A new breakfast and lunch spot has taken over a well-worn stretch of Boyrum Street in Iowa City, dishing out skillets, benedicts and pork tenderloin sandwiches from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Golden Yolk Breakfast and Lunch opened Aug. 25 at 1755 Boyrum St., next to the Salvation Army, in a building that most recently housed Taco Loco before that restaurant closed over a year ago.
The menu leans into classic diner comfort with pancakes, French toast, biscuits and gravy, eggs benedict and diced potato skillets, according to The Gazette. Lunch options round things out with burgers, sandwiches, fries and onion rings. Reporting from 98.1 KHAK adds further detail on the specialty side, describing Steak and Southern skillets, regional Benedict variations like the IOWA and Country Benedicts, Chicken & Waffles, crepes, classic Iowa pork tenderloin sandwiches and California chicken paninis.
A Building That Keeps Changing Hands
The Boyrum Street address has a long history of dining turnover. Before Taco Loco, the same building was home to Vietnamese restaurant Pho Lucky, which opened in November 2018, and before that, Frontier Family Restaurant, according to a 2019 report from Little Village Magazine. Golden Yolk now marks at least the fourth restaurant concept to occupy the space in less than a decade.
The strip sits within a commercially active corridor. Real estate records reviewed by Zillow show the commercial stretch at 1705–1755 Boyrum St. sits adjacent to the Waterfront Hy-Vee shopping plaza just south of US Highway 6, an arterial road carrying an estimated 23,000 vehicles a day. The location also falls within Iowa City's So.6 Business District, an organized area focused on commercial revitalization and supporting diverse enterprises on the city's south side, according to economic development agency Greater Iowa City, Inc.
Part Of A Broader Breakfast Boom
Golden Yolk's debut lines up with a wider uptick in new morning dining across Johnson County. The same KHAK report notes that Golden Yolk's launch coincided with another major late-summer opening, Butter & Jam Café, which set up in a repurposed former Arby's location on 1st Avenue in nearby Coralville.
Some local diners see practical value in a south-side breakfast option beyond the momentum of new openings. Discussions on Reddit in August noted that a breakfast venue on Boyrum Street gives locals an off-downtown option to avoid heavy traffic and long wait times during University of Iowa Hawkeye football game weekends.
An Egg-Forward Menu In The Nation's Top Egg State
Golden Yolk's benedict-and-skillet-heavy menu lands in a state that dominates national egg production. Data released in February 2025 by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service shows Iowa produced 13.4 billion eggs in 2024 from an average inventory of 43.8 million laying hens, more than any other state. That flock relies on an extensive in-state supply chain: industry records from the Iowa Egg Council indicate Iowa's laying hens consume roughly 55 million bushels of Iowa-grown corn and more than 500,000 tons of soybean meal each year, underscoring how tightly the state's egg and grain economies are linked.
