Head to Work in Progress to bump into celebrities after Val Air shows

One night in April, staff at Work in Progress found a customer wandering around the back of the house. Isaac Alaniz, the general manager of the restaurant and dive bar under the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, told the customer he was in the wrong place.

“It was like, ‘Sir, you need to leave.’ He turns around,” Alaniz said. It was Bill Murray, the legendary comedian and actor, who had just performed with His Blood Brothers at the concert venue.

“'Actually, wherever you would like to go. Whatever you’d like to do is fine,'” he then told Murray, who had dined and drank at Tom Archer’s Poor Man’s Country Club next door right after the show.

If you’ve ever stepped into Work in Progress, you might have a similar brush with fame, especially after a show. The restaurant has garnered a rep