Amos Dean
LEGEND/FOUNDER
Amos Deans is a company founded on the roots and traditions of the Iowan countryside. Named after the original owners of the property, Amos Dean and Evelyn Lipcamon, Amos Dean’s originated as a homestead of
local foods, Iowa tradition, and Czech culture in 1967.
Amos Dean worked as a butcher at Wilson’s meat packing plant. One day, Amos and his brother Earl came across an old vibration chamber from Rockwell Collins and thought it would make a great smoker. With a little bit of American ingenuity and some liquid encouragement, they converted the old vibration chamber into a smoker and the birth of Amos Dean’s legendary country-style ribs and hams followed soon after. The inspiration and legacy continues two generations later through our beautiful gardens and the smell of smoldering cherry wood in the air.
The original meat smoking king
Michael Lipcamon
EXECUTIVE CHEF/OWNER
Michael Lipcamon was born in Coralville, Iowa in 1989. Some of his earliest memories are of being in the garden, pulling fresh peas off the vine, chewing on rhubarb stalks, and staining his hands with mulberries fresh off the tree. Michael would spend a lot of time at the Amos Dean homestead throughout his life, including every spring when his dad would pull him from school early to for their ritual morel hunt.
Michael got his start in the food industry at age 14 by washing dishes at the Brown Bottle in North Liberty, Iowa. From there he worked his way up through local restaurants as a student at West High School. After earning his associates degree at Kirkwood Community College, he left for Arizona to further develop his craft in culinary school. After spending three years at Binkley’s Restaurant, he moved to Boston where he participated in the opening of Tony Maw’s second restaurant, the Kirkland Tap and Trotter as a Sous Chef. He then moved to New York City to work in his first Michelin Star restaurant, working for David Bouley as the Chef De Partie of Meat at Bouley.
After two years in New York City, he moved back to Solon IA to the very spot where his passion for food began. Michael believes that the best food comes from the best ingredients and there is no better way to ensure quality than to grow it himself on the soil he grew up on. Michael is here to prove that whether it’s on a paper plate or a silver platter, great food always starts with your roots.