Deep Dive Podcast (with John, Brad, and Tab)
Every week, Brad, John, and Tab take a Deep Dive into a wide range of topics—from dive bars and humorous guest interviews to the reflections of three Gen-X guys trying to navigate a world where you now have ten flavors of Gatorade to choose from… but no Concorde supersonic jet.
The show is a light-hearted, spontaneous conversation between three longtime friends, and it should feel like you’re sitting right at the table with them—talking about 1980s television, flammable pajamas, and how to keep a Christmas carp alive in your bathtub.
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Deep Dive Podcast (with John, Brad, and Tab)
Deep Dive Episode 44 (2 of 2), Jeff Bruning, ( High Life Lounge / El Bait Shop Owner )
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Today's guest is part of a highly successful food, beverage, and hospitality partnership that has been credited in helping transform the Des Moines bar and restaurant scene.
His "destination" restaurants/bars aren't exactly your traditional Iowa Supper Club story. We're talking about a group responsible for places like Fong's Pizza, Mullets, and El Bait Shop.
His two establishments the High Life Lounge and El Bait Shop really caught our attention. Bruning and his partners painstakingly built a patina'd Dive Bar from scratch and created a surreal space that transports you back to the late 1970's. It's a lot harder than you might think.
#HighLifeLounge #ElBaitShop #DiveBar #DesMoines #Iowa
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Hey deep divers, it's Tab Batterson. Welcome back for part two of our conversation with Jeff Rooney, one of the owners of the High Life Lounge in Des Moines, Iowa. For this second segment, we're going to start off by talking about Jeff's rather unconventional journey and how it got even where he is today. And if you're a parent who's ever found yourself pulling your hair out of your kid's life decisions, wondering where the heck they're headed or whether they actually have a plan, this story might give you a little solace because not every path to success is well marked. Sometimes there's no five-year plan, no carefully calculated career trajectory. Sometimes becoming a shift manager at Buzzer Billy's is exactly the launching path of your kidney. So I'm not going to take any more of your time. Here's part two of our conversation with Jeff Broney.
SPEAKER_02I'm consulting notes. I didn't feel like I needed to make notes for the show, uh, Bruno, because he never does. Because I usually don't. We were talking as we were driving up a little bit about your orange uh origin story. So here's how I know it. I'm gonna ask you two questions and you can give me a true or false on them. The first one is you didn't set out to be like like you didn't think about being in this business when you were in high school, college, and even early after college. My memory of your post grad situation was you came here, you got a job at principal. Equitable be uh insurance. Pretty close. In the insurance business.
SPEAKER_03Selling insurance. You know, everyone wants a uh 21-year-old uh selling life insurance, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you did that, you did that for a bit. There was there was a change in the environment. Four months. Four months, didn't have the job, so then you're like kind of scrambling. You get you you get into the business kind of become out of necessity.
SPEAKER_03Well, I worked at Best Buy.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03And then I cleaned offices. I worked at a tree nursery. I when we got out of college, it wasn't all that great a time. So No, no. I uh yeah, and then I ended up back I worked at a tennis gallery, which m I w I ran the tennis, I like booked people into the tennis course. And then I uh uh I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take working at Buzz uh Best Buy. Um and I just What were you doing?
SPEAKER_02You were you were sell you were selling like TVs and stuff?
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah. Uh and then I asked them, hey, how long can I leave for and still come back and get a job? They're like fifty-two days. I'm like, I'll see ya. I went to Europe for for uh two months and uh that's a good head clearer move. And then I came back and then I was like, you know, and I was demoted and uh I mean all the way down to Stockboy or whatever. It didn't matter. I was I was making as a manager, I was making seven and a quarter an hour. Right.
SPEAKER_02What are you you you think you can hurt me?
SPEAKER_03And I was like beg I remember begging uh uh somebody to like please can you just please let me work at the insurance again? And so I started I was binding policies uh and I did that for a while, and then I kind of moved up and I I I did pretty I almost got let go because I really didn't like doing that either because I was just data entry typing in people's things. Mind numbing and I was like, I gotta get out of this. Well, and then I and G bought us out and they helped me get out because they let me go, and then I was trying to train Microsoft blah blah blah, but um that didn't work out either. But every other week I had time off, so I would uh I would start working at my f my buddy started working at Buzzer Billy's. Yeah, yeah. And that's how I got into it. You know, it's funny, is people tell me oh, I remember you were always scheming on how you had all these bar ideas and how you wanted to be. I was like, no, I had this I was scheming on how could we go to the bar. Right. But I wasn't like I'm I would never thought my parents were not happy with me when I said I'm gonna I'm gonna work at a bar. Yeah. Then they really weren't happy with me when I was like, I'm gonna be on the G like within a year and a half I was the GM of Buzzerbillies. And this was like through not through my skills, it was like there was nobody else left, so they just said, How about you? Uh but then a year like a year later we opened up our first bar and and I really liked it. And then my parents were like, so we won sent you to Central College for four years so that you could own a you could be a bar person.
