Big Thrill Factory

Shea is thrilled to be a part of the Big Thrill Factory a family entertainment center project in Minnetonka that is redeveloping a former Kmart space on Highway 101. Read on for more:

Kmart site recast as game center

by Sam Black, Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal

Minnetonka businessman Barry Zelickson plans to convert part of a closed Kmart store on Highway 101 into an entertainment center called the Big Thrill Factory.

Zelickson, whose day job is working as senior vice president of Border Foods Cos. in Golden Valley, is majority partner in the new venue.

Big Thrill Factory has a lease for about 38,000 square feet of space in the 120,000-square-foot former Kmart at 17501 Highway 7. Kmart closed in 2009. Northern Tool + Equipment Co. also leases part of the same center.

Big Thrill Factory will have activities such as bowling, bumper cars, laser tag and a black-light ropes course. A 13,000-square-foot seasonal outdoor area will have a mini-golf course, trampolines and a climbing wall.
There also will be party space and a restaurant serving burgers, pizza and ice cream, as well as beer and wine.

The center is slated to open in December. The plan just started going through the city of Minnetonka planning process with a neighborhood meeting July 25.

Zelickson expects the center will have between 50 to 80 workers, depending upon the season.

Zelickson has worked on the concept for two years. The equipment and construction of the space will cost between $3 million and $5 million. Money is coming from friends and family and a loan from Grand Forks, N.D.-based Alerus Financial.

The general contractor is Maple Grove-based VSI Construction Inc. and the architect is Minneapolis-based Shea.

The Twin Cities and western suburbs are underserved for family entertainment centers compared to other markets, Zelickson said.

He’s targeting the 7 to 25 age bracket, aiming to bridge the gap between Chuck E. Cheese’s, which appeals to young kids, and the grownup-geared Dave & Busters. The nearest comparison in the Twin Cities is Grand Slam, which has two locations including one in Burnsville. The biggest difference is that Big Thrill will have outdoor space, Zelickson said.

Zelickson said he approached the owner of the building after he started looking for real estate. “We were looking for indoor [and] outdoor space and trying to find a unique location.” he said.

Zelickson said he thinks the concept could expand to other locations.

“It’s a fantastic business to multiply it. But it’s a challenging concept, because you have to build it to where you put it.” he said. The site and the tenant seem like a good fit, said Eric Bjelland, executive director of the capital markets group at Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq, who successfully re-leased a vacant Blockbuster store near Super Target at the same intersection this year.

The former Kmart is less than a half mile from Minnetonka High School and not far from a junior high. “You’ve got a lot of housing density and good income,” Bjelland said.

This is a return to the family entertainment business for Zelickson, who owned an outdoor, seasonal Halloween attraction in Shakopee from 1995 to 2001 called Spooky World. He ended that venture when he was recruited to oversee finance, human resources and marketing for one of Spooky World’s sponsors, Border Foods. Border Foods is a franchise operator for several Yum! Brands Inc. fast-food restaurants including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

Union to share space with Shea at 8th and Hennepin

Cat's out of the bag: we have finally revealed the restaurant that will be sharing our new building with us...read on to find out!

Counter Intelligence: Union making a downtown splash

• Article by: RICK NELSON , Star Tribune
• Updated: July 25, 2012 - 12:20 PM

The force behind Crave will turn the old Shinders building in downtown Minneapolis into a dining destination.

Hennepin Avenue's lights are about to get a whole lot brighter. That's because Union, the latest venture from Kaskaid Hospitality, is transforming the former Shinders building at 8th Street into an ambitious restaurant, bar, lounge and rooftop complex.

"I believe in downtown Minneapolis," said Kaskaid CEO Kam Talebi. "This project is a powerful statement of that belief. We want to create something that's unique to the marketplace. Hopefully it will become an iconic destination."

The rooftop alone will probably guarantee that. Talebi set a new standard for the genre last summer when he opened Crave's multimillion-dollar rooftop on the next block. Still, the 200-seat rooftop at Union is going to make its neighbor look like a studio apartment. Football fans, take note: The predominant feature is a retractable, 28-foot-high glass roof, which, when closed, will become a four-season, climate-controlled space. Talebi said that the structure -- which will fold and unfold like a telescope, in 15 minutes -- will be the largest of its kind in North America.

