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Posted January 01, 2020in Lunch With...

Dave Beveridge

A planned trip to Noah’s sidelined by weather Dave Beveridge owns Miller’s Hardware, a much-loved Drake area business that hangs on proudly in the era of Home Depot, Lowes, Menards and other national behemoths. After the closing of Fairgrounds Hardware in 2017, Miller’s and Hiland Park Hardware Company are the

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Posted December 04, 2019in Lunch With...

Kelly Norris at Trellis

“Gardens are never the same twice; they always go off on new riffs.” Kelly Norris is the Director of Horticulture and Education for the Greater Des Moines Botanical Gardens (GDMBG). We asked him to lunch recently, and he chose Trellis, Lisa LaValle’s gem of a café in the GDMBG. To

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Posted November 06, 2019in Lunch With...

Kent Henning

Grand View University president explains its growth over lunch at Tursi’s Latin King. Kent Henning is a month away from closing out 20 years of leadership at Grand View University. That Lutheran school on the eastside of town has gone through several transformations since its founding in 1896. The most

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Posted October 02, 2019in Lunch With...

Kristen Sabin at Lucca

Advertising agency executive shares her views on the future of digital. Kristen Sabin is the chief operating officer of full-service digital agency Happy Medium, running day-to-day operations across sales, processes and policies, and human resources, as well as working closely with the CFO on budgeting and financial planning. In other

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Posted September 04, 2019in Lunch With...

Mark Anderson

The image of a used car salesman has changed. Mark Anderson is a manager at IA Motors, a used vehicle lot on East 14th. We asked him to lunch recently, and he chose Rancho Alegre, a Latino café on Indianola Avenue that serves Cuban fried beef, Venezuelan pabellon, patacon and

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Posted July 31, 2019in Lunch With...

Brooks Reynolds and Scott Toland at High Life Lounge

Just love food. Brooks Reynolds is a founder and the major force behind bacon festivals in Des Moines, Japan, Colorado and Iceland. Scott Toland is the CEO and President of ICS (International Chili Society), which owns the World Championship Chili Cookoff and 123 other regional events in 41 states plus

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Posted July 03, 2019in Lunch With...

Cyd Koehn at Wasabi

Cowgirl and marksman is one of several women who dominate upscale catering in Des Moines. Cyd Koehn owns Catering by Cyd. She has catered in Des Moines now for 25 years. We asked her to lunch recently, and she chose Wasabi. Wasabi is one of five restaurants that former New

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Posted June 05, 2019in Lunch With...

Keith Miller at Maxie’s

Keith Miller is a distinguished professor of law at Drake. He teaches torts, products liability, gaming law, and workers compensation. With big changes in gaming law coming to Iowa in late August and bigger changes probably by winter, we asked him to lunch to talk about gaming and other things.

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Posted May 01, 2019in Lunch With...

Bruce Kelley at Bubba

CEO of EMC Insurance Company shares his perspective on Des Moines and the insurance industry. Bruce Kelley is the longtime CEO of EMC Insurance Company, a 108-year-old business in downtown Des Moines that employs 2,400 people, 1,400 of them in Des Moines. We asked him to lunch, and he suggested

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Posted April 03, 2019in Lunch With...

Bill Landis at The Walnut

We talked about the trend of free music on Ingersoll and bartending in general Bill Landis had as much to do as anyone with the 10-year-old phenomenon of free, quality music in town, particularly on Ingersoll. Uber drivers and couch surfers have told me that the street’s music has become

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