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Justin Brady: I’m Justin Brady, and for those in the know, the original Jethro’s location burned down. Now, it’s not owned by the same owner anymore, that, that changed hands years ago, but it got me thinking, what do we know about the man, the myth, the legend, Bruce Gerleman? So I brought him in the studio to talk about that. Bruce, thanks for coming on the Iowa Podcast.

Bruce Gerleman: Hey, it’s great to be here, Justin. Thank you.

Justin Brady: So the, let’s, this is our jumping off point, but the OG, the original Jethro’s, sadly, I think 2008, right? that building, of course, you don’t own it anymore, which is, but that building burned down recently, and so this is a kind of a good jumping off point to going back to the beginning of Jethro’s, but first, what was your reaction when the place burned down? I imagine there’s some kind of emotional attachment to it, even though it’s not yours anymore.

Bruce Gerleman: Oh, very much There were so many great memories there, Justin, with all the fun we had there. Yeah, we bought that building, or I bought that building in 2007, and it was the old police station. there for the Drake, area and, we, got them a place, moved them over to the east side of the Drake canvas and we renovated that building in 2008 and opened the Drake relays in, 2000. Eight, in the middle of a, as most Drake Relays are, a rainstorm with sleet and ice blowing. Yeah, please Yeah, it’s just, the poor Drake Relays, they really need to change that date. But anyway, that was the opening of Jethro’s and we were there until, 2022, I think, 23, maybe, we, closed it down, and that’s when we bought the, the new Jethro’s All Stars downtown, right next to Wells Fargo Arena. That’s really the only reason I closed, Drake, is that this, downtown location became available, and that’s, I’d always wanted to be downtown, but So many great memories there, Man Vs. Food, The Today Show, so many, Men’s Health Magazine named us the manliest restaurant in the Midwest.

Justin Brady: I remember

Bruce Gerleman: Yeah. So we had so many great memories there and we, it was sad to go, but, you know what? Someone made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, they paid me all the money and so I sold it.

Justin Brady: Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit behind the man versus food thing. Like how did, cause this is from the Adam Emmenecker challenge. I believe that’s why they swung by, right? Because of the Adam Emmenecker challenge, the massive sandwich?

Bruce Gerleman: exactly. And, to that point, of course, Adam Emmenecker was the Missouri Valley, men’s Larry Bird Player of the Year in 2008 and, that year Drake, won the Missouri Valley for the first time in a long time and then went to the NCAA. Adam Litt was the star of that team, and so the team would come to Jethro’s all the time, and, So I asked him, I said, can I name a sandwich after you? And he says, yeah, but I can’t decide on what food I want. So I said, let’s just include all the food. And so the sandwich then became four pounds of briskets, steak burgers, chicken tenders, thick cut bacon, pork tenderloins, cheese. Anyway. Five pound sandwich challenge. And, so Adam Richman got wind of this, from Man Vs. Food. And he came to town and, the long and short of it is he failed. And so it became, famous at that point. And, now we’ve had, literally, we have people come from all over the world to try this challenge. One group came from Russia, there were like 20 of them, they were on a food eating tour of the United States, and they all tried this sandwich at one time, and

Justin Brady: really?

Bruce Gerleman: none of

Justin Brady: I’m not bold enough to try it. So is there a talking about the Adam Emmenecker challenge and the sandwich, Is there a like a trend? With who wins that thing and who doesn’t? Because I think naturally everybody would assume it’s the big, huge, burly Dude’s that do it, but for anybody who’s seen these eating competitions, sometimes it’s like the scrappy thin people that do it too. So is there any is there any trend? Is there any that person’s going to win it before they start? Have you, do you have an eye for this at this

Bruce Gerleman: There is, there’s only one person in the world that I know is going to, beat that challenge every time, and that’s the current world record holder, and that’s Molly. She’s a 123 pound diminutive mother of four, and she is a world champion food eater, but she holds the current world record. Actually, she holds the record at every Jethro’s because she’s completed the challenge at every Jethro’s. And she started out. I was sitting there in the Drake, location and she walked in and she goes, I want to take the challenge and, I chuckled and said, Oh, that’s great. And I sat there and watched her and she ate that sandwich in seven minutes and 30 seconds.

