When Scott Cosner talks about Flying Mango, the esteemed barbecue restaurant he recently bought in Des Moines, he doesn’t sound like a newcomer stepping into someone else’s legacy. He sounds like a man who’s finally arrived where he was meant to be.
“I believe in the brand. I believe in the food. I love barbecue,” he said, describing the winding, almost “divine” path that brought him from the south side of Des Moines to California’s music industry and back home again, this time as the owner of one of the city’s most distinctive barbecue spots.
Cosner bought the restaurant from longtime owner Mike Wedeking in January after Wedeking decided to retire.
Barbecue with a legacy in Des Moines
Long before barbecue became a culinary calling card for Des Moines, a former pilot with a homemade smoker was quietly redefining what smoked meat could be. Flying Mango, the Beaverdale institution that blends Southern barbecue with Caribbean swagger, didn’t begin as a brick-and-mortar restaurant at all. It started in 1997 at farmers markets, air shows and catering gigs, fueled by Wedeking’s all-wood smoker and an instinct for feeding people well.
When the couple — Wedeking and his wife, Suzanne Van Englehoven — opened Flying Mango’s dining room in Beaverdale in 2003, Des Moines had only a handful of barbecue spots. Gas-assisted smokers and reality TV hadn’t yet transformed the genre. Wedeking built his own smoker, kept things old-school and ran the dining room with a personality-forward style that felt increasingly rare even then. Diners didn’t just come for dinner; they came to be greeted, to linger and to feel part of something idiosyncratic and alive.
A menu that refuses to sit still
Flying Mango’s food has always defied easy labels. At its core, it’s barbecue — brisket smoked for 24 hours, Memphis-style ribs with a deep cherry-wood kiss and thick-cut pork chops sliced off the rack. But Wedeking layered in Caribbean, Cajun and Creole influences that gave the menu its unmistakable personality: mango salsa spooned over shrimp, Cajun catfish paired with red beans and rice and “Redneck Surf & Turf” that unapologetically marries ribs and catfish on the same plate.
The sides are just as essential to the experience. Sweet potato pancakes with mango sour cream, collard greens enriched with pork, cowboy beans and a rotating “potato of the day” are not afterthoughts but main attractions. And then there’s the cornbread — served plain, no butter needed.
The homemade barbecue sauce, built from vinegar, brown sugar, spice and patience, is always on the table.
Mike Wedeking’s imprint
For more than two decades, Wedeking was Flying Mango’s front man, backstop, storyteller and unofficial mayor. A licensed pilot since his teens — hence the name, paired with his favorite fruit — he ran the restaurant the old-fashioned way: greeting guests personally, sitting down at tables and making service the throughline of the experience.
That personality helped put Flying Mango on the national map. Guy Fieri featured the restaurant on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” praising its ribs, red beans and rice and soulful approach to barbecue. But fame never dulled the place’s neighborhood feel. Live music, eclectic artwork and a room that fits barely 50 diners ensured Flying Mango remained intimate, even as its reputation grew.
Still, Wedeking was clear-eyed about time. In interviews over the past few years, he talked candidly about wanting to retire without watching his life pass behind the smoker. He wanted a buyer who would respect the staff and preserve the spirit of the place — not reinvent it.
That moment arrived in early 2026. In January, Flying Mango was sold to Scott and Alexis Cosner, marking Wedeking’s official step away as owner and ushering in a new chapter for the restaurant.
A south side kid with a California detour
Cosner grew up on the south side of Des Moines, but in 2007 he headed west, chasing a dream: to make it big in the music industry. He enrolled in an audio engineering school in California, freelanced, worked at the school and crossed paths with “some pretty cool people” in the process. But the reality of the industry — long hours, on-call schedules and not‑so‑nice colleagues — wore thin.
He began to notice how similar the grind felt to restaurant work — long, odd hours, constant pressure — but there was one critical difference: “I just have more fun doing this,” Cosner said of the restaurant world.
So he pivoted. In California, Cosner moved into the service industry full-time, running a bakery called Crumbs, and later managing restaurants like Red Robin and Raising Cane’s, where he became a training general manager and operated what was, at the time, the busiest Cane’s in the world, doing $18 to $20 million a year and serving 30,000 to 35,000 customers a week.
The hours were brutal. Late-night closings until 4 a.m. and constant responsibility left him checking cameras at odd hours and living in a kind of managerial PTSD. The job paid well, but it wasn’t sustainable — especially once he and his wife welcomed their daughter in 2021, right in the middle of the pandemic.
California, already “weird” in the COVID years, suddenly felt like the wrong place to raise a family. The couple started looking for ways to get back to Iowa.
A ‘divine’ path to Flying Mango
The opportunity to take over Flying Mango didn’t arrive through a broker or a formal listing. It came through family and timing.
Cosner’s uncle by marriage, a close family connection through his wife, who also grew up on the southside, happened to be friends with Wedeking.
Given what Cosner was earning in California, coming home would only make sense if the opportunity was truly lucrative and sustainable. Then, one day, the conversation shifted.
“One day he was just like, ‘You want to buy the place?’ And I was like, ‘Sure, let’s figure it out.’”
What sealed it for Cosner wasn’t just the business potential; it was something deeper. His uncle’s son — who considered Flying Mango his favorite restaurant — had died in a freak accident in 2024. The family had long talked about Flying Mango, and the chance to carry it forward now felt loaded with meaning.
“There was a deeper reason to pursue this restaurant as well,” he said.
Cosner and his wife committed. They began working on the deal in May 2025, moved back to Iowa in September, and after navigating the usual business roadblocks, he took over Flying Mango in early 2026.
