The side room at Amici. Photo by Danny Schreiber

A huge thanks to the nearly 100 members of the Des Moines community that came out to Amici Espresso last night for the first Silicon Prairie News Des Moines Meetup.

It was a great chance to connect with longtime readers of the publication and also meet a few new faces. We were there a mere two hours but managed to clean Amici out of Peroni and a few different varieties of beer (we'll ask them to stock up next time) before a big part of the group headed over to the Red Monk for a surprise farewell party in honor of our friend Shane Reiser. Reiser, the Des Moines-based (for another week at least) member of Startup Weekend's core team, is relocating to Startup Weekend headquarters in Seattle, and we helped send him off right.

Did you make it out to the meetup last night? Let us know what you thought in the comments below! We'd like to hold another later this summer and would love to know how we can improve the experience.

More gathering in the side room. Photo by Jeff Slobotski.

After the side room filled up, the meetup spilled into the main room at Amici. Photo by Jeff Slobotski

PrairieCast co-host Andy Brudtkuhl talks with Romelle Slaughter. Photo by Jeff Slobotski.

Andrew Kirplani (left), Geoff Wood and Shane Reiser laugh heartily. Photo by Jeff Slobotski.

Geoff Wood's son, Graham, invites himself into a discussion with Christian Renaud. Photo by Hope Wood.

The SPN team at the event (from left): Danny Schreiber, Jeff Slobotski, Michael Stacy, Brittany Mascio and Geoff Wood. Photo by Jake Kerber.