Food, games and more in unique, rural setting
by Paul Newton | pnewton@ruralmissouri.coop
The kitchen perched atop the hill in Osage County is hustling. A pulled pork mac and cheese bowl heads to the movie theater. Chicken and waffles are taken poolside. A cheeseburger is being plated for a golfer about to hit the links and grilled salmon over rice is on its way to a hungry bowler. Osage View isn’t your run-of-the-mill rural restaurant experience; it’s a meal with a generous side of fun.
“The restaurant is the heart and soul of everything we do here,” says Renee Braun, director of Osage View in Linn. “People come for the food, then stay to play.”
Osage View opened in 2023 and quickly became a mid-Missouri destination for food and entertainment. Led by chef Jerad Shafer, the restaurant focuses on housemade meals with fresh, local ingredients.
It began when the struggling Osage Country Club merged with the growing State Technical College of Missouri. “The idea behind Osage View was a student recruitment tool with something for everyone, and at State Tech we always like to go big,” says State Tech President Shawn Strong. “Since those early conversations in 2019, we’ve transformed the Osage Country Club into a facility that makes people to this day think, ‘What is this doing in Linn, Missouri?’ ”
The school acquired the golf course in 2020 as an outdoor classroom for some of its commercial turf and grounds students. One of their first additions was an academic building used for classes and a Toptracer driving range. The crown jewel, however, was the 31,000-square-foot Osage View, which opened in 2023, featuring the restaurant, duckpin bowling, golf simulators, a pro shop, a pool, a theater and an event space.
Jerad joined Osage View as head chef earlier this year, bringing with him decades of culinary experience. Cooking and presenting upscale dishes has been part of the Fulton native’s life for almost as long as he can remember.
“When I was 6 years old, I was cooking at home and knew that, in my soul, I wanted to be a chef,” says Jerad, who has cooked mostly in Chicago and Texas throughout his career. “I’ve never been able to cook for my friends and family back here. Doing that and bringing my experience here is important for me.”
The food at Osage View walks the line between casual and upscale — handhelds fit for the golf course, entrees fit for date night. The kitchen doesn’t take shortcuts. Sauces are housemade, fish are butchered in-house, bones become stock, tortillas turn into chips and weekend pasta specials feature fresh noodles.
“There’s nothing better than fresh-made food,” Jerad says. “By working with fresh ingredients and plating beautifully, people are amazed. You eat with your eyes first.”
Start with chips and queso, Swiss cheese sticks or kimchi potstickers — crispy dumplings stuffed with chicken, kimchi and vegetables, then drizzled with soy sauce.
Jerad says sandwiches and wraps fly out of the kitchen during lunch. The Buffalo chicken wrap is a crowd favorite, packed with crispy chicken tossed in Buffalo sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion and ranch, all rolled tight in a tortilla. The Bacon Mushroom Swiss Burger is another popular option with a beef patty stacked with bacon, Swiss, sauteed mushrooms and onions and a drizzle of ranch on a brioche bun.
For big appetites, the Smokehouse Burger delivers. A half-pound beef patty from Hertzog Meat Co. in Butler is charbroiled to order, then topped with smoked turkey, bacon, onion rings, cheddar and barbecue sauce. “It has lots of layers of those smoky flavors from the bacon, turkey and sauce,” the chef says.
Entrees at Osage View include a rib-eye, grilled shrimp, veggie rice bowl and the pulled pork mac and cheese bowl, a filling meal featuring their signature macaroni and cheese topped with slow-roasted pulled pork, queso, bacon, barbecue sauce and ranch dressing.
On the weekends, Jerad gets to flex his culinary muscles. Specials range from braised short ribs with sweet potato au gratin to raspberry-chipotle pork chops to surf and turf with a 36-ounce tomahawk rib-eye.
On a recent weekend, Osage View featured a pan-seared Alaskan halibut served over white truffle Parmesan risotto and French brown butter carrots glazed with an orange beurre blanc. For the dish Jerad and his team butchered the halibut, made the risotto using housemade chicken stock and crafted a fresh garlic and parsley oil for plating. “Guaranteed it’s the best bowling alley halibut anyone’s ever had,” Jerad says.
Osage View’s heated igloos overlook the golf course, and the seasonal tapas Igloo Menu meant for sharing will keep diners warm all winter. Jerad’s lineup includes chorizo-stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates — little flavor bombs dusted with brown sugar, roasted and finished with a touch of powdered sugar. “You get the southwestern flavor of the chorizo, smokiness of the bacon and the sweetness of the date and brown sugar,” Jerad says.
Scallops are another favorite. The sizable sea scallops are seared to a golden crust, then finished in orange miso beurre blanc and topped with parsley. “It’s sweet with a slight crunch on the outside,” says Jerad. “The butter almost gives it a nutty flavor.”
For an Instagram-worthy drink, bring a friend and order the spiked apple cider served in a roasted pumpkin. The kitchen hollows and bakes the pumpkin, then pours in hot cider and vodka with fresh apples, oranges, lemons and limes. It’s sure to turn heads.
Renee says the original vision was to create an upscale sports bar. “We’re still sticking to that, but the food our kitchen creates just keeps getting better,” she says. “Every dish is elevated in some way. We take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.”