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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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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