I sat down this week with Paul Rottenberg to discuss his newest venture, The Gateway Market. If you haven’t yet heard of this project, welcome to earth, if you have, I’m sure you’re very excited about it!

Mr. Rottenberg is the owner of Orchestrate Management Co, they manage Raccoon River Brewing Company, Hotel Ft. Des Moines, 43 Restaurant & Bar, and South Union Bread Co. downtown. Paul is also one of the developers of the new Davis Brown Tower, and has partnered with George Formaro on both Centro and now The Gateway Market. As you can see, he’s a very busy (and successful) guy.

The Gateway Market is located at the corner of MLK Blvd and Woodland Ave. As you can see from the sign, they are all about good food.

Paul told me that the market is scheduled to open on April 24. He also told me he had the choice of whether to leave extra room in the aisles for the rush of people that are sure to come, or to fill the isles up with good food–sorry people, the food won. They are expecting huge crowds to come out the first weekend, so let me make a suggestion. Pretend that it’s the day after Thanksgiving, bundle up, and stand in line at 5AM out front. If you can do it at a place like Target or Wal-Mart, there’s no reason there shouldn’t be a mile-long line here when they open up!

Here’s a few highlights of what Paul shared with me about his new store.  (The following is a summary of our conversation, not actual quotes.)

Vision

When this was started we wanted to bring the fresh, good food experience that other cities had to Des Moines. We wanted to self-develop something that national companies hadn’t brought here to Des Moines yet.

How big will the market be?

Only (only?) 14,000 square feet upstairs!

What will Gateway Market offer?

So much more than anything else we’ve seen. We expect Gateway Market to be the source of fresh, good food, not of household products. We’ve noticed that people are trending away from shopping once a week for all of their grocery needs, to a more European style of shopping for fresh food every day or two. We will carry household products, but we don’t expect to be your source for those.

Gateway Market will offer quite a few things not yet seen in Des Moines. We will have an 80 seat cafe, with 36 seats on the patio. We will be cooking fresh meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 days a week. We will also have fresh prepared meals that you can take home to eat. There will be a sushi chef working from 10am to 7pm everyday, preparing fresh sushi on site. We will have rotisserie meats, not just chicken like what you’ve seen elsewhere, but all sorts of meats cooked rotisserie style available to pick up (and of course eat and enjoy!).

Cooking classes and demos. We have lined up our entire first year of cooking classes, demos and instruction. There will be local chefs sharing how they cook their cuisine, and show you how to do it. We even have some national names in BBQ, Mexican cuisine and a few other experts coming in as well. (Josh here: we’ve got a big announcement coming for a HUGE name that will share his craft at Gateway Market in June.)

Not to mention we will have a fantastic meat counter. If there is a meat we don’t have, we can get it for you right away. Fresh seafood from Hawaii? We can have it delivered fresh to your order! The meat counter will be great.

South Union Bread Co. has the downstairs level, we’ve installed new artisan ovens, and will be able to expand our fresh bread quite a bit.

The wine room will be amazing as well. Over 4,000 bottles of all vintages.

Are you excited?

Ha! We are very excited. What we have found, and you can see at The Market at Jordan Creek is that there is a huge demand for this product. People want good fresh food, and we’re all about good food. I don’t know of anyone that loves food more than my partner, George Formaro. The Gateway Market is going to be fantastic. We are worried that the opening weekend will be toobig, but I guess that’s a good thing to worry about!

Speaking of The Market at Jordan Creek, how does Gateway Market compare? Are they pretty similar?

Well, I’ll just say that we’re food people getting into retail, that store is more retail people getting into food.

We will be doing quite a few things differently, but the essence of the two stores is similar I suppose.

It was great to get a chance to sit down with Paul. I for one can tell you I am very, very excited about Gateway Market. I have been inside, and been able to see what’s going on. If you like to cook great food, or if you like to eat great food, I have no doubt that you’ll be visiting Gateway Market quite often.

I think that this store is going to be an awesome compliment to downtown Des Moines. I for one, can’t wait!

Remember, April 24 is when they are opening. Wake up at 4AM, get in line and have some fantastic food! (I’m kidding about getting in line early of course, but make sure you head over and check them out!)