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"Revelry in the Walls: A Tale of Spirits, Stories, and the Savery" 

Long before the Revelry Room Bar + Kitchen began pouring craft cocktails under Edison bulbs and curated playlists, the building it now calls home—the Renaissance Des Moines  Savery Hotel—was a heartbeat of midwestern elegance. Built in 1919 and redesigned through the decades, the Savery has stood through Prohibition, World Wars, presidential campaigns, and moon landings, collecting secrets like dust in the corners of its grand  ballrooms.

Legend has it that beneath the modern fixtures of the Revelry Room lies a footprint of an older establishment: a Prohibition-era speakeasy, hidden behind what is now the kitchen’s  walk-in freezer. Patrons in the 1920s knew it only as “The Canary Room,” named for the jazz singer who performed nightly with a voice that could melt gin.

Fast forward to today, and the Revelry Room Bar + Kitchen is a chic nod to that clandestine past. With a menu celebrating elevated Americana and a cocktail list that revives  century-old recipes with a modern twist, guests sipping on smoked Old Fashioneds, and locally inspired charcuterie boards may not realize they're sitting in the same spot where flappers once danced and whispered of bathtub gin.

The bar’s atmosphere carries whispers of its layered past—an art deco mirror rumored to have survived since the 1930s reflects patrons’ smiles. Staff say that on quiet nights,  when the lights dim low and the ice machine hums just right, you can hear faint laughter, the clink of glasses long gone, and even the echo of that old jazz tune—“Sweet Lorraine”—floating up through the floorboards.

In a city rising with new ideas and new faces, the Revelry Room doesn’t just serve drinks and dishes—it serves history, distilled and garnished.