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Chatted with a pair of local entrepreneurs who are working on opening a new international market that will also offer halal prepared meats.
It will focus on offering products aimed at people originally from countries on the Indian Ocean.
Beside international food and other products, it will also offer U.S. items.
The plan is to open up the store in southeast Rochester in January.
I'll have more details in my column Thursday.
Kitchen Collection, an Ohio-based, value-focused cooking supplies retailer, has a store simmering in Rochester.
I believe it will open the doors and start ladling out ladles this weekend in the Apache Mall.
The chain has more than 200 stores in the U.S. and it plans on doubling its number of Minnesota stores by opening three this November, including one in the Apache Mall, according to its Web site.
I should have more detail on this soon.
During my chat with Rick Lommen, the president of Courtesy Corp., he said the Austin McDonald's is not the only one that will be leveled and re-built (like the North Broadway one).
"We'd like to re-build more in Rochester. we are working on that," he told me.
Enough of Rochester, here's some of the story about what was served up in Austin Wednesday.
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Austin’s 40-year-old McDonald’s restaurant on Oakland Avenue is slated to be rebuilt from the floor to the top of the Golden Arches this spring.
That comes from Courtesy Corp. of Onalaska, Wis., the company that bought both the two McDonald’s in Austin as well as one in Albert Lea on Wednesday.
They were sold by Dave Scherer and his family. Scherer’s father opened the Oakland Avenue McDonald’s in 1969.
Courtesy now owns 11 restaurants in Minnesota, five of which it acquired in Rochester in 2001. It owns 42 McDonald’s over in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Why buy three new locations, one of which will be demolished and re-built, in southeastern Minnesota now?
“It seemed a natural extension to look beyond Rochester to Austin. This was close by and it is an attractive business,” says Rick Lommen, president of Courtesy Corp.
As for buying during now, Lommen says McDonald’s sales have stayed solid with their economical offerings.
Here's a deal that Austin-based Hormel Foods kicked out a release about Monday evening. Unfortunately, a bad bug of some kind knocked me out of commission Tuesday, so this is the first time I have been conscious enough to post this.
Anyway, Hormel has struck a deal with Herdez Del Fuerte, a Mexico City-based food company, to form a joint venture to market food to U.S. customers. The resulting company is called MegaMex Foods, LLC and it is based in Chino, Calif.
I've posted on this deal before. The reason Hormel is touting this now is that the deal, which was first announced publically in June, has now officially closed.
Here's some from the release on this deal:
Hormel Foods and Herdez Del Fuerte announced the closing of a 50/50 joint venture agreement to create MegaMex Foods, LLC, which will market Mexican foods in the United States.
At the core of Matt Russell's article on the Rochester City Council's 4-3 vote to not impose a proposed development moratorium on Second Street Southwest is the latest version of the proposed Shoppes on Second plan spearheaded by local developer Rick Penz.
Plans for a commercial development at the intersection of Second Street Southwest and 16th Avenue Southwest in front of the Miracle Mile Shopping Center first surfaced publicly in 2007.
That incarnation featured upscale stores and a fondue restaurant. Since then, other versions have floated out as the project has run into obstacles involving the Minnesota Department of Transportation and Miracle Mile.
The latest plan, discussed last night at the meeting, has three buildings - a retail center, a fast food restaurant and a hotel (presumably a Holiday Inn).
Here's a little from Matt Russell's council story to explain how the development and the proposed moratorium had a head-on collision with only the Shoppes on Second walking away.
The moratorium, brought forward by Council Member Michael Wojcik,
was intended to enforce standards proposed by a recent study of Second
Street Southwest led by First Homes, an initiative of the Rochester
Area Foundation.
The standards, which have yet to be approved by the city council, would reduce maximum parking standards, prohibit drive-through windows, require buildings to be taller than one story, and reduce maximum building setbacks.
A resolution against the moratorium passed 4-3, with council members
Ed Hruska, Dennis Hanson, Bruce Snyder, and Bob Nowicki voting in
favor. Wojcik, Sandra Means, and Mark Bilderback voted against the
resolution.
Earlier this month, when Wojcik proposed the moratorium, he said he
wasn't aware of any impending development proposals along Second Street
between downtown and U.S. 52.
On Monday, however, he said a proposal had surfaced that went against the design guidelines outlined in the First Homes study.