SPEAKER_02So this is where my the genesis of my question is. I'm trying to remember your major. I think it was either history, political science, or something in the general studies area where you took classes from Schreier, from Zafiro. Am I am I warm?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're you're right on the first two, and then you nailed it on the third one. At General Studies was my major. Six minors made a major. Yeah. Okay. It was a unique thing. I've never heard anyone before, but you can take six minors at Central and then that was your major. General Studies. Yeah, I was just uh went to college for college sake. I wanted to learn the things I wanted to learn.
SPEAKER_02Here's the true or false question, and I don't know if this is Central College Urban Legend or where it came from, but someone along the way told me that in a lecture hall, and I don't remember if it was Professor Zafiro or Schreier or exactly who it was, but you were asked a question in a class, and whatever your response to that question was, the professor said, Mr. Bruning, with an answer like that, you can look forward to a long career in the food service industry. Did that happen?
SPEAKER_03That seems sort of like filling in the blanks. I don't think so. I thought you were gonna say, if you're not gonna add anything new to the new to the conversation, then please be quiet. But that was Aaron Hamrock, and I was like, if you're gonna compare me to him, I'm gonna kill you. Okay, so that's urban legend.
SPEAKER_02So that's urban legend. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I think that's urban legend.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03But I mean it's sort of like you're gonna be. The next question you could ask, you know, I can see uh you asking this question a lot in the future. Do you want fries with that? No, it's like it seems like it kind of no, I I don't remember that, but anything's possible. I was part of the every nightclub, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. I was in E ENC was senior year, you went to a local place, which there were only two or three of. Uh it was called ENC Every Night Club. And we would do Stump Berry.
SPEAKER_03We would have like every every house would have to do a I won the uh I should probably not even say this out loud, but I did win. Uh well like I was I had no money, so I was like, whatever I can. You gotta won a free pitcher of beer if you won the contest. So it was like me and two or three girls. How far can you put the lipstick on a banana? Okay, no shame. There's a pitcher of beer right there, and the girls were like, a lot of shame. Wait a second.
SPEAKER_01We're sitting with the winner. What? We're sitting with the winner. Oh yeah, yeah. A lot of beer right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell us how we did on the menu. We went stroking off, roasted chicken, liver and onions. Oh yeah. That was a shareable on the on the as a as an app. Then we did the uh Velvet Elvis, Deviled Eggs, Spam and Eggs, and the Spam and Egg Sandwich.
SPEAKER_03It's a pretty good only thing that messes up bacon wrap tater tots or you know, bacon wrap smokies, which I'm sure you've had before, but bacon wrapped tater tots are a they're a big one here too.
SPEAKER_01But that's going back to that is you have a staff that is here all the time. You go back to saying your bartenders and your wait staff, but having a menu like you have, I mean you have a very sophisticated menu, and I don't mean like caviar and but I mean you can't throw just a regular fry cook in your kitchen. You've got to know you've got to have somebody there that kind of knows how to cook, and you gotta figure out how to keep that person here.
SPEAKER_03No, I know, and we've yeah. And I you want to know how you do that? You just take make sure they get taken care of. Yeah. I mean, there's a person in our kitchen that to this day is super happy to be here, and it's because when she really needed something from us, we really we stood up and took care of her. This is a place she wants to be here, this works out for her, and and we make it work for her. And and we just gotta do that stuff, and that's there it that is the thing. Is we're not a plug and play. That's the thing, that's what you get into when everything's run off a spreadsheet, and don't get me wrong, we use computers. But when you're you're you're driven by the spreadsheet and the bottom line, yeah, you run into real problems. I mean, we've we've could have made more money over the years, uh, we've could have calculated our pricing. We really just do our pricing by the sniff test. Mostly we gotta make sure that we can the money is right, but then we gotta make sure that the price seems right. Like it on first blush, is that the right price to charge? Mm-hmm. In fact, we were all the way up to eight dollars on cheeseburger baskets, which is sort of a funny thing to say, but I mean a full quarter pounder of cheese and and a side for eight dollars is pretty dang expensive. Decent deal. Well, we recently dropped it down to six because we could, and because the economy's not where it needs to be, and we're like, it's not a new statement, but I remember seeing it in a come and go here and uh really close to my home. And I remember the sign that was the from the founder, and it this isn't a new thing, he didn't come up with it. It's uh it's like I'd rather I'd rather have uh one customer a thousand times than a thousand customer once. Yeah, and that's what we do, and we we try really hard to do that. And then we're coupled with the idea or the thought, we understand too that a large portion of the people that come to our places are visitors, but they're not regulars, but that's a part of being in the capital city, the downtown portion of the capital city. You know, suburbia, I mean I'm not saying I have a city in that uh Cedar Rapids gets people visiting because they have sports and stuff, but probably to a lesser degree than we do. Um and so I don't know, we we get lucky that way. That's kind of the extra good, you know. We try really hard for our regulars and it just kind of works out for our The High Life's kind of an interesting place.
