Gabe's

USA TODAY named it one of 29 Bars of the Year in July 2025, a strange laurel for a room whose general manager, Pete McCarthy, describes it this way: "It's a rock club. I don't want to make it super clean and fancy because people don't want it that way." The name was voted on: patrons picked Gabe & Walker's in 1975, after the two spokesmen in the Falstaff beer ads, and it was shortened in 1979. New owners made it the Picador in 2006; it changed back in 2010. Grace Merritt, who programs the Englert, told the Daily Iowan that "you can't have good acts at the Englert without having the place for artists to grow first." It runs 250-plus shows a year, rates itself minimally accessible, and under-21 patrons have to leave when the show ends.