Chuck Celsi's Tavern Restaurant — Restaurant in West Des Moines

Previous reviews seem correct: this places banks on reputation and little else. Our family of 5 came in on a fairly busy farmer's market night. I'd always had good pizza and grinders at the Tavern at its former S. Side and Westown Parkway locations, but that was anywhere from 5-10 years ago. Perhaps the pizza and grinders are what are really worthwhile, but my husband and I really felt like burgers this evening. The kiddos chose spaghetti Alfredo. We ordered an appetizer of onion rings to get started. First, the good things: Despite being a little busy, we were seated immediately. 2. Service was friendly. 3. Kids meals are only $5 and include drink. 4. There are crayons and placemats for kids to color. 5. The onion rings were pretty good, if you like the shoestring type. 6. The creamy parmesan salad dressing is very good.

Unfortunately, that's about all the positives I can list about this visit. For a tab and tip that totaled nearly $50, my husband and I got lackluster, dry-textured burgers with apparently previously frozen patties. My cheeseburger had a limp, processed cheese single and the highlight of the burgers themselves was the fresh, fluffy Italian bun. When the best part of the burger is the bun, you should probably just take it off the menu. The kids got overcooked angel hair pasta boats with a meager splash of grainy, bland white sauce and a side of garlic toast. They hardly touched the pasta and one told us "it didn't taste like anything." Being thrifty and frustrated, I took the pasta home and salvaged it with some milk and half a cup of romano cheese for lunch the next day.

When the server brought our meal, she was very friendly, but when she accidentally knocked the garlic toast off the plate with her bosom, she just laughed and put it back on the plate to serve. After having been trained in food safety and worked in various kitchens, this rubbed me wrong. It's not like it was on the floor, but still: when someone's food touches your body or clothing, you should remove it and offer a fresh portion. It's basic cleanliness.

Bottom line of this visit: we should've waited in line at the taco truck at the market or just gone home. I don't leave poor reviews lightly, but we were all disappointed. If you want a beer and some onion rings or pizza, the Tavern might be your place, but if you actually want a quality sit-down "family meal" you'd do far...

This was my 2nd time back here and I was a little disappointed this time around, not to the point I won't come back, but I will definitely make a different menu selection. The cheese sticks are absolutely amazing and I will order these every time with the ranch dressing, some of the best dressing ever! But the onion rings were super thin and all I tasted was oil. A far cry from the last time I was here. The garlic cheese bread is decent and edible, but do yourself a favor, and don't waste your money. Go to Little Caesars and buy some Crazy Bread, it's way better and cheaper. I ordered the pork tenderloin with french fries, which they should have said on the menu that the fries are more like 'steak' or 'home-sliced' fries, instead of 'french-fries.' There is a difference when it comes to that, and being and 'Italian' place, I figured they would be offering regular French fries, my mistake. But back to the tenderloin: If your looking for a great tenderloin that Iowa is known for, keep looking, you won't find that here. This just seems like an ordinary frozen piece of meat that's overly breaded, and served with an over-powering taste of of mustard. The one positive thing I can say about this place was our server; despite not being able to hear him to well because he must have lost his voice due to something recently, other than that he did a tremendous job and he should be recognized for his excellent work. The real kicker at the end our lunch is we had to pay with a credit card, after our bill of $68 came because the manager said he couldn't make change for a $100. This was Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, just past noon mind you.

Updated-10/30/24 This time around was a way better experience. Started with broccoli cheese soup which was good, not amazing as it was a little bland for me, but still good. Decided to order a chocolate malt and it turned out to be one of the best I've ever had. I ordered the chicken alfredo pizza and added spinach. This was amazing, the crust was cooked to perfection. The service was impeccable, the waitress had the entire section by herself and was it was completely filled, but she did a...

We had an overall very good experience at Chuck Celsi's Tavern. I have some constructive criticism, but overall, things went good.

Let's start with positives. Their freshly handmade mozzarella sticks are absolutely amazing. I've eaten my fair share, and those are by far some of the best (if not THE best) I've had. They also have excellent onion rings and a reuben that can stand up to most. They serve gelato, which is hard to beat. I didn't sample any this round, but the many options did sound quite tasty. Their tap beer was decently priced, and service was very good.

Chances for improvement: bathrooms need to be kept up. For both stalls to have all four rolls of toilet paper gone is a bit of a feat, to say the least. And when I mentioned the issue, our server played it off (which is why she rated as very good instead of stellar. She excelled otherwise). Nothing was done while we were there or before we left 20 minutes later. Oops. :/ The burgers need to be hand-pattied, not pre-frozen. And the bacon-mushroom-swiss should not have canned mushrooms (very disappointing as that's something a place that charges $3 a burger would do). Use hand-pattied meat and fresh ingredients, and BOOM, loyal customers. I felt a bit cheated after transitioning from the fresh handmade cheesesticks to the burgers, honestly. I hope that'll change. Because if they can do fresh all-around, that tavern would be quite...