Motley School Tavern — Restaurant in Des Moines

We liked MST - Motley School Tavern so much on Saturday that we went back today, so my review is for both days.

CHICKEN WINGS - you had me at gochujjang, and the side salad was awesome! Great combo of wings and salad. I love wings for any meal, and these didn’t disappoint. $15

MST breakfast x 3: it’s the “basic” breakfast. 2 eggs, bacon, sausage patties, potatoes and toast. But it’s so good, and their homemade potatoes are bomb. $10

GREEN SHAKSHUKA: not a huge fan, but I’m glad I tried it. It’s a bowl of tomatillos, stewed, with spices, tahini yogurt and rolled up flatbread to sop it up. When I saw flatbread, I was thinking more pizza type flatbread. Not sure why. Anyhow, I love all tomatoes but this one was just ok. And I’m a runny egg fan but these were VERY runny; I like runny yolks but not runny egg whites. $14

CHICKEN FRIED CHICKEN: it’s great, not much else to say but it’s definitely delicious. I like the chicken batter flavor, sausage gravy was good and I reeeeally liked the slaw side. Actually I thought the slaw on the side brought the whole meal together. I would definitely order this again. $15

BISCUITS: I wanted a biscuit since I couldn’t decide between biscuits and gravy, and chicken fried chicken with gravy. I can’t say we were fans and I’m glad I got the chicken fried chicken! The biscuit is very VERY dense and tasted like clarified butter. I love me some butter but this was too much (personal preference). +1 biscuit side is $5, fyi.

PANCAKES (aka “CAKES”): they’re allegedly known for their pancakes, and I don’t love pancakes for two reasons. 1) I do not like syrup and 2) it’s too filling. HOWEVER, if they’re known for them then I wanted to try them. $5 for one, but $1.99 when added to a meal.

LEMON ALMOND CAKE: oh my wow! Think “lemon meringue” on top of a basic, thick pancake. Topped with almonds. Mmnnnn it was awesome, and I was so happy to not see any syrup.

BLUEBERRY: blueberry pie-ish piled on top but sadly it was drenched in syrup. We were not expecting that, since the one Saturday didn’t have any syrup. It was good but the syrup was too much IMO.

PECAN PIE: also equally surprised that this came already drenched in syrup. So again, I had a bite to try it but avoided it otherwise.

I would totally get the lemon almond one again!

We had an amazing two days of breakfasts here. Their basic coffee Pammel Park was explained to us as a locally roasted coffee, and our cups were always topped off.

Meals are reasonably priced, minus the one $5 biscuit side. We will definitely be back and frequently! — at Motley School...

I used to love this place. However, we went there on this past Father’s Day and our server, Jasmine, was extremely RUDE. This experience was HORRIBLE and I’m still shocked days later.

Our server took our order, after scaring us as she snuck up in between my brother and sister-in-law. We ordered coffee, pancakes and the basic breakfast. (All three were great. The food has always been good when we've come here.)

She came back to check in stating she just walked by our coffee but forgot to grab it, then brought our coffee out a few minutes later. It was very strange.

Another person brought our food out. She came by to see if we had all of our food, then never came back to check on us. I get that it was busy, but all the other servers were very visible, helpful, and accommodating to their tables. Regardless, we finished our food and needed a box but we could not find our server. We ended up asking the hostess for a box and our check. The hostess, was extremely nice, brought me a box and said she would find our server for our check.

This is where things went south quickly, our server came over to us with a really negative attitude, sarcastically asked how we wanted the check split, but then immediately said, “You guys can just Venmo each other, so it doesn’t matter” and walked away. When she brought back our check she asked, “I just need to know, were you walk ins or did you make a reservation?” We thought that was an odd question to ask, but told her we were walk ins. She said, “Figures” and literally THREW the check on to the table.

I understand having a bad day but she was just malicious and rude with a negative attitude. I have never had an experience like that before, and I’m in my mid 30’s. I don’t think she is cut out for the food...

Atmosphere is fun, love the green booths! This however, was not a good dining experience 😑 I made reservations for 9, 10+ days in advance. Had to call in ( couldn’t make them online), no problem! The gal who took them was very nice and helpful, all was good! Day of reservation we needed to add one more to make it 10, my friend who called in was told there was NO reservation for us. 🫤 They accommodated us but 30 minutes prior to calling for the reservation change I received a confirmation text for my reservation for 9. 🧐 Here’s where it turns worse…we waited 20 minutes to have our order to taken, had to ask for the rest of our drinks we ordered and obviously they were missing the manager. The 2 waiters were running like crazy but just needed more help. I ordered the Western burger as did my friend next to me. Hers was medium well with a salad (photo below). Mine medium rare no bun with soup. Hers presented beautifully mine was well very ridiculous. Imagine her plate with just the burger and nothing else 😆 Giant plate that the burger took up less than 1/4 of the surface. . . then my soup comes in a giant plate/bowl style. I waited with the other 2 soup eaters for spoons but had to ask which by then the soup was cold. Oh and after my first two bites of burger, I noticed the gals next to me, looked like it should’ve been mine… Medium rare. She confirmed she ordered hers well done so we ended up swapping meats! In the meantime, spoons came, and I then dug into the split pea and ham soup. I could not eat it, there was so much sage or poultry seasoning in the soup. That’s all we could taste. No one at my table finished their soup, very disappointing. It was beautifully presented. I will...