Christopher’s — a family heirloom

2/5/2025

Joe and Red Giudicessi bought Christopher’s in 1961. The purchase included a sign too expensive to replace, so they kept the name someone else liked. Before that, they ran a tavern on East Locust.

“It was called Rosie’s, where Bar Nico is now. The main clientele was streetwalkers and cops, and most business was late night, very late night,” Ron Giudicessi recalled. 

Beaverdale’s iconic brick houses were built between the 1920s and 1950s. It was still a young, growing neighborhood in 1961. Before he died in 2015, Joe told us he originally opened just a bar, where it stands today, and later expanded into food. 

“From day one, the bar was backed up three people deep almost from the moment it opened. And those were two-fisted drinkers then, like the guys in ‘Mad Men.’

“Dad told me that the first night of business he counted $110 in the cash register and knew he was going to make it here.

“Those were receipts from set-ups, before liquor by the drink was legal. Customers had to have state club cards to bring their own booze, and bars charged for the mixers,” Ron recalled. 

Des Moines Register and Tribune superstar James Flansburg hung out at Christopher’s and sometimes wrote at the bar, like Mike Ryoko at the Billy Goat in Chicago.

“Flansburg was a genius,” Ron said. “He loved the place. Robert James Waller would come in when he was in town to have a few with Jimmy. That was both before and after Oprah made Waller rich and famous for ‘Bridges of Madison County.’ ”

Christopher’s got lots of radio praise from late sports announcer and talk show host Jim Zabel. 

“He was compensated, unofficially, of course. I might have to give him a ride home, but he was a character, wasn’t he?” 

Red told me that, when Christopher’s began food service, she told Joe they needed wine. 

“That sounds right,” Ron said. “He didn’t believe wine belonged in a bar or restaurant, but we had ‘red’ and ‘white.’ If someone asked for rosé, they got half red and half white.”

When the place began serving food, all the recipes were Red’s. 

“That’s right. We still use her marinara and lasagna recipes,” Ron said. “Our house dressing and balsamic are her originals. So is our Béchamel sauce.” The latter is the base of their cream, Alfredo, Cajun and Gorgonzola sauces. Red’s lasagna is made with ricotta, Parmesan and mozzarella.

Our favorite pasta dish is their fettucine Gorgonzola, which comes with a beef tenderloin. (The menu has its own priorities.) Ron says the restaurant’s best seller is chicken Parmigiana. It’s so popular Christopher’s sells it, plus the lasagna and three fettucine dishes, by the pan to take out.  

Pizza came late to Christopher’s. 

“Dad didn’t believe in pizza and resisted. I started making them to sell in the bar on Saturdays only, and they became a huge part of our business. We use a thin crust — ‘Alice’ crust.”

Prime rib is a house specialty. When I last visited Ron, he was putting four in a slow oven to cook 10 or 12 hours. 

“We only serve it Monday, as a special, Friday and Saturday,” Ron said. “Can’t afford any waste.” 

Beginning in February, Christopher’s legendary, Zabel-touted, pan-fried chicken returns after a long hiatus sparked by a fire and prolonged by COVID and labor shortages. 

“The cast iron skillets we use for fried chicken were the first things we rescued from the fire.”

Some old favorites, like oyster dishes, are gone because their shelf life is short and margins are too slim to tolerate waste. But the best deal of all remains — courtesy bread baskets with homemade Italian bread. That used to be standard in Des Moines, especially in Italian restaurants. Now you can count the places that have them on one hand. 

It takes even fewer fingers to count the places in town where the owner is still working the bar or floor. Ron is a throwback to legendary restaurant guys like Babe, Rocky, Jenny, Guido, Johnny, Noah, Ralph, Bobby, Paul, Jimmy, Joe and Red. Ron’s still behind the bar, taking care of his extended neighborhood. ♦

Jim Duncan is a food writer who has been covering the central Iowa scene for more than five decades.