Nightlife : Development News

 A trip to New York inspired the new Geno’s Italian-style sandwich shop at the corner of Hennepin and 4^th St. SE in Minneapolis. Opening in a former Subway, the limited-seating restaurant features a fast-casual Italian menu in a diner environment.

“Owner Gene Suh was inspired by places in New York that do a quick chicken parmesan sandwich,” explains Nick Kelly, general manager. “It’s fun,” Kelly says of the restaurant, which sports chrome tabletops and an Italian-focused bar menu. The overall atmosphere is part fast-casual and part diner, while serving warm and familiar Italian staples.

The menu is mostly traditional, serving appetizers like garlic cheese bread and meatballs to be paired with a built-to-order sandwich like eggplant parm or porchetta. There are more creative options like “meatolives,” described as sausage-wrapped, cheese-stuffed and deep-fried olives. With quick service and a lively sandwich menu, Kelly hopes Geno’s will become a popular lunch destination in the area.

Suh also owns Lyndale Taphouse (where Kelly was previously assistant general manager) and Hammer & Sickle in Uptown. Geno’s will follow the dinner and a drink approach that’s been popular at those businesses.

Geno’s will serve house red and white wines on tap (priced at $3 for a small pour), as well as cocktails and a limited selection of canned and bottled beer. Kegged wines give customers fresher selection (though, Kelly admits, from California instead of Italy), and the cocktails will pull from Italian tradition. Many use a house-made limoncello. The bar will also feature a new take on the negroni cocktail—and serve wine slushies.

The Hennepin-Fourth Street corridor has seen new growth in recent years, including expansions of other Uptown-based restaurants such as Bad Waitress, Glam Doll Donuts and Lu’s Sandwiches. Suh had been eying Northeast Minneapolis for his next expansion, Kelly says. The area’s new housing developments provides a wide base of customers—even with all the new businesses in competition.

While Lyndale Taphouse and Suh’s other restaurants have been successful, Geno’s is a new concept entirely. It builds off the success and organization of the other restaurants, Kelly says, but will be its own entity.

“This company does a really good job of providing good food and drink, but making it fun and inviting and bringing personality into it,” he says. As a longtime Northeast resident, Kelly is also excited to work closer to home. Though, he openly admits, “We’re technically Southeast because we’re on the other side of Hennepin.”

Geno’s anticipates a soft open shortly after Valentine’s Day, aiming for an official opening on Monday Feb. 27.
 

What do a tornado, a Ferris wheel, and your grandma’s basement all have in common? At Can Can Wonderland’s quirky and whimsical mini golf course, these are all themes to different golf holes. The best part? The holes are all designed and created by local artists.
 
Arriving at Can Can Wonderland feels a little like stepping into Willy Wonka’s Factory—only with more of a speakeasy vibe. Once you pull up to an old canning warehouse in St. Paul’s Hamline Midway neighborhood, you first enter through a big, red door. After following arrows down a secret stairwell, you arrive at a landing with two doors labeled as fire escapes. Don’t be fooled by the signage. Once you open the door, Can Can Wonderland appears and you step into a long, light-infused warehouse stretching about a quarter mile from end to end.
 
While the 18-hole mini-golf course is at the heart of the experience, there are also many other amusements to entertain the young and the young-at-heart. In the bar area, craft cocktail connoisseurs, Bittercube, provide the imaginative drink menu where you’ll find everything from spiked slushies to tasteful tikis. If you’re hungry, chow down on the selection of sweet and savory noshes such as hot dogs, mini donuts or cotton candy. Not in the mood for mini golf? Explore the boardwalk of attractions, filled with vintage pinball and arcade games. There is also a black box theater that hosts a variety show every Thursday night.
 
“We have a house band and music acts,” explains Jennifer Pennington, CEO, Can Can Wonderland. “You never know who the acts are going to be ahead of time. Last week we had a sitar player, a drone demonstration, a guy playing the tuba with a black light shining on him and an amazing juggling duo.”
 
Can Can Wonderland was first imagined in 2008 after Pennington’s husband, Chris, designed a golf hole for the Walker Art Center’s artist-designed mini golf. Their friend, Kristy Atkinson, who is also Can Can’s artistic director and co-partner, was one of the original minds behind the Walker’s artist golf. Working on the project together, they all realized they had a good thing going.
 