SPEAKER_00We talked about this on our very first episode when we were talking about dive bars, and I don't know if this will be offensive to you or not, but talked about the High Life, and I said it kind of to me it was like an Epcot experience where you created an experience of a dive bar from the 70s for people to come to. Now we walked in today, and I thought it was very interesting to me anyway, because you had like a small group of regulars at the cowboy. Already there.
SPEAKER_03You've been here long, like have with brandy behind the bar holding.
SPEAKER_00When you opened, it was probably more like I described. Has it morphed anywhere? You have your regulars, and this has actually become an authentic dive bar in itself.
SPEAKER_03We've had our followers, so they kind of followed us over to here, and and and uh it's kind of been that that regular crowd kind of changes and morphs. Uh some of them come just to see the bartender if they know that they're there, you know. Some of it shifts over time. You're right in the fact that it is it's kind of well, we are a theme-driven bar. When we first came to Des Moines, there were really only three types of bars. There was the dance club.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's what the sports bars. Yeah. Yeah. That's where that's that's where we met. The sports club. We actually met at a dance club.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And then there was uh dive bars and or established places. Um, you know, and the only real ones in that that aren't credit created are, if you ask me, yeah, are are the dive bars or the or the you know the bent around the block bars. Your dance clubs are all cheap uh setting with uh with uh light, you know, smoke and mirrors kind of stuff. And sports bars are you really the the feature there's rarely is there a combo dive bar sports bar, not rarely, but that's the best kind. Yeah. A lot of them are like big TVs and you know, or like a lot of TVs and get everyone excited. And that just didn't feel like the thing is it's like we've that's the thing we've always done. We've always tried to be different. We always want to be different from the other people. Well, how do you do that? Well, you go to Britain and open up a British pub and nearly go out of business in six months and and wonder if that was really a good idea. And then you kind of keep doing that, and then when you get to the idea of doing a uh a corner bar, a corner tap, you want to make it this. And then yeah, we took we took crap for being like, well, this they're like a dive bar wannabe. It's like not really, you just want to be we want to be uh this homage and homage, yeah. It's a tip it's a tip of the hat. Yeah. Homage to a dive bar. Yeah. You know, when you talk about dive bars, another thing that usually is that a dive bar is a pool table, right? Yes, yes. This room used to be a pool table room. Okay, okay. And behind something here, uh, there's a hole where one of the pool cues went through. And you know what you get out of uh pool table? You get two to four jackasses fighting over pool, barely drinking any beer, right? And causing it. Making a scene. Yeah. And we can get we can get uh I'm not gonna count it, but you can get 20 people in the same room and they can all have a meal. And so yeah, our calculations to make money sometimes show up in this. Yes, but it's like based on what's the best use of the space. Yep, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I just guess really quick. Was there a dive bar or two from old school Des Moines that played a part in your inspiration for this at all? Or Carolina or anywhere. Yeah, they still have to do it. It sounds like there was some Wisconsin influence with your partner.
SPEAKER_03Well, there's definitely Wisconsin because there's just that that lacrosse is a is a playground for drunks, and uh and it's just everything's there. Great town. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. Uh it's it's like it's quintessential Wisconsin. So there's a lot of ideas came out of there. Okay. Um my partners are the seven of us, uh two are from Wisconsin, two are from Kansas, okay, and three are from Iowa, but those three from Iowa, I'm the only one born in Iowa. Oh, okay. Uh one was born in Rockford, Illinois, and another one was born at Foot Fort Hood, Texas. Now they moved here really like grade school or even younger. My brother-in-law was born in Fort Hood, but he I think he, you know, that was instead was in the military. They ended up in Iowa with a year within a year. And then the other guy, Scott, he got here, I think, when he was like when we were starting grade school. But yeah, I'm the only native Iowan here, and I don't remember what I was talking about when I started.
SPEAKER_00Well, I asked you about a dive bar specifically that would have been.
SPEAKER_03Uh, you know, Andy went to Utah State and met the two guys from Utah, and so they got kind of together.
SPEAKER_02Um don't think of Utah as a strong dive bar called.
SPEAKER_03No, and it's not, but but that's where the tang came from. Kansas and Tex Texas, and they got and then in when they went into the Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So there's a place in Waco called Georgia's. Okay. Uh that was a kind of a really a place they really liked. And I couldn't speak for them, but I know it's a lot of lacrosse stuff. But for myself, like I referenced Denny's before, uh, you know, I guess you could call it a dive bar. They had really good food, they had a great menu, and it was just a bar that had been around forever. You know, and my dad went to a place called the Tip Top that's no longer there. Uh that was really cool. Uh the Hawkeyes first Rose Bowl in the 80s is the last time I was in the building. Okay. Uh or right around in that space. Uh so you know, and then there's a place, so the Bait Shop, uh, there's a USA Today article that came out. Uh the year that came out, it was an article that said there's more taxidermian animals at this bar than there are people living in this town. There was like it's people 61 people lived in the town where my grandparents lived.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03But there was a bar that had all this taxidermian animals called Juniors. Okay. And Juniors is was awesome. Junior's was amazing. But it was a place my parents' grandparents would give us money, we could go down, it's six streets made this town. It's not even incorporated. It's Maple River Junction.
