Gloria Henriquez at Tullpa
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 [...]
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Posted October 01, 2025in Lunch With...
Posted September 03, 2025in Lunch With...
Don Cotran at Pho 515
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 [...]
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Posted August 06, 2025in Lunch With...
RJ Tursi at Exile Brewing Company
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 [...]
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Posted July 02, 2025in Lunch With...
Bud Hockenberg
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 [...]
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Posted June 04, 2025in Lunch With...
Brenda Tran at Vietnam Café Express
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 [...]
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Posted April 30, 2025in Lunch With...
Johnny Krohn at Ruth’s Chris Steak House
Johnny Krohn is the smiling face of hospitality in Des Moines. If you are in business and need to impress clients, or if you just want to do something special [...]
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Posted April 02, 2025in Lunch With...
David Baruthio at Waterfront West Des Moines
David Baruthio is Des Moines’ most traveled top chef. A native of Strasbourg, France, the “cradle of great chefs,” he began working in Michelin star restaurants at age 15 under [...]
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Posted March 05, 2025in Lunch With...
Darwin Salas at Terra Grill
Darwin Salas is the president of Salas Investment Group, which includes Que Buena’s two FM radio stations, one AM station, and the streaming site La Q Bueno.com, plus the Iowa [...]
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Posted February 05, 2025in Lunch With...
Trang Pham and Thien Olson
Trang Pham and her sister, Thien Olson, are young immigrants making their way in entrepreneurial Iowa while also holding down impressive day jobs and becoming family nuclei. We asked them [...]
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Posted January 01, 2025in Lunch With...
John Busbee at Waterfront
John Busbee has been covering, creating, managing, promoting and producing the Iowa art scene for more than five decades. He and I both have columns in CITYVIEW and radio shows [...]
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