“It was so fun that we wondered why we didn't do this all the time,” says Pennington. “Then it was like, how can we make a business that is self-funded and free from being reliant on grants? We really started to take the concept seriously in 2010 when we moved to St. Paul and it developed from there.”
 
Fast forward several years. The Penningtons and Atkinson partnered with their commercial real estate broker, Rob Clapp, to become co-founders of Can Can Wonderland. They then looked to the community to help bring the space to life as the first arts-based public benefit corporation in Minnesota.
 
They had a call for artists, which received over 200 submissions, including entries from students whose teachers incorporated the project as part of their course curriculum. Two of the students’ submissions even made it into the final golf course.
 
After a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign and hours of planning, design, and coordination, the amusement space is now officially open to the public. Go grab a slushie and get your golf on.
 

A century ago, the Palace Theatre opened in downtown St. Paul as a vaudeville house. Over the past 40 years, it has sat vacant, slowly slipping into a state of disrepair. Soon that is all about to change. The 100-year-old theater is set to reopen as a rock club with a stellar lineup of musical acts. Locally based groups Atmosphere, the Cactus Blossoms and the Jayhawks kick things off in March. Such national acts as Regina Spektor, The XX and Phantogram will be playing in the following weeks.
 
The Palace’s debut musical lineup is thanks to collaboration between First Avenue and Chicago-based Jam Productions. “We came on board about four years ago,” says Nathan Kranz, general manager, First Avenue. “[The City of St. Paul] knew that we have a great working relationship with Jam and we partner on all sorts of events around town. It was determined that the best way to move the Palace project forward was a combination of Jam and First Avenue, and that we use our different relationships to ensure the success of the Palace once it was open.”
 
The City of St. Paul purchased the Palace Theatre in 2015. “There had been a lot of deferred maintenance,” explains Kranz. ”All the things to make it safe, sound and secure were fixed and the rest of the theater was preserved to the best of our ability.” Some of the space’s improvements include a new HVAC system, roof and bathrooms, as well as a larger bar area.
 
As for the overall vibe inside? Much of the venue’s original architectural elements and materials remain, but have been revamped to reflect the nightclub atmosphere. An 800-seat balcony overlooks an open audience floor with lighting controls that set the mood for each event.
 
With a 2,500-seat capacity, the Palace is expected to help energize surrounding businesses. “Our goal is to sell out concerts, so when we bring in 2,500 people at a time, that's a big influx of people,” says Kranz. “I imagine that will spill over into bars and restaurants in the area. Also, I would imagine that the Palace Theatre would become more of a destination for Minneapolis residents when they see that it's very easy to get there.”
 
While it will primarily function as a rock club, the Palace will also be available to accommodate various types of events. In the meantime, Kranz promises more musical acts will soon be announced. As for Kranz’s dream act to perform in The Palace? “The one person I've never had the chance to work with or show in one of my rooms is Bob Dylan. And I hope that will change at some point.”
 

Barrel Theory Beer Company, a new taproom and brewery, will be coming to Lowertown in early 2017. Founded by three friends (two are former Surly employees), the brewery will emphasize a small-business atmosphere where the beer is fresh and the owners are onsite helping out.

While new breweries have popped up across the country and the Twin Cities in recent years, Barrel Theory promises to set itself apart. The differentiation begins with the space, which will seat about 95 guests inside a brickwork building dating from the 1800s and is next door to Dark Horse Bar & Eatery. Barrel Theory is leasing both the main level for a taproom and brewery, and also a basement for storing barrel-aged stouts and sour beers.

“There are a lot of breweries around the country where you can name that one beer they make,” says co-founder Brett Splinter, previously the director of technology at Surly. “We want people to think of us as consistent with our beer quality and with our customer experience.” The beers will be brewed by former Surly shift brewer Timmy Johnson, with friend Todd Tibesar, CPA, filling out the ownership team.

While Splinter and Johnson first met and bonded over homebrewing some years ago, their professional experience will set them apart from other breweries in the metro. “Tim is brewing at a very successful commercial brewery and here sits Todd, a guy who can tell us no to everything because he’s the finance guy,” Splinter says, both joking and serious.

