While we were in Des Moines recently, we passed a relatively new restaurant off Ingersoll Ave. "That's sort of an upscale breakfast place," our friend said as she pointed the place out to us. It was our last day in Des Moines a couple days later and I suggested before we leave town that we stop in to HomeGrown and have breakfast.
Darrel Rolph was a school teacher in Great Bend, KS in the early 60's when he heard about this new pizza chain out of Wichita started by brothers Dan and Frank Carney just a few years before. The chain - Pizza Hut - was looking for franchisees to run restaurants in rural towns and cities across the Midwest. Darrel Rolph jumped on board as a franchisee with partner George Maska and opened the first Pizza Hut in Hays, KS.
Rolph and his partner George Maska then went up to Iowa to open more Pizza Huts across the state. As the venture was getting going, Maska unexpectedly passed away. Trudging on, Rolph continued to build Pizza Hut locations in Iowa. In 1968, the Carney brothers took Pizza Hut public and with the sudden influx of cash they were able to grow the business into the largest chain of pizza places in the world within 3 years.
When the company went public, Rolph merged his Pizza Hut locations into the corporation and moved to Wichita to work for Pizza Hut corporate overseeing the eastern region and serving as the company's director of operations. Meanwhile, Rolph's younger brother David was graduating from the University of Iowa with a degree in history. David Rolph's plans were to become a college professor, but he needed his masters to do that. Needing money for graduate school, Darrel Rolph convinced David to come on board with him as he opened Pizza Hut restaurants in New York City. David Rolph managed Pizza Hut locations there before moving out to San Francisco to open stores on the west coast. By the age of 23, David Rolph was in charge of all Pizza Hut operations in San Francisco.
Deciding to forego graduate school and life as a university professor, David Rolph joined his brother as franchisees of Pizza Hut locations around the Midwest. In the early 70's, the Rolphs opened Pizza Hut locations along the east coast from Virginia to Florida. At one point, the Rolph brothers had 26 Pizza Hut restaurants.
In 1981, the Rolphs came up with a new concept for a Mexican restaurant - Carlos O'Kelly's Mexican Cafe. They started a new corporation to oversee the restaurants - Sasnak Management. (Sasnak is Kansas spelled backwards, and their logo was the backwards outline of the state of Kansas with Sasnak in the middle.) They opened their first Carlos O'Kelly's in Marion, IA that year with more in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City in the coming years. The Carlos O'Kelly's in Iowa City was a favorite of mine when I was going to school there in the early 80's.
(Personal disclosure - David Rolph married the sister of a friend of mine. My friend and her husband were close friends with me in the late 80's and it was then that I first met David Rolph. One day when David, his wife Barbara and their children were visiting family in Newton, IA, David flew my buddy/his brother-in-law, another friend of ours, and myself over to Iowa City in his personal Beechcraft Bonanza on the Friday after Thanksgiving to have lunch at Carlos O'Kelly's. That was the only interaction that I had with David Rolph that I can remember, but that trip to Iowa City sits hard in my memory. It was a fun time that weekend.)
In 1994, Darrel and David Rolph sold their 26 Pizza Hut locations to PepsiCo, the corporate owner of Pizza Hut. They continued to grow the Carlos O'Kelly's brand and at one point they had 49 locations in 10 states.
Four years later, the brothers started a new venture - Apple Corps, LP (Limited Partnership). (David Rolph was a musician and a big Beatles fan, hence the mirroring of the Beatles' corporate name during their hey-day.) Darrel and David Rolph acquired 16 Applebee's locations in Illinois and Iowa, then developed 9 more in Iowa. Apple Corps eventually became the second-largest franchisee of Applebee's locations across the nation.
In 2001, David Rolph's son Jon graduated from Baylor University. Jon Rolph's accomplishments at Baylor - 2-time Student Body President and graduating Magna Cum Laude - opened a number of doors for him. He spent a year in Washington D.C. as an intern for the National Student Leadership Forum before his father convinced him to come back to Wichita to join him in the family business.
Jon joined his father and uncle in Sasnak Management/Apple Corps in 2003 and worked various jobs within the company. When Darrel Rolph died unexpectedly in 2011, David Rolph elevated his son to C.E.O. of the corporation. One of the first things Jon Rolph did was to change the name of the corporation to Thrive Restaurant Group. David Rolph continued to be the Chairman of the company while turning the day-to day operations over to his son.
Pictured at right - David and Jon Rolph. Photo courtesy Thrive Restaurant Group.
In 2017, Jon Rolph - in a brainstorm collaboration with his wife Lauren - came up with a new concept the couple envisioned of a home-style breakfast restaurant that served made-from-scratch meals with locally-sourced ingredients. HomeGrown opened its first location in Wichita later that year. Two more Wichita locations opened after that and two HomeGrown locations opened in the greater Kansas City area. The first Des Moines location opened in January of 2023 and another location in West Des Moines near Jordan Creek Mall opened in April of this year. Today, there are currently 11 HomeGrown locations in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas.
The Des Moines location is located in what was the former Crescent Chevrolet building on 17th St. between Ingersoll Ave. and High St. (see map) The parking lot out in front of the restaurant was paved with bricks. That lot was full, but there was a large lot behind the building where we were able to find parking. There's a back entrance to the building that takes you down a long hallway past a common bathroom area. My wife thought it was rather strange to be freshening up her make-up at the sink with a man washing his hands next to her.
The former car dealership - one of the largest in Des Moines in its day - is also home to other businesses including Big Grove Brewery on the opposite end of the building from where HomeGrown sits. One of the great things the developers - the Krause Group - did with the building when they purchased it in 2014 was to renovate the large Crescent Chevrolet sign atop the structure. There's a common lobby area just outside the door of HomeGrown where pictures of old Chevrolets are shown on the wall.