Bringing a corporate mindset to an independent icon
Cosner openly acknowledges he’s a first-time business owner — but emphasizes that, functionally, he’s been treated like one for nearly 20 years. Running high-volume corporate restaurants through COVID taught him how to adapt, forecast and build systems that survive turbulent times.
He’s already applied that thinking at Flying Mango. He rebranded the website and updated digital presence, built a mobile app to streamline ordering and committed to online ordering and third-party platforms, even if he’s “not a huge fan,” because he knows guests increasingly want to eat at home while watching the Iowa game or spending time with family.
His ultimate goal, though, is still old-school hospitality:
“I’m a huge proponent of getting everybody in the restaurant. That’s my ultimate goal.”
The making of a barbecue cook
Cosner has loved barbecue for years, but it didn’t start smoothly. Early on, he bought a smoker, determined to make brisket for family holidays.
He babysat that first brisket “like a baby” for 10 hours and failed miserably. But that failure pushed him to learn. Over time, the family joke — “Are we smoking a brisket again?” — turned into a running narrative of improvement that eventually landed him in charge of a barbecue restaurant kitchen.
Today, he smokes briskets daily and jokes that his wife will tell you he’s “living his dream” now — able to eat barbecue and smoke meat every day as part of his work.
New dishes: Bourbon cherries, pork belly dreams and Creole halibut
One of the clearest ways Cosner is putting his stamp on Flying Mango is through creative specials and new dishes. Influenced by his years in California, he’s far more adventurous now than when he left Iowa.
“Living in California, I had friends from all different cultures and backgrounds, so I had to be a little more adventurous with food.”
That shows up all over the evolving menu:
Bourbon cherry barbecue glazed wings: When staff suggested bringing back an old ginger-soy wing, Cosner pushed in a different direction. “I can go get ginger soy wings at Slim Chickens if I wanted to,” he thought.
Instead, he and Steven Hallam, the head chef, created bourbon cherry barbecue-glazed wings, a flavor combination that reflects both Flying Mango’s barbecue heritage and the restaurant’s bourbon-forward personality.
Creole halibut piccata: For Valentine’s Day, Cosner wanted a special dish. His vendor couldn’t get him walleye, so he pivoted, picked up halibut from Waterfront, and started brainstorming with Hallam.
Hallam’s first idea: a classic halibut piccata. Cosner’s twist: “Let’s take it a step further. Let’s do a halibut Creole piccata.” The result was a dish that merged Southern, Creole and classic Italian influences into something distinctly Flying Mango.
Pork belly burnt ends with cheddar grits and red cabbage: The runaway hit so far has been the pork belly burnt ends, now the third-highest selling item on the menu, behind Flying Mango’s signature brisket and ribs.
The dish started when his vendor dropped off a huge slab of pork belly as a “gift.” Cosner first considered smoking it more traditionally, but changed his mind:
“You can go get pork belly prepared like that anywhere,” he thought. Instead, he decided, “I’m going to make burnt ends with this pork belly.”
They rubbed and smoked the pork belly to create rich, caramelized burnt ends, then built a composed plate with cheddar grits for creamy, comforting starch and red cabbage. The dish hits sweet, spicy, acidic, savory and creamy notes all at once — exactly the kind of layered experience Cosner wants Flying Mango to be known for.
High-quality ingredients: Tallow, better brisket and meaty ribs
Cosner is intentionally upgrading ingredients, even in the staples customers might take for granted.
One of his early changes was switching from peanut oil to beef tallow for frying. He wants to be “a little bit more health-conscious and just use higher quality ingredients,” even though Flying Mango doesn’t fry many items to begin with.
Curious about elevating the brisket, he asked his vendor for a better-quality cut and was introduced to beef from Copper Creek, a farm near Fort Dodge.
The marbling was so intense that trimming it correctly became a learning curve — but the quality was phenomenal, reminding him of the best briskets he’d seen from destination barbecue spots.
He also orders ribs from the restaurant’s primary vendor instead, resulting in a meatier, higher-quality ribs that he believes are “exponentially better than they’ve ever been.”]
Across the board, he describes a “weird obsession” with finding better ingredients and tweaking dishes until they feel uniquely Flying Mango — something you can’t just get at any barbecue joint down the street.
Expanding hours: lunch service and Sunday potential
Cosner isn’t just changing what’s on the plate; he’s also changing when people can come in to eat. Flying Mango has traditionally been a dinner-only place, closed Sunday through Tuesday. That’s about to shift.
Starting April 22, he plans to introduce lunch service from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., initially Wednesday through Saturday.
The lunch menu he’s curated focuses on quick-service plates, such as brisket rice bowls, sandwiches with creative twists, a catfish po’ boy and a shrimp roll, as well as the restaurant’s core smoked meats, which are easy to turn out quickly because they’re already cooked low and slow.
Once the lunch rhythm feels solid, he plans to add Sunday hours — probably as an extended lunch block instead of a full day.
What comes next?
Cosner’s vision for Flying Mango extends beyond the four walls of the current location. He talks about opening more locations, possibly in Waukee, Ankeny or other fast-growing suburbs.
“There are two things that drive me,” he says. “One is results. Two is seeing the satisfaction on a customer’s face when they have a great experience.”
The man who once chased soundchecks and studio sessions in LA is now chasing something different: the look on a guest’s face when they bite into a pork belly burnt end, or taste brisket that melts like butter, or discover that a little Creole halibut piccata in a barbecue joint feels exactly right.
For Cosner, Flying Mango isn’t just a business transaction or a career move. It’s family, legacy, and craft — all bound up in smoke, sauce and a restaurant that now feels, unmistakably, like his own.
Where to find Flying Mango
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Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Beaverdale’s Flying Mango enters a new era under owner Scott Cosner
Reporting by Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
