Downtown Des Moines Lunch Now Runs Along Locust Street, Mostly To Go

Where does a downtown Des Moines lunch line form on an ordinary Wednesday in 2026? According to one restaurant consultant, it forms outside South Union Bread Cafe, and it's long. In September, Chris Diebel told Business Record, "If you stand outside South Union on a random Wednesday, it is not uncommon to see 40-plus people queue out the door for their food to go."

The line has a cause, and it explains most of what changed downtown this year. On one stretch of Locust Street, two employers added more than a thousand daily workers within a few months. The restaurants that adjusted for them built for people who order, pay and walk back to their desks. The newest downtown food is built for carryout, and the corridor it's lining up along is narrower than the downtown map suggests.

Two Moves, a Few Hundred Feet Apart

The first move came from the city. Starting January 6, 2026, the City of Des Moines began putting 11 departments together at its new City Hall, the T.M. Franklin Cownie City Administration Building at 1200 Locust St. Staff came from Historic City Hall, the Argonne Armory and Polk County River Place, and the city expected the move to finish by mid-February. Business Record later reported that the move brought more than 330 city employees into the downtown core.

The second move came that spring. American Equity left its headquarters at 6000 Westown Parkway in West Des Moines and moved into 1150 Locust St., next door to the new City Hall. It brought more than 700 employees, and they work in the office five days a week. CEO Jeff Lorenzen told Business Record the space is designed for as many as 1,200 to 1,300 employees as the company grows. In June, about 75 to 80 employees were still working in West Des Moines while the third floor was finished, and Lorenzen expected them downtown in August.

American Equity's new offices include their own coffee shop and cafeteria. Even so, the restaurant operators along the street planned for the spillover, and they planned months ahead.

The Kitchens That Got Ready First

Paul Rottenberg, president of Orchestrate Hospitality, owns both Centro and South Union Bread Cafe. He told Business Record that South Union, across the street from American Equity, was expanded in preparation for the city and American Equity moves. "That was to improve timeliness and accommodate that," he said. "We intended to see an influx of new activity from both of those, the city and American Equity."

Centro's lunch schedule shows how far downtown has come back. When it reopened after COVID, it served lunch only a couple of days a week. It now serves lunch six days a week. Rottenberg kept his read measured: "It's a nice shot in the arm for the lunch market. It doesn't solve everything that's happened since COVID, but it's certainly a positive."

Assistant City Manager Matt Anderson put the change in a longer frame in the same article. "Twenty-four years ago Des Moines truly had an 8-to-5, Monday through Friday downtown," he said, adding that before COVID it had evolved into "a better balance of more nightlife and residential use." The 2026 lunch crowd is coming back to a downtown that has changed shape since then, which is why the newest restaurant on Locust doesn't look like the old ones.

Mezze Is Designed Around the Takeout Bag

Pam and Harry Bookey are opening Mezze, a fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant, in the former Starbucks space in the Temple for Performing Arts. The space was the city's first Starbucks until that store moved down the street in 2018, then housed St. Kilda Collective until that location closed after the pandemic. It has sat mostly empty since.

Pam Bookey connected the concept directly to the City Hall move. "People started coming back a little, but then when the city made their plans to move, that was really the big kick," she told Business Record.

Diebel, who is working with the Bookeys as owner's rep and consultant, explained the format in the same article:

"I think there will always be a need for sit-down, full-service restaurants, but we probably don't need quite as many seats anymore downtown, so this is a response to that."

The details follow that logic. Mezze will have 28 seats inside, more seating outside a large sliding door that opens into the building's hallway and serves as the main entrance, and a patio that doubles capacity when the weather allows. Orchestrate executive chef Tom McKern wrote the menu. It includes chicken shawarma, harissa lime chicken thigh, kafta meatballs made from a lamb, beef and pork blend, braised beef and falafel, served as salads, grain bowls or wraps. McKern developed a kale-based greens blend with shredded cabbage, Brussels sprouts, beets and kohlrabi, chosen specifically because it holds up in a takeout container. All six sauces are made from scratch.

Planned hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. As of mid-September, the opening was set for the first or second week of October, depending on final city approvals. We couldn't confirm that Mezze had opened as of October 11. Orchestrate Hospitality's own listing still says "Opening fall 2026" and gives the address as 1013 Locust St., while Business Record reported 1011.

Why It Stays Open Until 8

The closing time is aimed at a second audience. Diebel told Business Record that Mezze will focus on downtown workers during the day, then serve people who live downtown at night, whether they stop in for a carryout order or order through a delivery app.

That evening customer base is growing. When the city launched its Restore the Core DSM program in June, Mayor Connie Boesen said downtown had more than 1,600 residential units under construction. A restaurant on Locust Street can now plan for two rushes: office workers at noon and residents after work. Both are mostly ordering to go.

The Gaps Between the Busy Blocks

The busy blocks are surrounded by a lot of empty ground-floor space. In May, city staff told Axios Des Moines that about one-third of downtown's ground-floor commercial space was vacant. They described it as a mismatch between older storefronts built for pre-pandemic office traffic and today's demand for smaller, more flexible spaces, with remodeling costs often too high for tenants.

Not every downtown cafe found its footing. Kava closed its cafe at 300 W. MLK Pkwy. on August 30 after not renewing its lease, and the Des Moines Register reported that it plans to reopen in Waukee.

The city's answer is Restore the Core DSM, a $7 million program the City Council approved on June 8. It offers 1:1 matching reimbursement grants of up to $200,000 for permanent improvements, such as buildout, building systems, storefronts and accessibility upgrades, in street-level spaces that have been vacant for at least 24 consecutive months. Each award needs City Council approval. Carrie Kruse, the city's economic development administrator, described the problem in the launch announcement. "Many ground-floor spaces were built for a Downtown environment that no longer exists," she said. "In many cases, the issue is not a lack of interest. It is the cost of adapting older spaces." As of late August, Business Record reported that the city had received "a few applications."

Mezze shows why that program matters. The Bookeys owned the Temple building and let the old Starbucks space sit empty for years, waiting for something they believed would work there. Most vacant storefronts don't have an owner willing to open the restaurant themselves.

A Locust Street Lunch Route, East to West

For anyone who lives or works downtown, the newer spots line up along one walkable street, with a few more just off it:

1. 24K Juice Cafe, 400 Locust St., Suite 130, for juices, smoothies and wellness drinks.
2. Mama Africa, in the Local Bites food court at 700 Locust St., open since August, serving jollof rice, plantains and goat meat.
3. Mezze, at the Temple for Performing Arts, once it opens this fall.
4. South Union Bread Cafe, across from American Equity, where the to-go line forms.

Within a short walk of Locust, Happy Home Coffee opened June 20 at 606 Walnut St., and Ocha Bubble Tea & Dessert Cafe at 221 Fourth St. opened earlier this year. On the east side of the river, Grounded by The Collective, a Filipino coffee shop with rice bowls, opened July 11 at 316 E. 6th St.

At Steward Real Estate Group, we watch changes like the Locust Street lunch crowd because they show how a downtown block feels from one year to the next. If you're thinking about a condo or loft within walking distance of this corridor, or you want to know what these changes could mean for a place you already own, schedule a consultation and we'll go through it with you.