Sara Middleton beams when talking
about her new bar.
Perhaps the reason is the
idea of being her own boss, setting
her own schedule, making
her own decisions. Perhaps it's the business
partnership with co-owner and long-time friend Tony
Bohnenkamp, whom she describes as "basically the same person"
as herself. Perhaps it's being part of Des Moines' bar industry
and the downtown community.
Or maybe because throngs of people flock to her new
bar, the Grand Piano Bistro, every night to experience the dueling
pianos. Ultimately, she says, it's all of the above.
The Grand Piano Bistro opened May 18 of this year in
Des Moines' East Village. While the concept of a dueling piano
bar is new to Des Moines, it's has become widely popular in
several major U.S. cities. The setup features two grand pianos
wired into the bar's sound system. Two professional entertainers
bang away at the pianos' keys and belt out
patrons' song requests - often with parodied
lyrics. The result is a concert/karaoke/comedy atmosphere
that makes people clap, sing, laugh and shout
with each song. It's Beethoven meets Billy Joel meets
Jerry Seinfeld meets Weird Al Yankovic.
Middleton and Bohnenkamp pull off the atmosphere
beautifully. The Grand Piano Bistro features a corner stage for
the pianos in front of a wide-open room of tables and chairs with
the bar in the back opposite the stage. High ceilings, block walls,
concrete floors and a stainless steel bar top give the building an
industrial feel, yet the front windows, blue painted walls, exposed
vintage brick and black tabletops make it comfortable and contemporary.
The owners' vision for the bar started about two
years ago.
"When we started bouncing ideas off one another, we
would say our ideas and it was like the other person was about
ready to say the exact same thing," Middleton said. "Everything
in the process has seemed far too easy for us.
A lot of things fell into our laps."
Bohnenkamp, for one, was already a
musician. He and a friend had formed their
own dueling piano act three years prior. And
as a former member of The Nadas - a popular
Midwestern band based in Des Moines -
Bohnenkamp was well-connected in the music
scene. Middleton, meanwhile, had experience
in booking musical acts at previous jobs.
Word of Des Moines' new piano bar spread
quickly in the close-knit circles of dueling
pianists.
"Every pianist in the country seems
to know each other," Middleton said. "We're
a new place, yet a lot of the talent around the
country already knows about us because
they've talked to one another."
The piano act has brought people
through the door, Middleton said, but she
wanted the Grand Piano Bistro to be more
than just a piano bar. That's why the owners
hired Tag Grandgeorge, a renown chef with
experience across the country and internationally,
to compile an upscale menu of small
dishes, salads and larger entrées.
The menu is diverse, with both traditional
and exotic dishes. The menu of small
plates includes items such as margarita fries
( shoestring French fries seasoned
with salt and lime), duck sliders (small
buns with duck breast, green peppercorn
mayonnaise, spiced Chinese honey and
arugula) and lobster dim sum with
truffle scented butter. As for the
large entrees, choices vary from
shrimp Diablo to andouille & scallop skewers to a New York
strip.
Regardless of the dish, the Grand
Piano Bistro has a beverage to wash it down.
The bar offers 52 bottled beers that, like the
food menu, range from common to obscure.
You have to serve Bud Light, Middleton said,
because you're in Iowa and that's what a lot
of people want. But she also wanted to step
outside the norm.
"I wanted a nice grouping of all different
kinds of beer varieties, but I wanted it
to be different than other places," Middleton
said. "We don't have Boulevard Wheat
here, for example, but we do have five other
amazing wheat beers."
The bar also features and extensive
wine selection and a martini menu
(or two martini menus to be specific - one
with traditional martinis and one with "frou
frou" martinis). But Middleton emphasized
that it's not the martinis, the beer, the food
or even the pianos that they're selling.
Heeding some old advice from a former employer,
Middleton wants to sell "the feeling"
of the Grand Piano Bistro.
"My old manager used to tell me
that we weren't selling good food and beer.
We were selling feeling. That was important
advice and that's what we're trying to do
here," she said. "The two most important
parts of a customer's experience are when
they come in the door and when they leave.
When a customer walks in, we want them to
feel like they're someplace different than the
typical Des Moines. When customers leave,
we want them to have a warm feeling like,
'That was really fun.'"
Part of selling that feeling, she says,
is sticking to their theme of a piano bar. It's
not a place to come and watch the big game.
It's a place to enjoy good food and live entertainment.
And anybody can do that.
"Our only real demographic is people
with expendable income," Middleton
said. "You see a lot of younger people and a
lot of older people sitting together enjoying
fun, good feeling sing-along music."
That's why it's not uncommon to
see 185 people singing in unison to two guys
banging the keys to "Sweet Caroline,"
"Piano Man," "American Pie" or countless
other tunes. It's a new scene to Des Moines
and it's a scene that is clearly welcome.
Undoubtedly, another reason why
Sara Middleton beams when she talks about
the Grand Piano Bistro.
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