"We'll be able to cater to group events that want to have an outdoor experience and don't want to worry about rain," said Talebi. "We'll have trees all year long. You'll be able to dine under the stars in the open air, or during a snowstorm."

The rooftop will be served by its own full-service kitchen and bar. The street level will house a showy exhibition kitchen and 150-seat restaurant -- the battered terrazzo floor is staying, along with the exposed concrete ceiling -- plus a small bar. The basement will be home to the Marquee Lounge, a high-tech venue with a separate alley entrance.

A pair of high-profile names are attached to the project. "Eclectic American food" is how chef Jim Christiansen (formerly of Il Gatto, La Belle Vie and Sea Change) describes his plans. "That broad definition will give us the freedom to create a fun menu for downtown," he said. The street-level dining room and rooftop will offer separate menus; Christiansen said that the former's will remain relatively static, while the latter's will change with the seasons.

"When it's summer, we'll give the rooftop menu a summer feel, and when it's winter, we'll give it a winter feel," he said. As for prices, "This will not be perceived as an expensive restaurant," said Talebi. "Value will definitely be part of the equation."

The ambitious bar program -- separate menus for the Marquee Lounge, the first-floor bar and the rooftop bar -- will be created by Johnny Michaels, the La Belle Vie mixmaster who has also fashioned distinctive cocktail menus for the openings of Cafe Maude, Barrio, Masu Sushi and Robata and, most recently, Icehouse. "This is such a unique opportunity," he said. "I couldn't pass on joining this team."
Shea Inc. of Minneapolis is designing the project. The firm will also occupy the building's second floor. "I can't think of better neighbors," said founding principal David Shea. "We're going to have a bar above us, and a bar below us."

The 1947 structure -- which sits atop an 1890s foundation -- was originally a Snyder Bros. drugstore (the name is still embedded in the terrazzo floor) but has been vacant for several years, and something of a dilapidated eyesore ("It took a month and a half just to haul all of the crap out it," said Shea with a laugh). After being gutted down to its skeletal structure, a tall, light-filled ground floor space has emerged, which will happily surprise anyone who ever set foot inside the cramped, gloomy Shinders, or the Burger King that preceded it.

As for Talebi, he's clearly on a roll, one that is perhaps unprecedented in the annals of local restaurateurs. He recently cranked out his eighth Crave outlet in Cincinnati -- a remarkable growth curve for a company that launched its first restaurant just five years ago, in the Galleria in Edina -- and last week announced plans to revive the storied Figlio in what is now Kaskaid's Sopranos Italian Kitchen in St. Louis Park's Shops at West End.

Talebi said the project is on schedule for an early November opening.

Masu @ MOA Now Open!

Anyone shopping at the Mall of America may have noticed something new: the second location for Masu Sushi & Robata. located at 344 South in the Mall.  City Pages' writer Joy Summers has posted her first looks at the latest addition to the Sushi Avenue family.  See below:

http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2012/07/masu_sushi_mall_of_america.php

Turn your head away from the steady stream of shoppers and it's not hard to imagine that the new Mall of America restaurant is the Nordeast location. The geisha walls are there, complete with the ability to count her eyelashes. The snappy, bright green tile, the long, easy curve of the bar, even the blinking pachinko machines made the move. It's all here, only on a smaller scale.



Even many of the same faces were there on our first visit, from chefs Tim McKee and Stephan Hesse to executive chef Chris Olson, who will be running the Mall of America location. It's more Minneapolis than the From Minnesota with Love store.

The second location of the collaboration between the James Beard Award-winning chef McKee and Sushi Avenue opened Sunday. With a lot of crossover from their original location's staff, it's not just the room that feels familiar.

Johnny Michaels's drink list is available at the new location, along with many kinds of sake. The only thing about the bar that was diminished is the beer list, featuring fewer, but well-selected, taps.


Katsuyuki Yamamoto, better known as Asan. The smaller space, meant the bar had to be condensed and there isn't enough room for a master sushi chef on the floor. After tasting the sushi, though, it's the same quality that fans have come to expect in the original.


The Mall of America menu has a few new additions. We sampled the Chinese-style Char-Siu, a barbecued chicken skewer, which was tender and a little sweet, in the same flavor family as teriyaki sauce.


