Don Cotran at Pho 515

9/3/2025

Don Cotran heads the C Fresh Supermarket and Pho 515 restaurant. He recently returned from a four-week family research trip to Vietnam, covering every province in search of new things to eat and sell. We asked him to lunch and met at Pho 515. Over durian smoothies, fresh-squeezed lemonade and marinated beef spring rolls, we talked about the supermarket’s first dozen years, its current expansion and fabulous things to eat in general. 

In the 1990s, I wrote a story about seeking out the forbidden fruit that was then mangosteen. It was long banned from the U.S. by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I found a black market in San Francisco where I bought a single mangosteen for $50 by appointment. When we met in mid-August, C Fresh was selling entire bags of mangosteens for $12. 

“In Vietnam, we bought two kilo (4.4 pound) bags of them for $2. Our family loves exotic fruit — custard apple, lychee, durian, rambutan, sour apple, longam. So, we try to get them for the market when they are in season.”

Cotran’s kids were born here and are still rather young. How did they hold up to a month of travel in Vietnam?

“They did great. Our kids are quite interested in trying new things. My youngest asks for ‘extra blood’ in his soup at home. I make soup with pig’s blood and cow hocks. Even in Vietnam, I realized my soup is rather unique.”

Did Cotran find some new menu dishes on his Vietnam travels?

“Yes. We told the kids that we would move on every two or three days. They loved looking for new foods. It takes a while to add them to the menu, though, to train chefs to make new dishes. I hope by Thanksgiving the new menu will be up.”

When Top Value, a civic backed independent supermarket, flopped ignominiously in 2004, River Bend was left with no grocery store at all for a decade. It was proclaimed a “food desert.” How did your family persuade a bank to loan money for a project that had such a dismal history?

“We didn’t. No bank would loan us money. We financed it with friends and family.”

C Fresh’s dozen years of operation and current expansion suggest that independent supermarkets can succeed in food deserts. Could C Fresh be a model for other food deserts wanting a private solution? 

“We are probably unique. My father is an expert jeweler. He has trained over 50 other top jewelers in America. There was a jewelry store robbery last week in Oakland; the jeweler they shot was one of his apprentices. Father learned that skill in the Philippines, where our family spent time in a refugee camp. I am also a jeweler. I began my apprenticeship when I was 9. We opened C Fresh with a jewelry operation in the store. That covered losses in the grocery section for several years. Even today, my father has contracts with many local jewelry retailers, those too small to have a fulltime jeweler in the back room.”

What is Cotran’s family history after the refugee camp? 

“Our family was welcomed to Davenport. I went to school there and then to the University of Iowa. After college, I moved to Des Moines and my brother, too. Dad had a dream to open a grocery store as a way of paying back the community. My brother and I talked him into building it in Des Moines rather than Davenport.”

From the beginning, C Fresh has catered to ethnic groups. 

“We had seen several amazing supermarkets in Minneapolis and California. They catered to all ethnicities and attracted all kinds of shoppers by supplying things that were not available anywhere else.”

When I was growing up in Des Moines in the 1950s and 1960s, we had multiple fish markets that provided full service including frying. I had not seen any in supermarkets until C Fresh opened in 2013. Iowa lawmakers made it illegal to sell fish that were locally caught, and the fresh fish markets all died.

“All C Fresh fish comes in frozen. I think it’s actually fresher that what major supermarkets call ‘freshly caught,’ because our fish is frozen on the boats that catch them. How many days have passed since ‘freshly caught, never frozen’ fish were caught?”

C Fresh has two showcases filled with whole fish that fishmongers will clean to customer specifics, even frying. Some fish are familiar like tilapia and red snapper. Some are less so like pompano and eel.

“Pompanos are popular. Our fish market is seasonal like our fruit. When we expand, we hope that Iowa allows us to sell live fish and seafoods beyond lobsters and crabs. That’s allowed in Minnesota and Illinois, but Iowa is unclear about it.”  

C Fresh’s butcher section is unique in Des Moines. Where else are you going to find “pizzle” (Hong Kong English for cow penis), ox tails, chickens’ feet, hog heads, etc.? C Fresh roasts an average of (five) whole hogs (Berkshires from Decorah) each week and many more ducks. The many bags of beef bones testify that Des Moines is a pho town. C Fresh bakes the banh mis bread for all local places, except Paris Banh Mis.

“We listened to our customers from day one. They tell us what they want and need. Most Asian restaurateurs are customers. Our businesses grew up together.” (Many non-Asian chefs and restaurant owners dine at Pho 515, too.) 

Covid shutdowns gave C Fresh a refresh?

“Yes. We were able to completely remodel the restaurant and to separate it from the grocery section. Before, they even shared the same restrooms. Restrooms are very important to customers. We kept prices unchanged because our customers were feeling the stress of the inflation after Covid. But it’s been five years now.”

Don speaks three languages, and his kids will, too. C Fresh is expanding considerably with more than 80 employees and growing.

“Evelyn Davis Center next door to us needed to expand. We did, too. Fortunately, they could buy the Planned Parenthood building for the same price we could pay them for their property adjacent to us. We have 10,000 more square feet now, and we also bought a separate warehouse. We are expanding the fish market to also take over all of the butcher shop space. Then we will move the butcher shop to the new space and add carry out services with cooked foods.”

That sounds like Ranch 99, the chain of Asian supermarkets in California. Also, it sounds like an Asian Eataly, the upscale Italian supermarket-deli-restaurants of Europe and the U.S. 

“That’s what we are envisioning.” ♦