SPEAKER_02It's okay, Maple River Junction.
SPEAKER_03You might have if you want to breed on Reg Bright, you want to you probably want to. It was Angry Beaver, maybe.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03But Angry Beaver's nowhere close as good as Junior's was. Um, Juniors never stopped selling alcohol even through Prohibition. I mean, that this place is great, but they had a whole like coolers where you get milk, some groceries, a little bit, but then they had all this candy, you can go get candy when they're there. But they had it was just a really great old-time bar. I thought that one was good. So of my experiences and that in that whole, you know, I was 18 and then I moved out away from Carroll. So from Carroll, I don't really get those ideas, but some food and a little ideas.
SPEAKER_02Anything from Pella?
SPEAKER_03Uh I mean the OP.
SPEAKER_02Did you ever go to the depot? I mean, there was the OP, but did you ever go to the depot? I think I was like, 'cause that was kind of that was a cleats of spikes.
SPEAKER_03I went to Cleats Spike. Depot was right across the spectrum.
SPEAKER_02Depot was like on your way to the Artagon. It was across from the Pelo windows. Yeah, I never went to that one, but I know you're but people went to that one. That was a that was more of a town.
SPEAKER_03That one I couldn't believe that they let actually exist. That one more than anyone, really. But no, I didn't wasn't inspired by any Pelo bars uh or their drinking culture. Then here in town, I would say there's some really good ones. And I one of my favorite hobbies is had been uh just to go to everything that's been around forever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So there's a place called the Alpine uh under new ownership. That one's uh always been good. The Greenwood up the street, there's those and the yacht club on Yingersell, those are three. I think Greenwood's in contention for the oldest bar in Des Moines. Uh there's a bar called um there's a bar on Locust the Locust Tap. Uh the Locust Tap is maybe the oldest bar in Des Moines, and that one's really kind of uh a unique, cool situation. I think one of the best ones is Carl's Place. Okay. Uh Carl's Place is is uh by Hoyt Sherman. Okay. They're a Cubs bar. It's a good place to catch the Cubs game. It's a good place to go pre-game before you go to uh Hoyt Sherman for a show. Okay. In fact, I went to uh Sergil Simpson when he came to town and I watched him, and I got to and the Cubs were the final game of the World Series. Oh yeah. And then there was a rain delay, so I watched the end of his I watched the concert on my watching the him, watching the Cubs, and then right after went over to the bar. We watched like the first few innings. We had to stand out drinking a beer out on the sidewalk, and I watched through the windows. Okay. That's how busy Carl's Place was that night. Then the rain delay, people went home and like, I'm not gonna watch the end to here. So they went home, so the beer bar cleared out, so I could stand at the bar and watch the Cubs win the World Series first time since 08. That was amazing. Carl's Place is really cool.
SPEAKER_02Alpine, I think, made a list. Didn't didn't we see that the Foxhead and Alpine both made some national dive bar list? I I remember going to the Alpine, going there from Pella when we were.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a good one.
SPEAKER_02Um I think they did some live music maybe a little bit. Did Dave Zolo talk about the Alpine or maybe I'm mixing things up there?
SPEAKER_03May have. They had had music there. Uh Jethro's, Jethro's, Jethros. Why did I say Jethro's? No, uh Jerry's by the state fair.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03It's like amazing wings. Okay. Um, and then you know, there's but like I say, I I really like if they have bars on the windows, I'm I'm interested in at least checking it out in Des Moines.
SPEAKER_02That's an invitation.
SPEAKER_03And then also, you know, there's some really good country bars uh out in the boonies around here that are always fun to go to. For the most part, I like going them. Oh, like Merry Go Round, there's a couple on the north side that are really killer. I love going to those because they just seem to have a heart.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Heart and soul. Kind of coming back to what you were saying before, and I would say, like, in all fairness, the the bars you're like the the largest bar group in uh corridor, all their places are very interesting and nice, but I'm just saying like these bars I'm talking about are like they seem to have a heart. Right. You know, they're they're not fun they're not functioning neck up, they're functioning by the heart, you know. That's why I like the old timey, yeah, the bars that are kind of been down around the block.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned your friendship with Iowa City legend Mark Gannon, right? You got you guys have some have have a strong relationship, you hang out with him regularly. When you guys get together in Iowa City, do you have a spot you go to, or where do you like to go when you come to Iowa City? You mentioned Jeremy in in the 76.
SPEAKER_03So Yeah, I've gone to that. Well, I've gone to the Oyster Fest and we've seen each other.
SPEAKER_02We met each other there.
