Who Owns Graze?

 

Graze is a Locally Owned Business:

Graze Gourmet To-Go was started by Peter, Kim and Evan Harman. Like many small restaurants, our story is one of survival. 

 

Peter Harman, The Food guru spent 20 years working in resort hotels in Florida - he moved to Iowa in 1996 to start Martini's Grille in Burlington, Iowa. Peter & Kim opened Graze on College Street in 2007.  We moved to our current location in 2021.

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Modern Day - 2026

​We believe people want to feed their family something delicious and nutritious - AT HOME, but they rarely have time to cook.

 

We believe that local businesses and team leaders want to feed their people GREAT food, but they usually end up with underwhelming fast food, soggy pizza or cold sandwiches. 

 

We believe there is a Better Way..!

We believe Catering and Takeout is the New Culinary Frontier.  

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Great Food TO-GO: 

Our food is designed to travel

We have excellent to-go containers that keep hot food hot and cold food cold.

TAKEOUT & CATERING is WHAT we do...  
We FOCUS 100% on Great Food TO-GO..!

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We Feed Business Groups:

When it's Really Important and It's Gotta Be Great...

Let Graze do the work - it's what we do.

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We Feed Athletes:

We have the pleasure of feeding Iowa Hawkeye Athletes since 2010. Football, Baseball, Mens and Womens Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Softball, Rowing, Gymnastics, Golf, and even The Wrestlers. 

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We Cater Weddings and Up-Scale Events

We have catered some really cool weddings and prestigious events, in some really cool places, including Kinnick Stadium, The Iowa Presidents Residence, The Childrens Hospital and Ted Pasha's Garage. We would love to cater for you too. 

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Graze History - 2007-2017:

Graze opened in 2007 at 115 E. College St. In the Pedestrain Mall in downtown Iowa City.  At night, Graze was a really cool 10 table cocktail bar that specialized is sharable food... a concept we call Grazing, hence the name... Graze.

 

The Graze Bar featured cutting edge Martini's and Cocktails, in fact we won the Press Citizen Award for Best Cocktails 10 years in a row.  During the day, we served a delicious lunch buffet. We did that because we knew the thing people really want for lunch is... Speed. 

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Graze History 2018 - 2021:

In 2018 our little 10 table restaurant did 1.8 Million dollars in annual sales, an incredible feat for such a small place!  However; in 2019, the City of Iowa City, closed the street in front of Graze for 9 Months. This was NOT good.

 

Then, in 2020... We did the Covid Thing. Then, in 2021, our landlord sold the building and the new landlord, knocked our kitchen down... To build The Nest. So we scrambled and moved to our current location at 345 S. Dubuque St.  

 

2021 Forward - The Post Covid World
We didn't want to re-build Graze the way it was, because we believe the future of Iowa City will look quite different from the past. Morphing from a Full Serve Restaurant, to a Takeout and Catering Business... was a stressful and arduous task. The process was one step forward and one step backwards, then crash... Then, re-start again, then crash again.

 

Our objective was always to fail forward with a creative process we now call Thrashing. If you are a Graze supporter, you witnessed it first hand. The truth is... We are all making this up on the fly, adapting to the changing times in a post Covid World. 

 

It has taken almost five years to figure out WHAT Graze Gourmet To-Go is... Today we are proud of what we have accomplished and We Thank You for Your patience.  

 

We believe this is the greatest time in human history to be alive and living in Iowa. 

 

Our goal is to be your Go To Place for Gourmet Catering and Takeout. We are just getting warmed up.

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Update 2024 - Graze Gourmet To-Go Won
The Community Choice Award for Best Caterer - Wow! 

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Community, Community, Community:

We believe in giving back and paying it forward. We are privileged to work with many local non-profit organizations, including, the Free Lunch Program, The Shelter House, AYA Cancer Research, The Chris Street Memorial Golf Tournament, No Foot Too Small, The Stead Family Childrens Hospital, to name a few.  We don't tell you this to brag, we tell you this because it is part of our corporate mission to give back to the community, it is in our DNA. Perhaps we can help your non-profit organization. 

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​Thanks for reading this far and I hope to see you soon. 

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Chef Peter Harman, The Food Guru