urbanMSP

From a friends newsfeed, it looks like they might be having some problems at the old Joe's Garage space at 1610 Harmon. Apparently while trying to dig out a basement for the kitchen a wall collapsed and part of the roof/patio. Anyone been down Harmon in the last day or two? ' The Triton'was supposed to open this fall, by the same folks as Butcher & the Boar.

Walked by on Sunday, and yes. The side of the building facing the parking lot is so far gone that I don't see how they can save it (the wall, that is- the building might not be a loss yet.) The roof on that side seemed to have caved in a few feet, and the wall was sunken down and bowed out.

With pricing pressure from the likes of Amazon and big box stores, it's tough for bricks and mortar retail operations. Customers mostly want convenience and value, which is something hard to offer your average metro-area shopper if you're leasing expensive space in downtown Minneapolis. If you look at the downtown retailers that seem to be making a go of it, it's boutiques, convenience retailers (smoke shops, Walgreens, liquor), and now grocers. In the case of the boutiques, they offer a unique product that permits a wider margin, and they might benefit from a hip address (i.e. north loop) or a location in close proximity to their highly targeted clientele (Hubert White). In the case of convenience retailers, they require little space, few employees, and are selling the sort of thing the people (office workers, out-of-towners) need right now, even if it costs a few bucks more. As far as the grocers are concerned, they are clearly looking toward increased downtown populations and it remains to be seen how they will fare over the long term. I suppose you could add sex shops to the list of successful downtown operations, but they're sort of boutiques and are downtown mostly for zoning reasons, right?

Anyway, if you're Joe American retailer, you want ample parking, freeway accessibility, cheap rent, and a good set-up for shipping and receiving, all in short supply downtown ... If downtown were twice or three times as big as it is now, and getting OUT of downtown to shop became difficult for a large population of residents (Manhattan, London), I think you'd see more bona fide retail moving in.

While downtowns have to gear their retail to local, niche markets it doesn't quite explain why Mpls' downtown hasn't seen a proportionate rise in independent retail. Cities like Portland and Seattle sure seem to manage to fill n retail spaces. Portland's downtown population, for which I could only find the 2000 figure, was 9965 and just from a brief glance on Yelp they're able to support a large independent bookstore, a card/stationary/clothing/music store, another music store, another vintage clothing store, an outdoor/REI-like store, more stores selling the same products: clothing (including a good deal aimed at men, which I find lacking here), music, crafts, etc, oh, and a toy store and they're all local. We have what, 30,000 in our downtown at least by now? And sure rent is more expensive, but why are all these local retail stores surviving or even thriving when they have to pay for rent in a downtown with numerous streetcar and light-rail lines traversing it and I'd suppose raising rent high even for Portland all along those areas? Portland, unless its downtown population tripled in the last decade to catch up to us, has managed to attract way more independent retail and seems to face the same issues as we do, but even more accutely such as prohibitively high rent.

For the latter point I think if transit were two or three times more frequent that would result in more interest from the average American chain (not to mention local interest) rather than waiting for Downtown to grow to double or triple its size, but then there are still all those subsidies for sprawl which are driving them out to the TC outerbelts in the first place.

DiNoko's Pizzeria is moving into the Jerry Haaf Memorial Parking Ramp in the old Tickles spot.

It will be interesting to see how they do. This is such a desolate area, but I suppose the Ryan development could eventually bring some life to it.

http://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/di ... n-location

you mean the old little wagon... http://www.startribune.com/business/11093041.html

For what it's worth, in Di Noko’s Facebook announcement last week, owner Rich Moore mentioned the new Vikings stadium. KSTP news also reported that the new stadium was a “major factor” in their decision to relocate.

That's interesting because it's hard to see how attendees of the new stadium would eat more pizza and wings than attendees of the Metrodome. Don't newer stadiums have better food and facilities to keep more of that revenue in house?

I really hope the owner isn't leaning to heavily on 8 game days a year to pay rent all 365 days a year. Maybe it will be enough of a destination to draw from a wider area, but this place will most likely survive or fail based on whether it's frequented by downtown residents and workers. They will be out of business fast if they're only busy on gamedays.

I hope it succeeds, but this is a tough location.

It should also be noted that the current location has no dine-in seating. They are delivery/pick-up only. They (apparently) are still going to service their current S. Minneapolis delivery area, while also expanding it to downtown, N. Loop, and probably a little bit of NE.

I assume they do pretty brisk delivery & pick-up service currently, and have determined that their customers come from further than the immediate neighborhood. I also assume that the rental rate at this space is pretty favorable.

But yeah, they will need to agressively court regular business from downtown & inner neighborhood residents, along with the downtown lunch crowd. Relying too heavily on event traffic is a recipe for failure.

With all of the day drinkers (i.e. Strib reporters) moving out of the neighborhood, they'll have to rely on City Hall, which seems more teatotaler than ever. Anyone had their pizza?

The notion that the Metrodome is only used eight nights a week is tired and wrong.

What is bizarre, though, is the concept of moving there now. With the construction there will be less than ever there.

Well, there will be an awful lot of construction workers in the area for the next couple of years.

Speaking of Pizza. I was walking thru 330Second building today and they have a new food court on the skyway level and I saw the name Andre's Pizza as one of the vendors. Would this be the same that was forced out of Gaviidae's 4th floor food court?

Just what is left on the 4th floor?

I've had takeout from the current location. It's easily the best deep dish I've had outside of Chicago. There's really nothing else like it in the Twin Cities, which might be a reason they could make it in a random location like this.

When I talked to Andrea of Andrea's Pizza (he usually works at the Highland Court location - I encourage anyone to go there and chat him up, he's hilarious), he said the Gaviidae location was going to get relocated to a lower level, so I think he probably just opened a new location.

I used to work over in the Flour Exchange, and there is a good lunch crowd in the area. Both Grain Exchange buildings, the Flour Exchange, City Hall, Henn. Cnt Courthouse and the Federal Courthouse. Hopefully DiNoko's Pizzeria can survive, but I tell you, I sure miss the Little Wagon!

Best deep dish eh? I'm going to have to try this place then!

If DiNoko's has the best deep dish I'll have to check them out - i currently go to Italian Pie Shoppe on Grand for deep dish but this location should be fairly convenient from the West Bank. Do we know when they will open?

This isn't new news, but I don't remember seeing it before. Tonight I was curious when the new Blue Plate brewpub is going to open in the North Loop. Apparently they were shooting for a Dec. 9 opening, but the government shutdown might end up forcing a delay. This story leaves it open ended, but it basically says they should theoretically be able to open on Dec. 9, but because of the shutdown they might not have their house beer ready yet, which kind of defeats the point of opening then.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... l?page=all

Anybody heard a follow up?

I saw an article that talked about that restaurant. They shortened the the name to just "The Freehouse" and it had a mention of the opening date.

Their Facebook page says opening December 2013.

I peaked in there this weekend and if they're going to open in early December they have a lot of work to do yet. Seems like they're pretty hard at work whenever I go by there though. I think they were laying blacktop in the parking lot on Friday.

Pizza and beer headed for old Spill the Wine space

Paul Johnston, formerly of Lucid Brewing and Harriet Brewing, will be head brewer. The menu will be led by pizza, though it'll feature soup and sandwiches as well.