5/30/25 Des Moines Food News: The Chef Cass Edition

Des Moines, I mention Chef Cass and Culinary Annex a lot, so might as well name it after her!

May 30, 2025

G3 is Des Moines’ weekly restaurant and food business resource. Read more about what we do. Note: This post contains affiliate links from:

Love: Openings, Closings, News, Events

Tafari, a Middle Eastern eatery/club(?), opened where Leachmon BBQ was.
Buoy’s at Saylorville Marina is closed. Nothing has replaced it.
JJ’s Tavern, the 2024 Best Burger winner, closed. Which is weird.
Francie Jean’s Buttercream is now operating at Kitchen Spaces.
Grannie Annie’s Ice Cream Truck is rolling around Altoona.
TFC Store is a new international grocery store on Merle Hay.
The Food Life of Zach and Cody will operate out of Culinary Annex.

Chain News

Hoshi Japanese Express, a tiny chain with locations in Missouri and SE Iowa, opened in Indianola.
Marriott gift cards for Father’s Day?

Monochromatic gif with diamonds in the corners, and the center text reads, "New lifetime memberships! Crazy Shiny Diamonds. dsmg3.substack.com

News and Events

We stan chocolate and coffee tasting classes from inclusive, small-business leaders!
Always check Redditor limitedftogive’s weekly events list! In fact, see Programming Notes below on this.

May Events

Friday, May 30
- Haitian Flavors/Gou Ayisyen Bilingual Cooking Class at Culinary Annex💚
- Iowa Food Cooperative’s Native Plant Sale
- Rainbow Pride Trivia at Big Grove
- Live, Laugh, Lamb from Crafted Food Services💚
- Full Court Press: Recurring Summer Patio Tour at their locations
- Pizza on the Prairie by Wallace Centers (recurring, an hour away)
Saturday, May 31
- Kick-Off to Pride Brunch at Single Speed Brewing

June Events

1st: Sunday Pride Kickoff Drag Brunch at The Garden💚
Botanical Garden’s events
- 3rd: Kombucha
- 5th: Honey
- 14th: Picnic
- 19th: Mocktails
5th: Cheese Bar’s Cinco de Juno, call to reserve
5th-7th: Grimes’ Governors Days
6th-8th: Greek Food Fair
- New this year: Free shuttle service from Franklin Jr. High Event Center!
7th
- Iowa Food Cooperative’s Open House
- Iowa Craft Brew Festival
- Johnston’s Family Fest
14th
- Cajun Fest Boil & Brew
- Free Range Music & BBQ Festival.
18th: Eat Your Greens with Chef Cass at the Iowa Food Cooperative
- Chef Cass is the amazing human behind Culinary Annex
19th-21th: Johnston’s Green Days
21st: Neighbor’s Day Celebration (Juneteenth)

Recurring

The Bartender’s Handshake’s💚 Grill Out Chill Out starts the 22nd and has additional, monthly dates through October.
Culinary Annex has regular cooking classes!
Ankeny Beats and Eats starts on the 5th and is recurring.

Donuts: Greek Donuts?

Say goodbye to ads by becoming paid subscribers! Until then, bubble tea kits are on sale!

Programming Notes

There will be no weekly news on August 1, 8, 15, and 22. I’ll pause billing from August 1st through August 28th.
Starting next week, I’ll no longer be providing the long list of local events. The Reddit post does such a good job that I don’t feel the need to duplicate it. If I see events they haven’t mentioned, I’ll include them. But I see no reason to put that much work in when someone else is already doing it.

Did you know this exists?

I hadn’t forgotten Fresh Med Express existed. I just kept failing to get there. But after what had been a couple of years, we finally got back to the cute Waukee eatery. They’d updated the interior quite a bit, and the food was as good as we remembered. I love this little place, and it’s one of the few local restaurants with a drive-through. They also have ginger lemonade, which fuck yes.

Menu board, interior, rice bowl, and steak skewer with sweet potato fries

Where’s This?

Last week was the beef Bing Bing Wrap from Lucky Lotus💚, which Amanda guessed correctly! This week! Hint: These are from an upcoming event!

Professional Contrarian’s Classroom

The Abortion Situation

xBx hosts Benefit for Iowa Abortion Access Fund on Saturday, June 7th starting at 5p.m. If you can’t attend, please donate directly to IAAF.