There are also a great assortment of Niku-Man, steamed buns, a dish we observed several tables of children happily chowing down on. The dough is pleasantly chewy, with little bits of meat. The fried tofu was a wonderful texture, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, but lacking flavor. The shrimp tempura was perfectly cooked and full of utterly fresh, sweet, fat shrimp.


At first taste, the new Masu hits all the same notes as the original. Mall dining just got a little more interesting.

Figlio lives!

Another of our top secret projects has just been revealed. Figlio, the much-beloved restaurant that closed in 2009 after 25 years, is making a return and we're really excited to be a part of it. Rick Nelson from the Star Tribune has the scoop. Read on:

Counter intelligence: Figlio lives!
StarTribune.com

Turns out it's never too late to right a wrong.

At least when it comes to Figlio, the Uptown grande dame that closed in 2009 after a remarkable 25-year run. Parasole Restaurant Holdings pulled the plug on its flagship in favor of a gimmicky reboot called Il Gatto, which sputtered out after two years. The prime Lake-and-Hennepin real estate is now occupied by the appropriately named Primebar, which opened last week.

Phil Roberts, the Parasole kingpin responsible for Figlio's demise, doesn't sugarcoat the situation, bless his heart. "Closing Figlio was the biggest [expletive deleted] mistake I've ever made in my life," he said. "I had no idea of the reservoir of affection and brand equity that came from serving a thousand people a day for 25 years."

He does now, and he's got the e-mails and phone calls to prove it. That intense loyalty and name recognition weren't lost on Kam Talebi, the savvy CEO of Kaskaid Hospitality, operator of world-dominating Crave. Which is why Talebi is reviving the storied Figlio name in the Shops at West End space currently occupied by his Sopranos Italian Kitchen (5331 W. 16th St., St. Louis Park, http://www.sopranosmn.com/).

"We're privileged to bring an iconic brand back to life," said Talebi. "We did our own test marketing, and there wasn't one person who didn't know about Figlio. The positive nature of the brand is really exciting."

Diners with long memories will remember that Figlio (the name is the Italian word for "son") was a groundbreaker. It was the first Twin Cities restaurant to feature a wood-burning pizza oven, and the first to offer fried calamari. Figlio also had a kind of ingrained mojo that appealed to an enviably wide demographic, drawing an all-ages and all-incomes crowd from lunch to late-night. For many, the restaurant and bar was the site of their first after-midnight dining experience, first cocktail, first date "or first divorce," said Roberts with a laugh. "We want to bring back all of that nostalgia," said Talebi.

Sopranos chef J.P. Samuelson will work with Parasole's crew to identify and revive beloved Figlio dishes, including the tortellini stuffed with cheese, prosciutto and peas and smothered in a cream sauce, a dish so popular that it headlined the "Can't Get over Figlio?" section of Il Gatto's menu.

Samuelson may be one of the few Twin Cities chefs of his generation who didn't collect a paycheck from Figlio. "But I do have a lot of memories of the place," he said. "The challenge is going to be staying true to the original but updating it."

In other words, don't expect a Figlio museum. "We're going to leverage that history, definitely," said Talebi. "But we're also going to look to J.P. for inspiration with the northern Italian and Mediterranean-inspired food that he does so well."

Prices will hover in the $8 to $12 range at lunch and $10 to $24 at dinner. Like its Uptown predecessor, Figlio 2.0 will also focus on a major happy hour; I can already taste the Bloody Marys.

Talebi is promising a decor overhaul (directed by Shea Inc., the Minneapolis design firm responsible for Sopranos as well as the previous tenant, the short-lived Ringo), emphasizing a more open-plan dining room and a retooled circular bar that will mimic the Calhoun Square original. The kitchen is getting a few tweaks, too, including the addition of a wood-burning pizza oven and a chef's table.

The deal happened fast: Negotiations between Kaskaid and Parasole started just six weeks ago. The project is on an aggressive timetable: Sopranos' last day is July 29, and the goal is to open Figlio on Sept. 24.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "Let's just say that it's a business arrangement that's mutually beneficial," said Roberts. "It's in both of our interests that we do everything to make this successful on an ongoing basis. But we're leaving Figlio in the best possible hands. It was always our intention to reopen it. Funny thing is, we even talked about the West End."