With so many breweries in the Twin Cities, the Barrel Theory team drafted a business plan to make sure they stand out. Splinter cites Dangerous Man’s hyperlocal focus as an influence, as well as lessons learned from his friends at Surly. “After working for a bigger regional brewery, we wanted to keep ours small and very focused on getting fresh beer to our customers, and being able to interact with our customers very personally,” says Splinter.

The concept is to grow the Barrel Theory brand slowly and methodically. Most beer will be available at the brewery only, with limited kegs going to local beer-savvy bars. He expects fewer than 10 employees: the three owners, plus an assistant brewer, taproom manager and part-time bartenders to help with operations.

There are pros and cons to a large regional brewery or with a hyperlocal model, Splinter admits, but the personal touch of a small-scale operation connects with him and, he expects, with other beer drinkers in St. Paul. The brewery will not have a kitchen onsite, but will partner with Dark Horse to serve hot food right in the brewery, using a window between the buildings so customers don’t have to venture outside.

Though barrel is right in their name, not all the beer will be barrel-aged. The name is taken from Liebig's Law of the Minimum, an agricultural concept that states a product is only as good as its weakest ingredient. Liebig used a barrel metaphor. “If you stand a barrel on its end, no matter how big the barrel is it will only hold as much water as the shortest stave,” Splinter explains. The barrel imagery is perfect for a brewery but, more importantly, it fits with Barrel Theory’s emphasis on quality and consistency.
 

In 2013, John Pederson built the Firehouse Sauna, a mobile trailer-sized sauna that quickly moved from a personal project to something he shared with friends. It grew into the 612 Sauna Society, which will soon become the first sauna cooperative in the country.

Now registered as a 308B cooperative business, the group just completed a crowdfunding campaign to build a new sauna that will officially launch the new format. A team of 40 volunteers will build the facility and then launch the coop with a February residency in the courtyard at Surly Brewing Company.

The Society’s mission is to improve dialogue and community, bringing sauna to the people in the spirit of traditional Finnish culture, where saunas are a gathering spot for relaxation and rumination. Sometimes 612 will park at a brewery, other times at a public or commercial setting like Como Park or IKEA.

“The thing we do is put [the sauna] on wheels and take it to different locations,” explains Teke O’Reilly, 612’s campaign manager. Mobility brings sauna culture to all walks of life, and it presents an element of intrigue that further attracts people, he explains.

Last year 612 Society teamed with the mobile Little Box Sauna, hitting locations in St. Paul, Minneapolis and Bloomington. “[Little Box Sauna] kind of melded with 612 Sauna Society,” O’Reilly explains. “That brought people out of the woodwork so we knew we have a powerful community,” he says. Little Box Sauna is a separate entity from the Society, which is why 612 is building a new unit this winter.

“The objective is to make as much sauna as possible available for as many people as we can,” O’Reilly says. Though he’s been involved with the project since its early days with Pederson and other volunteers, the group is excited to turn 612 over to the member-owners.

612 Sauna Society has big plans for the future, rooted in the Scandinavian deep thought tradition. The group has spoken with the Minneapolis Parks Foundation about using the parks as a setting where disparate organizations can come together and relax, uniting in the cozy confines of a 150- to 180-degree sauna and talking about life and, perhaps, politics while relaxing together in a distinctly north country way. It’s only in the idea phase at present, but O’Reilly teems with excitement at the thought.

“The reality of that happening is almost profound,” he exclaims. “If we can truly find solutions to these difficult times that we live in through sauna, to me that gives me goosebumps.”

The new trailer will be roughly the size of a medium RV trailer and is open to the public by reservation. Coop members will pay a discount price, comparable to a grocery coop, but anyone can use the unit by making an advance reservation online due to limited space.
 
 
 
 

Vegans and vegetarians rejoice! A plant-based restaurant is coming soon to St. Paul, ready to serve brunch, lunch and dinner to herbivores and omnivores alike.
 
J. Selby’s plans to open on the corner of Selby and Victoria avenues this winter. Located in a building built in 1910, the restaurant’s renovation has been challenging. “Going from a convenience store, to a hair salon, to a restaurant is a huge jump,” says J.Selby owner, Matt Clayton. “The original 1910 construction is fascinating. We’ll keep the brick exposed since it’s a design element.”
 
