RAYGUN, Des Moines

About RAYGUN

Tucked into the East Village a few blocks from the State Capitol, the Des Moines store is the original — the one Mike Draper opened in 2005 after a stint selling shirts on college campuses, and the mothership where all the company's screen printing still happens in a production facility behind the sales floor. Calling itself "the greatest store in the universe" is the first of many jokes you'll encounter inside, where the walls are papered in irreverent takes on Iowa, the Midwest, national politics, reproductive rights, Big Ten sports, and whatever happened in the news last week. The attached Mars Coffee Bar makes it easy to turn a quick stop into a longer one. Even if you've been to other RAYGUN locations, the flagship hits different. The back rooms run deeper than you'd expect, the Iowa-specific merch goes into territory that's genuinely weird in the best way (Urbandale jokes, Ankeny roasts, specific small-town references that locals will clock immediately), and the staff will happily walk you through what's new that week. It's the kind of souvenir stop that actually says something about the place you're visiting — which, in a city that sometimes gets underestimated, is a small act of civic pride in itself.