Plain Talk Books & Coffee — Restaurant in Des Moines

I'm having a difficult time with this review... it's a cute, local place, with some awesome vegan options that are hard to find in the area. This review is based on a one-time experience. Maybe a subsequent visit would change my opinion, if I decide to risk such a waste of time when I visit town in the future.

I arrived around 11am on a Sunday morning. There were about 5 or 6 people waiting to order ahead of me. The ordering process was a wait, and staff seemed disorganized. I ordered 2 smoothies and a sandwich. It was about a 30-minute wait to get the smoothies, but receiving them made me hopeful the rest of my order was on the way. The smoothies were okay, but overly sweet and not blended well enough to be able to suck through the straw. It wasn't the natural fruit smoothie I was hoping for, but some kind of processed, sugary mix that mostly went to waste due to lack of quality and the straw being too small to slurp it up.

I found a back room near the kitchen to sit and wait because the front room was full. I saw one staff member leave to go work another a job, and another one be forced to clock out to avoid the restaurant paying overtime wages. That employee sat at a table across from my friend and I, staring us down and trying to interject into our private conversation repeatedly- it was very awkward. She kept telling business patrons that the restaurant was having some "troubles in the kitchen," and she wished she could help, but wasn't permitted to. I watched as orders were being slowly prepared, one-by-one, and a staff member kept announcing her departure to run to a local grocery store for additional ingredients between each order.

A clearly postpartum mother with her newborn and fussy toddler had to leave after waiting over an hour for the 3 sandwiches she ordered. She only received 2 of them, and comments from the staff made it sound like she was still going to be charged for the grilled cheese order she waited SO patiently for and never received.

I waited over an hour and a half for my sandwich, watching the whole mess of the place unfold. It looked like the owner may have been sitting at the bar doing paperwork, before leaving his dwindling staff crew to manage things on their own. I attempted to overlook the chaos and enjoy a private conversation with my friend under the watching eyes, listening ears, and unbridled mouth of the employee who was sitting there, not allowed to work, while the last remaining paid employees ran around the place like decapitated chickens.

I took my order to-go, as I had a 3 hour drive home and a babysitter waiting to be relieved. After that experience, I expected the best sandwich of my life. Unfortunately, it was just okay- edible. I could have made a better sandwich in my own kitchen for 1/5 the price and 1/16th of the time investment. Based on my single experience, I would NOT recommend this place, and I'm sad about that. I had high hopes for this place and was left feeling irritated, dissatisfied, and frankly embarrassed about my choice of a place to support, and for the employees who work...

Hello! On August 4th my family and I visited this coffee shop and absolutely loved it. We were in Des Moines for an Iowa Cubs game and had been on the road for about 5 hours and needed a nice break before the game. We as a family are huge book readers so we were immediately drawn to a shop that said “books and coffee”. We were expecting a cozy atmosphere and we were not disappointed. The staff was incredibly friendly and talked to my family, not just to take our order but asked how we were, where we were from, why we were in town, and just held a very pleasant conversation. We got our drinks, and saw that there were tables with board games to play while you enjoy your drink. We sat down and played a Wordle board game for a solid half an hour. The drinks were amazing, and there were options for everyone in our family, ages ranging from coffee loving mid 40s, occasional coffee drinking 16 and 18 year olds, and a not-quite old enough for coffee 11 year-old. I ended up going with a small, strawberry Italian soda as it was a bit too late in the day for coffee and I immediately wanted to order about 10 more, it was that good. On top of the incredible coffee, the bookstore part of the shop made the whole thing feel very cozy and their book selection was incredible. They had everything from children's books, to fantasy, to non-fiction books about music. We ended up buying 3 books and the prices were very reasonable! If I lived closer, this would be a place I would frequent on the daily. I highly recommend to anyone looking for a quiet place to read with a well-made cup of coffee! Thank you for the...

The prices on the books aren't accurate, so it'll be a surprise once you get to the cashier (not always a good surprise). Some of the books have the price written on the inside, some have tabbed-notes inserted, some both contradicting each other and some have no prices at all. It takes too long to ring up the books. Too much emphasis on the food and coffee (supposedly they're going to have ice cream next summer, too) makes the book shopping aspect less enjoyable. The upstairs area isn't properly marked, so you don't know what belongs to the bookstore and which to the Optimae company it shares the building with. However, you have to go upstairs since the employees on the main floor are too damn boisterous to enjoy browsing the bookshelves. I waited 6 years to try this place out; I had made attempts to go here in the past but the East Village is such an abysmally plastic part of town it's hard to enjoy the remaining indie shops. This wasn't worth the wait; overall the place is trying to be too many things without doing much very well. I was already regretting buying my stack of books and supporting this business before I had signed the credit card receipt, but I didn't have the nerve to leave midway through the transaction. I want to support an independent bookstore, but this place isn't worth the hassle. It's less a bookstore and more...