Clayton, a practicing general surgeon for 18 years, decided to leave his job to pursue something different. With no direct plan in mind, Clayton left and kept his eye open for interesting opportunities.
 
It wasn’t until Clayton took a trip to Phoenix to run a marathon that he had the idea to open a plant-based restaurant. Having been on a vegan diet for three years, he was happy to discover a plethora of vegan dining options during his visit. He loved the menu so much at one restaurant, Green New American Vegetarian, that it became his inspiration behind bringing the vegan fare to the Twin Cities.
 
Clayton hired chef Rick Berdahl to develop J. Selby’s menu, which will include appetizers such as chili cheese fries, tots, quesadillas, nachos and buffalo cauliflower. The fast casual-style restaurant will also carry a variety of sandwiches including a club sandwich, buffalo soy curls, BBQ Beaf and a Philly. “A lot of the sandwiches will look and taste like meat, but they’re not,” says Clayton. J. Selby’s will also use some fake meat products from local company, The Herbivorous Butcher.
 
By opening up J. Selby’s, Clayton hopes he can use the restaurant to help change perceptions on what people eat. “The question is how can you affect change? There are a lot of people who are doing information—books, websites, speakers—but information sways a small percentage of people...but everyone has to eat,” says Clayton. “When you go to Seattle, Chicago or Phoenix, there are about 10-15 vegan places you can pick from. If we’re successful, I hope we’ll see more vegan options in the Twin Cities.”
 
 
 
 
 

Building community is at the heart of Nimbus Theatre’s mission. That’s why when the 15-year-old theater company, led by co-artistic directors Liz Neerland and Josh Cragun, decided to relocate from their five-year-old space on Central Avenue NE to their new address at 2303 Kennedy Street NE, they did so to bring more staging opportunities to the local performing arts scene. 
 
“We kind of knew by the end of last year that we were going to be moving, so we really started [exploring] these ideas of expanding,” Neerland explains.
 
At its former location, Cragun adds, Nimbus was “partnering with other theater companies” and the space "sort of became a community center. We learned a lot in five years about operating a theater and about what we could do better.”
 
The new space, aptly named The Crane Theater for the five-ton crane that towers overhead, is 7,000 square feet—nearly double that of the old location. Built in 1922, the building was originally a Westinghouse factory. In 1953, the back section of the building, which is now the new home of The Crane Theater, was added on as a mattress warehouse.
 
Now the location will serve as a performance space with two stages. The new space will continue Nimbus’ tradition of staging fresh, original productions featuring its own company, as well as guest performing artists.
 
“It’s a gorgeous room that will work great for theater,” says Cragun. He loves how the facility, in which historically appliances were constructed, functions as metaphor for making—even when the space is now used for creating theater. Moreover, he adds, “We’re not remounting [existing plays]. We’re making theater from scratch here.” Thus the building, he continues, “fits well with what we do.”
 
The main stage will showcase Nimbus’s productions and seat around 100 people. The smaller theater will seat about 50 audience members and will serve several functions. “There are not enough performance spaces of any sort in the Twin Cities,” Neerland explains. “So just being able to offer more of it is really needed. [The second theater is] a smaller, flexible stage for a number of things, such as a small theater company doing a scaled-back production or a play reading.”
 
Providing extra theater space isn’t all that Nimbus is looking to do with The Crane. The company’s wants the space be a support center for people who create new theater locally, and provide services and access to shop space and educational opportunities.
 
In order to make the vision of The Crane Theater a reality, Nimbus launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on September 16. “Pouring effort into the community has always come back to benefit us in a way that’s positive,” says Cragun. “We’re strong believers in building that. So the idea for a crowdfunding campaign was a really natural fit. We’ve done some traditional development work, but we wanted to sort of throw it back at the community and say, ‘Hey, we’re doing this for you. Can you give us a hand?’”
 
For those looking to see the new space firsthand, Nimbus is staging their first show, The Kalevala, a play based on the 19^th-century work of Finnish literature, in their new home now through October 30. Tickets are available online at nimbustheatre.com.
 

Earlier this month, Northeast Minneapolis-based Fair State Brewing Cooperative announced a major expansion into previously uncharted territory: St. Paul.
 
