It's a tried-and-true topic here—the differences between the two non-identical Twins. Familiar truisms abound—Saint Paul is more tradition-minded, more respectful of its past, more Catholic, more "Eastern" (as in possessing neighborhoods, like Cathedral Hill, that put you in mind of Boston's South End). Minneapolis is more "Western"—more Denverish—more Lutheran, more restless and trendy.

There's some truth to this set of contrasts, as well as some overemphases and some strong emerging counter-trends. We thought that it might be interesting to get a food-business point of view on this perennial topic, so we asked owners and managers at three locally-based restaurants with locations in both St. Paul and Minneapolis how the two towns were different, from a foodie's perspective.

No Twin Cities restaurateur, of course, would ever tell a reporter which city he or she likes better; it's like asking which of their kids they like better—and it's commercial suicide too. But people in charge at three major both-city establishments—the venerable Fuji-Ya, which pioneered Japanese cuisine here decades ago, and hip newcomers Barrio and Black Sheep Coal Fired Pizza—were willing to lay out both familiar and surprising contrasts.

The Big Welcome Mat

It goes without saying that both cities want new businesses and do their best to make it as easy as possible to open them. None of the restaurateurs had anything bad to say about the process in either city. But there are differences between the two, and one of them was the availability of space. Ryan Burnet, the owner and developer of all three Barrio restaurants, found it much harder to find a space in Minneapolis than in St. Paul, because the market was considerably tighter. "I heard through a friend of a friend that the Dunn Brothers was closing, and I approached the landlord for that space," Burnet says. By contrast, the owner of the building that houses Barrio's Lowertown location reached out to Burnet.

He also found that while Minneapolis was entirely accommodating, St. Paul was downright giddy. "Mayor Coleman's and the city's eagerness was apparent from the start," he says. Coleman even visited during the new restaurant's first week.

Jordan Smith, owner and chef for Black Sheep Coal Fired Pizza, had compliments for St. Paul's licensing process as well. "You sit down at a table with mechanical, zoning, and the inspector at the same time, and any issues get discussed and talked through in planning," Smith says. "We had a great experience with Minneapolis too, but that was really slick."

Extra Cheese in Saint Paul

All three restaurants have largely similar if not identical food menus at both locations, and considerably overlapping drink menus as well, which suggests that tastes aren't different enough between the cities to warrant the operational variations of offering separate menus. Specialty dishes created by individual chefs make for some variation between Barrio's and Fuji-Ya's restaurants, and the Lowertown Barrio has a popular taco bar that Minneapolis doesn't have room for.

Smith says he has detected one difference in what actually moves: "People order extra cheese a lot more in St. Paul," he says.

More differences show in drinks. DeAnna Louks, district manager for Fuji-Ya, runs both its St. Paul and Minneapolis locations, and the two restaurants have distinct drink menus. "There are things in St. Paul that do not sell as well as they do in Minneapolis," Louks says. "We have 40 kinds of sake at the Minneapolis restaurant and 5 at the St. Paul." The wine list is also more esoteric in Minneapolis, Louks explains.

There's a difference in beer at Black Sheep in St. Paul, where a lot more craft beers sell than in Minneapolis. But the difference may be due less to geography than to configuration. The St. Paul location is larger, Smith says, which allows for more bar seating--18 seats, as opposed to 7 in Minneapolis. Its manager also happens to be a beer aficionado.

Different Energies

With a more traditional food like pizza, Smith is the most likely candidate to spot a more traditional vibe at his St. Paul location than Minneapolis. And not surprisingly, he does. There are regulars at both restaurants, he explains, but that vibe shows up more in the energy of starting a place than of maintaining it. "Minneapolis is a high-energy place where, when there's a new restaurant, everybody flocks to it," Smith says. "In St. Paul, everyone wants to try it--but not everybody's willing to leave where they've been going regularly. On the other hand, once you get them, you've got them."

Louks notes that different types of crowds make for different energies at both Fuji-Ya's, but that can be explained in part by the locations of the restaurants. The Minneapolis Fuji-Ya is at the corner of Lyndale and Lake, in a diverse neighborhood of all ages and ethnicities. The St. Paul restaurant, on the other hand, sits across the street from the Fitzgerald Theater, which means a lot of theater-going traffic that spills over or starts at Fuji-Ya. That crowd is likely to be older (and possibly a bit less experimental) than Minneapolis eaters.

"We get a lot of business folks for lunch and happy hour in St. Paul, but in Minneapolis we get more of the disposable-income younger crowd," Louks says.

Look Out, Minneapolis?

St. Paul has long had the reputation of being a sleepier town than Minneapolis, and foodies in both towns could be forgiven for thinking that the traffic would usually be heavier at Minneapolis eateries. But all three restaurateurs we talked to had St. Paul locations that do as much or more business than their Minneapolis counterparts.

St. Paul's downtown and Lowertown areas have been booming for years, and the Xcel Energy Center has driven plenty of it. Burnet says that the Lowertown Barrio also has to staff up during other events that St. Paul brings in, like Crashed Ice. "They do a lot of big events on a large scale that help out the bars in the area," he says.

 The proposed 7,250-seat St. Paul Saints stadium, which is currently scheduled to be built in Lowertown at the old Diamond Products site by 2015, is likely to keep that boom going. All three restaurateurs say that the traffic in their St. Paul locations is heavy and likely to get heavier. "Minneapolis has more sales now, but that might not be the case in a few years," Burnet says, citing the proposed stadium.

"Minneapolis is busier right now, but it's a more mature business," pizzaiolo Smith says. "We're ahead of our projections, which were very aggressive, in St. Paul, and I expect that St. Paul will eventually have more traffic than Minneapolis."

Although the St. Paul location is one-third the size of the Minneapolis one, Fuji-Ya's Louks explains that it punches above its weight. "The Fitzgerald expanded its theater season to the summer, so nine out of 10 days, St. Paul is actually busier," she says.

Holly Dolezalek's last article for The Line was a portrait of the Joule coworking space, in our April 10, 2013 issue.

All photos by Bill Kelley