Paul Rottenberg at A Dong
12/3/2025
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 Des Moines/Urbandale and Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Altoona. We asked him to lunch, and he suggested A Dong, the oldest surviving Vietnamese café in Des Moines, since 1989.
Entering from the parking lot, one is greeted by one wall of CITYVIEW Best of Des Moines award plaques and an opposite wall of drawings by young children. That family-friendly vibe suits A Dong, where our server warned us to stay out of the restaurant business. Over marinated roast pork bún and green bean stir fry, we talked about the hospitality business in central Iowa.
Rottenberg noted that I seemed surprised at his choice of restaurants. I told him that most restaurant people want to meet at a place of their own.
“I’ve outgrown that. I like Asian food because it seems healthy to me. I have lost 30 pounds since I started eating more of it, and I feel great. I also love C Fresh Market. It makes me feel like I am in New York.”
Rottenberg was a Jersey boy. What brought him to Des Moines?
“I went to the University of Colorado and then followed a girlfriend to Tucson. She had taken a job with a Good Earth there. I came along and lost the girlfriend to the chef. At any rate, Good Earth was a big chain founded by Bill Galt who envisioned something like Panera before Panera. He wanted a place where executives and blue collar workers came together over soup. Those were 6,000-square-foot restaurants, and the competition was IHOP and Denny’s. It was a time when big restaurants were infatuated by all things canned and frozen. Good Earth made meals fresh from scratch. Its labor costs were too high to support the model.
“Galt sold the chain to General Mills. Then General Mills lost interest and opened Olive Garden. (There’s one Good Earth left, in Edina, Minnesota.) I needed a job, and someone showed me an ad placed by Mike LaValle. I pitched my restaurant experience, and he asked me if I could be in Des Moines in a week. I came and helped him open City Grille in 1986.”
What were his first thoughts about Des Moines then?
“I thought Des Moines was on fire. It took another 15 years, though, before that really happened. Downtown was attracting start-ups because rents were cheap. There was lots of money and lots of incentives in the 1990s, but then the rents rose and the start-ups went elsewhere.”
What changed with the new millennium?
“After the Temple for the Performing Arts was saved, good things happened. Centro brought people downtown after 5 p.m. for the first time in decades. Tenth Street was the new town center. Then the Pappajohn Sculpture Park made it a destination for out of towners. I think that 2000 to 2019 was the golden age for downtown Des Moines and dining.”
That’s in the past tense. Did COVID end that?
“It changed it. Hotels were able to function better than restaurants on limited payrolls. For restaurants, it was hard to survive serving just take-out and delivery. Government support was based on the number of people you had on payroll, so that helped the big chains a lot more than independents. When we adjusted to that, I made the mistake of thinking takeout and delivery were the future and spent too much money to accommodate that.”
Are things stabilizing now?
“That remains to be seen. It’s not the same Gateway district without as many office workers and with Scott Carlson closing Americana and Gas Lamp and Proof gone.”
Doesn’t that mean less competition?
“That’s not as vital as the energy that comes with lots of people coming for lots of different entertainments. Tenth Street is strong, but the Gateway west of Tenth misses the pedestrian traffic. Americana’s space will not remain a restaurant, nor Proof’s. We need to translate the East Village vibe to all downtown.”
Several years ago, Rottenberg told us, only somewhat tongue in cheek, that the suburbs could not support independents, only chains. Is that still the case?
“I don’t think so. Dom (Iannarelli) seems to be doing great with Prime & Providence despite being so close to Ruth’s and Flemings; Irina’s too. I didn’t think the suburbs could ever work for that many prime steakhouses. Twenty years ago, the feeling was that the new homeowners in the Jordan Creek neighborhood were strapped for discretionary income because they had huge mortgages.”
The Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Jordan Creek sold more wine than any store in the chain last year. There is plenty of discretionary income now in that neighborhood.
“And now the suburbs are building all the new entertainment attractions, too. If I was 30 today, I would think about taking that plunge. At 69, I am no longer looking for risk, even risks with promise.”
I have taken scores of media trips over the years. A couple years ago, I heard from travel writer friends from Kansas City and Minneapolis who were on such a trip to Altoona and Newton, hosted by Prairie Meadows, the Iowa Speedway, Adventureland and the Bass Pro store. I had never thought about Altoona being a tourism magnet before then. Orchestrate has a hotel in Altoona. Does it benefit from that?
“For our hotel, the interstate highway is the driver. Altoona business is very seasonal with Adventureland being a summer event. The Bass Pro store is a lure, too, and the outlet mall, particularly before Christmas. I think Prairie Meadows’ customers are only there for Prairie Meadows.”
Looking back, what was the best surprise for Orchestrate?
“Gateway Market Café. I got into the grocery store business thinking it had to be similar to the restaurant business. That was crazy. Restaurants make it on around 10% net margins. Grocery stores have to do it on maybe 4%. It took several years before we made any money, but there is nothing I would have done differently. The café and the store complement each other perfectly.
“It’s a joy to watch people there. They are actually having fun grocery shopping.” ♦