The cooperative’s 40,000-square-foot Creative Enterprise Zone production facility, just blocks from Urban Growler Brewing Company and Bang Brewing, is slated to supercharge its brewing capacity and substantially expand its distribution footprint.
 
According to CEO and co-founder Evan Sallee, the new space will start with an annual production capacity of 7,500 bbl—with room for growth, “[depending] on the eventual ale/lager mix.” Quoting Fair State management, CBS Minnesota reports that’s at least a five-fold capacity increase.

“The expansion will also give us a lot more flexibility to be creative in what we do. Our capacity to try new and interesting things is inherently limited by our commitment to keep certain core brands around all the time,” says Sallee. “Moving those brands off to a larger facility will allow us to spread our creative wings and play around a bit more while still providing the core beers that people have come to expect us to have available regularly.”
 
Those core brands include “traditional” craft beer styles like India pale ale, hefeweizen and pilsner. But after just two years of operation, Fair State has staked its claim to an underserved brewing niche: sour beers. Already on the national radar as Minnesota’s first cooperatively owned brewery, Fair State has earned national press (and awards) for its prolific sour program, which includes high(er)-volume kettle sours like Roselle and limited-release, barrel-aged beers like Paradisiac.
 
Fair State’s commitment to sour beer bled through to the design and execution of its new brewing system. “We have worked with our equipment manufacturer to design our brewing system with sour beers specifically in mind, so we will be able to turn out our kettle sours like Roselle with increased efficiency,” says Sallee.
 
Ultimately, says Sallee, Fair State’s expansion is about putting more beer in front of more people, irrespective of geography. In the short term, the brewery’s beer is likely to be available in more stores and taprooms across a wider swath of MSP. And, soon enough, Greater Minnesota customers will get their first consistent taste of its brews.
 
“One of Fair State's core missions is to bring high quality beer to more people,” he explains. “When our members in St. Paul have trouble getting beer because we can't make enough to service our back yard, that's a problem. So I hope that this project will allow us to better meet the demand locally and throughout Minnesota.”
 

The upstart craft beer cooperative, profiled in our recent roundup of new MSP breweries, just launched a $25,000 Indiegogo campaign ahead of a planned early 2017 launch. The goal is flexible, meaning Broken Clock will receive funds even if it doesn’t hit the $25,000 mark. As of September 10, the campaign had raised about $3,500 with two months left to go.
 
Broken Clock is actually MSP’s second cooperative brewery. The first, Fair State Brewing Cooperative, opened in a small Northeast Minneapolis storefront two years ago. Fair State’s cooperative model clearly struck a chord with the community: Fair State’s member-owner count is approaching 1,000, and Fair State just announced a massive expansion plan involving a 30-barrel production brewery in St. Paul’s Creative Enterprise Zone, per The Growler.
 
Fair State may have been the first mover, but Broken Clock has big plans to claim a slice of what’s proven to be a big (and growing) pie. That means paying attention to more than just the bottom line.
 
“Being a cooperative means that we put the needs of the community ahead of the bottom line,” according to Broken Clock’s Indiegogo page. “We aspire to make a difference by empowering people, inspiring passion, and fostering collaboration in our community.”
 
Broken Clock’s road to “mak[ing] a difference” could be a lot shorter than most upstart breweries’. The co-founders recently signed a purchase agreement to take over the Northeast Minneapolis space outgrown by 56 Brewing.That space is “turnkey,” meaning it won’t require the sort of messy, time-consuming, setback-prone build-out that’s normally part of a new brewery opening.
 
But Broken Clock does need some of its own stuff to get started: “all the equipment, building, and consulting we need to brew beer the day we move in,” according to its Indiegogo page. That’s where the $25,000 figure comes in.
 
 

 
Little Mekong Night Market, a project of the Asian Economic Development Association (AEDA) in St. Paul, just keeps gaining momentum. This year, the summer festival (Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24) takes place at the proposed Little Mekong Plaza on Western Avenue to bring in more vendors and artists. The market also includes an artwalk showcasing the exhibition “MANIFEST: Refugee Roots” inside the recently opened Western U Plaza—a community-driven, transit-oriented development. Get your Green Line light-rail pass here.
 
