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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Posted April 30, 2025in Lunch With...
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 for friends or family, he is “the guy.” We asked him to lunch and met in his “office” at the
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Posted April 02, 2025in Lunch With...
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 Hubert Maetz, and then under Gordon Ramsey at Aubergine, his breakout restaurant in Chelsea, England. Baruthio brought new ideas about
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Posted March 05, 2025in Lunch With...
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 Demon Hawks professional men’s and women’s soccer teams competing in the Major Arena Soccer League and in the outdoor National
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Posted February 05, 2025in Lunch With...
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 to lunch and met at Trang’s newest Eggroll Ladies café, in the Equitable Building. When I arrived, Trang explained that
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Posted January 01, 2025in Lunch With...
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 on KFMG. I thought it was time to finally break bread together and asked him to lunch. We met at
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Posted December 04, 2024in Lunch With...
Allison Pohlman is Suzie Glazer-Burt Women’s Basketball Coach at Drake. Around events celebrating the 50th anniversary of women’s basketball at Drake, we asked her to lunch, and she chose Drake Diner. When Coach walked in, she was greeted by multiple staff on a first-name basis, or as Coach. The mother
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