My friend and I tried out this place on a weeknight. Â Unfortunately, there was no dueling pianos just a trivia game going on that night. Â Still, we had a pretty good time with the trivia game. Â Decent crowd that night and pretty nice prizes if you wanted more food or drinks. Â I would have preferred a gift card or cash like other places. Â I had the fish and chips which was pretty decent. Â Crispy and not too greasy. Â 3-4 pieces made it rather filling with some steamed vegetables. Â My friend had a burger which he said was pretty good. Â Trivia started at around 7 and ended around 9:30. Â Would like to come back here when there is music.
Review Source:I've been here a couple of times. The first was a date. It's perfect when you are looking for something different to do. We also had our company Christmas party here. What a blast! The two servers really took care of us! There is probably some video floating around of us on stage with the entertainers. Go- you will have fun!
Review Source:Went there on a Thursday night and had an absolute blast!! Â If you are looking for a quiet night out this isn't the place. Â The piano talent was awesome and really created a party atmosphere. Â They played all of our songs we requested and timely. Â Lots of piano bars have so many requests that yours might get played every few hours. Â The food was good. Â The sweet potato fries with honey dipping sauce was crazy good. Â Our server was engaging and funny. Â He knew when we needed served and didn't seem overwhelmed even when the large crowd came in. Â I would highly recommend if you are looking for a good time and like the piano bar atmosphere.
Review Source:The food was okay. Â My sandwich was good, but the pizza lackluster. Â The service was terrible; twenty minutes just to get our drinks ordered! Â Also, I like my drinks a bit heavy on the booze but my boyfriend's Long Island Iced Tea was nothing but gin. Â Very poorly mixed drink. Â
It was the last day of a Living Social deal so a ton of people were there, but I watched the manager sit on his butt the whole time instead of trying to help with ordering and other service. Â The service was so poor that we had to pass our menus to two other tables just so they could see one!
We went for a 6:15pm dinner and found out that the live music didn't start until 8pm. Â Pretty late to start entertainment on a Tuesday night.
Would not go again.
I like Blue Moon ok - it's better for a large group gathering than going out with a couple of people. Â It's a pretty standard dueling piano bar. Â If you can get past the bachelorette parties, or the group of fortysomething women in non-age-appropriate clothing celebrating a divorce/birthday, you'll probably be able to make a good night of it. Â
You can't really go too wrong with live music and booze. Â But it's fairly bland, often over-crowded, and the piano players have no shame in their money-grubbing techniques ("we'll stop playing this Bieber song if you give us more money than the person who paid us to play it"), but that's par for the course in a dueling piano bar. Â I get it. Â
I don't really care for their specialty cocktails. Â Stick to something simple (beer). Â The food isn't great, either - I'd grab something at Wellmans before heading over.
My wife and I have visited Blue Moon twice in the past couple of months. Â It is a great time for couples and groups of friends. Â The piano players are very talented given the wide range of songs they have to sing and play. Â
A dueling piano bar is not for everyone. Â It is crowded, the pianists are vulgar, it is very loud and the crowd participates in every song. Â It is like a crazy party. Â If you like 14 year old humor you will laugh like never before. Â If you don't appreciate immature, dirty minded jokes, and poking fun and peoples expense then don't go! Â I thought the food was great.
I would suggest getting there just before six to avoid the cover charge. Â Also, call several days ahead of time to get reservations. Â
Have fun!
I wish I could rate this differently for the show and the food but I can't officially but I will say this.
Show - ****
Food - **
Which pretty much balances out to 3 stars. Â The food here is nothing to get excited about at all. Â Really, it's more of an afterthought for this establishment. Â Just cheaply made dishes to pass along to the people waiting for the show to start. Â When the show begins (8pm Thurs-Sat) is when the place really starts going. Â As people have said in other reviews, it can get raunchy and childish at times, but the point of the place is to get people liquored up so they sing along and pay money for tunes to get played. Â Trust me, it makes for a better environment when the place gets lubed up a little and the people go along with it. Â I have been to a couple of piano bars in other cities where the people just sit and watch, and it's quite boring. Â It's a place to go with a lot of friends or with the significant other but only a couple of times a year. Â The set lists do seem to become repetitive after a while.
The Dueling Piano Bar in Des Moines is a heterosexual group event heaven. Not a huge fan of drunken douchebags yelling out things regarding sex, sexual positions, and anatomical parts. I wish it were just limited to the people drinking, but it also includes the performers.
If you would like to see your friend made fun of, touch a piano players body, or generally just degraded, this is the bar for you....as long as you give enough of a tip to get them to take your request. The more money, the more they do. I prefer to think of it as piano bar prostitution.
