Tag Archives: duluth

Downtown store openings galore

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Several stores recently opened in downtown Duluth , though not all store signs are up yet. They’re all locally owned and operated and not associated with retail chains.

Port City Antiques opened quietly on Saturday at 120 W. Superior St. The new antique mall with about 30 dealers fills the 6,000-square-foot space that formerly housed the Saw-Mill Unpainted Furniture Store.

Jerry Fredrickson, founder and former owner of Father Time Antiques in Canal Park is behind the new mall.

Some dealer have more items to add to their displays and a couple of Twin Cities dealers have yet to move in. But so far, it’s looking good. I found something I had to have within minutes of walking though the door on Sunday. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, except Sundays when they’re open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A block to the west, Superior Ballroom Dance Studio opened a storefront at 208 W. Superior St. on May 1. Led by award-winning dancer Andrea Kuzel, it’s the only dance studio around devoted to teaching ballroom dance to adults in the Duluth area. And classes for children are coming this summer, too, she says.

For more information about private and group lessons, call (218) 348-1928 or just stop in.

Over at Fitger’s Brewery Complex, Lotus on the Lake, a new women’s boutique also opened on May 1 on the Superior Street Level. The space previously had been occupied by Andi’s Closet which has moved downstairs.

The store offers moderate to upper end clothing for women ages 35 and older as well as jewelry, paper goods and home decor similar to what Catherine Imports carried in the Duluth Technology Village. Catherine’s, which had quite a fan base, closed late last year.

That’s because Kelly Yetter, Catherine’s former store manager and Jackie McLean, Catherine’s office manager, are behind this venture. Hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

As we previously told you, Eva Morris, another new women’s boutique opened recently at 732 E. Superior St., next to Coppola Artistica and Va Bene Italian cafe.

It offers clothing at affordable prices to women of all ages and includes larger sizes. Owner Stacy Foster previously operated Colors of Benetton at Fitger’s which closed in January. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 12 to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

While it’s not a storefront, Northland Special Events opened a showroom just inside the front door of the Torrey Building, 314 W. Superior St., on May 1.  The site also serves as the wedding and event planner’s offices, floral studio and design center. They plan to have regular hours come fall, but until then, it’s by appointment. Call (218) 499-9449.

 

Plaza gets Engwalls greenhouse

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The Burger King block headed for redevelopment at 21st Avenue East and London Road in Duluth has its costs. Like the Engwalls satellite greenhouse that has set up shop on the corner in late spring and summer for years,

Well not this year. The Burger King property was sold last winter, ending the agreement Engwalls had with the previous owner.

“Whatever is going to happen with that corner, they weren’t interested in having us there this year,” said Rod Saline, owner of Engwalls Florist, Greenhouse and Garden Center in Hermantown.

So instead the greenhouse is going in the parking lot of Burggraf’s Ace Hardware at Superior Street and 13th Avenue East.

“We’ve been in the Plaza area before,” Saline said. ” This made sense from a visibility point of view. It’s in a known shopping area, so there will be traffic. We think there’s some good positioning, visibility and good synergy with Burggraf’s. They are a small, independent retailer just like we are.”

The framework for the portable greenhouse went up this week outside the hardware store, while it went up last week at their other satellite site at Kenwood Shopping Center. The covers of the greenhouses will follow.

With April’s record snow, their opening will be pushed back a few days. Instead of opening  during the first week of May, they might not open until May 7 or May 8, Saline said.

But that’s OK.

While a lot of their hanging baskets sell for Mother’s Day, from a gardening perspective, plant sales don’t take off until the third week in May, he said.

 

Eva Morris boutique opens

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When Stacy Foster closed Benetton, an upscale women’s clothing store she owned at Fitger’s Brewery Complex, she had a plan.

She would open another women’s boutique in a storefront on Superior Street, a block to the east. But instead of the Benetton brand of tailored European clothing topping at size 12, Foster wanted to offer more affordable clothes to women of all ages, including middle-aged women who need larger sizes.

The resulting store — Eva Morris (a combination of Foster’s paternal grandparents’ first names) — has opened at 732 E. Superior St., next to Coppola Artistica and Va Bene Italian cafe.

The new store gives Foster the greater flexibiity with her store hours that she had sought. The new store — offering women’s clothing, accessories and gifts — is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

You can check it out on Facebook.

