[Archived] Uptown Retail & Restaurant News 2012-17

[David Greene]

We had the tuna tartar

Hold the tartar sauce!

[Condo_Dweller]

Baja Sol, aka Baja Grill closed. 20 years of burritos and free chips n salsa. India Palace going in.

[David Greene]

Hallelujah!

[clf]

I have noticed that both Burch and Bradstreet have closed the Hennepin doors off. Burch's entrance is on Colfax and Bradstreet's is in the middle of the parking lot.

[PhilmerPhil]

Bad urban design, yes, but I'd say it's an accurate response to this: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.962709, ... 312!8i6656

[Wedgeguy]

Bad urban design, yes, but I'd say it's an accurate response to this: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.962709, ... 312!8i6656

Not sure if having my entrance on a civil street versus a crazy autozone. I'm sure loading and unloading people would be much easier and maybe this will finally make the buildings much easier and pedestrian friendly to get into. Thus maybe the business will finally stay in business for more than 2 years.

[seanrichardryan]

One of the issues with the Auriga/ Rye/ Crafthouse space were the 6 different doors. It confused the hell out of people. With the shape of the building and the prior build-out it's easy to understand why they kept the side entrance.

[clf]

Rye just had the Hennepin door and the parking lot door, not 6 doors. As a pedestrian I would rather see an entrance from the main sidewalk and not have to walk through the parking lot. And Burch is a bit confusing. I first went to the Hennepin side door but that was closed and then back around to Colfax. But I guess both are relying mainly on patrons with cars hence the valet.

[seanrichardryan]

oh?

[twincitizen]

I think 6 might lead to an employee-only area, and 1-2 could be considered a single "entrance", but either way you're right. Rye has that "interior streetview" on Google maps, so feel free to take it for a spin. What a weird building. What was it before it was a restaurant that would've necessitated all of those side doors?

[clf]

I was counting 1 and 2 as the same, I also don't consider the patio door as an entrance as they had a fence that is not pictured. Doors 5 and 6 were not public doors that you could walk up to and open. In my opinion, having a good street/sidewalk presence betters the urban environment more so than having to walk through a parking lot. Again this is only my personal preference.

[Wedgeguy]

I think 6 might lead to an employee-only area, and 1-2 could be considered a single "entrance", but either way you're right. Rye has that "interior streetview" on Google maps, so feel free to take it for a spin. What a weird building. What was it before it was a restaurant that would've necessitated all of those side doors?

I want to say that there was a liquor store in that area once upon a time when I first moved to the area. so look at what was there 20 years ago. I think that the reason that there is parking there is because it was a liquor store. I think that the first restaurateur thought they had a gold mine by having those parking spaces. But in the end, sitting on the end of a busy one way, plus freeway exit adding to the traffic confusion was the straw that made patrons not feel like they wanted to deal with that trip again. Why using the parking lot and Colfax as your front door makes sense. As noted earlier they have valet service that you could not do on Hennepin Ave.

There definitely was a liquor store there according to my friend who has live in the Wedge since 73. I think it was Zipp's Liquor, Zip in, zip out was their slogan. They had just enough parking for a neighborhood liquor store.

[LakeCharles]

Related to the Zipps Liquor on Franklin now?

[Wedgeguy]

Been 15+ years now that it has been gone. That may not have even been the name. That slogan has stuck in my mind though. I just remember the sale banners in the windows for beer and other stuff. Never ever saw the parking lot over flowing like Surdyk's does. But again it was the neighborhood liquor store probably even before the freeway went thru and killed part of their business.

[web]

'Was named Lowry-Hill Liquors as late as 2009.....it was never zipps

[TommyT]

I think you guys are thinking of the building next door which is still Lowry Hill LIquor store

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.963614, ... 56!6m1!1e1

[mnmike]

I have no idea...but the building kind of looks like it could have been a gas station or an auto repair place...just has that look to me

[clf]

In the 50's Rye was Becky's Cafeteria

[seanrichardryan]

Becky's was open from 1924-1984.

[Wedgeguy]

Becky's was open from 1924-1984.

So Beck's basically stood the test of time until the freeway did it's job of making it difficult to stay open or the owner decided to retire. Don't know. But the site has pretty much been one unit since 1924 so I don't see any conspiracy for how the parking lot came to be. It was there before the freeway. What killed the other restaurants were lack of ease of getting to the site on a regular basis and probably did not have the valet district parking that we have now.