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Chad Rhym / Little Village
Cedar Rapids: The Bohemian
New Bohemian The 128-year-old Matyk Building has lived many lives, but its current form—a marriage of art and food—feels like the perfect fit. BY TIFFANI GREEN
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he building that sits at 1029 3rd St SE in Cedar Rapids has roots almost as deep as the city itself. It was erected by the Matyk family, immigrants from Czechoslovakia, in 1893, only 44 years after the city was incorporated. The building began its life as a dry goods store, with the family living upstairs. The family operated the business until the late ’40s, when it became the home of Mid States Distribution, a consumer electronics store. The structure has had several lives over the years, including being the early home of the NewBo Bike Collective. But if, like me, you were in your late teens in the early 2000s, you probably
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remember 1029 3rd St most vividly as the Candleworks Building. This phase of the building’s life began when it was purchased by Lynette and Michael Richards in 1999. At the time, Lynette was a counselor at Metro High School, and Michael had invented soy candle wax and founded Soyawax International. The building served as an arts space for Lynette’s students, Soyawax’s marketing offices and the couple’s home. As Candleworks, the building
played host to performances that ran the gamut from plays to hip-hop shows. As a teen and young 20-something, I attended art shows and watched my friends’ bands play. As a young mother, I attended an art and music performance that LV’s very own Jordan Sellergren organized for us and our friends’ young children. The space gave many people a launching pad for creative endeavors that lasted beyond their high school years. Such was its influence that the building and WATCH Graffiti its performances were featured in a documentaVerite V. ry, Graffiti Verite V. Los Angeles filmmaker Bob Bryan shot footage of a four-day Metro High School hip hop workshop that took place in the Candleworks space. Like most of Czech Village, Candleworks was a victim of the 2008 flood, taking on 12 feet of water. In the aftermath of the disaster, aided by a grant from the city, Lynette and Michael undertook a painstaking restoration of the building, removing the white paint from the exterior to reveal the original red brick and limestone, adding new steel support beams and giving the building a new façade. The Bohemian is the result of a 20-year labor of love reflecting the couple’s travels and love of art. It’s an eclectic, glamorous rabbit warren housing over 100 pieces of art gathered from 20 states, seven different countries and spanning three centuries. The space functions as a restaurant, venue and gallery and is divided into different zones, including a wine cellar accessible via a reclaimed spiral staircase, an atrium, a French salon and the main floor Matyk Café, named for the building’s original owners. And there isn’t a television to be found, encouraging visitors to take in their surroundings and engage with those around them. True to their long history, Lynette and Michael are keeping things local when it comes to the restaurant’s offerings. The chef and sous chef are both veterans of CR restaurants: Head chef Josh Lafferty has worked in the kitchens of community favorites such as Riley’s, Butcher Block and White Star and sous chef Ian Trask was formerly the head chef at Daniel Arthur’s. The menu was inspired by dishes the owners tried as they traveled up and down the Mississippi River: items such as brisket, ribs and pulled pork, with creative twists added by Lafferty to make them the Bohemian’s own. Meats are smoked on site and nearly everything is made in house, with Lafferty and Trask creating the recipes for the signature sauces themselves. The restaurant’s vendors and suppliers are local, too. Produce comes from area farms such as Abbe Hills, Echollective and Jupiter Ridge, and herbs are grown by Lynette and Michael themselves. The 1st Avenue Wine House helped curate the wine collection, and the bar will feature Iowa beers. The venture also remains a family affair. Three generations of the Richards family work there, including Michael and Lynette, their two sons and a daughter-in-law and their granddaughters. The restaurant is using a fast-casual service model, in which customers order at a window and then their food is delivered to the table. And now for the food. My original plans for trying the Bohemian for the first time included ordering dinner and a
