Mars Cafe — Restaurant in Des Moines

We stopped by for a quick bite to eat after deciding that the wait for Drake Diner was just too long on a Sunday afternoon. We ordered a few different sandwiches, and two of us got drinks (a mocha and an iced chai latte). The decor is nice and the staff were friendly enough. No issues there at all. The space seems like a nice place to hang out, and we saw a lot of people camped out on their laptops taking advantage of the chill vibes.

The food and my latte were definitely lacking, though our friend said their mocha was really great.

Breakfast Quesadilla - When you order a "breakfast" anything that has eggs on it, you usually expect one of two things. Scrambled eggs, or fried eggs. Their breakfast fare uses hard-boiled eggs, which was really unexpected and a little jarring. Since it's such a departure from the norm, I wish it would have been mentioned somewhere on the menu. However, the tortilla was crispy, and the salsa it's served with had good flavor.

The Spaceman (breakfast sandwich)- Again, served with hard-boiled eggs. Which wasn't unpleasant, just not what I was expecting or wanting from a breakfast sandwich. The bread was nice and crunchy and the bacon seemed of good quality. The whole sandwich overall was a little on the dry side and definitely needed something creamy to bring it all together (like mayo or avocado). I wouldn't order this again.

My iced chai latte wasn't very good either, though it was not the worst that I have had. Next time, I would try one of their coffee-based drinks instead.

One of the biggest issues we had was the discrepancy in our food coming out. My husband's quesadilla came out, and I was told my sandwich was coming out in a second. I waited at least another 10 minutes for my sandwich, which was awkward considering everyone else had their food and were almost done eating by the time mine came. One of our lunch guests even asked, "You did order food, right?" When it did eventually come, there was no "sorry about the wait" or anything, which goes a long way with me.

Overall, I was not impressed with our first visit here, and would probably not be back (at least for food). I would definitely come by to try some of their coffee-based drinks, and to enjoy the laid...

We had higher expectations for an “artisan” coffee shop. The service was one of the worst we’ve ever had. We waited in line for 20 mins to order. They were out of several things their menu said they had. There is no cream or sugar out for customers to use themselves. My drip coffee sat on the counter waiting for cream to be poured in while the female barista chatted with some friends. They had to ask how many breakfast sandwiches we ordered when we paid for two. The Americano my husband got was thin and pretty tasteless. They were out of something and when they asked if a substitute was okay, they got the type of breakfast sandwich wrong and we had to correct them. And to top it all off, the egg patties on our breakfast sandwiches were cold in the middle. It wasn’t even that busy, and running a coffee shop is not a new business concept. It’s really not this hard. We were very disappointed and will not be...

I decided to try this place because I like trying new coffee places… this was a mistake here. I took my time figured out what I wanted, the cashier was eager to end our interaction when I hadn’t finished ordering. She did not read the order back or make sure that everything by was correct. When asked what size for my boyfriend’s hot latte he said 12oz. When we got the coffee it was an 8oz coffee; don’t know why you would bother asking if it won’t matter. Then we got our food. My boyfriend got the space egg and asked to add bacon; there was no bacon added and there was multiple HAIRS on the sandwich. It took them 30 minutes to make my bacon egg and cheese bagel; it also had hair on the plate. I decided to give it a try and found a hair after my first bite. Over all just a bad experience. The workers aren’t required to have their hair back or in a net when working with food. And the...