Planned Parenthood is closing four Iowa locations, including the only one that still performed abortions (WOI). Donations to IAAF are more important than ever. IAAF helps people travel to obtain abortions. Please, please, please donate, and if you can’t, ask a friend to donate on your behalf.
At last check, Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City still performs abortions. It is the only place in Iowa to obtain an abortion.
I won’t be able to do my annual IAAF fundraiser for my birthday, but I’m considering it for the holiday season.
If you need abortion resources, please see my post.

Be Smarter than the President

I have seven books I’m lending out to whomever wants them. They’re all recommended readings, but if you’d rather purchase them, the links are below. So, if you’re:

Interested in how trauma affects your body, read: The Body Keeps the Score.
Wanting to accept yourself: The Gifts of Imperfection
Wanna know what makes a nation happy: The Geography of Bliss
Curious about EMDR treatment: Getting Past Your Past
Wondering why I call this the book that saved my life: Revolution from Within
Always told you’re too hard on yourself: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
Struggling with understanding alcoholism: Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget

☕ Spilling the Chai: Recs and Fun ☕

This week: Specifics on our upcoming Cash Mob! Plus, Greek Food Fair tips, local eateries on PublicSquare, a problem with The Greater Des Moines Partnership, and why I dislike the former owners of Gusto Pizza. I have A LOT to say this week.

Coffee mug that reads "Spill the chai" with a drawing of a yellow mug being knocked over and splashing brown liquid out of it — Purchased on Etsy from EssElleCollection

Cash Mob: Dinner Delights💚

On Tuesday, June 10th from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., we’ll do our first Cash Mob at Dinner Delights! Check your email for specifics and to RSVP!

Recs!

The Greek Food Fair is next weekend, and you must know 4 things:

It’s cashless, so take your cards or phone.
USE THE FREE SHUTTLE. That’s new this year, and it’s about time because parking is a bitch. It’s free, but it’s almost all residential. Let the neighborhood park where they need without disruption, please.
Skip the gyro. It’s usually Ted’s Coney Island, and you can get that any time you want.
Get loukomades. Period
I don’t know if the Greek Food Fair still offers Greek coffee in actual cups and saucers, but this was taken in 2011. So, I doubt it. Regardless, it was one of my first ever food pics.

Wrecks

PublicSquare: Local. Stupid.

Local

I found two DSM food business on PublicSquare: JnM Marketplace and Treat Yourself Desserts. JnM is in the Outlets of Des Moines in Altoona, and Treat Yourself Desserts is a home-based business.

Stupid

By the way, did you know Donald Trump Jr. is on PublicSquare’s board of directors? Did you also know they own Credova, a buy-now-pay-later platform that sells outdoor gear . . . including guns? Did you also know it was founded by an immigrant?

Greater Des Moines Partnership and Systemic Discrimination

Systemic discrimination cannot end until those with both privilege and power notice the patterns. For example, Greater Des Moines Partnership has a section on their website called Meet DSM. In their words, this is for people who “have questions about living in Greater Des Moines.” The eighteen folks on this page represent the city in a welcoming way. Not a single person appears to be Brown nor does anyone present any visual disabilities.

Tip: If a Brown person points this out, it’ll be met with backlash. Instead, it would be cool if one of my readers pointed this out to Greater DSM Partnership.

Here’s my ask. If you’re reading this on Friday between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., please send a message to Greater DSM Partnership (info@DSMpartnership.com) and ask them to review their Meet DSM group and improve it to accurately represent of the city’s demographic population.

Story Time: Juniper Moon and the Guys from Gusto Pizza

A family member of mine arrived at my parents’ place one night in an absolute state. They’d been at Juniper Moon, which is owned by the Gusto Pizza guys. She wasn’t sure what happened, but both her and her friend were freaking out. Her friend bailed from the bar.

My father recognized the signs. She’d been drugged. No one had access to their drinks except for them and the bartender.

I told the owners this. They told me the story was “baseless.” When I went public, one of the owners’ family members suddenly started viewing my socials. One of their wives followed me, then unfollowed me. So, I messaged her. This was the conversation.

