popular with their large Asian clientele are the massive pork hocks that come to the table with a serrated knife sticking out of the top for the required dissection. Where else can you get an order of pig tails slow cooked in a brown sugar sauce and referred to by some as «meat candy». Thin strips of delicious meat encased in a gelatinous sheath of sweet pig fat. Have a hankering for a Limburger cheese sandwich? You’re in luck — you can get one here with a side order of pickles!
For the less adventurous eater there is a rather mediocre pork schnitzel, tender and tasty oven baked ribs, tender roast beef done well, local pork sausages, burgers and broasted (aka fried) chicken. I’d avoid the fish — we’re a long way from the sea and it’s been swimming in the deep freeze before taking a final dip in the deep fryer.
All dinners come with choice of potato (I recommend the homemade real mashed) and choice of vegetable or sauerkraut. I’m a kraut man myself as I think it was created to counter the ill effects of excessive pig fat consumption. If you have room, desserts include locally baked pies.
This is a tavern so for full effect, wash your dinner down with a cold beer and play a game of shuffleboard or pool after dinner. Pretty dull selection of domestic beers on tap but usually have bottles from Block Three Brewery, a craft brewery in nearby St. Jacobs as well as some other premium domestics and imports. Two kinds of wine — white and red.
Thursday nights are wing nights and the place is usually packed with locals devouring baskets of cheap but massive wings available in a variety of dry rubs and sauces and uniquely served with a slice of buttered white bread. If they did only wings, they would achieve a near five star rating.
Their bills are very unique, handwritten and unitemized, but they’ve been doing it that way for over a century and a half so why change now.