Hobby Lobby up and running

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Officially, the new Hobby Lobby in Duluth opens at 9 a.m. Monday in the old Miller Hill Kmart space.

Unofficially, it quietly opened Thursday to allow its new staff to become acclimated to their jobs before crowds of customers arrived.

On Saturday evening, however, there was a crowd. Although the parking lot lights weren’t on, the store was aglow with plenty of people coming and going. So I stopped in to check it out.

It’s a nice store, with an extensive home decor and storage section that I lingered in for quite a while. Fun stuff with prices already 30 percent off. And the scrapbooking section made me want to start scrapbooking. Other than that, there’s the usual floral, hobby, fabric, frames, art and craft items that you would expect in a leading arts and crafts store.

By the reaction of the customers, I’d say they were liking it, too.

On Monday, the store will hold its grand opening celebration with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that will see local officials, business people and chamber of commerce ambassadors.

Hobby Lobby, based in Oklahoma City, has more than 520 stores and is the No.3 arts and craft retailer in the country. The chain had looked for a suitable location in Duluth for years before the Kmart site at Mall Drive and Maple Grove Road, near Miller Hill Mall, became available last year. It’s Hobby Lobby third store in Minnesota.

“We are very pleased to become an integral part of the Duluth community by adding new jobs, revitalizing an empty facility, and providing exceptional selection, service and value in the crafts and home decor market — all of which enables us to share in the economic growth of both the community and the stae,” John Schumacher, the chain’s assistant vice president of advertising said in a statement.

In Duluth, under store manager Ben Horst, it’ll be competition for the Michaels Arts and Crafts at the nearby Stoneridge Shopping Center.

Hobby Lobby store hours will be 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday but closed on Sundays.

Candy gifts downtown on V-Day

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This just in from the Greater Downtown Council:

Members of the Clean & Safe Team won’t just be greeting people as they walk the Skywalks and streets of downtown Duluth on Valentine’s Day. They will also be handing out more than 700 boxes of candy hearts to folks they come across, just to put a smile on their faces.

Each box will carry the message: “We love having you in the Downtown Waterfront!” So get ready to smile, if you’re among the lucky 700.

 

Harley spinoff shop to close

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Unfortunately, I have another store closing to report.

The Harley-Davidson Apparel & Gifts store in Canal Park will be closing within two weeks. The store, at 345 Lake Ave. S. — between Adventure Zone and Old Chicago — first opened in 2007.

No word yet as to why it’s closing except that the owners have chosen not to renew their lease.

The store is an off-shoot of the Harley- Davidson Sport Center at Stebner Road and Highway 53 in Hermantown, which announced the closing on Monday.

The store — which is nice — is still filled with a variety of Harley-related clothing, gear, signs and other fun memorabilia. Nothing has been moved out yet, but the remaining inventory will be moved to the Hermantown center by Feb. 18, a company release said.

Before the Canal Park store closes, it’s worth a visit. The blown-up old photographs that line the faux brick walls, serve as a homage and celebration to the Harley tradition and to company founder, Richard Kachelmyer who was considered the founding father of the sport in Duluth. Sadly, he passed away in 2001 with a procession of more than 100 motorcycles, most of them Harleys, honoring his memory.

Two of his sons have carried on the business.

 

We’ll miss you, Lotus Inn

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The Vietnamese Lotus Inn, a family-owned restaurant in Duluth’s Gary neighborhood, reportedly closed on Saturday.

Over its nearly 10 years operating at 1314 Commonwealth Ave., it has gotten good reviews, drawing people from the area. In 2009, our own culinary specialist, staff writer Jana Hollngsworth, picked the Lotus Inn’s combination Pho soup as one of her favorite restaurant offerings in a year-end culinary wrap-up.

She wrote:

“My five top picks center on dishes that I can’t forget, the flavors strong in my memory and a tiny voice in my head chanting: “Must eat again.”

First up on her list was the Lotus’ combination pho soup.

“This dish is composed of thinly sliced chicken, beef and shrimp, fresh cilantro, rice noodles, bean sprouts and a mesmerizingly sweet broth. Hot sauce is on the table, but I only use a little. It’s homemade, and tasting it for the first time made me almost weep with joy.”