It should come as no surprise that Talebi was a Figlio fan, from way back. "Figlio and Palomino were my two favorite restaurants when I was growing up," he said. Can it be a coincidence that his Crave now occupies the former Palomino space in downtown Minneapolis, and that Talebi is directing Figlio's second act? "It's ironic, anyway," he said.

As for Sopranos, which is barely a year old, "It had a great stay, and we've been happy with it," said Talebi. "But this was such a unique opportunity. I couldn't let it pass by."

Follow Rick Nelson on Twitter: @RickNelsonStrib.

Murray's works with Shea on renovations

The word is out about one of our exciting remodel projects. Jeremy Zoss of The Journal spoke with Tim Murray about our remodel of the famous Minneapolis landmark. Read on for more:

Murray's Restaurant temporarily closing for renovations
by Jeremy Zoss, The Journal

 Murray’s Restaurant, which has been located at 26 South Sixth St. since 1946, will close on July 30 for renovations. Co-owner Tim Murray said the restaurant should reopen on Sept. 4 with improvements to bar and restaurant layout, new seating and more welcoming décor.

Some people are concerned that we’re going to take the old feeling out of the room,” said Murray. “We’re going to do this very tastefully. We’re going to really appeal to all age groups now.”

Much of the project will focus on expanding seating. The dining room will add more booth seating and two private dining rooms, each of which will seat around 20 people. In the bar, the lounge will be expanding and the shape of the bar itself will be changed to allow for more seats. Murray said the increasing popularity of bar dining and the restaurant’s happy hour business made it clear that the bar needed to be reworked.
Furniture, carpet, drapes and other decorative elements will also be refreshed during the five-week renovation. Murray said the bar may also add a couple of additional tap lines, but it isn’t a major focus of the project.

Masu to open MOA location this weekend!

The Star Tribune announced today that the new Mall of America Masu Sushi & Robata location is set to open this Sunday! We're helping out with all the finishing touches right now. Can't wait to have some sushi and a gummi cocktail!

Masu’s Mall of America location opens Sunday
Posted by: Tom Horgen under Nightlife, Star Tribune

A sneak peek at "Mallsu" under construction

While a lot of bar/restaurants like to highlight the new bells and whistles when opening a second location, the brass at Masu say its Mall of America sequel is virtually identical to the original. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? The MOA location will open Sunday on the third floor next to Tony Roma’s.

The sushi and robata restaurant made waves when it opened in northeast Minneapolis last year with Tim McKee consulting in the kitchen and Johnny Michaels designing the cocktails. The MOA menu is the same, save for a few additions such as Tokubetsu na men (a noodle bowl special that will change daily). The bar, which won’t be tucked into the corner (as it is in Northeast), will serve 24 sakes, six craft drafts and the same great gummi cocktails.

Diversity is Awarded

Last night, The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal  honored the Twin Cities' top diverse corporate leaders. The award promotes diversity around race, sexual orientation, disability and military service. Shea wants to congratulate three of our clients that were honored with this award.

Sameh Wadi, Owner & Chef at Saffron Restaurant & Lounge, World Street Kitchen, and Spice Trail.

Anoush Ansari, Managing Partner at Hemisphere Restaurant Parnters

Alfredo Martel, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Caribou Coffee Co. Inc.

Shea wishes to congratulate all those who were recognized at the event last night at the Westin Hotel in Edina. 

Masu Sushi & Robata is opening a second location this month at the Mall of America and owner Nay Hla has been working with us at Shea on plans for even more locations, including a new fast sushi concept that may go overseas. Read the following article by John Vomhof of the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal for more on this growing company:

photo by Nancy Kuehn

Masu Sushi adding locations

Nay Hla has built an inland sushi empire in the Twin Cities, and he wants to expand it.

Hla is owner and CEO of Sushi Avenue Inc., an Eagan company that provides fresh sushi for 280 supermarkets in 17 states, including 31 locations in the Twin Cities. Revenue reached $30 million last year and is expected to grow 20 percent to $36 million this year.

Hla’s biggest growth vehicle, however, will be Masu Sushi & Robata, the critically acclaimed restaurant concept he launched in April 2011 in Northeast Minneapolis. A second location will open in mid-July in a 2,400-square-foot space at Mall of America    in Bloomington, and Masu is close to finalizing a lease for the 6,500-square-foot former T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant space at Eden Prairie Center    . Masu also is negotiating a letter of intent for a location in Cincinnati.

