Avenue Eatery Has "Soft" Reopening

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

The West Broadway Business and Area Coalition posted on Facebook today that The Avenue Eatery was again open for business, and under new management.  I stopped by for a meal and to chat with the new folks about what I experienced before, in hopes those mistakes wouldn't be repeated.

My advice was to keep the basics on hand, keep employees dressed and acting professional, add outdoor seating, and just plain old make the place their own; don't just expect we'll come to you because you're here.  The community is hungry (and thirsty) for a good coffee shop, but the operative word is "good."  If the food and service isn't up to certain standards, we'll go somewhere else.

The folks working certainly seemed to take my comments to heart, and even responded about the outdoor seating with, "We'll have to get working on that with the council NOW to make sure it's ready by the spring."  Music to my ears.

Now about those standards, keep in mind that this is a SOFT opening and not the grand opening, which means...

Avenue Eatery Closes its Doors; Northisde Misses the Idea a Good Coffee Shop

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

As of September 21st, the Avenue Eatery on Broadway and Emerson closed its doors for the last time.  I'll miss what the coffee shop promised to be when it opened a year and a half ago.  But the place failed to deliver on its potential and was mostly a disappointment.  At its grand opening, soup, fresh sandwiches, cheesecake, and ice cream were all served.  Outdoor seating was available, with a longer-term permit supposedly in the works.  There was talk of live music coming to the eatery.  The management at the time seemed to have all the right pieces in place to bring the north side a truly great coffee shop.

But then...

Cakedy Candy Bars are Pure Northside Sweetness

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Earlier this week I had a meeting where several colleagues continued our plans to make north Minneapolis even more amazing than it already is.  It should go without saying that there wasn't enough time in the initial meeting to fully discuss our plans, so the gathering spilled over and into the Avenue Eatery, where we continued our benevolent scheming.  As I was placing my order, a colleague and friend said he wanted to make sure I tried this new candy bar that was made by a north Minneapolis resident.  He even insisted on paying for it, on the condition I promote a northside business on my blog.  Sold!

Cakedy's website is pretty whimsical, claiming that "If Willy Wonka and your cake baking granny made sweet love, the resulting lovechild would be Cakedy."  That's an ambitious claim, albeit not quite as conceited as Victory 44's "Perfect Burger," nor as preposterous as the possible slogan, "If Batman and Teddy Roosevelt were in a cage match fight to the death, but decided to settle their differences in an Iron Chef bake-off instead, the winning entry would be Cakedy."

And since I believe peanut butter and chocolate to be the best pairing other than perhaps Han Solo and Chewbacca, that's the flavor I went with.  The Cakedy candy bar has, as the name suggests, cake on the inside, as well as nougat and butterscotch chips.  It was a good thing I was sitting down already, because the concoction made me weak in the knees.  The sweetness hits all the pleasure centers on the tongue and in the brain, and the texture of the cake and nougat is sublime.  If you still think of Reese's candy products as the defining chocolate/peanut butter combo, it's only because you haven't tried Cakedy yet.

Not only are these candy bars made by a local, they're sold at the Avenue Eatery and at another northside-owned business, Local D'Lish.  On top of that, they're reasonably priced, or at least they were for me.

Avenue Eatery Grand Opening

 Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Although the Avenue Eatery has been operating for a little while now, Wednesday marked the official grand opening.  I stopped by to see what they had to offer, but first went to The Lowry Cafe by mistake.  Somehow I got it in my head that The Lowry Cafe was opening instead.  But this is a good problem to have; two new sit-down cafes that serve healthy food are opening in NoMi within short periods of each other.  Like many grand openings along Broadway, the Avenue Eatery event was attended by a veritable who's who of NoMi.  Neighborhood board members, residents, and people who work over north crowded into (and sometimes out of) the coffee shop to welcome a new business into the community.

NoMi photographer Pat Carney was on hand to document the event, and surely he got better photos than I'll post here.  A link to his photo album will be added when that's online.

I had to struggle to make my way over to the counter in order to buy some cheesecake (which, by the way, was fabulous) because...