The exhibition will feature local artists and cultural groups, including Koua Mai Yang, Ifrah Mansour, the Somali Museum, the Immigrant History Research Center and an art mandala by monks of the Gyuto Wheel of Dharma Monastery. This year’s market includes another new feature: a kid-zone with interactive exhibits from the Minnesota Children’s Museum, Mobile Comedy Suitcase and sParkit Lantern Making. Three stages throughout the market will showcase performances by Hmong artists, such as LOTT, Jayanthi Kyle, Mu Daiko and Mayda.
 
For those new to the area, “Little Mekong is the Asian business and cultural district in Saint Paul, Minnesota,” according to Little Mekong’s website. “Located between Mackubin and Galtier streets along University Avenue, the district boasts a diversity of cultures, top rated restaurants and unique shopping experiences. Visitors come to Little Mekong to experience the unique culture and flavors of Southeast Asia.”
 
 

Scott Ervin has come a long way—and quickly—since launching Minneapolis’ first micro-distillery, Norseman, in a warehouse basement. At the end of 2013, Ervin was quietly milling and mashing his grains, pitching the yeast, and guiding the alcohol through fermentation and distillation accompanied by two “boozehounds” (his dogs).
 
Today, his days are still spent distilling vodka, gin, rye whiskey and rum. But in the evenings, he leaves the production area to hobnob with guests enjoying the fruits of his labors in Norseman’s new cocktail room. Located on Taft off East Hennepin in Minneapolis, in a 2,800-square-foot space formerly used as a storage facility for the industrial company next door, the Norseman facility and cocktail room is a warm, welcoming swank/industrial addition to MSP’s growing micro-brewing/distilling scene.
 
Ervin is a trained architect who used to work at Alchemy Architects in St. Paul. Keith Mrotek, who is Norseman’s beverage director and runs the cocktail room, studied architectural drafting. So they designed and outfitted the cocktail room, which has white-brick walls and garage doors, a rusted-steel wall, a concrete floor and a fireplace in front of large, leather couches.
 
“As a brand Norseman is Scandinavian, obviously,” Mrotek says, about the cocktail room’s aesthetic. “We’re also very much embracing the fact that we’re in an industrial part of town in a former warehouse.” So the design approach “is a collaboration between Scandinavian simplicity and the Industrial Era.” Blond-wood tables with white chairs are situated throughout the space. There are also two counter-height tables constructed from factory workbenches.
 
The cocktail room only serves the spirits Norseman distills, including the flavorings that Mrotek, formerly of Marvel Bar, is in charge of creating. Those include fernet, triple sec and “fortified wines,” which are like dry, sweet vermouth. Mrotek has also created a “leathered” aquavit used in several classic cocktails. Need olives in your martini? Can’t get them at Norseman. But you may experience the smoothest martini ever to grace your tastebuds.
 
“The cocktail room is about fortifying the brand, while converting people to cocktails in a way that’s warm and inviting, pleasant and approachable,” Mrotek says. And the cocktails change quarterly “to keep the brand fresh and exciting … and pressure me to make new products.”
 

Do not fear peak craft beer or brewery saturation. From Bryn Mawr Brewing (now Utepils) near Theodore Wirth Park to Sidhe Brewing (by women, for women!) on St. Paul’s East Side, craft breweries are still opening at a rapid clip here in MSP.
 
Most newcomers play it straight. Not Wild Mind Artisan Ales. South Minneapolis’s newest brewery is thoroughly and completely breaking the craft beer mold. It’s set for an early summer open in a low-slung warehouse near Minneapolis’s southern frontier, just west of the I-35W/Crosstown interchange.
 
How can any new MSP brewery — particularly one that might as well have an Edina address — possibly hope to stand out in our suds-soaked neck of the woods? By bringing to the North an entirely new style of beer: wild coolship ales.
 
Wild coolship ales utilize a centuries-old fermenting vessel known as a coolship — a long, shallow contraption built to expose fermenting beer (wort) to whatever wild yeast strains blow in on the wind.
 
According to an exhaustive piece in Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine, founder and head brewer Mat Waddell plans to keep each coolship ale batch in the signature vessel for about a day: long enough to catch enough microbial funk, but not so long that the beer turns or becomes dangerous to unsuspecting drinkers.
 
