By the time Nick Leo sat down to write a GoFundMe plea, the spreadsheets were already telling him what he didn’t want to say out loud: The Cave DSM, his natural‑wine bar that had become a haven for curious drinkers and artists, was running out of road.
The problems didn’t arrive with one dramatic blow. They came as a slow drip with a condenser dying here, a fridge going out there, tariffs nudging up the cost of the bottles he cares most about, weeknights a little softer than they used to be. For a tiny bar that never took outside investors, paid workers above industry norms and tried to keep prices within reach, there wasn’t much left to absorb it.
The wine bar and shop is now fighting to stay alive.
A wine bar with a mission
When Leo opened The Cave DSM in August 2020, it wasn’t meant to be just another place to grab a glass. The Cave DSM championed natural and low-intervention wines long before they were trendy in Iowa. It became a home for artists, a gathering space for multicultural programming and a respite for people who wanted wine without pretense.
The Cave DSM sells wines by the bottle on the retail side of the business, with a wall featuring a selection from around the world. All the wines are organically farmed and naturally fermented, not sterilized and pasteurized, with no additives. The natural wines are sourced from small-production wineries around the world.
The main bar features tables with a small bar on the right side of the space, decorated with wine bottles sprouting plant cuttings and cactus in the window. Customers come in for live music spanning Brazilian to jazz on the weekends, classes on natural wines and pop-ups from Ramen Club or Puerto Rican Kitchen. On Aug. 10, it celebrated six years on Walnut Street.
In 2024, The Cave DSM was one of 10 wine shops to land on a USA TODAY 10Best list, selected by an expert panel and voted on by readers to determine which ranked the best. It also earned accolades from Wine Enthusiast and the online bar publication PUNCH.
Leo curates wines with intention from small producers who specialize in sustainable farming, with wines sold in bottles that tell stories. The Cave DSM isn’t simply selling wine; it teaches people how to taste differently.
That philosophy made it a standout on Walnut Street, a block increasingly defined by independent operators who care deeply about craft. Leo sees it as “strength in numbers” alongside neighbors like Horizon Line, Locals Bar & Stage, The Walnut and Noce Jazz & Cabaret.
The crisis behind the GoFundMe at The Cave DSM
The past six months have been brutal, Leo said.
In a candid GoFundMe letter, Leo detailed unexpected equipment failures, higher costs with tariffs on wine and a sharp economic slowdown — all hitting a tiny, staff‑forward business that never took on outside investors. He and his partners poured in savings, took little or no pay and paid workers well above the tipped‑wage norm, while keeping prices relatively accessible.
“It’s just a lot of normal bad luck and economic slowdown,” Leo said during an interview Aug. 10, pointing to a string of broken condensers and fridges, rising tariffs on imported wine and softer sales during traditionally strong months. “There are a lot of places that are like one ice machine away from being on the cusp,” he added.
The Iowa Restaurant Association estimates that roughly 600 food and beverage establishments across the state could shut down in 2026, doubling the historical state average of about 300 annual closures. Spikes in food costs, regulatory burdens and employee wages collide with high operational overhead while consumer dining frequency drops.
Launching a fundraiser was a last resort and a moral dilemma.
“It was really hard for me to open up to do a crowdfunding thing,” Leo said. “We’ve all seen the more scummy or not‑transparent ones.”
He agonized over the tone of the appeal because he didn’t want The Cave DSM to look like another bar passing the hat without explaining why.
He also refused a more conventional fix: cutting labor and hiking prices.
“I’m not going to change my original mission of making stuff accessible economically. I’m not going to cut staff hours and cut their pay,” he said. “I don’t want to look back and say I didn’t do the right thing.”
What the GoFundMe is doing and what it can’t
Leo set a modest $9,000 goal — enough to catch up on critical bills, not to remake the business. By this week, the campaign had climbed to about $8,300 from 80 donors.
The response has startled him.
“It’s really humbling and profound,” he said. “We’ve had people that were anonymous donate a grand, a couple that were at $300, a couple that were at $750.”
That support, he said, “has really dug us out. We’re basically in the clear now, but we wouldn’t have been able to without that help.”
While the GoFundMe is a temporary fix, the business still needs steady weekday traffic to survive. The publicity around it has already changed the room. Over the past two weeks, Leo has seen a wave of newcomers and lapsed regulars return.
“Both people that maybe used to come in more and so many new people,” he said. “Short‑term, the bump in funds has been massive, but the result of that bringing in either old customers and new customers, that’s more sustainable in the long run.”
He plans to leave the campaign up only through the end of August. “I don’t want to feel like you have to have crowdsourcing to fund your business,” he said. “That doesn’t look very well.”
Why losing The Cave DSM would matter
The Cave DSM is one of the anchors that helped make this block interesting in the first place.
Leo, a jazz pianist, sees The Cave DSM as “a community space as much as anything else,” hosting musicians, visual artists and partnerships with groups like civic music organizations and Des Moines Ballet. It has also drawn in younger downtown workers, wine‑curious newcomers and regulars who wanted a place that took COVID and staff pay seriously in the early years of the pandemic.
Even in this moment, he insisted The Cave DSM’s story won’t be defined by failure. The shop has connected people, elevated Iowa’s wine conversation and earned rare national attention for a small, independent bar.
Now, its survival hinges on whether the community it helped create will show up with donations, visits and word‑of‑mouth.
Where to find The Cave DSM
Sign up for our dining newsletter, Table Talk DSM, which comes out on Wednesday mornings with all the latest news on restaurants and bars in the metro. You can sign up for free at DesMoinesRegister.com/tabletalk.
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@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines’ natural wine bar faces a financial crisis
Reporting by Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
