urbanMSP

It kind of looks like an updated Excelsior and Grand.

That was a school. I assume something new is going in.

What kind of person does something like that? That isn't the act of a normal, well adjusted human being.

The Twin Cities don't get as much job growth because we have full employment and chronic labor shortages except during recessions. Full employment limits the rate at which you can add jobs. We would need a major influx of transplants to have high job growth. I suspect that labor shortages will be th...

In some ways it may be better to not get this. In a municipality the size of Minneapolis or St Paul, 50,000 white collar jobs would turn either city into a company town. Once you had those jobs it would be devastating to lose them. Amazon would then have either city over a barrel and be able to get ...

The more I think about it, the more I think that Downtown St Paul makes the most sense, locally. According to the RFP they are looking for 500,000 sq ft of existing space to start with the ability to add up to 8 million sq ft. They want transit, bike lanes and walkable connections. The only places i...

While I hope this project is built with better urban design than what is currently there, I think the social good that comes from Planned Parenthood far outweighs my desire for a more urban environment. I care more about people having good access to their services, than about having four floors of h...

If the last presidential election should have taught us anything it is that people have lost faith in the political "center", meaning the bland corporate careerists in both parties who ran the country into the ground. After they gave us the disasters of Iraq and the Financial Crisis there ...

I was thinking in terms of using swathes of color to make designs within the building. It reminds me of a less absurd version of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Building http://style.time.com/2012/11/05/15-buildings-that-dont-look-like-buildings/slide/chang-building/ This is going to b...

This building is not going to age well. The "z stripe" will look ridiculous and is reminiscent of bad '80s PoMo.

Brewer's Table closing in August! http://www.startribune.com/surly-to-close-brewer-s-table-adding-to-fine-dining-casualties/425387733/ Some cooks of mine left to go work in that kitchen. I got the impression that Brewer's Table was intended as a loss leader to build Surly's brand, and especially th...

You're an effective advocate for the tip credit position, Chef. And I take the point that servers not currently clearing $15/hr would benefit from the tip credit while servers clearing more aren't hurt viz a viz their current pay. (ETA: Or, reading your last post, maybe you're just good at communic...

Obviously, you have a familiarity with the business that I lack, but a shortage of cooks sure sounds like upward pressure on wages for cooks. There has been a little bit of upward pressure but not as much as you would think. Kitchen wages have gone up, but in inflation adjusted terms they are still...

For most restaurants, this would wipe out their entire profit margin. People on the left in Minneapolis (and I am one) tend to think that all business owners are crooked and just have a pile of money to play with but that just isn't the case. They don't always have a money tree that they can just sh...

I would add that in my experience of managing kitchens, minimum wage increases for the servers are actually regressive in consequences even though they look progressive on paper. Usually they come out of the pockets of the kitchen staff in the form of fewer raises, so what happens is that the highes...

There are a ton of servers who are opposed to raising minimum wage without a tip credit. The figure (and probably correctly) that a $15hr minimum wage for servers will probably drive restaurants to get rid of table service (and servers) or move to the service included/no tipping model. A lot of life...

It is weird how so many on this forum seem to be pathologically incapable of sentimentality. Normal people aren't like that.

There is a difference between a restaurant being busy on a Friday/Saturday night and a restaurant making enough of a profit to justify the expense of opening it. If you aren't reasonably busy on a Tuesday night in February you won't have the cash flow to get through the winter the next time there is...

Red Cow is a yuppie burger. Their top end burger is $15 or $16 not counting drinks and tip. A more regular burger would be at a place like the Malt Shop where it is probably around $11 now. Dive bar burgers would be in the same range.

Yuppie burgers are $15, dive bar burgers are cheaper. Dive bar burgers are headed to $15, yuppie burgers probably to $20. It will probably happen in the next couple of years. The $10 burger of yore was built on sweatshop style exploitation, but diners never saw that part of the equation.