I am not a huge fan. It's a gimic, wrapped in a shiny new building, wrapped in a package with bows and crappy food. The food is terrible, the drinks are expensive, and there's a bloody cover. If my wife and friends hadn't dragged me here, I would NOT have gone. No need. I can humiliate myself or my friends for free. I have been to a few piano bars that were much better, but they were in CA and generally didn't create their whole environment/bar around the piano bar theme. I prefer their "one night a week" system. I would never go back to this bar. It was okay for the night, but it's only good if you have a large party or want to get rid of a large portion of your bank account.
Blue Moon = bachelorette party central.
(I'll fully admit, I'm guilty of it too - I've been here several times but mostly with bachelorette and/or birthday parties!)
Blue Moon is a cavernous building with a stage and seating on the ground floor, and a rather large balcony where you can watch the show while getting away from the crowds. Â There's even a second bar on the balcony level, and that's where I prefer to sit - you can see out over the entire bar but you aren't RIGHT in the middle of a mob of people. Â And believe me, this place gets packed - if you can't find a seat, you're going to be standing around the back. Â
Generally, dueling pianos starts around 8:00; after a certain time (6 or 7?) you have to pay a cover to get in. Â To get around this last night, we started our evening at 5:30 and snagged seats right up front by the pianos. Â
We had dinner and drinks; the menu is what you would expect to find at your run-of-the mill sports bar, with lots of fried appetizers and pizzas. Â I had a "salad" that consisted mainly of soft shredded cheese smothering a few sad leaves of lettuce, and shared a pizza that was nothing special (certainly not worth $16). Â Canned ingredients thrown on a crust that was straight out of a freezer... mmm.
However, most people don't go to a piano bar for the food, so I witheld judgement until the start of the show. Â The dueling pianos started at 8. Â Just as I've seen in the past, the pianists were very talented but the show had a distinctive bent toward getting you to bring up more and more money. Â "I have $20 here in my hand to play Barry Manilow, and I'm going to play this song until someone gives me $21 to stop!" Â Let's just say that gets old after awhile. Â I was willing to put up with it because the musicians were so talented, but there is this old guy with curly gray hair and a loud Hawaiian shirt who kept subbing in for the other pianists (their system is to rotate musicians to avoid taking a break in their setlist). Â Oddly enough, I think I have seen this guy every single time I've been to Blue Moon, and I'm always struck by the talent deficit. Â He sounds a little like Bob Dylan, but with less talent and more drugs, and I just don't enjoy listening to him. Â I'm not quite sure if he's affiliated with Blue Moon somehow and thus gets to sub in for the other musicians (who are not usually from Des Moines), but in my opinion the whole show takes a nosedive anytime he takes the stage. He's also generally the one who pulls out the Mellencamp songs when the other guys are playing Kings of Leon - not that we don't all enjoy a good 80s tune, but his frame of reference is a bit older.
After several gimmicks where drunk girls were asked to come up to the stage and "dance," we were no longer so thrilled with our front-row seats. Â I counted seven girls in veils on stage - it is seriously bachelorette party central! Â At one point the pianist tried to start a male vs. female singalong gag, and it became miserably apparent that the only men in the bar were there with their wives. Â I think approximately 80% of the bar's patrons were female! Â Not necessarily a bad thing... I'm just saying.
One more note about the constant hawking for money. Â I've seen this done in a much more charming manner at piano bars in other cities - when done right, it comes off as funny rather than obnoxious and self-serving. Â However... I'll never forget one particular visit to Blue Moon last summer when we took a friend out for her birthday. Â The piano player stopped the entire show to announce that someone had put in a request for "Happy Birthday" for my friend (yep, he read out her name) which was not accompanied by enough money. He then told the entire bar he flat-out refused to play that song unless someone brought $20 to the stage. Â Imagine how special the birthday girl felt after hearing that announcement - and how chagrined she was to watch her friends take up a collection after we'd all just paid a cover charge to enter the bar in the first place.
If you like loud, obnoxious parties full of drunk girls, by all means, plan a visit to Blue Moon. Â However, if you just enjoy hearing live music and want a good show, I far prefer the atmosphere (and the food!) downtown at Grand Piano Bistro.
I went on a Thursday because it is almost impossible to get a table or even a little standing room in this place on Friday and Saturday. Â They do not take reservations on the weekends. Â I have not tried the food but the atmosphere was nice and 2 of 3 pianists were very good. Â It would be a great after hours place on Thursdays.
Review Source:
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