urbanMSP

Like allowing for a tip credit?

[ducks, runs]

Sucks, but my wife and I hardly ever went there. Kind of an awkward space. I'll miss the burgers.

Weird that they came out last week and said it was only closing for a month or so to revamp the menu and do some minor remodeling.

Seems like it would be very difficult to succeed with a large format restaurant, especially in downtown. Unless there's an event at Target Center or Target Field to bring masses of people in, how are they not actively losing money with such a huge lease area and the staff required to even keep the doors open?

Like allowing for a tip credit?

[ducks, runs]

I still think it would've been a bad idea for Minneapolis to implement a tip credit/penalty when the rest of the state doesn't. That's more headache than its worth. My take was always that Minneapolis shouldn't have gone to $15/hr. MSP simply does not have equivalent housing costs to LA/NYC/SF/Seattle. It would have been completely justifiable to raise minimum wage to something proportional to the difference in living costs (say, $13/hr) or to have implemented an even longer phase-in (say, increasing by $0.50/year instead of $1.00/year until we reach $15).

Not to derail the conversation too much, but I fail to see why those who wait tables deserve to be paid more (and in some cases a lot more) than everybody else who works in the service industry and doesn't get tipped.

In any case, there are obviously a lot of issues at play whenever a restaurant closes, but the list of knocks against opening a restaurant downtown is starting to get pretty long (and a number of items on the list are self-inflicted wounds by the City).

I still think it would've been a bad idea for Minneapolis to implement a tip credit/penalty when the rest of the state doesn't. That's more headache than its worth. My take was always that Minneapolis shouldn't have gone to $15/hr. MSP simply does not have equivalent housing costs to LA/NYC/SF/Seattle. It would have been completely justifiable to raise minimum wage to something proportional to the difference in living costs (say, $13/hr) or to have implemented an even longer phase-in (say, increasing by $0.50/year instead of $1.00/year until we reach $15).

Not sure why we're talking about it like minimum wage is at all relevant here.

Restaurants close. New ones open. That's how it goes.

The biggest challenge for downtown restaurant is that interesting ones have moved to the North Loop (hey, look, where some people live) and no one has really found a way to make non-expense account-priced places work in the core of downtown.

Also, we spend lots and lots of money on subsidies for downtown hospitality businesses.

Operating a restaurant has always been brutal. The new wage dynamics will just make it harder. Anything on the fringe, that might have been able to fight their way through tough times in the past, will now most likely just go away.

Operating a restaurant has always been brutal. The new wage dynamics will just make it harder. Anything on the fringe, that might have been able to fight their way through tough times in the past, will now most likely just go away.

Bingo. Sure restaurants come and go, but it does raise eyebrows when its one that has been around for a longer period and it absolutely merits discussion about what, if any, external factors there may be.

There are many external factors though.

18 years ago,

• The North Loop and Washington Ave hardly existed as drinking/dining destinations

• Target (and other large employers) were far more loose with expensing lunches/drinks.

• Taprooms didn't exist.

• It was illegal for most neighborhood bars to sell liquor/cocktails.

• Minimum wage was lower.

Everyone is so pick to point to #5. And it might play a part! Though I don't fully understand the desire to bend over backwards to save businesses that can only stay afloat by paying employees unlivable wages.

Though I don't fully understand the desire to bend over backwards to save businesses that can only stay afloat by paying employees unlivable wages.

It's the natural dynamic of economic privilege. If you can afford to eat at these restaurants, generally speaking you haven't experienced what it was like to live at that income level in a long time, if ever, and in any event you have a natural incentive to value what benefits you (greater variety of restaurants, at whatever cost) than what doesn't benefit you (someone else making more money, at the cost of lower restaurant diversity and/or more expensive meals.)

I thought the labor shortage for restaurants was making the minimum wage a moot point anyway.

McKinney Roe closed as well:

http://www.startribune.com/downtown-min ... 567200372/

Not terribly suprised, tbh.

I'm sure there were issues with the concept/location/lack of people around after 5, etc. But something that always seemed obvious with McKinney Roe was the lack of signage. It was hard to tell there was a business in there at all. It's fine to have minimal signage if you're on Nicollet Mall, or on a super prominent corner, but in a location like this, a restaurant needs much larger signage (unfortunately/probably uglier) that is visible from across Commons Park, driving by at 30MPH, etc. Also at fault is the building design itself which put the retail space mid-block rather than on either corner. How the heck do you wind up with ground-floor residential units on the corners and restaurant space in the middle??? You literally cannot read it from the nearest intersection: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9764154 ... 384!8i8192

There's also little signage from the skyway too. It has to be hard to be successful when only people who work or live in the building are likely to notice you.

Although after the conversion to an Irish bar, they did tend to have (paper) "Irish bar" decorations out on the patio, making it a bit more visible.

McKinney Roe had the lovely combination of being overpriced with poor service.

McKinney Roe had the lovely combination of being overpriced with poor service.

Not to mention the name. I would assume it was an ad agency or law firm, not a restaurant.

McKinney Roe had the lovely combination of being overpriced with poor service.

I agree. I went there once. The food was average, the prices were well above average and the service was not good at all. I didn't return.

You can't run a bar or restaurant relying on stadium event business. You need to be a place that workers and residents of the neighborhood visit on a regular basis. This was the exact same problem Erick the Red had.

I don't think the Bus Stop restaurant in the other Wells Fargo tower is long for this world either. A few times I tried to go there during hours their website said they were open and it was closed. It kind of fell off my list places to consider after that.

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Mission American Kitchen closed.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... ntown.html