SPEAKER_03I'll speak to that offline. I haven't been there for a little bit, but I don't uh really one of the coolest in the United States. It's so great.
SPEAKER_02Best bar, best tap list, it must be.
SPEAKER_03Great tap list, great events, uh, great look. Uh uh VSW and live music. I mean, it's super cool. It checks a lot of boxes.
SPEAKER_01We wrestle all the time on whether or not that's a dive bar because you know, the in one hand you can say it's got the patina, it's got the signs, it's got the people, it's got the bartenders, and on the other hand, you know, he's making like good food, crazy good beer, crazy good social program.
SPEAKER_03That's the thing. That's the thing. I think I don't know when you have an when you have a construct or a a list of things that have the box that have to be checked, yeah. Some of the outliers are the ones that are the best, you know, that you know, that offer something beyond what you're offering, but still have that hard of a dive bar. And I dive bar, you know, is a pejorative of sorts, you know. So I mean, I I know it's in the name of your uh podcast here, but it's just a way to tag it. But dive connotes that it's run down and kind of dirty, and you know, that doesn't necessarily, you know, yeah. I like I like people, places that take pride in their place, and some of it is that it's been around for a really long time. Yeah, it's legacy. That that's part of it, but it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be sticky floors and yeah, terrible bathrooms.
SPEAKER_01That's a recurring thing we've heard from people. I always bring this up, but you know, we got about five or six shows into it, and we'd always ask people what is you know, what is an ideal dive bar? And five or six shows in, we um talked to Ben Mummy, whose dad had probably one of the most world-class dive bars in the Midwest Mums. And you know, we asked Ben, like, what makes a good dive bar? Because the Deadwoods, I think, can be considered a dive bar. And Ben goes, it's the people. I mean, it's it's your Bart staff, it's your everybody there. And he goes, you know, I gotta be honest, he goes, I think Cheers, the television show, he goes, I think Cheers would have been a great dive bar. He goes, They had, you know, polished brass armrails and everything, but he goes, their people were world-class. They knew everybody that came in, their names. He goes, It's not about how polished your you know tap handles are, it's about the people. The experience.
SPEAKER_03It is uh, you know, on that spectrum, though, if you're severely regular oriented and then you're uh somebody wants to check out that place, sometimes you don't feel comfortable going there. You kind of feel like an outsider, and that's not good either, right?
SPEAKER_02You feel the head swivel. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03There's a bar called Cottontail here in Des Moines. We did this thing, my friends and I back when we were just out of college, and it's on gosh, I want to say Douglas, Dutless Street of Douglas. We started on one stretch of Douglas, and you look at it now and you're like, how is that even possible? But there was like something like 20. We were like any place I had that sold any kind of beer or liquor, we have to go to each one, and we just walked this whole stretch by Merle Hay Mall. Like one of the places was uh House of Hunan, but they had they had liquor license, so we went in there and they had this little tiny bar and we got a beer. But we went to Cottontail, and I'm telling you, it was like the record scratch. And it was like one of the first ones. They looked at us like, what are you doing? What are you doing here? You know, it's not quite that way anywhere. Guess who's like the king of that bar now? And it's and it's like his bar. It's a neighborhood tab. Cory Holland.
SPEAKER_02No way.
SPEAKER_03That is his bar. He has like a keger every Christmas. I love it. He went to college with us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So it's not at the time, I think it's just young college kids coming in and checking out. You know, they didn't like that about it, but it's a cool bar too.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. Going to Ben Mummy. Have you been in the Deadwood before? No. So the Deadwood really hasn't changed in maybe 40 years. I mean, there's been a lot of history. And you talked about patina. You tried to make a bar that looked like it had patina, and now it's kind of grown in. You've naturally had Ben is very aware that he has alumni that come in his front door and they want that bar looking like it did when they were here in 1978. But he also realizes if I leave the same carpeting in here and if I leave the same stuff, so he has to kind of like figure out all right, what makes this home base? What can you know if I put this carpet in? Because what color is their carpet? Their carpet's something crazy. It's red, yeah. And so he he has to put new carpet in, or it starts looking worn down and people stop coming. But he has to put new red carpeting in. Is there anything here that is like you would never touch?
SPEAKER_03Well, we wouldn't touch the walls. I mean, uh the in fact we'll be probably the last place to ever get to put wood paneling in, at least in this area, because they didn't like it at all. We had to like coat it with some kind of flame retardant something or other. Like we're not pajamas sprinkles because we're once pajamas.
SPEAKER_01Was there ever carpet in on the walls? No. Never okay. On the floor. Was there a shag in here? Ever?
SPEAKER_03There was shag, carpet, green shag when we first opened, but then we realized how gross that is. Right. I mean, we could you could smoke when we opened up for the first however many years. So yeah, that was gross. So now we have what essentially is called walk-off carpet. It's just black. We have a few places that are carpeted though. Carpet is a good sound reducer.
