The 6th Street corridor alongside Target Center in downtown Minneapolis is getting a new restaurant just in time for the Timberwolves' season.
Cargo Food Authority is taking over the former Hubert's, which closed earlier this year. The concept by chef/owner Brian Ingram is similar to that of St. Paul's Seventh Street Truck Park, of which Ingram was chief operations officer (but is no longer involved). Instead of food trucks, shipping containers line the walls of the restaurant, and each will serve up a different cuisine, food hall-style: tacos, wings, pizza and pan-Asian. The bar program offers cocktails on tap with spirits from Tattersall Distilling.
"I wanted to create a modern food court," said Ingram, who is also a founder of New Bohemia Wurst and BierHaus.
This isn't Ingram's only stadium-adjacent transit-themed restaurant. He plans to also open Bus Stop, near U.S. Bank Stadium, soon. He also has another Cargo in the works outside Wrigley Field in Chicago.
With Cargo, shown in these photos under construction, Ingram is paying homage to industrial, revamped warehouse spaces of the North Loop, as well as graffiti artistry he fell in love with in Germany. He and his wife, Sarah, took a graffiti class in Berlin, and Sarah is responsible for some of the art adorning the cargo containers.
Slated to open Nov. 7, Cargo will seat 480 inside at communal tables fashioned from shipping pallets. That number will multiply when the weather gets good again; the entire length of the restaurant has garage doors that will open onto 6th St., utilizing the walkway to Target Field. The taco station and two bars will open onto the street as well.
The food is geared toward adults and kids who may be attending a game inside the arena. There will be a selection of "crazy" wings, like mango curry duck wings; "pizza ritos" (a kind of burrito-pizza hybrid) with a sourdough pretzel crust; and a mammoth foot-long egg roll. That last menu item satisfies a particular hunger for Ingram; he is a big fan of lumpia, the thin, fried Filipino spring rolls, but could never get enough of them.
"It's embarrassing to order 20 small ones," he said.
Cargo Food Authority
600 1st Av. N., Mpls.
cargofoodauthority.com