“It’s a funhouse style of beer,” Waddell told the magazine. “You end up strictly with whatever is in the air — whatever it picks up is whatever it picks up.”
 
The batch then spends the balance of its fermentation in oak or metal barrels. According to a press release from Jeremy Zoss, a local craft beer expert who’s handling publicity for Wild Mind, about 75 percent of Wild Mind’s brews will be barrel-aged — an unusually high percentage. Waddell plans to source wine barrels from as far away as France, plus chardonnay oak from Napa and bourbon barrels from Kentucky.
 
Due to the coolship’s limited volume and the time-intensive nature of the barrel-aging process, Wild Mind’s first beers won’t be “coolshippers.” They will use wild yeast, though — all of it harvested in-state. No commercial yeast strains allowed: another rarity for an MSP craft brewery. According to Zoss’ release, “[t]hese strains were harvested from St. Paul and northern Minnesota from multiple wild fruit bushes, trees and wildflowers.”
 
Wild Mind’s early styles look to include bright farmhouse saisons, fruit-tinged sours, imperial stouts redolent with coffee and chocolate notes, and nearly everything in between.
 
If the whole wild yeast thing doesn’t appeal to you, or if you’re just not a big beer drinker, don’t worry: Waddell clearly aims to turn Wild Mind into the Windom neighborhood’s next hot hangout, complete with a 2,000-square-foot courtyard, lawn bowling, an outdoor movie projection wall (here we come, summer!) — and, of course, plenty of space for food trucks.
 

Black Coffee & Waffle Bar, which opened in 2014 on Como Avenue in Minneapolis, is expanding. In March, Black will open its second coffee and waffle shop on Marshall Avenue in St. Paul next to Heirloom, chef Wyatt Evans’ new “hipster farmhouse” restaurant in Merriam Park. Shelter Architecture in Minneapolis is helping Black with its build out.
 
"Black Coffee & Waffle Bar’s first location [on Como] is a huge success,” says Kurt Gough, founding partner, Shelter Architecture. Black’s partners Andrew Ply and Brad Cimaglio “have developed a brand identity that is hip, simple and minimalist. Their second location plans to expand upon that identity.”
 
While the partners took a DIY approach to the Como location, “in this second iteration they asked Shelter to embrace the current brand aesthetic and create a space with more finish and refinement,” Gough says.
 
Black serves waffles with fresh ingredients and in-house-made toppings. Local roaster Dogwood Coffee provides the coffee beans. “When we started out, we were a coffee shop that server waffles,” says Heather Feider, general manager, “but we’ve turned into a waffle shop that serves specialty coffee!”
 
The clientele is mostly students from the University of Minnesota, she adds. “In the evenings, students hang out and study with a coffee. They’re also our brunch crowd for waffles. But even people from Stillwater come to Black’s. So want to have a place in another part of town.”
 
The new location in St. Paul will appeal to commuters from Wisconsin and the eastern parts of the metro area, as well as the University of St. Thomas crowd, Feider continues. “We were looking for a place with a similar feel to Como. Merriam Park is close to St. Thomas, a nice family neighborhood and a vibrant community.”
 
The new Black will have a similar aesthetic and utilize the same branding. “The building itself has some challenges as far as meeting ADA compliance and parking requirements, but we have creatively and effectively resolved them,” Gough says. According to Feider, the Shelter design team will be adding “cool new features.”
 
Together, Black and Heirloom are turning the corner at Marshall and Cretin into a destination for local cuisine. “Together we’ll be able to offer the Merriam Park community a couple of great choices for dining and gathering,” Feider says. “While two small places may not change the community, we will create a nice little corner there.”
 

When Wyatt Evans decided to leave his long-time position as executive chef at WA Frost and Company to open his own restaurant, scouting out neighborhoods was key. “First and foremost,” he says, “I wanted to have a neighborhood restaurant, a gathering space for the neighborhood.”
 
Next, he wanted to offer an ambience “that’s refined, but that shouldn’t read as stuffy. I wanted to create an environment like Grandma’s house without looking like Grandma’s house. Cool, but not too cool. Welcoming and comfortable.”
 