"The plan is a disgrace to urban planning," Wojcik said, noting that surrounding neighborhoods strongly endorsed the moratorium. "I think we owe the neighborhoods better." Wojcik said Rochester-Olmsted Planning Director Phil Wheeler e-mailed the plans to council members on Monday.
Wheeler said the plans include a fast-food restaurant and a hotel on the northeast corner of U.S. 52 and Second Street Southwest, a site where an upscale mall, Shoppes on Second, had once been proposed.
Yes, the new John Hardy's Bar-B-Q restaurant did open (At 10:30 a.m. to be specific) today in front of Cedarwood Plaza in northwest Rochester.
And no, it does not offer drive-through service.
Thanks to Vicki Snyder for this tip.
If you have forgotten or never knew, this is the third John Hardy's to open in Rochester. It moved into the former Roscoe's barbeque eatery,
While it is now open and serving John Hardy's saucey fare, owner John Brockman says plans to add an atrium, like the one at the north John Hardy's, are still in the works.
Construction should start soon and the work should add up to an additional 20 to 24 seats to the building that already seats about 50.
Bruce Born, the general manger of the 331 Bar and Grill near Rochester International Airport, is heading north for a new gig with an old, familiar name.
Born, who has managed 331 since it opened in this form in March 2008, is taking over the U.S. 52 landmark of Tilly’s Bar and Grill in Oronoco as general manager and managing partner with Mark Kuehn.
“I’ve been doing this (working in restaurants) for 27 years,” he says, “This is an opportunity to get in myself as an owner."
He starts his new job on Oct. 26.
Born says he likes Tilly’s location, reputation and its home-cooked food. “It is very much my style,” he says.
Born plans to add some sort of catering services, which the tavern has not had since spring when former co-owner Karen Lowe-Connelly left.
Lowe-Connelly still offers catering and concessions in the region under the business name she still owns, Tilly's Tavern Catering. That business is unrelated to the Oronoco tavern.
Friday.
At least that's what the hand-written sign I saw this a.m. says. The new Zubay culinary food store/ deli called ZZest has a large new sign on the building, where Avocados used to be.
A bright and clear sign has gone on up on the side of the building to announce the store/deli to the traffic rolling by the Apache Shoppes.
Work seems underway inside with shelves being set up and stocked.
And the ZZest Facebook page is also announcing that Friday is opening day.
In case you missed it or forgot, here's some background on this project.
The Rochester culinary scene’s well-known Zs — LeeAnn and Jerry Zubay —
have a plan to serve up answers to shoppers looking for a taste of the
uncommon.
The plan is to open a specialty grocery — ZZest Culinary Market — in
the former Avocado’s World Bistro space at 1190 16th St. S.W.
The Zubays were originally behind City Cafe, Newt’s, 300 First, City Market and the Redwood Room in downtown Rochester.
This will be an expansion/re-location of the Culinary Market LeeAnn Zubay opened in the little building near the 300 First restaurant last year. She had specialty cheeses, meats, salts, chutneys, jellies and spices as well as “adventurous ingredients” on the shelves in the First Avenue store.
City and county reporter Jeffrey Pieters covered last night's Rochester City Council meeting and he reported on the approval of a new lease with Rochester businessman
Tom Murphy for a proposed sports grill in the Minnesota BioBusiness Center downtown. Remember, this is a deal I wrote about last week.
For the real estate geeks out there (You know who you are), here's a page from the lease agreement.
To read this, just click on it and it will open as a full-size image in a new window.
Five Guys Burgers and Fries, the popular, homemade-style fast food chain, should be cooking up hamburgers in Rochester next spring.
William Humphries, who owns a Five Guys in St. Cloud and is opening one in Duluth in November, says they’re definitely coming to Rochester soon.
“If everything goes right, we will open in Rochester in the spring,” says Humphries, who is the father of pro basketball player and former Minnesota Golden Gopher standout Kris Humphries.
While no land or real estate has been lined up yet for Five Guys, Humphries says he is looking at a lot of locations.
The elder Humphries, who was a University of Minnesota football star, says establishing the statewide Five Guys franchise is a way to prepare for his son’s post-NBA career.
“My wife and I are working it now, and then we’ll hand it off to him. We don’t want him to become another statistic like ex-players who go bankrupt,” he says.
They have 26 people working for them in St. Cloud and will have about 40 in Duluth. “Just to create jobs feels pretty good ,” he says.
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