Excellent jazz. Nice ambience EXCEPT THE TV's!! For God's sake turn off the tv's - they ruin the otherwise fantastic vibe of this place!

recently relocating to DSM from California, I was crazy-happy to find a tapas joint in town. Tapas = Spanish, and yet there were NO sangrias. go figure. I'm an avid fan of beef carpaccio, and although I (somewhat) indulged my craving for it, I wasn't too impressed. Their goat cheese tapas, however, were pretty good. I ordered a cesar salad pita, and for its price - pretty decent. The only great thing I'd have to say that was exceptional on the menu was their seared duck. It was prepared to be really succulent. Aside from that, service was slow and the waitress would completely forgot about completing taking orders from some people at our table....there, was however live jazz by the time we left. I'd have to say I give the 1star for good company, and 2 stars for the restaurant itself. I would probably come back, just to give them another shot. Just make sure to order the duck when you go. read more

The cocktails and small plates are great here. We had some wonderful dishes such as the melon and prosciutto crostini and the seared tuna salad. It's a small but quaint environment. Will definitely be back! read more

Was very disappointed. Arrived at 7:10pm on a Friday evening and it's now 8:10 and no food yet. Drinks were ok. They need to get a consistent cook staff in order to remain successful read more

Great food, staff and atmosphere. Was perfect place to eat before going to Wooly's. We will be back!

The food is extremely over priced and not anything to write home about. Don't get the cheese plate. I love cheese and this was disappointing to say the least. Really a let down all around. read more

The Continental is a great new little restaurant and bar near the Iowa state Capital. Be sure to visit there whenever you feel the weather is warm enough to visit Des Moines. They offer an upscale menu with good service and well dressed yet friendly patrons. read more

I REALLY want to try this place, but my friend loves to look at a places menu and daily specials before trying it out, but since they have absolutely nothing on their facebook page or their website, I don't think I'll be able to convince my friend we need to go. read more

$5 happy hour special for sangria was an ok deal. You'll get a full to the rim wine glass. It seemed like the drinks took longer than they should to come out. For food, I can recommend the cranberry brisket sandwich. The bbq sauce served with it was great but I wanted a bigger cup of it. One the side I had Mediterranean chickpea salad which was fresh and not too vinegar-y. They also have a tapas menu but the choices aren't Catalan inspired. My friends seemed to enjoy their food as well. For vegetarians there's a lasagna with polenta that looked amazing. read more

Food was good but be aware that since they are tapas the portions are small. We were looking for a quick snack to tide us over and this place was perfect. I had the Maker's Manhattan and it was wonderful! The only issue was it seemed like only one person was running the bar and the tables so service (while not horrible) was a little slow. Not judging on that as the guy working was doing his best. I really liked this place as I've been wanting to try a "real" craft cocktail for a bit and finally had one. I will definitely go back! read more

The service was incredibly bad tonight at the bar. Couldn't get the bartenders attention to order food or even finally get our bill. Would definitely not recommend read more

Small plates and cocktails are great! Good for a date spot! Took no time getting a table and everything was expertly prepared!

The first place that usually pops into my head for a night out in Des Moines. A bar where you can actually have a conversation. A great place to reconnect with old friends. The atmosphere is tasteful/classy, yet relaxed. I've always had extremely good service here. However, tends to be busy on a late weekend night, go early if you can. Decent live jazz on weekends. read more

I did not have a great experience, we called ahead to get a reservation for Saturday night, but when we showed up the wait staff told us they did not know about our reservation, and no table was ready for our group. Why even offer to take a reservation if you cannot have a table ready? We did luckily have a table open up and were able to get seated. The restaurant was moderately busy that night but the wait staff seemed unable to fill drink orders in a timely fashion. We felt that we were waiting at least 15+ minutes to get our drinks. After ordering second servings on some of the drinks, there was noticeable inconsistency in the drinks themselves, different garnishes and what seemed like different ingredients. My only point on the food was that we had decided to order several appetizers amongst the four of us, but felt that the amount of food that you were given for the $10 on average per plate was underwhelming. Why call them shared plates if there is not much to share. Probably will hold off on going here again for a while. read more

This is a cozy place in the East Village that has live music (typically a small 2-3 person jazz or instrumental band) on the weekends and good selection of cocktails, wine and beer. The food (mostly tapas) won't knock your socks off, but I highly recommend the polenta fries. I've gone here just for the polenta fries before... Great place to kick off or end an evening downtown. read more

