Cauldron Bagels cacio e pepe bagel (Photo/Em Cassell via Racket)
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE
More closings than openings
I literally can’t find any newly opened restaurants or food businesses beyond those I’ve already covered, or ones that opened months ago but are not relevant to us. Closings on the other hand…
Just before I sat down to write this in the penultimate week of May came the devastating news that Lagniappe and Du Nord Cocktail Room will close May 31. I have only had a chance to visit once (see the February 4 “Dish” for my mini-review.)
Oh, wait, there is one opening lurking in my links about closings. A May 14 piece in Minneapolis/St. Paul Biz Journal (archive.ph/Nqypf) noted that Chef Pedro Wolcott had recently closed Guayaca Bistreaux in the North Loop and was planning to replace it “in the next few weeks” with a sandwich shop in Kingfield. I have learned to take such hopeful pronouncements with a grain of salt, but just in case, I googled it and Hola! It looks like North Star Deli, his new place at 315 W. 46th Street, is already open.
The other closing news is also from Biz Journal and is a commercial food operation rather than a restaurant. Apple Valley Foods closed their large commercial bakery in Chaska with the loss of 95 jobs. (archive.ph/OtdpW)
News from the world of food and drink
Chef Pedro Wolcott in front of new deli in Kingfield
Racket.com’s Em Cassell covers the newest cottage foodie business to pop up with a backstory and plaudits and quotes from Shakespeare. This is Cauldron Bagels, a home-based business from Martha Durrett, a Carleton College tech graduate who decided she liked making bagels more than working in tech. (Can’t argue with that.) After learning the art of bagelry from an iconic Cambridge MA bakery called Bagelasaurus, she and her spouse moved back to the Twin Cities and she decided to infill the serious lack of great bagels in this part of the world. If you want to try them out, start here – cauldronbagels.com.
Big news in the field of grocery store unions: UFCW 663 has been picketing Cub and Festival Foods all this week (late May) It is an informational picket about the employers’ failure to bargain in good faith and they are fairly likely to go on strike. The stores appear to not understand how bargaining is supposed to work and keep making ludicrously bad offers. These contract negotiations affect about 9000 workers!
Even MORE grocery union news: on May Day Trader Joe’s corporate fired Jamie Edwards, the first president of Trader Joe’s United. Jamie was a crucial organizer at the very first store that voted to unionize in Hadley, MA, and has been a powerful voice at bargaining sessions in the years since, all while stocking shelves and working registers at Trader Joe’s.
The union, Trader Joe’s United, is fighting this unjust firing. They ask that supporters DO NOT boycott Trader Joe’s, because uncoordinated boycotts do not actually make an impression on large companies. A better way to help would be to donate whatever you can afford to the union.
Food meant for international famine relief is rotting in a warehouse, courtesy DOGE.
Food opinions
“Did you know that $100M in food aid is rotting in warehouses that could feed the entire population of Gaza for a month and half, but a 28-year-old at DOGE is holding it hostage?”
This was the text of a “skeet” on BlueSky from local poster @muellershewrote.com. For the details, see this Reuters piece: tinyurl.com/DKRatSSP-foodaidfail
Mini-review – Pizza Luce
It’s kind of weird that I haven’t reviewed Pizza Luce in all these years. After my own cooking, which I quite like most of the time, and which comprises about 90% of my consumption if you count microwaving Amy’s tamales or pouring cereal and oat milk into a bowl as cooking, I am sure the runner-up is stuff from Pizza Luce. There are three reasons why I eat so much Pizza Luce food and none of them have to do with food.
Pizza Luce’s Focaccia Katerina
1. In the early 2000s, my daughter decided to quit doing office work, which she was very good at, and became a pizza delivery guy. At the original Pizza Luce in the north loop she met a co-worker named Charlie and with him conceived her first child, my beloved granddaughter Savannah.
2. I hate ordering stuff online UNLESS the website and interface are excellent. Pizza Luce’s is excellent. I can do it in my sleep, or sick with COVID, or in a rage due to the enshittification of the world, all of which I have done!
3. Delivery drivers have a very hard time finding my condo’s front door and notifying me that the delivery has been made. Except Pizza Luce drivers, who are brilliant and never let me down.
That being said, and although their pizza is very good, I heartily love and recommend the Focaccia Katerina with goat cheese, the small Caesar salad, especially with salmon added, the artichoke dip (best in class), and a seasonal dessert of Lemon Pistachio Cheesecake. If you want to visit in person, there are weekend brunches with wine and beer, too.