Screenshots of conversation. The text is long and is as follow: Meghan Smith McConville. Sassybeos. Dec 05, 2019. Me: Hey there. Are you family of Gusto/El Guapo ownership? Her: Yes. I am married to Joe McConville. Me: I gather my recent discussions have not sat well with a lot of people. Her: Hi. I believe the issues you have raised are big, serious topics that should have active and engaged conversations. It was disappointing that after extending an offer to talk about them, you made your decision about the character of all of owners and the types of business they run without any real discussion. These bars and restaurants are their passion and chosen profession. They take their desire to provide our community with excellent eating and drinking experiences into all of their stores. They also fully understand the responsibility that those experiences carry. I will not speak for them as they are grown adults and capable of that on their own. I believe you have their contact information should you want to discuss either of the topics you raised or any of the others that are front and center for those in the food service industry. There are certainly plenty. I wish you the best. Thanks for reaching out. Have a Happy Holiday season. Me: I appreciate your reply. I do not doubt the owners care about their businesses. Their dedication to providing good food has never been in question. I used to eat at Gusto. I know the quality. When I asked for their take, I was told the allegations were "baseless" before they even knew the specifics. At that point, it was clear the conversation was not going to be productive. In fact, at that point, the decision was made for me. Those who wish to remedy matters do not discredit stories before listening. My goal was to make them aware of a problem. They are aware. If they wish to improve matters, they know what they must do. I need not say more. I have noticed several McConvilles watching my stories & attempting to follow me on both this my other account since yesterday. I'm not sure why. If the desire is to continue the conversation, they are also welcome to contact me rather than being passive. As you can tell, I'm a pretty direct person. I also hope the holiday season is full of love and happiness for you and yours. I suspect you are all good people. I want nothing more than to support local businesses and Des Moines families, yours included. Please take care.

Ms. McConville’s comment about their character struck a nerve. That was fair to say about some of the owners, as I didn’t know them. But I went to school with one of them, Josh Holderness, from K-12. I swam in that asshole’s swimming pool because his house was within walking distance of our school, and our entire class went for a field trip. That’s right. The entire class went to our classmate’s house for a field trip to swim in his pool. I find that weird. Just me?

He was a BMOC and a total douchebag to me. He hated me for no reason and made my life a living hell in an advanced literature course in junior high, so much so that I refused to take another advanced course again because I knew I’d end up in classes with the rich kids again. I hurt my own academic record because they fucking traumatized me.

He made it clear from the word “go” that I was scum to him, and I never knew why. I still don’t, but I have my guesses.

It’s fair to think I want revenge on him. A friend once told me she wasn’t going to stop going to Gusto because of something that happened in someone else’s childhood. But that wasn’t it. When Gusto opened, Hubster and I went a few times and enjoyed it. I knew Holderness was one of the owners. I saw him there a few times, though I know he didn’t recognize me. I even said to Hubster that I could put it all behind me.

Then one of my family members was drugged at Holderness’ bar.

If it ended there, fine. I’d had personal issues with one of the owners, and there was an incident at one of their establishments that maybe didn’t have anything to do with them.

The Gusto owners then opened El Guapo’s Tequila + Tacos. As far as I know, none of the owners have any Latine heritage. Yet they hung hubcaps on the walls, dressed in sombreros, and painted their faces like sugar skulls. Which, I learned, are part of Dia de Muertos, so of course Americans appropriated it in gross fucking ways. Anyway, the Gusto owners perpetuated stereotypes and appropriated the fuck out of Mexican culture.

When I confronted them about that, they added “Not a Mexican restaurant” to their IG profile. As if that somehow absolved them. As if that was even remotely true. Yes, we serve tacos, tequila, other Mexican cuisine, wear sombreros, and use the sugar skull in our branding, but we’re not a Mexican restaurant. This was them telling on themselves on so many levels.

So, Tony Lemmo could be a dreamboat. Joe McConville could be the next coming of Christ. But I have no love for those bros. And yes, they’re bros. They’re well-off. They’re well-connected. They have their hands in many businesses including The Breakfast Club locations (which, by the way, is also in Minnesota, so I don’t have to talk about it anymore.)

They don’t merely succeed in business because of their products, with the possible exception being Lemmo. They have privilege to thank. Far better business people and chefs get far less attention than these guys ever will. I’m annoyed that the local press still fawns over those guys. Meanwhile, Tacos Degollado has been in Des Moines for over 20 years. Not only are there people who still don’t know it exists, but the local press rarely covers them.

Please tell me more about how good The Breakfast Club is.

So, yeah. I’m bitter. I let that shit fuel content like this.