The restaurant featured a breakfast bar. On the wall behind the bar was the phrase "Cultivate Kindness." When Jon and Lauren Rolph came up with the concept behind HomeGrown, they used the philosophy that a little kindness can change everything. And by helping someone early in the day, they feel it will start a chain of kind events that will spread throughout the day. It's a noble philosophy, but some may feel it's sort of far-fetched in this day and age.
The restaurant featured a number of booths and tables on an "L"-shaped floor plan. The kitchen in the back was easily visible through a large open window. The walls were painted a deep blue with gold modern light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.
We were taken to a booth toward the back of the restaurant and given menus. On the wall were works of art by local artists including different styles of flowers on the wall above tables with banquette seating. The place seemed to be popular with families.
Our server that day was a young lady by the name of Saphyre. Only she really could have been called "Spitfire" because she was ebullient, sparkling and chipper. And she wasn't putting on an act. When I ordered 4 shots of espresso straight up right off the bat, she said, "All right! Startin' the day off right!"
Breakfast, brunch and lunch are available at HomeGrown which opens their doors at 6:30 a.m. each day and closes at 2:30 p.m. Down home favorites such as pancakes, French toast, biscuits & gravy, omelets, eggs Benedict, and seasonal offerings are available for breakfast. Sandwiches and salads make up the lunch offerings while breakfast is served from open to close at HomeGrown. They also had bloody marys and mimosas at HomeGrown and while I considered having a bloody mary, they didn't have any beer on the menu for a chaser. We both just went with fresh-squeezed orange juice with our meals.
Saphyre came back with a coffee for my wife and my espresso and she pointed out some things on the menu including some of their specials that day including lemon ricotta pancakes and a lemon curd "Pop'd Heart". "It's basically a homemade Pop Tart," Saphyre explained. "We used to call them Pop Tarts on the menu, but we had to change it because the makers of Pop Tarts sued us for a lot of money or something like that." I can imagine that the Kellogg's Company probably didn't like HomeGrown using the name.
But she did talk us into getting the coffee cake which was one of their most popular items on the menu. It came with a side of warm buttermilk/caramel sauce that we drizzled on top of the coffee cake square. It was insanely delicious and very, very rich and sweet.
Since everything is made from scratch in the kitchen, HomeGrown uses locally-grown foods when they can source them. They work with a number of local suppliers including Berkwood Farms for Berkshire pork products, Windmill Coffee Roasters, Loffredo Fresh Foods, Main Street Bakery, and Mississippi River Distilling Co., as well as local farmers for fresh eggs. Each HomeGrown location uses locally-sourced suppliers for their menu items.
My wife ordered the "Build-Your-Own" breakfast that consisted of two eggs over easy, a side of bacon, rosemary-seasoned fried potatoes and an English muffin. My wife asked Saphyre if she could get gluten-free bread for toast instead. Saphyre asked if my wife had any dietary restrictions such as celiac disease, but my wife said, no, it was just a choice.
When they brought out my wife's breakfast, she noticed they had put an English muffin on her plate instead of the gluten-free bread. When my wife pointed it out that she had ordered the gluten-free toast, the young lady from the kitchen went into a minor panic. "Do we have to change out the breakfast? Is this a celiac problem?" When my wife explained that, no, it was just a choice with no health issues involved, the young lady settled down. "OK," the young lady said. "We can just take the English muffin off the plate and replace it with the gluten-free toast." And moments later, it came back just that way. (Actually, I should have just taken the English muffin and let her bring out the toast.)
My wife was happy with her breakfast. The eggs were definitely farm-fresh with the yokes a deep golden color. A raspberry sauce came on the side for the toast that my wife thought was delicious.
As soon as she opened the menu after we sat down, my wife said, "Oh, I know what you're going to get." She pointed out the Salsa Verde pork & egg plate - slow-roasted pork topped with Monterrey jack cheese, pico de gallo, salsa verde and finished with two eggs on top of it. Rosemary-seasoned potatoes came on the side. But I was thinking something more sweet that day including the blueberry streusel pancakes.
But in the end I went with one of their seasonal specialty items - the limoncello French toast. They make a loaf of limoncello bread with a citrus custard. A slice of the bread is grilled with an egg batter and served with a vanilla bean anglaise sauce and a lemon drizzle. "That is so good," Saphyre gushed. "It's probably my favorite item on our seasonal menu." And when I asked if I could get blueberries on the side with the limoncello French toast, Saphyre enthusiastically said, "Yum!"
Actually, I didn't know if I'd bitten off a bit more than I could handle before the breakfast showed up, but when I realized it was just one piece of the limoncello French Toast along with a couple over-easy eggs and bacon, I knew this would be a breeze. The limoncello French Toast was outstanding. The bittersweet nature of the blueberries paired with the sweet custard within the bread was off the chart on the tastebuds.
As we were eating, the manager came over to check on us. He said, "Oh, you got blueberries with the lemon French toast! I'll bet that is a great combination." When I told him it absolutely was, he said, "We just put this back on the menu. It's one of our more popular items, when we have it. There's been some talk that we may just permanently add it to the menu."
Our visit to HomeGrown was a success all the way around. The food was delicious, the ambiance was comfortable and welcoming, and Saphyre's service work was extremely good. She was a ball of fire, enthusiastic and dynamic the whole time she interacted with us. HomeGrown is a great place for a made-from-scratch breakfast with a lot of interesting things to choose from.