Justin Brady: What’s the time limit?

Bruce Gerleman: the challenge is to eat it in 15

Justin Brady: 15 minutes and she almost did that in half the time? No, it’s that’s under half.

Bruce Gerleman: yeah, and so, then she took the challenge at each of the locations and each time she took the challenge, she lowered that world record so that when she finally took the challenge in Ames, Iowa, the current world record is now three minutes and one second.

Justin Brady: Ah.

Bruce Gerleman: And Justin, I’ve got breaking news for you.

Justin Brady: Okay.

Bruce Gerleman: This is breaking news for the month, of March. Celebrating March Madness. The, if anyone can come in and break that world record, I will pay them 25, 000.

Justin Brady: Okay, all right, game on. I don’t think anyone’s gonna be able to do that. okay, so the new record though is her, new record that she set is what? The whole Adam Emmenecker challenge in what time?

Bruce Gerleman: The four pound sandwich and one pound of waffle fries is three minutes and one second.

Justin Brady: And that’s set by Molly, 120 pound Molly. Oh my gosh. I don’t know how that’s possible. That’s crazy.

Bruce Gerleman: it, is not a pretty sight when you see her do it.

Justin Brady: That’s fantastic.

Bruce Gerleman: You, she basically bites, chews a little bit and swallows.

Justin Brady: That’s insane. Do we have a video of this?

Bruce Gerleman: Yes. Yeah. If you want to go to

Justin Brady: Okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna post that. We will definitely post

Bruce Gerleman: You will see it.

Justin Brady: why Jethro’s? The concept, 2008, and now, help me out, because you also own Splash, downtown. We’re gonna talk a lot about downtown renovation. There’s a lot of stuff I figured out about you that most people don’t know. But, did Splash come first, or did Jethro’s come first?

Bruce Gerleman: I, the Splash Seafood Bar and Grill, of course, is in downtown Des Moines. And, I opened Splash in 1998 and, I, in my, real estate career, I spent a lot of time down in the Florida Keys because I had properties down there and so I did a lot of fishing. And in 1998, there was a restaurant in town called 8th Street Seafood Bar and Grill that, had, bacon wrapped barbecued shrimp. And that was my favorite dish in town, and they closed. They closed that restaurant, so I said, Wow, I can’t get my shrimp anymore. so I came back to Des Moines, and said, what Des Moines needs is a fine dining, fresh seafood restaurant. So we opened Splash in 1998.

Justin Brady: Yeah. And then so then two and so you’ve had that for a while and then the Jethro’s came next and that was also South inspiration, I think.

Bruce Gerleman: Yeah, so after a few years, I had so many talented people working with me there at Splash. And I wanted to create opportunities for their growth and for, for them to achieve what they were wanting, their goals in life. So I was in Austin, Texas, we’re visiting my daughter, Anna, and we went to all the famous barbecue places down there, Salt Lake and Willie Nelson’s place and, Franklin’s and on. And so I came back to Des Moines and said, what we need here in Des Moines is a barbecue, Iowa barbecue, not Texas barbeque, not Kansas City barbeque, not Memphis barbeque, but Iowa So we opened Splash, er, we opened Jethro’s in 2008.

Justin Brady: And we do have this unique, I guess maybe it does date back to 2008, doesn’t it? But we do have this unique Iowa barbecue movement here. Because I’ve been told how Texas barbecue is so great and how Kansas City barbecue is so great and we have barbecue places here in Iowa, of course, and I just remember going down to Kansas City and eating at the premier barbecue spaces in Kansas City, and I can confidently say at the 100 percent my integrity intact that Kansas City, you’re not that great. I’m sorry. You’re not that great. Like some of their premier barbecue places are just average. And we do have some central Iowa barbecue that kicks the crap out of Kansas City. they like to act arrogant, and they act like they got it all figured out. But you don’t. Sorry, guys, you don’t.

