Call it karma: Cosi Cucina will live again
- In February of this year, the owner, Cy Gushiken, announced he was closing Cosi Cucina.
- "Our goal is to make it the nicest restaurant in Des Moines," David Bartels said.
When Cosi Cucina opened in May of 1993, it was something of a revelation to area diners. A restaurant that made its own mozzarella. That served unlimited piles of warm, triangular house-made rolls with — get this — olive oil! There were dishes on the menu with ramps and portobello mushrooms. The cheesecake had no crust and was light as air. It earned a 4 ½star review shortly after opening.
It all sounds pretty pedestrian these days. Fresh mozz graces menus all over town; it's rarer to get butter with your bread than oil; and portobello mushrooms sprout from every produce aisle and menu. But 21 years ago, a talented team — landlords/restaurateurs David and Bonnie Bartels, chef/co-owner Doug Smith, manager/co-owner Devin Rowling and Colorado-based restaurant designer Vilis Berzins — put together something pretty unusual. And in Clive of all places.
It's not that there weren't some good restaurants in town at the time, but choices were either high-end good, like 801 Steak & Chophouse; or casual good, like the Tavern and Drake Diner. Not many spots filled the in-between niche.
Weathered changes
A 21-year run in the restaurant business isn't unheard of, but it's not all that common, either. Cosi Cucina has managed to weather all those years, including the lean times when Jordan Creek opened with a raft of shiny new chain restaurants that everyone was hot to try. It also survived an ownership change when owner Devin Rowling sold to Cy Gushiken (who owns Ohana Steakhouse) about five years ago. Smith had sold his share to Rowling previously and the Bartels were by then just the landlords.
But in February of this year, Gushiken announced he was closing it. A couple of thousand miles away, Nathan Bartels, David and Bonnie's youngest son, was sitting in San Luis Obispo, Calif., reading Facebook, and saw a post about the closing. Nathan was 11 when Cosi Cucina opened, and he has a soft spot for it.
"I called Dad and said, 'Hey this could be a great family project.' Dad was still the landlord, and it was good business to keep a restaurant open here." Within a matter of hours, they say, a deal was made.
"It was just too sad to let it close. There are too many good bones at this location to let it go," Nathan says.
So Nathan and his wife moved to Iowa, for the time-being, and the Bartels clan, with help from longtime chef Will Bliss and front-of-the-house manager Chris Thuente, are working their way around the place, week by week, updating, cleaning, refreshing. And they're looking back to the beginning to try and recapture some of the glory days.
New design idea
The Bartels built the restaurant 41 years ago for a Mr. Steak franchise, which operated there for 21 years until the Mr. Steak company folded. As a landlord, David Bartels said, it made sense to keep the place occupied. On a trip through Denver, Bartels the elder was having lunch with his restaurant-designer friend, Vilis Berzins.
"He said, 'I have a great idea.' And it was this idea to close off the front of the restaurant and have people come in the back, past an open kitchen." The idea was to make diners feel like they were entering a warm, inviting spot and could watch their pizzas and salads put together in front of them. As you walked in, a window into one of the kitchen's coolers gave (and still gives) you a preview of what you might find on your plate. You can't swing a cat without hitting an open kitchen these days, but in 1993, it was — at least in these parts — a daring departure from how things were done.
Nathan said, "We all know that when you invite people over, they end up in the kitchen. That was the sort of feel they were going after." And people responded.
Doug Smith, the original chef, said the magic of those first few years "was like a happy marriage. The front and back of the house really worked together." (Tension between the servers and kitchen is a common issue in the restaurant business.) "That's part of why it took off. And for some reason, people would just try anything we made. I made a thistle soup once and it sold out.
"I'd love to act like it was planned, but it all happened organically."
That's the feeling the crew is trying to get back to, Nathan says. "We want to add that human element back to the aesthetic. Add that local flavor back, so you have that warm feeling that you can only get from a local place.
Decor, menu updates
So far, there's been a big and wide deep-cleaning and lots of decor updates: new carpet, new booths, new gypsum plaster relief trim and mirrors and medallions. Custom-made stained glass, new blinds. In the works are other remodels — taking out the once-charming-now-dated fountain and expanding the bar area, improvements to the waiting area. New black linens replace the foamy green plastic tablecloths.
Also in the pipeline: some new cocktails, a wine list review and a menu facelift. Smith will be working with Bliss to update the menu, keeping the tried-and-trues but refreshing it. "We want to keep what made it rock," Nathan said, "but bring in a modern sprinkle.
"We've got a lot of work ahead, but it's coming along."
David, 70, agrees and boils it down in a matter-of-fact way — a lot of long days and a lot of hard work. He said he's been working 90-hour weeks since they took over in February. Nathan laughed and said, "He's a farm kid; he just doesn't stop." (It did in fact, take some convincing to get David to sit down for a conversation.)
"Our goal is to make it the nicest restaurant in Des Moines," David said. "And that takes a lot of time and effort. Once you're an entrepreneur, what else is there?
"It was a little scary at first," he says of the decision to take Cosi Cucina back over, "but this isn't my first rodeo."
Cosi Cucina
FIND IT: 1975 N.W. 86th St., Clive
HOURS: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday; noon-10 p.m. Saturday; 4-9 p.m. Sunday
INFO: 515-278-8148; www.cosicucina.com