The Lotus will, indeed, be missed.

Z’s Deli is back

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Z’s Deli & Restaurant, which was a fixture in the downtown Duluth Skywalk for years, is back after a quiet Jan. 9 re-opening.

But the new Z’s Deli isn’t in the Holiday Center Skywalk, where owner Zeidan Zeidan ran it for more than 20 years. He closed the restaurant in 2011, after the recession had slowed business too much to continue.  But the economy has picked up since then.

The new Z’s Deli is across the street at 220 W. Superior St., which has housed a series of failed eateries since the legendary Mr. Nick’s Char-burger served its last burger there in 2002.

“It feels great to see my customers and all my friends,” Zeidan said. “I’m here every day, greeting people, saying hello to people, shaking hands. We have most every single customer coming in, saying we are glad you are back. We are glad to see you. And that’s worth a lot, believe me.”

The new Z’s Deli has the same menu of sandwiches, salads, soups and all-day breakfast as the old restaurant. It’s again full service. It got its old telephone number —727-1803 — back. And it delivers anywhere downtown, just like before.

Most of the old kitchen staff are back, too.

“We made sure we got them to keep the food consistent,” Zeidan said.

The restaurant is open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Zeidan also is giving Saturdays a try with 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. hours.

So far, business is going well, he says.

“Weekdays are great, it’s wonderful, like I never left,” Zeidan said. “On Saturdays, there’s less people downtown. But the word is getting out. It may come around.”

They’re pushing that all-day breakfast, like their omelettes, and it’s paying off. People are coming back and ordering the same item again, he said.

Zeidan, who moved with his family last year to Doha, Qatar, is glad to be back in Duluth and back running a restaurant. His family roots are in the Middle East.

“People ask me, where did I go?” Zeidan said. “I went home and now I’m back home. This is my living, this is my home, this is where I am.”

New downtown streetscape coming?

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Anyone who worked or spent time in downtown Duluth in the mid-1980s knows what an inconvenience it was when the downtown brick streetscape was being constructed. Streets and sidewalks were largely impassable as the bricks were installed and topped off with specialty streetlamps and concrete fixtures.

When finished, however, people — especially the tourists — loved it.

But decades of wear and tear show, patchwork repairs are evident and some posts and fixtures are damaged or missing. A ruptured water main which flooded the street on New Year’s Day on Superior Street near Lake Avenue, revealed the 16-inch diameter cast iron pipe dated back to 1887. And there’s a lot more old pipes under those downtown streets.

Now, with the downtown streetscape about 30 years old, it’s time to replace downtown streets and sidewalks and that aging infrastructure, Mayor Don Ness told more than 400 people at the Greater Downtown Council’s annual shindig Wednesday at the DECC.

The discussion about the reconstruction of Superior Street begins this year, he said.

“We know this is going to be a challenge, but it is much needed,” he said.

The city will seek input from the downtown community on the many aspects involved, including what width the street and sidewalks will be, he told the group.

And, he said, those variables are “much more than the typical street.”

Daisies & Daydreams closing

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After nearly five years, Daisies & Daydreams, a home decor and gift store in Burning Tree Plaza in Duluth, is closing.

While we’re told the shop’s last day isn’t set, it will be by the end of February when the lease is up. But with its homespun, cottage-style merchandise going for 20 percent to 60 percent off, chances are the store will run out of merchandise and close before then.

Tracy Hansen first opened the specialty shop at 2510 Maple Grove Road in 2008, before moving the store across the street to Burning Tree Plaza two years ago.

Hansen declined to talk to me about the decision to close. But in the business’s blog, she had the following comments on its one year anniversary in 2009:

“…  I truly need to say a big thank you to everyone who helped me make this dream a reality.  It starts all the way back to family and friends that helped from the beginning stages and stuck by me to this day!  I have a great staff that took a strong interest in the store and has worked hard for me. I really appreciate the level of commitment they have given.  Most definitely, I need  to thank all the people that have stopped by to see the store, have referred family and friends and have come back again and again!  I have enjoyed every minute of this past year.  I only hope that I will have many more to come!  ….  I look forward to bringing many more fun, exciting and beautiful pieces of merchandise to you to make your home shine and allow you to brighten someone’s day with that unique gift.”