How Centro became a Des Moines restaurant staple from celebrities to caucus power tables

It all started with a small sandwich stand under a parking garage.

George Formaro’s South Union Bread operated at 623 Grand Ave., and as Des Moines developer Harry Bookey renovated the Temple for the Performing Arts, he approached Formaro about opening a restaurant in the base of the building. As Formaro tells it, Bookey’s kids would sneak down to his sandwich shop and loved the food.

While Formaro was game to bring his South Union Bread to the building at 1001 Locust St., he had another idea he played around with — an Italian restaurant with pizza — that he wanted to open in the corner spot 20 years ago.

“In Des Moines, I knew they were going to have to drive by their favorite pizzeria to get to me, especially if you’re on the south side,” Formaro said.

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He wanted to try a different kind of pizza from the tavern crusts often found in Des Moines. This pizza would be baked in a coal-fired oven that made the crust extra crisp with a smoky flavor. It was a matter of opening and finding out if Des Moines diners wanted the food he would offer.

To open Centro, Formaro teamed up with restaurateur Paul Rottenberg, who was the general manager at the Hotel Fort Des Moines and Racoon River Brewing Co., three blocks south of the building.

Changing the Des Moines neighborhood into the Western Gateway

Jeff Chelesvig, the president and CEO of Des Moines Performing Arts, recalled when the organization’s fourth venue, the Temple for the Performing Arts, opened in the same building the month before Centro. That area of downtown Des Moines was occupied by auto shops where “you get your transmission rebuilt.”

At the time, the National Historical Registry considered the building that would become the Temple and Centro endangered. The renovations brought new life to the premisis, with the Temple opening in October 2002, followed by Centro in November.

“Paul and I always talk about how we grew up together,” Chelesvig said. “What is now known as the Western Gateway, there was nothing there. There was no sculpture park. They were building the Nationwide building across the street. They were working on the library.”

Formaro and Rottenberg were ready to become part of the neighborhood.

Formaro wanted a restaurant with a New York Italian vibe, where people could come in for pizza one day and chicken francese, one of the first dishes he sketched out after the pizzas, the next. Those battered chicken breasts come bathed in a lemon butter sauce with shallots and fettuccine Alfredo. They've been on the menu since the beginning.

That opening menu featured five New York-style pizzas baked in the only coal-fired oven in the state, six pasta dishes such as penne pomodoro and a chicken and prosciutto bathed in an Asiago cream sauce, and entrees such as a New York strip steak with mashed potatoes, sea scallops with prosciutto and veal piccata. Eight sandwiches included a turkey bacon melt and two types of panini.

“We thought we would probably have this pizzeria,” Formaro said. “The place, just from the get-go, just exploded.”

At the time, the restaurant scene in downtown Des Moines was usually up in the skywalks. The Des Moines Register's Datebook Diner, Winnie Moranville, said the opening of Centro in 2002 brought the lunch crowds down to the street level. “Better yet, crowds are venturing out of the skywalks and onto the sidewalks, thereby being a part of the real city life. At last!” she wrote just a month after Centro opened.

Even when Centro opened, Rottenberg and Formaro thought takeout would be an important part of the business.

“We put in massive phone lines in Centro when we opened. We put in a takeout counter and invested in delivery. We thought we were going to make the best pizza. I still think we do,” Rottenberg said. “Pizza ended up being 10% of our business, and we thought it was going to be 50%.”

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How Centro gained national recognition: Awards, celebrities from Ray Liotta to Gene Simmons

“We were taking a big gamble with a big-time dinner house at that time,” Formaro said.

It’s a gamble that paid off. Formaro earned nominations from the James Beard Foundation for Best Chef Midwest in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and then Outstanding Restaurateur — an award that recognizes restaurants that build community, show creativity and create a sustainable work culture — in 2013 and 2014.

Celebrities and politicians alike dined at the restaurant.

Over the years, actress Sharon Stone; singers Paula Abdul, Michael Bublé and Aaron Carter; actor Robert Englund, who played Freddy Krueger in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise; Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis; actor Ray Liotta, who played Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams”; and Gene Simmons, the lead singer of KISS, ate at Centro.

Formaro said he pitched Simmons his idea for KISS Burger, a restaurant he created as a joke for April Fools' Day, when Simmons dined at the restaurant.

Long before Simmons dined at Centro, Formaro announced in 2014 that he teamed up with Simmons for a new restaurant called KISS Burger, even coming up with a back story that the two brainstormed the venture together in 2012 and planned to open in 2015 with burgers named the Rock and Roll Over and the Beth Burger.

He once heard a voice that sounded familiar, and turned to find comedian Tommy Chong of Cheech & Chong fame. Chong was scheduled to perform in Ames that night in 2009, and Formaro wanted to attend that show but instead decided to stay in Des Moines to see chef Anthony Bourdain when he brought his one-man show to the Civic Center.