SPEAKER_01Reducer, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh so we carpet here, but we have we've had to this place has been recarpeted in 22 years at least four times. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you'd keep the walls. The walls are something special because you couldn't do it again if you had a lot of it. The walls and the signs. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh we redo the booths. These booths, like I said, this was a pool room. You can tell, like, these booths, they're not not everything matches exactly. Yeah, you know. That's the thing, is like, yeah, it's not so laid in to look exactly the same. We have, you know, there's a leftover COVID wall right there, you know, that little thing, that little divider. You had to put up a little, yeah. Yeah. So we did some of that and then recently took a bunch of that stuff down. And the ceiling is not what these tiles are newer tiles we put in. They were that old kind of uh, you know, the foam board or like yeah, like you could break them in half. These are actually uh made out of recycled plastic. You can wash them, you can clean them, but they also reflect all the lights and they're so cool. Uh I love that. Um there's some things that we update. The kitchen you can look in there, that used to be a tile floor, and now we got this uh Big Grove when they moved to Des Moines, they had this uh that flooring in their kitchen and their brewery, and they talked to me about it, and so I got the same guy and they did the same thing. And it's super strong uh and cleanable and nice.
SPEAKER_00Is there a sign in here that to you personally is like the holy grail, your favorite? You would never part with it, just your favorite. Do you have a single?
SPEAKER_03I think there's a few I wouldn't part with. Um just your favorite, not even a lot of it. I think well, I think the Schlitz one well actually you know what the one is is it's actually not even a light. It's a 60s, it's a hand with a a can of high life in it. And it's in the when you walk out, and it I was offered recently, I think $2,500 for it. I have the matching bottle. There's a bottle, but it's a little bit it's on our phone booth. Yeah. It's a little bit rusted on one side, but it's sort of there's like a three of those that came out during that time. Super cool, pretty hard to find. The Schlitz Light's cool. There's a High Life sign that's hanging, I can see it from here, Miller High Life. But the sign it has a uh it's the one No, that's the one I think you were talking about, Ray.
SPEAKER_02Right on the right of of the TV. Or no.
SPEAKER_03That's that's a Greasy Dick.
SPEAKER_02Right, the Greasy Dick Brothers.
SPEAKER_03I can tell by their low their lap.
SPEAKER_01Is that a real brewery?
SPEAKER_03That's a real real name of a brewery. Uh they actually did a Greasy Dick Brothers. Yeah, they had a distributor job. I'll tell you what.
SPEAKER_01I came in here one night and you have you have let me tell you this. Your staff is amazing. You really are shout out to Jack, he took care of us today. Jack took care of us today. They let me order a meatloaf and mashed potato and green bean meal at 9 45 at night. I asked the same question about it. They pointed me to that sign, and I spent close to an hour trying to find out information about that greasy dick brewing. And I thought I came in here. I think it's a St.
SPEAKER_03Louis from it's a Missouri.
SPEAKER_01You have an HR at the University. I thought I told these guys, I think I got pranked because one of your staff pointed me to this sign, and this might be the most rare sign we have, and I couldn't find any information about it.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if it's rare or not. I haven't really like priced them all out. I would tell you the Schlitz sign, that was probably a grocery sign. It's a three-piece sign. It's a cool people facing each other with the beer in the middle. Yeah, that's awesome. That one uh I don't know if you'd see that one anywhere else. Um, the ones that have black people in them are some of my favorites. There's some high life ones from the 60s. They're really rare because they didn't it just didn't make as many of those, so they're harder to come by. So I th those are really cool. Um, I think that whole row over there, yeah. This false staff's pretty cool, but there's there's so many.
SPEAKER_00You have a great, I think is it a false staff skiing one over there that's really amazing? But I I I think this one we're sitting under this low and my personal favorite.
SPEAKER_03Uh that we've just brought over to a place called the Empire, another one of our bars. Oh, nice. That'll probably end up back over here. And it's uh it's cool, it just says hams, and then on the back side it's a little pla a little thing that lights up and it says hams. So when it faces out the window, you can see on both sides. But it's anything in the 1940s, that's almost almost hard to find. Oh, sure. 70s, when you get into the 70s, that's about the end of what we do. We have some 80s, but the 80s ones kind of aren't that great. Like that's a 70s, that's an 80s, this is a 70s, this is this is an 80s, you know.
SPEAKER_00eBay where you find some of these stuff?
SPEAKER_03Well, eBay is where you find a lot of that stuff, and and you still can to this day. The Hams ones are just so ridiculous, uh, but I mean a price-wise, they're really cool.
SPEAKER_01John has a Hams Bear costume if you ever want him to come in and perform for you.
SPEAKER_02I I'll I I work for the you have to discount Hams for the hour that he's in here.
SPEAKER_03You remember Beat the Bear with uh with Jim Zobble? Jim Zobble. That's a good poll. No, actually, if you do, I I we've been I have to remember why I wanted to do that, but we thought it'd be fun to have the bear on some kind of thing. Just maybe we do some uh there you go.
