Our May event was hosted by Craig and Cindy Masterson on Sunday, May 21st at the Diamond Mineral Springs Restaurant. DMSR is located at 1 W Pocahontas Rd, Highland (Grantfork), IL. By the most direct route, the restaurant is an easy 35-mile drive from downtown St. Louis.
In 1888 the Diamond Mineral Springs Health Spa and Resort was opened. The associated hotel was torn down in 1957, but the restaurant dining room (1897) and dance hall (1892) look much the way they did when they were built over a century ago, making DMSR Madison County's (and maybe Illinois’s) oldest restaurant in continuous operation.
The restaurant specializes in family-style meals. Meals are served with bowls of cole-slaw, beets, mashed potatoes & milk gravy, homestyle green beans, and buttermilk biscuits & apple butter. The entrée specialty is fried chicken, but other entrees available are baked or BBQ chicken, chicken & dumplings, livers & gizzards, country ham steak, boneless ribeye pork chops, roast pork & dressing, homemade pork sausage (with a German sweet & sour red cabbage), fried walleye, beer-battered cod, fried or coconut shrimp, country fried steak and surf & turf.
After lunch we proceeded to the Copper Dock Winery, a short 8-mile drive, due east, located at 498 700 N, Pocahontas, Illinois