Bruce Gerleman: let’s give credit to Smokey D’s up there in my competition, but they do a great job with their barbeque. They’ve won more national awards than anyone. let’s give, Watcha Smokin up in Luther, that’s a great barbeque big thing about Kansas City BBQ, it’s all salt forward. And, you put salt on anything, that first taste, oh, that’s delicious. guess what? that two hours later, your, mouth is all dry and you’re trying to, you’re drinking all sorts of water because you just ate all that salt. we don’t, salt any of our, smoked meats. we, have our special rubs, but very little of that is salt, and that’s the difference.

Justin Brady: Huh. Yeah, see, I don’t have the patience for it. That’s why I just go to places. See, my thing at Jethro’s is the wings. That’s what, I can’t, maybe that makes me an idiot, but I can’t get outside of that box, cause I like mixing and matching. But, so Yeah, the, I want to also tell you, you mentioned, you gave us a little clue there, you talked about downtown projects, and I know that you’re involved in a few of those, or have been over the history of Des Moines, and you’re, you were instrumental, and I wanted to talk about this too, because a lot of people don’t know this, but you were instrumental in kind of the Court Avenue turnaround. Because I do remember when there were pockets of downtown, even here in Des Moines, that weren’t very pretty. it was not, there was some rough stuff. not like downtown Chicago rough, but not great. And you stuck your neck out in a lot of these downtown buildings. And in Court Avenue, you were behind a lot of this.

Bruce Gerleman: of course, that was back in the 1980s, and, the thing that I based my career on, I did a lot of certified historic renovations, and I, in school, my favorite subject was history, so as I grew older, and, and, you follow your passion. If you’re doing what’s passionate and what you care about, it’s not really work, it’s just your life, and they, in 1981, which is a long time ago, but they, the government, the US government passed what they call the tax Act of, 2001. And, what that did, the intent was to revitalize the inner cities in historic buildings and save all the historic buildings throughout the country. And so they would offer 25% tax credits on any historic renovation that you would do. I read that, at, I read that bill at the time and, so then I started looking around Des Moines and found on Grand Avenue, a premier Grand Avenue here in, in Des Moines, a mansion, that was built by, R. A. Crawford, who was one of our wealthy bankers back in the 1890s. And it was setting vacant, so I, what I did is, undertook the, history research and found out the architectural, value, historic value of that, and, I did the first certified historic renovation of a building according to the Tax Act of 1900. 81 in the state of Iowa and next, that year I finished it and leased it out as office buildings. It had been vacant and leased it out to, Wesley Day Advertising if you, if anyone remembers Wesley Day. Good people, Kelly Rucker and Bob Buckley from those days, and then down the street from there was another, vacant building, Governor Albert Baird Cummings Mansion at 2404 Forest, Avenue, right across, Forest Drive, right across from Terrace Hill. So I did a historic renovation of that building and put it on the National Register of Historic Places. and, and then went down the street to the Polk Mansion, which is at 2708 Grand, and turned it into another office building. That’s where the, Polk family, the famous Polk County, Iowa, that’s where they lived. And with that, I had saved three of the buildings there on Grand Avenue, three mansions that had all been vacant. And then my next project is I moved downtown, the Homestead Building, and the Homestead Building at the time was known as the Martin Hotel. And it, it too has been condemned by the city and was vacant. And, it is actually, an old hotel. And the owner of the hotel, a guy by the name of Robert Newsom, got in, the city condemned him and, the city had just at that time, they had built the, Civic Center. And so the Civic Center was built and, they had built, what at the time was Nolum Plaza.

Justin Brady: Right.

Bruce Gerleman: it was named Nolen Plaza after, the Leavitt family, Nolen Leavitt, the people that had founded Dial Finance and they, had made a fortune here in Des Moines. With Dial Finance. So they named Nolum Plaza after him. here, with our new Nolum Plaza and here with our new Civic Center, people were walking by with their tuxedos and their furs and their jewels and they were walking by this vacant building that had been condemned. And the, the owner, Robert Newsom, was so upset with the city condemning him that he put a casket in the window, and put a sign and said, dead mo and then the Des Moines Register. back in those days, we had, our national defense was our MX missile system, where we had the government, would hide these missiles on railroad cars and move them around the nation so that the Russians wouldn’t know where the missiles were. So the Des Moines Register, Duffy, the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, um, put a MX missile, you made it into the Martin Hotel into a MX missile site. So it was, he was nominated for a Pulitzer with that cartoon. Yeah, it was funny. to finish that story, Robert Newsom, the owner, couldn’t, because it was damned he couldn’t get any permits, he couldn’t lease any of the building out, he invited all of his friends, all of the homeless people in downtown, to live there. So they didn’t really have any services, and the building then was full of, approximately fifty or sixty homeless people living there, across from the, Nolum Plaza and the Civic Center. So the city’s plan was to tear it down and put a parking lot there. And

