Travail Kitchen and Amusements, a Robbinsdale restaurant, is experimenting with a pop-up eatery called Umami in North Minneapolis.
Umami, which is themed around Asian-style "comfort food," will occupy the space on West Broadway Avenue North for up to eight weeks, according to a prepared statement. The 45-seat restaurant is “the first tasting menu and takeout-driven pop-up restaurant in Minnesota,” the prepared statement reads.
Travail collaborated with the
West Broadway Business and Area Coalition (WBC) to open the place.
The project fits in with the WBC’s ongoing effort to shine a light on assets in the West Broadway business district, according to Shaina Brassard, a spokesperson from the WBC. “We’re looking for ways to draw attention to vacant spaces on West Broadway,” she says. That includes pop-up galleries and retail shops in various spaces along the corridor.
It helps that Travail, which is in the process of opening a couple of other local restaurants, has also been hosting pop-up events all over town this summer, she says.
The space, which has sat vacant for a couple of years, features floor-to-ceiling windows, an open kitchen, a mural, and other art, plus long, community-style tables and more. Brassard is hopeful that Umami’s “presence there, which is beautiful and vibrant, will make people see the potential that the space has as a restaurant.”
Although the WBC has long supported pop-up art events as a part of FLOW Northside Arts Crawl and other community initiatives, “It’s a strategy we’re working on this year in particular, as a part of our retail recruitment and business district revitalization,” she says. The pop-up idea encourages people to “think about space in a different way,” she adds.
To help pull off the pop-up restaurant, the WBC negotiated a short-term lease for the space and it took advantage of grant money from the city’s Great Streets initiative.
The place has already generated buzz. “The neighborhood is excited about having such a great sit-down restaurant in the area,” Brassard says.
Source: Shaina Brassard, West Broadway Coalition
Writer: Anna Pratt