Vibey Des Moines East Village spot with good variety of food. I had a quick lunch there with a seared sushi-grade tuna salad served with spicy soy mustard. Loved the salad dressing and mustard, tuna was well seasoned -- the "salad" was just a bed of mesclun. I would have appreciated a few more veg, but whatever. Based on the vein that was throbbing in our otherwise lovely server's forehead as he cleaned up a mess left by kids up front, I'm going to agree with other posters who said it's not particularly kid-friendly. I imagine this would be a great place for cocktails and tapas after work. If I worked in Des Moines, that is. read more

It's a trendy-ish place in the East Village. Bar staff had their faces in their cell phones about 70% of the time. Our server was on task, but you could tell her head wasn't in it. Food was OK, not groundbreaking. Portions a little skimpy for the price. read more

I always will recommend The Continental whenever someone is looking for a place to eat or grab drinks. The bruschetta options are my favorites. The meatballs are also very delicious. I honestly haven't ever had anything I didn't like here though. It isn't huge so it's better for a date night or a small group of friends. read more

Good jazz, OK food, good mixed drinks, great atmosphere, meh service.

Stopped in to get out of the heat and rest our feet after being at the art fair and then wandering the east village. Drinks, food, and service were excellent. My friend had the manchego and olive empanadillas with a mojito and I had the prosciutto/melon crostini with a honey drizzle and the sangria. Very good, perfect small plate to share from. The manager herself waited on us and had excellent suggestions, as there were so many excellent looking choices on the menu. Would love to go again if I ever make it back to Des Moines! read more

We came to Des Moines for our anniversary (yeah, we're boring) and decided to walk the town. Hit the capitol and the riverwalk, all good. Ran into The Continental by pure chance, checked out the menu in the window, and it looked good. Toward the back, it was deathly dark, so we took the last table by the window. The food was really very good. I had the crab cakes, the wife had the Italian Sandwich, and her fries were good. Except she'd ordered the chickpea salad to go with it. So there's the problem. The food was all really good. the service was sloooooooow. After we finally got drinks, I expected somebody to come by and ask if I wanted another beer, because i easily finished the first one long before the food came (and again, the wife's order was wrong). If you have plenty of time, in a place that wasn't even close to crowded, then great. But no kidding, I can't wait that long for food and drinks. read more

Wow, horrible service on a Thursday night. Consistently the food is just ok and the service is horrible. Too many options in DSM metro to waste your $ here. It's too bad because several years ago it was a nice spot. read more

I've eaten here several times over the last few years, and the experience never manages to rise above "just okay". Each time, our apps are forgettable (we wondered if the tomatoes on the bruscetta were canned). The bartender would occasionally go outside and smoke in front of the restaurant, which drew a few comments from patrons. If you're gonna smoke, go out back and do it. All in all, this could be a much better place with a few easy fixes, but apparently, that's not a priority. Also worth mentioning was the time I went here with my boss. They made her the wrong drink and when she mentioned it, the server said they couldn't comp her for it., that she would have to pay for it anyway. We left immediately. read more

Fancy, no. Good food, yes. I had the Italian sandwich and it was spectacular. Great flavoring. I really enjoyed the food. Nice beer and wine prices and the selection was nice. Jazz on Saturday night at 9 was relaxing to listen to. Not too loud, we could still have a conversation. A really nice evening. read more

A little different menu. We had the skillet nachos - pretty tasty but very small, about a dozen chips. Wife had a salad, nothing spectacular but also no complaints. I had the blackened chicken sandwich and fries. Very thin, small piece of chicken- much smaller than the bun. The size of chicken and the insane rationing of ketchup had my sensors at defcon 1 but all in all the flavor of the sandwich made up for the deficiencies. read more

Terrible service...which breaks my heart actually. I have been a frequent customer at the Continental for years...love the old school atmosphere. But after last night I'm done. The two female bartenders were so extremely rude to me and my husband..it was undeniable. I have felt bad vibes from the female bartenders before but always chalked it up to ...she's just having a bad day. Well...after several bad days it's a little hard to keep giving grace for a bad attitude! There are way too many nice restaurants in Des Moines to be treated this way. For the sake of the future success of the Continental I truly hope appropriate adjustments can be made. It used to be a fun place. read more

An old standby in the East Village! The drinks are yummy, and the menu offers fabulous appetizer options. The homemade veggie burger is a great pick, too! Service can be a bit slow, especially at the bar. Don't forget to check out the pocket patio in the back! :) read more

My first restaurant meal in Des Moines. I had the Cajun sandwich and fries. The sandwich was pretty good, but simple, fries were eh, I expected better. Portions were small, I expected larger being in the Midwest, maybe my expectations were off. The Bells winter ale wasn't great. read more