As Iowa caucuses take off, politicians from Barak Obama to Mitt Romney visit

The politicians who came through during caucus season really put Centro on the map. Politicians would dine at the restaurant, and the journalists would follow.

Barack Obama dined in a private office upstairs. “The Secret Service did not like the floor-to-ceiling windows,” Formaro said.

Female staff and employees liked John Edwards, Formaro said. Bill and Hillary Clinton ordered food to go between events. Joe and Jill Biden frequented Centro, hosting a meet-and-greet in the private dining room. “She seemed like one of the family,” Formaro said.

Mitt Romney always wanted his regular seat, Table 50 — the coveted banquet table near the pizza oven with a view of the patio — when he dined, usually for brunch. “It was the start of candidates having their own ‘power table’ at our restaurant,” Formaro said.

Most power tables were corner tables, where candidates could “see and be seen,” he said. “Guests or other politicians could hover or stand by and converse with the candidate.”

Former Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who sports snow-white hair, sat at the bar to watch the 2007 World Series, when the Boston Red Sox beat the Colorado Rockies in four games. “His hair made him easy to spot in the open restaurant,” Formaro said.

He noted that all of the politicians who dined at Centro mingled with reporters, voters and other candidates. “The candidates welcomed everyone who came by their table and even took pictures with guests,” Formaro said. “None of the candidates were demanding or high maintenance at Centro. They acted like any other guest.”

Scarlett Johansson was almost turned away, and an anchor stands out to chef Formaro

But of all the tales of famous people dining at the restaurant, two stories about celebrities really stand out for Formaro. Actress Scarlett Johansson visited the night Obama won the Iowa caucuses. “Centro was packed, and she was nearly turned away before being seated with one of the owner’s parties.”

The other was about Peter Jennings, the former anchor of “ABC World News Tonight,” who Formaro thought was one of the “most genuinely nice people who came through during caucus season.”

Formaro recalled that Jennings always went out of his way to compliment staff. “During a busy shift, I was wrapped up working expo, and Peter patiently waited behind me until he had a chance to sneak in and thank me for a great meal and experience.”

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Centro flows with menu changes, additions to stay relevant

At 200 seats, Centro is a large restaurant by Des Moines standards. When the weather warms up, the patio opens, with its sidewalk views of the corner of 10th and Locust streets. On the weekends, the staff rolls out brunch with breakfast pizza, banana Nutella French toast and a crab cake eggs Benedict.

Lunch, once a tradition on weekdays, has returned only on Fridays since the pandemic shut down restaurants in 2020 and forced Centro to rely on takeout until diners returned. Formaro said the restaurant is still working to return to a weekday lunch schedule.

While pizzas still make up a bulk of the dinner offerings, other sections of the menu include pastas, such as homemade gnocchi with marinara sauce or shrimp and sausage penne in a white wine butter sauce, and steaks, such as the steak Centro with an 8-ounce herb-encrusted beef tenderloin swaddled in garlic butter sauce.

At lunch diners can dig into a veggie burger with roasted corn relish and avocado, a turkey bacon melt or a Kill-Bill pork tenderloin, dubbed “The Five Pointed Palm Exploding Heart Sandwich,” with a tenderloin sourced from Niman Ranch tenderloin, ham, bacon, pepper jack cheese, and a sunny side up egg.

Two things that have kept Centro vibrant through the years are the flexibility of the team, responding to the types of dishes customers wanted to order, and yearly refreshes of the space. Just recently the hostess stand at the front moved to give the bar more space.

Chris Diebel, who operates Bubba with Formaro and Rottenberg's Orchestrate Hospitality and started as an intern for the company, still misses the chicken piccata that he ordered when the restaurant opened.

Formaro feels his pain, but acknowledges that the dish had to go. “I hate taking things off the menu because people get attached to them,” Formaro said. “I feel like they’re sticking a dagger in my heart when they’re so disappointed that something is gone.”

Just as he adapted the menu to include more of the pasta and steak dishes customers wanted, he recognized that some items needed to come off. Yet he will still make a seafood linguini dish or some of the salads from the menus of yesteryear if a diner orders them. “I’m the wrong guy when it comes to shortening a menu.”

Centro also has remained relevant over the years by making small changes to the décor. One year, the wooden chairs were replaced with something a bit more comfortable or the lighting was updated, and another the furniture on the patio changed.

“It looks like it’s been here for 100 years even though it’s been remodeled and retooled a little bit,” Formaro said. “We’ve been able to capture what I love about the nostalgia of a place by keeping it fresh.”

Centro's location, hours and more

Location: 1003 Locust St., Des Moines

Contact: 515-248-1780 or centrodesmoines.com

Hours: Open Monday through Thursday from 4 to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Centro Des Moines at 20: Menu changes, additions keep things fresh