SPEAKER_02Take it on the road, John.
SPEAKER_03Well we're this place is semi-famous. You remember uh the uh you know 30 for 30. There was a 30 for 30. Okay, there's a guy from Massachusetts who's here for some reason. He's like, Do you mind it would be be able to rent this place?
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay, okay, you can rent it. To recreate a scene? They recreated, we had a TV, it was back when we still had our uh tube TVs, yeah. And they loaded up uh the match and they had it on there, and they they had it on the end of the bar and they fell and they had this whole thing. It only aired once, and I don't know why, but it was uh it was the uh battle of the sexes.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Network stars kind of thing?
SPEAKER_03No, no, no, no, the uh tennis match.
SPEAKER_01Oh tennis match, oh yeah, the guy.
SPEAKER_03Riggs versus uh uh Chris Christine King. Billie Jean King.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Billie Jean King, Bugbusters. Uh no, uh Billie Jean King versus him. And so they wanted to do a 30 for 30 for that, and so we filmed we filmed that. Yeah. We've been uh friends of ours did a music video in here, which is really kind of fun, and they made it out to be a bowling alley. And we've been on we've been on man versus food twice.
SPEAKER_01What was the food for man versus food?
SPEAKER_03We weren't the uh we weren't the how much can you eat. We're we never did that. We we toyed with it. In fact, uh the high life man on our menu is like we have to do something like that, but it's not hardly it's not har hardly that big of a feat feat to eat it.
SPEAKER_01But I would go the dip for I'd go the other way with it. I'd do your hard-boiled eggs. I would see how many pounds.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I the only other thing I had my notes, because it's hanging here, and um you're involved in bringing old tavern back. Is that true?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, Caddy Corner, uh diagonally from uh the bait shop is uh a hundred thousand square foot uh brewery, former brewery. It was built in 1911. It was called the Old Tavern Brewery, uh the Des Moines Brewery. And it was it was built state of the art. Uh I have the booklet that they gave out. They were really high on uh it had to have been a really big deal. Uh it's a brewery that actually was in Illinois. It was regional and they made Old Tavern Lager and it went out of business. Uh when Prohibition hit Iowa sooner than the rest of the US in six two 1916. 1915-16, it went out of business and it just sat there and but it had uh had it been a big thing. They'd sold that beer all the way when it prohibition was done, they still sold it, they sold it all the way into the seventies. Uh and I'd been like I used to like sneak into that brewery building and check it out all over the place. Now it's been redone and like it's all a bunch of different things. But I always thought it was cool, and I had my friend John Martin who owns uh Confluence Brewing. He and I he was we used to do a thing at the next door at the Bait Shop called the Jimmy Carter Happy Hour.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03Uh thing that I came out up with. I stole some ideas from like Sheffield's uh in Chicago. Oh yeah. Where they had home brewers come in and then everyone got to try it. Well, there's a whole story about that, and that's the Bait Shop episode of this and uh or another podcast I've talked about the Bait Shop a ton of times. But John came in 20 years ago to that and uh had everyone try his IPA, everyone loves it. Well, 20 years later, there's he's 14, they're 14 years old now, so but 20 years later, there's the Des Moines IPA is still available. Des Moines IPA was first drank right here at a liquor place here at uh El Bay Chop. And so he and I have been friends, he was a home brewer. There's a couple other home brewers that ended up opening breweries that we kind of helped give them confidence or whatever to go out and do. But John and I have been really good friends for a while, and back in 17 I said, hey, we should come up with old tavern. We looked it up, and the guy who owned the brewery who gave me that booklet about the brewery actually still had rights to that, the copyright. Well, then like a year and a half ago, I looked into it and it had he had let it go. The two guys that controlled that, or that guy are lawyers, so we're like, we don't want to play any, you know, so we're right, let's make sure they did all that, but we started doing it. We talked him into letting you know we're gonna do it, we could do it anyway, but we just want to make sure lawyers aren't gonna get on us. He came out, he it's basically it's basically uh Iowa bushlight in a lot of ways. It's made with corn, it's made with the corn corn from a farmer in eastern Iowa.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03Uh bushlight's made with corn from Iowa, uh kind of near where I'm from, really, a lot of the corn for it. So they came out with this beer and it's done really well, and it's really cool, and we we decided to do have it out in all of our places and sell it, and then uh and then about a year ago we also did this uh historical happy hour, which at the Royal Mile, which was a 34-page PowerPoint, tons of history at the Royal Mile. And one of the things that they talked about, like right out of the gate, is this was the tap room. We always remember it had an old tavern ghost sign on the side of the building, but we didn't know what that meant. We just thought it was like local advertising. Found out after we had been doing the old tavern beer that old tavern, this is the first tap room for old tavern was the Royal Mile.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really?