Justin Brady: ha! Yeah. Beautiful!

Bruce Gerleman: so I drove up to the homes or to the, Martin Hotel after doing my mansions out on, renovating the mansions out on Grand Avenue and, negotiated a deal with Robert Newsom to buy it. And we renovated it. And so it became the first certified historic renovation in downtown Des Moines.

Justin Brady: Wow. That’s som That’s incredible.

Bruce Gerleman: that was in 19. I bought the building in 1983 and the building opened in 1984 as an office building. And, in that building at the time, there was a restaurant called The Mets, and it was a French

Justin Brady: I remember that actually.

Bruce Gerleman: Yeah. Michael Stein Mets. He was from Holland. And he, was a quite a character and quite a historical hysterical figure. and the Mets lasted there for about 12 years, and that’s when I opened. And, but then. They weren’t paying me rent at that time because they, he had a problem with managing the restaurant. He could make great food and sell amazing wines, but he couldn’t really run a business very well. And that’s the key about running restaurants. You have to run them as businesses. They just, they’re restaurants that happen to be businesses, so in 1998, that’s when I opened Splash.

Justin Brady: Yeah. And there’s also this interesting story. There is a, there are tidbits out there if you really do expert googling. But there’s this interesting story about the, I believe it’s the Saddlery Building and how you bought, I think it’s right, and you bought it and there were hats in it and you sold the hats which actually paid for the building? Or something like, what is this about?

Bruce Gerleman: that’s a great story, and the people of Des Moines and Iowa should really know this. The Saddlery Building was built, in 1890. two, and, or no, maybe it’s 1888, anyway,

Justin Brady: We’ll have our extensive fact checkers look into

Bruce Gerleman: fact check that, but it, is where they made all the saddles and bridles, back in those days. And then. In the early 1920s, a couple by the name of Harry and Anna Gold, bought a portion of that building and turned it into, the Kaplan Hat Company. They would make hats there and they would sell hats there and Harry and Anna Gold, operated that business there for 60 years. they were elderly, but when I approached them in 1983 to buy, that, they’re building and Harry and Anna Gold equated their wealth to their hats. the more hats they had in that building, the more, the wealthier they were, nevermind that the hats weren’t selling.

Justin Brady: Ehh.

Bruce Gerleman: And then a lot of the hats had been sitting there for 10 or 20 years, but they were very historical hats and

Justin Brady: This goes back to, the hat owners. Hat companies apparently have the same mentality as, chefs and restaurant owners. making money and doing a business? Ehh, it’s a side thing. Let’s just

Bruce Gerleman: yeah, they had love of hats. So this was a five story building full of hats. There are over 250, 000 hats in there.

Justin Brady: What, wait, whoa, what? How many?

Bruce Gerleman: 250, 000 hats, and now this is not millinery. These are hunting hats, these are policemen’s hats, these are sailor hats, these are baseball hats, camouflage hats, cowboy hats, every kind of hat you can imagine, but not millinery. There’s a difference. And I found that out because I, Got ahold of Yonkers, the department store chain back then, and said, would you be interested in selling these hats? And they go, oh, no, no way. We don’t want those in our building at all.

Justin Brady: What? No, wait, what is a millinery hat?

Bruce Gerleman: A millinery is a woman’s hat with, with feathers or,

Justin Brady: So these are more use useful hats, for lack of a better, utilitarian, they had some public they had some use, or occupational.