“We plan to have about 10 of these by 2015,” said Hla, who founded Sushi Avenue in 2004 with his brother, Nay Lin. “There’s room to grow, and we know how to manage the people, the inventory and the finances.”
Most of the future growth will be outside of the Twin Cities, primarily targeting markets where Sushi Avenue has its most successful supermarket operations. Cassidy Turley    Vice President Andrea Christenson is representing the company on its site search.

Masu self-funded the Northeast Minneapolis and Mall of America restaurants; the Eden Prairie and Cincinnati sites will be funded with a 50-50 split of cash and financing, Hla said.

Access to cash is important because many banks and private equity firms are reluctant to finance expansion in the current economic climate, said Phil Roberts, chairman and CEO of Edina-based Parasole Restaurant Holdings    .

“You get a lot of pressure from the money guys to stay local, but if the concept has legs, then the heck with it. I say go for it,” he said.

Hla also is pursuing international growth. His first target is Singapore, but from there it could expand into Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries.

“I know the culture of southeast Asia,” said Hla, a Myanmar native who lived in Singapore for a couple of years in the mid-1990s. “There’s about a 99.9 percent chance of success for an American brand coming into the market. It’s a very wealthy country, and they’re crazy about Western companies.”

Masu will need to collaborate with a partner there because the law requires a Singapore citizen to own at least 20 percent of the company, Hla said. He’s had talks with prospective partners, but hasn’t finalized a deal yet.

Hla also is in the early stages of developing a made-to-order, fast-casual restaurant concept modeled after national chains such as Subway. Customers would create their own sushi by selecting a type of rice, fish and vegetables.

That business could grow even faster than Masu because the spaces would be smaller and cheaper to build out, Christenson said. “I think [Hla] can be the Chipotle of sushi.”

Keys to success

Hla teamed up with some of the top players in the local restaurant industry to create Masu, which features Japanese fare like sushi, robata-style grilled meats and vegetables and noodle soups. He hired James Beard Award winner Tim McKee as “concept chef” to develop the menu, lured longtime Origami Restaurant chef Katsuyuki Yamamoto to lead the sushi operations and brought in Minneapolis architect Shea Inc. to design the space.

As Masu expands, Brent Sokup and Steve Hesse will oversee the operations. Sokup, previously general manager of the Minneapolis location, was promoted to be the chain’s director of operations. Hesse, who used to be the chef at Stella’s Fish Café, is the corporate executive chef. (McKee still serves as a consultant.)

The flagship Minneapolis restaurant generated $2.3 million in revenue in its first year. City Pages awarded Masu the title of “Best Sushi” in its 2012 Best of the Twin Cities issue, and Bon Appetit magazine recently included the restaurant on its list of the “10 Best New Sushi Restaurants in America.”

The concept was designed to expand quickly, McKee said, pointing to a higher commitment to quality and sustainability than most sushi restaurants. “We’re not the first to offer sustainable seafood, but I think we might be the first multiunit concept to do so. And the overall style is a pretty great departure from any other sushi restaurant you’re likely to see.”

From a business perspective, Masu benefits greatly from Sushi Avenue’s success, which allows the restaurant to secure high-quality fish at cheap prices. That creates bigger margins in what is traditionally a narrow-margin industry.

“Every month we buy 20,000 pounds of tuna and 30,000 pounds of salmon to support our 280 supermarket locations,” Hla said. “We buy in bulk, so we have an advantage on food costs. Our [restaurant] competitors pay $10 to $15 per pound, while we’re paying $5 or $6 per pound.”

Grocery growth

Sushi Avenue, which rents space from supermarkets in exchange for a percentage of its sales, has posted double-digit growth each year since it was founded. It grew from 33 supermarket locations in 2005 to more than 150 by mid-2010, and now it’s nearly double that.

Sushi Avenue has grown by adding grocery partners in new states, including California, Connecticut and Utah, and through organic growth as existing partners add more stores. Locally, it has deals with Cub Foods, Festival Foods and many of the local food cooperatives.

The company leases 35,000 square feet in an Eagan business park, where it packs and ships some of the ingredients for grocery locations. It also operates a cold-storage facility in St. Paul that has room for 200,000 pounds of seafood.

