The $10 Lunch

Recently in downtown Minneapolis, Copeland’s of New Orleans and T. G. I. Friday’s served their last meals. And even though Copeland’s was the only local outlet for consistent Southern and New Orleans fare, neither restaurant will be missed by many. Clearly, they weren’t paying the bills. Nevertheless, I am losing a bit of sleep over their disappearance.

Several years ago, downtown dining seemed doomed. The financial ravages of 9/11 seemed permanent, and tourism and trade show numbers dwindled. Local spending in downtown restaurants shrank to a bare trickle, especially on Sunday through Thursday evenings, which were never downtown’s strong suit anyway. Several major restaurants, most notably Aquavit, closed their doors. Richard D’Amico told me he thought downtown dining might be dead.

Flash ahead a few years. Mission American Kitchen & Bar is packing ’em in, Bellanotte is jammed, Ike’s can’t make enough burgers, Cucina is  rejuvenated, Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant has been reinvented, and stalwarts Vincent and Babalú have a loyal clientele. The D’Amicos, in fact, are preparing for a November opening of Masa, their upscale regional Mexican restaurant on Nicollet Mall, of all places. Things are great, right?

That’s one way to look at it, but the types of restaurants pulling out of downtown are eateries that offered a valuable service: a sit-down, table-service lunch or dinner for $10 to $12 that didn’t make the customer feel awkward for not knowing what yuzu is. Where can one get that downtown these days? Applebee’s and the Olive Garden. Blech.

Small independent restaurants can’t make ends meet at those gentle prices, especially when factoring in the rents downtown storefronts command. That’s why the list of quality chef-owned and -operated eateries is growing only outside of downtown—and why downtown still struggles to pull in customers on weeknights.

The problem is specific to a part of downtown, maintains Phil Roberts, the creative whiz behind many of our most popular restaurants. “Manny’s is downtown, and we will do $9 million this year in sales in a lousy location. But downtown is a barbell, the middle is no good. The Warehouse District and the lower end of Nicollet are great, but the middle is a dead zone.” That’s where City Center is, and exactly the part of town where four restaurants (add Nick & Tony’s and Goodfellow’s) just shut their doors.

In my opinion, the way many national dine-in casual restaurants do business fails to connect with the urban diner. Friday’s and Copeland’s were cheesy, contrived experiences that don’t resonate with a contemporary urban sensibility. It’s another example of the cultural and economic divide that’s creating two dining worlds with very different tastes and habits.

Urbane types reject places such as Friday’s because, in today’s Food Network world, they don’t satisfy their desire for authenticity and sophistication. Suburban chain-restaurant-goers are still spending there, but when they come downtown, apparently they don’t want to eat at the same place they eat at at the mall.

The smart restaurateur who figures out a way to make an embraceable downtown concept work at moderate prices will find a ready, and hungry, audience—a place such as Ike’s, which is just barely within our $12 lunch limit. If not, our downtown dining scene will be at the leading edge of this latest dining gap: between fast food and the $20 lunch. 

Reach restaurant columnist Andrew Zimmern at azimmern@mspmag.com.