Bruce Gerleman: captain’s hats, cowboy hats, cowgirl hats, all those kind of things, lots of stocking hats, just every working man’s hat. And so, I, it took me a couple of years to negotiate with Harry and Anna to finally come to a price on the hats. and, and I wrote them the check and they moved out. And, and so I had to figure, and then I had this plan to renovate this building because I was going to, I actually built the skywalk from the, from the rest. I connected that building to the skywalk, that red skywalk that’s down on Court Avenue. I built that, yeah, built that skywalk, from the plaza down to that building. and then I did a historic renovation of the salary building. But, before I could do all of that, I had to get rid of all these hats.

Justin Brady: Ha ha ha.

Bruce Gerleman: the Des Moines Register did a little story on, the hat purchase, and, did an interview, and, one day, and then the next morning I woke up, and my goodness, they had put the story on the front page of the newspaper. And I, was getting up out of bed like 730 in the morning. I said to my wife, I said, Oh my God, they put this on the front page in the newspaper. So I raced downtown and I walked around the corner and there were like 50 to 60 people standing in front of the door waiting to get in. So I waited through the people, got in, opened the door. And now you have to remember, this is a five story building that’s been sitting there. unimproved, so there’s no elevators, there’s very little lighting, there’s no elevator, there’s stairways up and down, and the building’s full of hats. The boxes are stacked from floor to ceiling, 12 foot high, full of hats. And these people just flooded into the building, and so I set up a little stand right there at the front door, and I had some empty hat boxes, and people would come out and they would head, Maybe a dozen hats, and I’d go, okay, 2 for that hat, 3 for that hat, 1, 1, 1. And so I just stood back in those days, you didn’t have Venmo, you didn’t have credit cards, it was all

Justin Brady: Yeah,

Bruce Gerleman: So

Justin Brady: No tap to pay back then.

Bruce Gerleman: I sat there that morning, and people just kept coming in the front door. And finally, the fire department showed up, because it was a, it was the talk of the town. And so they shut us all down, made everyone get out of the building. And then they put a limit of 50 people. At a time in the building and and then they had someone there monitoring and then the police had to be there monitoring it too because the blocks then stretched down that are the city or the patrons then stretched down the city block. There was like a block line to get in. And so I sat there all that first day, and, just kept putting money in the hats, in the hat boxes and, went home that night, locked it up and, dumped all the cash out on living room floor and back in those days, 18, 000 was a lot of money, in ones and fives and tens and twenties. Yeah.

Justin Brady: so you that’s cra what, people literally came there just to buy these hats?

Bruce Gerleman: yes.

Justin Brady: trades people? Were these like police captains that one of the police hats or ranchers that one of the cowboy? Who were these people?

Bruce Gerleman: they were just the citizens of Des Moines, but then so that hat sale then went on, for, A couple of weeks and then at, like in the first week, the Today Show, on NBC picked it up and, they came out and did a, a feature on me and I, it was really a fun little feature and it’s out there somewhere on YouTube if you can find it. and, and I went through the whole little schnickta with each, trying on each of the hats. And, it was very fun. Steve Oswald from, WHO is the, guy who did

Justin Brady: We gotta find

Bruce Gerleman: Yeah, you gotta find it. And, and so the long and short of the story is I, the long and short of the story is, after two and a half weeks, I was exhausted. Because I was there every day of my life, just sitting there throwing cash into hat boxes. And, in that time, I had paid 348, 000 for the building and the hats. And I had 348, 000 of cash in my bank account.

Justin Brady: crazy. So I didn’t know that you actually, the owners of the, building sold it to you, but you also had to negotiate the hats inside of it.

Bruce Gerleman: Yeah. Yeah. That was the, that was, they would only sell the building. If we bought the hats.

Justin Brady: Hahaha, that’s fantastic. That’s the best thing ever, and so they had no idea what they were sitting on, the value of what they were sitting on, because you just turned that for the same price you bought the building. Did you ever hear from them? Were there,

Bruce Gerleman: it’s a sad thing. And people, they, dream and plan their whole lives and they think, someday I’m going to get rich and then I’ll do whatever I want to do. And guess what? They got that check 348, 000. They, took it home and they were both dead within two weeks.

