The Republic on Grand — Restaurant in Des Moines

Made a reservation for Mother's day at 1pm because I was told there was nothing available before that. When we walked in there was several empty tables and nobody to seat us. A guy from the bar finally came up to us and said it's all open seating so go where you wish. After about 10 minutes, the first "server" that came up with water (and no urgency to do much of anything) and said "do you want a drink?". Yes please! Ordered those and waited longer to get a food order in before flagging down a gal from another table. Super sweet and efficient server! She observed the first guy come out and serve drinks and she was not impressed. She apologized for his behavior and said she would talk to her boss about him. A few other mishaps of not having the food we ordered and she said some of it would be taken off the bill. Food came, all was good, but then she disappeared. Dirty tables all around the entire restaurant and not busy. While waiting a least 30 minutes for our bill, a lady walked in and told the guy behind the bar she paid a bill that wasn't hers. Joking, I said maybe it's ours because we are still waiting. She asked if we had chicken & waffles, yep we did! They fixed her bill but still never brought ours. More waiting....then my husband had to go ask for it. The director was very apologetic, felt terrible, took 50% off the bill and gave us his card to return again. It was definitely not their day and the staff was not customer oriented, except for Kelsi! And she was called in to help out on her day off so kudos to her. I hope they can get quality staff like her to keep them going. It is a great atmosphere and the...

This is a hard rating to do since the service was so polarizing. We arrived here at opening for mother's day. We were first in the door and seated. Told to sit anywhere. No host station. Seven or eight other tables were seated shortly after us. We sat and watch each table that arrived after us gets drinks and food delivered to their table before we even received our drinks. Nearly 40 minutes to receive our drink order. Tables who ordered well after us received their orders before we did. After the 40 minutes the waiter brought 3 out of 4 drinks to the table and we waited another 10 minutes for the fourth to arrive. The same thing happened with food. 3 out of 4 meals delivered to the table and the fourth arrived about 10 minutes after everyone else had received theirs at my table. The fourth meal arrived with cold eggs and a extremely hot skillet. The food was amazing which is why this was so hard to rate a 3, because we were so close to walking out do to service. We can't blame the waiter either as he was the single person waiting on an entire restaurant, despite only having one speed which is slow. No sense of purpose. The manager spent half this time on their phone, while kitchen staff were delivering food to the table. The restaurant was very poorly staffed especially for a holiday. We have been here before and never had an issue why the rating stays at a 3. Soley a...

A very nice, clean, upscale atmosphere. Service was slower than I would have liked, but understandable with only having one bartender at the time I was there.

I was out for my birthday and had planned to try more of the food and drinks (and stay for a longer time), however one of the waitresses came up to our group five minutes after we sat down and let us know the table was reserved. There was no reserved sign, but we immediately got up to find another place to sit and were then told by the waitress that we should "sit and hold the table for her." This left us confused as to what other tables might be reserved and we received no service after that point as the waitress tended other tables directly to our side.

We left shortly after due to the miscommunication and receiving eyes for ten to fifteen minutes from the other party whose table we (may?) have taken. It created an uncomfortable atmosphere.

The drink I had was excellent and the bartender was very professional. The establishment itself is refreshing to see as an opposite to some of the less-clean restaurants and bars in the area as well! My primary concern is the lack of training and/or coordinating for private events and the...