12/3/2025
When Colorado cowboy Paul Trostel rode into Des Moines in the early 1970s, the city thought: appetizers meant a choice of shrimp cocktail, tomato juice or fruit cocktail; that wine choices were simply “red or white;” and that French dressings were all orange and very sweet. He changed Des Moines restaurant culture by sheer force of personality at Colorado Feed & Grain and Rosie’s Cantina on Ingersoll. Then, in 1987, he shocked Des Moines by pulling up stakes and moving, cowboy style, to the frontier’s edge in Johnston.
At that time, Pioneer-owned Green Meadows had constructed a building to encourage restaurant options for Pioneer’s Johnston employees. Three different restaurants had tried it out and all gave up in one year or less. Paul named his place Greenbriar to please the realtor and to suggest the 18th century resort in West Virginia — the Greenbrier.
Trostel’s Greenbriar is a steakhouse that resists that restrictive label. It is a place where people come to celebrate the big occasions of their lives — marriages, graduations, birthdays, funerals and reunions. The restaurant now has three distinctive parts — a white tablecloth dining room, a magnificent mahogany bar room and a shaded patio.
Paul passed away in 2011 after a full life of hosting, rodeo, car racing, demolition derby, family, friends, drinking, gambling, rugby, etc. His portrait, titled “Culinary Gunslinger,” faces the south side of the bar room as if the master host is still looking after his guests. (That nickname came from a CITYVIEW cover story.) Paul’s son, Troy, ran the kitchen before his surprise passing in 2024…