Justin Brady: my gosh!

Bruce Gerleman: they both passed away.

Justin Brady: Wow.

Bruce Gerleman: I think it’s just a broken heart. They just didn’t have their business anymore. they had no purpose in life. They had all this cash and didn’t know what to do with it.

Justin Brady: there was, the founder of Best Buy. It was actually called the Sound of Music. Originally, I heard him do a talk in Iowa, sorry, in Minnesota. I went to school up there. Long story short, everybody not going to get into that today, but I went to an entrepreneur conference of some kind and he said, I’m going to try to get through this without tearing up. But he said, I started the company and I told my wife, I convinced my wife. That we’re going to do this company and we’re going to put all this time in and it’s going to be a little bit of a sacrifice, but eventually we’ll have the money and the resources to go travel and spend time together. Then she died of cancer. And so he’s I love my company that I started. now it’s called Best Buy because I love my company that I started. But had I had the opportunity to do this over again, I wouldn’t have started the company. Because I wanted to spend time with her. And now I can’t get that back. And that was just a, a good reminder that yeah, focus on the family, focus on the people that you care about because the business stuff comes and goes. It’s a good lesson. real quick, before we end this, there’s this, you have a football background, but I want to ask you about this really odd thing that, I don’t know if we have you to thank for some Hollywood celebrities, but You didn’t you, you like, coached Aquaman and Superman, so does that make you like some Marvel character? tell, tell, that story.

Bruce Gerleman: the most famous thing I’ve ever

Justin Brady: you Captain Chicken Wing or Captain Barbecue

Bruce Gerleman: Yeah, probably the most famous thing I’ve ever done is I lived in Norwalk, Iowa for a long time and my kids grew up there and I spent time coaching my kids and all the, like parents do on soccer and youth basketball and baseball and all those things. But anyway, I did. I coached Aquaman, Jason Momoa, and Superman. And they were both on my third and fourth grade, soccer team. And back in those days, it was girls and boys. So there were girls and boys on the team. And, the story about Jason is back in those days. as a coach, what I would try to do is, Teach the kids to pass the ball, keep it on the ground, and then catch the ball with their foot. Pass and catch, And, and, And that, we would spend hours, or not hours, a lot of our practice time doing those drills. Passing and catching, and, every time Jason would get to the ball, he would run up to it, and then he would just blast it as far as he could, and I would go, blow the whistle, Jason, hold it, pass and catch, and then, BJ, he tried as hard as he could, but, He, was, he was not as good as Jason, let’s just say it that way. So if, Jason and if Aquaman were to fight Superman, I’m going to, my money is going to be on Aquaman every time.

Justin Brady: Cause he was better at middle school or elementary

Bruce Gerleman: yeah. This is third and fourth grade soccer. Yeah,

Justin Brady: That’s fantastic. thank you for coaching them and giving them Hollywood careers and elevating Iowa for us. There’s a lot more there’s we may get into another time, but you have a lot of projects around the country. I’ve actually walked by one of them multiple times in Savannah, Georgia that you were a part of. There’s some stuff in Chicago. there is a Creamery in Denver. You’ve been involved in projects around the country, but, obviously, Iowans really appreciate you spending a lot of resources, time, and a lot of, probably, pain and suffering, haha, into central Iowa. Should also say Coralville. really quick before I let you go, what’s the website for Splash and Jethro’s?

Bruce Gerleman: Jethro’s a barbecue, you can, it’s Google. You’ll find that anywhere, anytime. we have, eight, eight locations around the state. And, the, splash, all you have to do is Google Splash. They’re both, iconic, institutions, really, that the state of Iowa can be proud to, to be a, to have in their state. We employ over, almost 700. Iowans and, by Jethro’s, we’re the largest independent restaurant group purchaser of pork in the state. We, all of our products are, locally sourced and, so we’re very proud of that. And I’m just appreciate being here, Justin. Thank you so much for having me.

Justin Brady: Absolutely. yeah, thanks for coming on the Iowa Podcast. Really appreciate it. The man, the myth, the legend, Bruce Gerleman. Thanks for coming on the show.

Bruce Gerleman: Thank you very much.