In addition to the grocery business, Sushi Avenue also has a catering unit that provides sushi for the University of Minnesota and other area colleges, and for corporate campuses such as Target Corp.    and Best Buy Co. Inc.   

The business generated “a couple million dollars” in revenue last year, Hla said.

Butcher & The Boar
Every once in a while we come upon a restaurant that fits right in our wheelhouse.

by Stephanie March, Minneapolis St. Paul magazine

We are a charmed bunch, food writers. We know this. We get paid to eat at lovely restaurants. But there is a downside to it. We also get paid to eat at unlovely restaurants, just as much, if not more often. We suffer through a lot of food that is bad, and even more so through food that is “fine.” I’m not complaining, because every once in a while we come upon a restaurant that fits right in our wheelhouse. For me, that place is Butcher and the Boar.

No doubt you’ve already heard of the place in the Harmon neighborhood that took over the marble-fronted Walker Foundation and the Buca parking lot. Jack Riebel was wooed by Tim Rooney and his investment gang (Barrio, Bar La Grassa, etc.) to leave The Dakota and try it on his own. What came into being was a shared vision of American craft cooking with an emphasis on smoked and wood-grilled meat and sausage. And bourbon. So yes, my wheelhouse.

But my job isn’t to simply wax on, it’s to provide context for you so that you can decide if Butcher and the Boar fits into your wheelhouse. I know it won’t be the pearl in everyone’s oyster—some ladies won’t dig that smoky campfire smell that gets in their hair, and some gents will be flummoxed by the lack of a burger on the menu. But if you follow me on what I think Riebel’s doing right, you’ll be as happy as a bug in a bourbon bottle.

First of all, while he’s cooking with simple technique (curing, smoking, wood grilling), Riebel has no less an intense eye than those using modern gastronomy. No one can say that as a chef he lacks focus—plates are simple and familiar but honed beyond their modest menu descriptions. The lobster grilled cheese (add the optional egg) delivers hunks of lobster in a swirl of cheese between two faultless pieces of Texas toast with buttery crisp edges. On such a meat-stacked menu, this could be a phone-in dish, a redheaded stepchild, but instead it’s a rich, decadent blonde bombshell. Same with the chicken, yes the chicken, which comes bone-in with a smoky honey chipotle glaze and a house version of ranch dressing (would that all ranch reached this status). A member of my ladies league picked it up with her hands to make sure she got all the tender meat.
Second, Riebel has great ingredients and great cohorts. Peter Botcher is the in-house butcher and meat maven; he’s the man behind the sausage list made with beef, pork, and boar. The inventive takes include a pinto bean–laced chorizo, a snappy footlong in a bun jammed with pickled pepper relish, and a satisfying and slightly sweet 101 bourbon sausage that comes with a fried egg. Charcuterie is almost too refined a word for the butcher’s plate; it would rather be called simply a meat plate. Smooth and biting turkey Braunschweiger (a potted meat from your mom’s generation), wild boar headcheese, and venison summer sausage, paired with cheese and crackers, hit all the right marks. All of these meats are carefully sourced, thoughtfully chosen, and processed in-house.

There’s no doubt this is a meat-centric house, best exemplified by the giant smoked beef long rib meant for two or more people. Could you tuck into the smoky, tobacco-molasses-glazed bone with just the right chew-to-melty-fat ratio all by yourself? Sure, but the point is that you don’t have to. There’s plenty of Southern-inspired sides (grits, sweet potatoes, blackened cauliflower) and a whole list of seafood dishes, including the light and lovely tequila-cured salmon, to round out a meal. So yes, meat is the star, but not in that cavemanish way that makes you leave with the meat sweats.

And, finally, there is bourbon, which is dealt with in similar style. If you are new to the fascination of sipping mash, there is no better place to start. Beyond the smart cocktails that stay true to the craft mantra, tasting flights of more than 60 different bottles group sips by type, such as single barrel, proof of age, and low or high rye. There’s also plenty of great local and international beer, plus a beer garden boasting improbable skyline views.

Top all of this off with a rustic vibe that is masculine without being too manly (think charred barrel walls and copper penny floors) and you get the charming, not-too-serious, good-timing, Cool Hand Luke kind of a place that is Butcher and the Boar. It’s definitely one place in which you don’t have to pay me to eat.
1121 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-238-8888, butcherandtheboar.com