SPEAKER_03And on their logo is like a fox hunt and the Royal Mile, you know, like British bar fox hunts and all that. Yeah. It's just crazy the weird circle. Yeah, uh that so I talked to John and John and I threw basically at right now the Iowa Tap Room uh shares 50-50 on the copyright. Uh John makes all the money on the beer and we just pay 50% of the legal fees right now. But uh hope that it turns into the colour. But I will but I will tell you that the old tavern is if you like bushlight it and you want to drink Iowa beer, it is exactly Bushlight. I mean, except for probably, I don't know, just as good. I think it's better because it's local.
SPEAKER_02Good branding. We we actually we were talking about as we were having um lunch today when we were on Rag Bry, it was semi-prevalent. There was a guy who I think he he makes um burritos. Hawk? Is it called Hawk? Uh I think he might be. HOQ. HOQ, yeah. So they were serving it out of their when that you go and you buy a burrito, and that would be one of their offerings, and I I had one every morning with my burrito.
SPEAKER_03I think it's I think it's great. And it's just a light regular beer. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02We need a keg for our first tailgate.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_02So we need to find that out. Absolutely. I do you guys have more? Because I I just have an invitation for for uh Bruno, but your invitation. Here's what I'd like to say. We'd love to have you come come to Iowa City. I know you you might have a reason to go. And um I think you should come around and we can take it to a few of our favorite dive bars that you may or may not have been to. Because it sounds like you haven't been to Deadwood yet. You're questionable on George's.
SPEAKER_03I've only been uh I've only been I've been to the Foxhead, I've been to the airliner, I've been to the sports column. Hilltop? Uh no.
SPEAKER_02We gotta go to Hilltop.
SPEAKER_03I've been to uh what was whatever old capital brewing was, I I w that wasn't really a dive bar. I I've never been I've never been to the sanctuary. I've never been.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Sanctuary is unfortunately on on the on the outs. Yeah, and that was uh like Mark The Mill. Did you ever been to the Mill? No. Okay. And then I was just thinking about uh Sutliff, Baxes. Yeah. The Baxes program has a lot in common with this. If you haven't been to Baxes, it's like kind of Lisbon, it's it's outside solar. Oh, so that's it. That's it. Sutliffe.
SPEAKER_03I've been friends with the guy, well, the guys that started. I was friends, I was a big supporter on the front end of that.
SPEAKER_02We just did our last on, well, we were we didn't do we didn't tape there, but our last kind of field trip was was was Sutliff. Awesome dive bar.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Come over, we've peddled some miles with Mark, so let's get Mark to join us.
SPEAKER_03Well, and you could also maybe set up with something with Mark to try to get the George's thing, try to make something happen. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That'd be perfect. Anything else? I think we're good. Are you gonna land the plane around?
SPEAKER_02I think the only thing I just say is Jeff, it's awesome Bruno. So thank you for having us. Yeah. And congratulations on all your success. Thank you. We've had a great day here, and um I think we've got a few more menu items to take a few. Yeah, you need pizza. Maybe another another kind of uh uh Jaeger or or Tang product I think we're in on. And then you tell us where to go after here because uh we're here in Des Moines, we've got to do our field research. Oh, you're staying out, staying over? We're we're charting up. No, but we're gonna do a couple. We've got a driver, though. We're gonna do a couple uh dive bars while we're here. We got a driver, so you know, we're on the company uh expense report.
SPEAKER_00Have you heard of the Toad Lounge? Or not? Have you ever heard of that? Okay. We had a listener that knew we were coming to Des Moines through that.
SPEAKER_01There was another place that's over here that's like a pizza place, it's a tavern, and they do pizza. It's it's called uh Casey Pizza Tavern.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. No, that's ours. There's a couple of bars in Des Moines that are.
SPEAKER_02The question is, can we go out in Des Moines and not go to one of your bars? Is that like possible?
SPEAKER_03I thought when you were saying there's a place over there, it's a tavern. Well that we have Casey Pizza Tavern.
SPEAKER_01There's like a it's it's like four blocks away from Mullets. It's four blocks east towards Mullets. On Jackson Street? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I think it's El C's Tavern. Yeah. Okay, that's your old house. Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's the one. Yeah. Is that yours? Yeah, Kelly's little nipper also is on the east side of the state capitol. They said that this is how like one pound sausage sandwiches.
SPEAKER_01They said your your tavern is your pizza place is the best pizza in town. The tavern best pizza tavern.
SPEAKER_03That's really good.
SPEAKER_01Well, all right.
SPEAKER_03Fongs is cool too. The new Fongs is in the old Peachtree Brewing Company. A little bit of work to do. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01All right, boys. Did you get all out of your systems? I think so for the time being. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Uh, another great episode. Thank you for everyone that's joined us. If you'd like to join the deep dive community, you can do so on our Facebook group page, the Deep Dive Pod. Uh, that's where you can communicate with us and other deep divers. You can also reach out to us on our Gmail account, which is Deep Dive Pod twenty twenty-five at gmail dot com. Until next time. Boy boy.