With a population of 39 people and not a gas station in sight, it’s little wonder some people drive through Balltown without a second glance. You might not even have time for one.

Some locals might prefer to keep it that way, but herein lays an Iowa treasure: Breitbach’s Country Dining, the oldest continuously operating restaurant and bar in the state of Iowa, and one that’s been in the Breitbach family for five generations.

“It’s down-home mid-American dining at its finest,” says current owner Mike Breitbach, who has followed the path of his great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather and father in owning the restaurant. “We’re very old-fashioned.”

Balltown, located about 15 miles northwest of Dubuque, offers visitors a jewel not only in Breitbach’s restaurant, but in brother Skip Breitbach’s antique store across the street and a scenic overlook along the Great River Road. “On a clear day, you can see 60 miles into Wisconsin,” Breitbach said.

The town’s grocery store, gas station and hardware store all shuttered their windows in the past 15 to 20 years, leaving Breitbach’s Country Dining as Balltown’s largest employer. Two women are now working for their third generation of Breitbachs, and diners still regale Breitbach, 56, with stories about eating lunch at the restaurant with his grandfather in the 1930s.

The restaurant, originally a stagecoach stop, opened in 1852 and changed hands more than a half-dozen times before Breitbach’s great-great-grandfather, Jacob Breitbach, bought the business at auction in 1861. Because Mike Breitbach was the fourth generation of Breitbachs to be born in the second-floor apartment above the restaurant, you could say he was in the restaurant business from birth.

With seating for 247 – each chair is different, a collection from the past 154 years – Breitbach’s serves breakfast, lunch and dinner for about 75 to 100 people seven days a week. Four to five cooks prepare all the dishes from scratch. Breitbach’s wife, Cindy, makes all of the restaurant’s pies – anywhere from eight to 12 flavors are served daily, the most popular being snickerdoodle and red raspberry – as well as the soups, a house specialty. People come from miles for her spaghetti soup, Breitbach says, and the recipe has been printed in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

The restaurant’s classic Iowa entrees include prime rib and Iowa ham steak “that’s larger and finer than any in the area,” Breitbach says. Thursday nights are a nod to the family’s heritage with an all-German buffet that serves everything from German potato pancakes to sauerkraut and German potato salad.

At a restaurant that’s been serving guests since the start of the Civil War, there’s a little something to the ambience that just can’t be duplicated – like the antique signs on the walls, 145 guns hanging on the ceiling, family photos dating back to the Breitbachs’ days in Germany and “antiques so old they’re not antique anymore,” Breitbach says.

“A lot of restaurants try to copy what we do, but they can’t because we’re an original,” he adds.

Breitbach’s seven children got their feet wet early, starting by washing dishes at the restaurant around age 5. With five now in college, he hopes at least one will return and carry Breitbach’s Country Dining into the sixth generation. Even then, he expects things will stay the same around the old place.

“It’s one of Iowa’s few remaining hidden treasures,” Breitbach said.