North Loop Neighborhood

[mplsjaromir]

It always wise to rate a restaurant the first week it is open.

[dingo]

I think its totally fair to rate a restaurant on the first day, first week or last week on their prices.

[Didier]

The whole controversy about $7 Coors at a brewpub seems overblown to me.

[MNdible]

Except that it's symptomatic of a general gross inflation of liquor prices in this town. There are now places in not-super-prime locations that will charge you $4 for a Grain Belt -- on happy hour. That should be the price for a pitcher, not a 12 oz. pour.

[ECtransplant]

Gross inflation? Lol. Spend some time on the coasts or Chicago

[MNdible]

I have, thanks.

There's no reason why we should be in that company, but within the last couple of years, we've basically caught up with them on price. If you compare like-to-like (i.e., not bars in tourist dominated areas or in high rent locations), in fact I found prices to be cheaper on the east coast than in Minneapolis.

LOL.

[ECtransplant]

You say you've been, yet you think a $4 beer puts us in the company of NY or Chicago? Ok.

[Didier]

The beer that everybody is going to actually order is $5 or $6 per pint.

[min-chi-cbus]

You say you've been, yet you think a $4 beer puts us in the company of NY or Chicago? Ok.

You can get a pitcher in Chicago for $4 too, so it's all relative on where we're talking about. Rush and Division or atop the John Hancock, sure, it's going to be hyper-inflated. In Minneapolis if you buy a beer at a martini bar that has a cover and a dress code a beer may cost 3X what it normally does, but that has NOTHING to do with economics (at least not macro economics, probably closer to Game Theory).

Clearly these places are not places to go to have a few after work with your buddy. Places that cater to that demographic aren't all that dissimilar from coast to coast. The harder it is to find a woman/lover in a place and the better an establishment does at joining people together, the higher prices they can charge for "sex machine medicine" (i.e. alcohol).

That's my price:alcohol thesis, anyways. The joke is on all of us though, since good women/lovers are rarely found at bars!

[jet777]

I think everyone understands that if you don't like a restaurant's food, prices, atmosphere, etc. then you don't have to eat there. For the point of this thread which is dedicated mainly to urban development (and the growth of the North Loop) it was more intended to be an overall assessment of whether people think the restaurant will be successful or end up an empty building again in 2 years. Discussion of price is fairly arbitrary. If my $7 coors comes with an atmosphere with flame juggling acrobats in Santa suits, I may just buy that coors. Likewise, if the food is the best tasting in town but comes with a heavy check, well, it will probably be successful independent of its prices.

Despite the large space and mediocre food, I predict this one may get retooled a few times but will probably make it due to its decent self-brewed beer and clever plan to jump start distribution by supplying it to the other blue plate restaurants.

Final note- the uniforms are ridiculous though. I'm surprised they don't come with a fake Rollie fingers style clip on mustache. I sense that when the stereotypical hipster uniform has been absorbed by a large restaurant, it's no longer ironic enough to attract hipsters.

[mplsjaromir]

The $7 Coors is tax on people who go to a brewpub and order a bland marcobrew.

[Elsinore]

The bigger problem, for me, was that they were charging $8 for all of their guest beers, according to their website. $8 for a Summit EPA or a Point Lager? Not happening.

They've already changed their pricing and selection on the website, though. Summit EPA is down to a more normal $6(expensive, but not unheard of downtown) and all the cheap macro 16oz cans are gone from the menu completely.

Crisis over, folks. Nothing more to see here.

[RailBaronYarr]

Thank god. Now we can go back to arguing over things like 3A vs 3C

[twincitizen]

Goldman Sachs bought the Tractor Works Building and adjacent parking ramp for $55MM.
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... plete.html

Not being familiar with the Tractor Works Building (scale or uses), I always wondered what that big-ass parking ramp at 10th & Washington was used for.

Look for a Streets.MN post on growing the North Loop from yours truly in the next few weeks. I haven't decided yet if it should be my first or second post. I might make it into a two-parter if I have enough material.

[ztr421]

Goldman Sachs bought the Tractor Works Building and adjacent parking ramp for $55MM.
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/b ... plete.html

Not being familiar with the Tractor Works Building (scale or uses), I always wondered what that big-ass parking ramp at 10th & Washington was used for.

Look for a Streets.MN post on growing the North Loop from yours truly in the next few weeks. I haven't decided yet if it should be my first or second post. I might make it into a two-parter if I have enough material.

I work in the TractorWorks building, and based on some other photos posted by other members I think a few others on here do, too. The building is primarily offices, with the exception of the restaurants on the first floor. The parking ramp is for us workers, and Bar la Grassa uses it for valet parking in the evenings.

One thing about the ramp is that it's not open to the public on weekends - and if you work in the building you need a garage door opener to get in it on weekends or after hours.

[RailBaronYarr]

Near $155 per square foot, the price is in line with what office buildings in the core of Minneapolis sold for in the past year.

How can they fetch such a price with no skyways!?

[trkaiser]

That sale price really confuses me, too... I'd love to learn more about it Twincitizen!

[ztr421]

How can they fetch such a price with no skyways!?

There is a skyway from the ramp to the building!

[twincitizen]

Looking at the recently updated aerial imagery in Google Maps, it's kind of amazing just how much more room there is for development. NL is still at least 25% surface parking, and that's just counting areas north/east of the viaducts

[mattaudio]

If we're going to replace the 3rd/4th viaducts, I'd rather see some sort of boulevard replacing 4th (and obviously some ROW on the south side of the street) rather than 3rd/4th as one way couplet. Upgrading 3rd to accommodate additional traffic (necessary if it were to replace the westbound viaduct) would harm the street. Other than that, I love the plan and I hope this becomes the long term vision when it is time to pour a lot of money into that viaduct.