Gavin Jones

Review of Centro Restaurant & Bar

I hate feeling ripped off!

I hate feeling ripped off!
We went down to Des Moines to see Young the Giant (awesome band by the way!) a couple of weeks ago. I'd eaten at Centro before and it was fine so thought I'd try it again. Remember folks this is Des Moines, not Chicago, not DFW, not the Twin Cities, where I live. It's Des Moines! I know things are picking up and there are plenty of nice food choices, which made this experience that much harder to take! I like craft beer so I ordered a Founders Oatmeal stout. This is not an exotic beer by any stretch. When it came to the table with my wife's barely 1/3 full Pinot Noir it was served in a 10 ounce "lady glass." This 10oz beer went for 7 dollars! I asked the waitress why the small glass when I see other beers in real pint glasses? She said it was because of the alcohol volume. Uh what?! I informed her that most stouts are actually lower in alcohol volume and she looked and saw that it was 4.6%. So that answer wasn't working. She left to somewhere and so I went and asked the bartender why the small glass for Founder's stout? He then said it's because of the keg price, implying that it's a very expensive beer. But he was really admitting that they can can gouge customers even more by shorting them 6 ounces for a decent craft beer. I guess there's just no profit margin in that keg unless they pour into 10oz glasses! In the Twin Cities we have a great local chain known as Willy McCoy's. It's always 2/1 beers and I get 2 pints of Founders for 6$. Sure, maybe they buy on more volume, etc. but still. I have no problem spending money at restaurants and I knew going in that I was going to drop over $100, for both of us at Centro and that was fine. But to basically be told that your beer is nice so we charge you more for less was just was so unseemly that it made what was a pretty good pizza taste not so good. To ruin an otherwise decent meal by gratuitously trying to screw your customers for a few extra bucks just left a really bad taste in my mouth. There are plenty of other choices in DSM and that will definitely be my last time at Centro.