Motley School Tavern - Des Moines

Every time we visit, the staff is so welcoming and really attentive. The food is always delicious. The brunch is incredible highly recommend the caramel apple pancakes ???

The chicken sandwich the chicken wasn't as big as the bun. Which was fine but it was about a 3 oz piece of chicken. The bruschetta was great. The service time was terrible considering there was only three tables there.

The pancakes are delicious! The entire family loved them. So you don't over order, they are huge. They take up nearly the entire plate and are very thicc and fluffy. Prices are fair. The staff was very friendly. Overall a great experience

Atmosphere is fun, love the green booths! This however, was not a good dining experience ?I made reservations for 9, 10+ days in advance. Had to call in couldn’t make them online), no problem! The gal who took them was very nice and helpful, all was good!Day of reservation we needed to add one more to make it 10, my friend who called in was told there was NO reservation for us. They accommodated us but 30 minutes prior to calling for the reservation change I received a confirmation text for my reservation for 9. ?Here’s where it turns worse…we waited 20 minutes to have our order to taken, had to ask for the rest of our drinks we ordered and obviously they were missing the manager. The 2 waiters were running like crazy but just needed more help.I ordered the Western burger as did my friend next to me. Hers was medium well with a salad photo below). Mine medium rare no bun with soup. Hers presented beautifully mine was well very ridiculous. Imagine her plate with just the burger and nothing else ? Giant plate that the burger took up less than 1/4 of the surface. . . then my soup comes in a giant plate/bowl style. I waited with the other 2 soup eaters for spoons but had to ask which by then the soup was cold. Oh and after my first two bites of burger, I noticed the gals next to me, looked like it should’ve been mine… Medium rare. She confirmed she ordered hers well done so we ended up swapping meats! In the meantime, spoons came, and I then dug into the split pea and ham soup.I could not eat it, there was so much sage or poultry seasoning in the soup. That’s all we could taste. No one at my table finished their soup, very disappointing. It was beautifully presented. I will give them that.

Wow! We had an amazing experience last night. The food was fantastic, the service was excellent, and the atmosphere was just right. A highlight of the evening was when Nick, the owner, stopped by to say hello.