Posted March 04, 2026in Lunch With...
Edgard Camacho is a French-born Venezuelan-American artist. We asked him to lunch recently, and he chose Flora, Suman Houqe’s café in the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden. Houqe has characterized his lunch and brunch offerings with transcultural touches from his East Bengali heritage. Soups are fantastic with a chickpea soup
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Posted February 04, 2026in Lunch With...
Jamie Farrington is a chef/mortgage broker who is opening The Rabbit Room in Johnston Feb. 9. To our minds, only a deep Romantic would open a wine bar devoted to the works of The Inklings, an early 20th century gang of Oxford professors who met regularly in the back room
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Posted December 31, 2025in Lunch With...
Connor Delaney is the driving force behind White Oak Realty, the company that has salvaged and redeveloped much of Highland Park and Ingersoll. We asked him to lunch and met at Hansen’s Manhattan Deli. That lunch spot sits between two White Oak properties — Historic Ingersoll Theater and a 1925
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Posted December 03, 2025in Lunch With...
Paul Rottenberg is the president and founder of Orchestrate Hospitality. He has been named both “restaurateur” and “hotelier” of the year in Iowa. His 25-year-old Des Moines company is managing partner of Centro, Django, Gateway Market & Café, Bubba, Zombie Burger, Liberty Street Kitchen/Pella, Main Street Markt/Pella, Hilton Garden Inn
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Posted November 05, 2025in Lunch With...
Yoni Diller is an American Italian Israeli who escaped from Hamas terrorists at the Nova Festival Oct. 7, 2023. Iowans Supporting Israel brought him to Des Moines in October. We asked him to lunch and met at Drake Diner, the site of its own senseless massacre in 1992. Our lunch
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Posted October 01, 2025in Lunch With...
Gloria Henriquez is a military nurse turned restaurateur. She also heads up the Iowa Latino Hospitality Council (ILHC) — a spinoff of the Iowa Restaurant Association (IRA) and Iowa Hospitality Association. We asked her to lunch recently and met at her Peruvian café Tullpa on Merle Hay Road. Over bowls
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Posted September 03, 2025in Lunch With...
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
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Posted August 06, 2025in Lunch With...
RJ Tursi is the creator and owner of Exile Brewing Company in the historic Fitch shampoo factory. It is the largest brewery in Des Moines and the third largest in Iowa. Its restaurant has added a new Tursi Family Classics section to its menu. RJ’s father, Bobby Tursi, owned and
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Posted July 02, 2025in Lunch With...
In our mind, Harlan “Bud” Hockenberg epitomizes “the good lawyer.” His 70-plus years of service to the Des Moines legal community has featured public service (he even created a “public service boot camp” to encourage younger people), bi-partisan politics and multi denominational religious communities. During a period when no one
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Posted June 04, 2025in Lunch With...
Brenda Tran is an indomitable spirit. She survived as a child battling hunger amidst the bombings of the Vietnam War. Her Vietnam Café Express has survived COVID shutdowns and ever-dwindling traffic at the Merle Hay Mall food court. In our mind, she has endured multiple upheavals with the patience of
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