Of course, the food and the ethics behind it were essential to the new culinary endeavor. The cuisine, Evans explains, would be “inspired by the farmhouse, with elements of frugality and the total utilization of product. That’s the ethic I’ve been doing with food. In my new space, I wanted to amplify that idea and take it on in a way where we honor the past in the present by looking toward the future.”
 
Heirloom, located at the intersection of Marshall and Cretin avenues in St. Paul, is the result. Last July, Wyatt began renovating the former bakery and photography studio into his ideal restaurant. Studio M Architects in Minneapolis did the design and architectural work. According to Greta Johnson, a designer at Studio M, “the words he gave us were hipster farmhouse.”
 
“He came to us wanting to express a simple, old-fashioned feel,” she adds. “Heirloom vegetables, old seed packets and Audubon prints were our inspiration.” Friends of Evans’ provided graphic design, artwork and tables for the 2200-square-foot restaurant. Objects with a “Depression-era simplicity” added to the décor, Johnson says: “Things from the past resembling family heirlooms, that might have had meaning to a family at the turn of the century.” Adds Evans: “Mismatched antique chairs portray the humble aspect of how we’re trying to approach the business.”
 
Local and seasonal are a given at Heirloom, Evans says. “At this stage of the game, if you’re not using the fantastic local products we have, you’re not a player. We’re not trying to beat anyone over the head with local and seasonal; It’s just what it is. This is just how I cook. The menu changes based on availability. So the food and atmosphere reflect that.”

As for Heirloom’s location in the Merriam Park neighborhood, “Dozens of factors play into why you pull the trigger on one space versus another,” Evans says. “The deeper I dug into the neighborhood and got to know it, the desire to have a restaurant here like this began to unfold. In my opinion, this neighborhood has a strong demand for this kind of restaurant. The neighborhood people we met with expressed a desire for it.”
 
Heirloom’s location between Minneapolis and St. Paul, three blocks from the Mississippi River and near St. Thomas University, were pluses. Moreover, Evans adds, “There’s a really nice mix of people in this neighborhood in terms of age groups, and a good foodie contingent here in Merriam Park. Our goal is to be affordable and approachable, create top-notch quality food for less, and in doing so create a new place for neighbors to gather and eat.”
 

“I didn’t intentionally get into this business; it just kind of happened,” says Jon Oulman.
 
He’s referring, of course, to his restaurant business with son Jarret Oulman and collaborator Josh Mandelnan. The business has grown quickly, starting with the 331 Club (“contemporary music,” Oulman says) and expanding to include Amsterdam Bar and Hall (“contemporary music, entertainment, an imbibing environment and more food”), Como Dockside (“entertainment and more food”) and now The Sheridan Room—which is next door to the 331 Club.
 
“The food aspect just keeps ramping up,” Oulman says.
 
The original owners of the 331 and the neighboring 337 (The Sheridan Room’s address), Oulman explains, had kids who ran the venues—“one of their children had the bar, the other had the diner,” he says, “so we put it back together again.” Moreover, a local chain wanted to move into the former Modern Café, and “it’s too soon for this neighborhood to have a chain in it—even if the chain is local. It’s a great corner and a great neighborhood.”
 
The restaurant is named for its neighborhood: the Sheridan Neighborhood of Northeast Minneapolis.
 
“Midwestern Americana” is The Sheridan’s Room theme, Oulman says. The restaurant’s signature dish is a beer-can roasted chicken using local Bauhaus beer. “The gravy is made with the beer drippings and we serve the gravy in a beer can,” Oulman says. “A little kitschy there.”
 
The cover of David Bowie’s album Hunky Dory is featured prominently at the new bar, because “What is the first song on the album? ‘Changes’,” Oulman says with a laugh. A vintage hi-fi plays vinyl. “Collecting vinyl is a hobby of mine,” he says. While the kitchen is unchanged, the restaurant floor has a penny-size tile mosaic and new banquette seating.
 
Meanwhile, over at Como Dockside, the team is busy building a prep kitchen in the basement “so we can do banquets,” Oulman says, “and we’re going to upgrade the concession window down by the dock. There will be a grill and fryers outside, and a point of sale on the promenade, so we’ll be able to keep up with demand and do a better job of delivering food and beverage when the crowds come back in the spring.”