Until today this was one of my "go to" spots. Stopped in at 2:20pm. Ordered drinks and food. They brought wine that wasn't what we ordered! Didn't bother to tell us they were out of what we ordered. Just substituted it for something else assuming we wouldn't notice. We did. Asked the bartender and she admitted to giving us a different one and then replaced ours. After waiting 20 minutes to bring my first drink, an old fashioned I went up to the bar and picked it up off the bar where the waitress was ignoring it. We were there for an hour. We had one drink. Waitress never offered to get another. Came by to see if the food tasted ok. Oblivious to the empty glasses. Absolutely horrible service. I have spent my last minute in this place. Too bad, I'm gonna miss it. Fortunately there a lot of bars in the area so it won't take long to replace it. read more

Food and drinks are amazing every time we come. Service is sub par at best. Three tables of two in the entire restaurant and the waitress was awful. You'd think she had 20 tables. She was missing for long periods of time. read more

Tries too hard to be trendy and chill and yet not hard enough (servers slow to make cocktails looking at recipe). If you have pho-trendy friends it's a place to go. read more

Really disappointing. We weren't greeted when we sat down at the bar, just tossed menus and then we sat there. The bartender was eventually attentive and friendly but at first the service was lacking and standoff-ish. The drinks were ok, we got a couple of smashes. They sounded tastier on the menu than they really were. The food was where we had the biggest problem. It was a quiet night and the food took a long time to arrive. As a former server, I was beginning to wonder if the bartender forgot to put in our order or if it was lost in the kitchen. The spicy meatballs were good, flavorful and spicy, but served with two sad pieces of room temp ciabatta bread. The tacos were meh, we couldn't taste the pork and the fish was obscured by all the cabbage. The hot sauce tasted out of the bottle mixed with something we couldn't place. The worst were the pomme frites. They were unedible to me. They're described as having garlic and truffle salt but all I got was salt, and way too much. The pomme frites are served with a fried egg but it's like a lonely island in the middle of a large plate of McDonald's-like fries. It would be nice to have enough egg to coat all the fried or serve them a way that more than 8 fries get some egg action. Adding the egg to me comes across as desperate and pretentious. The Sriracha ketchup isn't special either. The food and drinks we had we enough for us to decide The Continental isn't worth coming back to. read more

Very good neighborhood haunt. Great food all around. Fun environment. Great vegetarian options.

My friend and wandered in here because we loved the atmosphere.....and we loved it! Drinks were so incredibly good, and all the food was just perfect! Service was great too. Recommend this place to everyone!!! read more

The vibe is cool. The food is tasty, the drinks are fabulous, and the service is good. It isn't quiet, but if you are hanging with friends, it's great! read more

I love The Continental. I am a Chicago native so I am used to a certain type of vibe and a certain level of quality. I now live an hour away from Des Moines, but whenever I am in the area I stop in and the Continental is always a hit. Love the music. read more

I was with a party of 7 and we had a reservation. When we entered the establishment, we weren't greeted or advised to seat ourselves. Instead, there were about 5 different servers or bartenders just standing in the corner talking. I had to go over and ask where we should be seated. Once seated, the server did not promptly fill water or drinks, is only capable is carrying just two plates at a time, and did not bring silverware promptly either. As such, we had to constantly flag her down for drinks to be refilled. It wasn't even busy at all. When we walked past the "staff only" area we could see her just standing texting in the back. Additionally, the food was very poor. For example, I had a chicken sandwich which was burnt and over seasoned. The Continental has a lot of work to do if they wanna stay in business because there are lots of comparable restaurants out there with much better service. Step it up Continental! read more

Great food and wonderful environment. Fantastic plating and good service! Pricey, but to be expected for a Tapas place. I recommend the beef carpaccio or the smoked prosciutto wrapped scallops. read more

The food fine was, the service was the worst I've ever experienced. There was only one other table, took 30 minutes for our appetizer to come, we told the waitress we wanted to order sandwiches and she walked away from the table and didn't return for 45 minutes. She gave us our checks and walked away for another 10 minutes. In total, a two hour ordeal for hummus. And we ended up having to go to another restaurant for food. read more

I was pointed this direction by the hotel staff, and it wasnt a bad choice. Seems like a pretty low key place and wasnt a bad stop for a quick app on a Thursday night. The food didnt blow me away but it was good, I had the chicken chorizo app. The bartender was friendly and they had quite a few beers on tap. read more