Dumplings every day of the week.
That's the plan for Saturday Dumpling Co., the wildly popular dumpling pop-up from spouses Peter Bian and Linda Cao.
The couple signed a lease in northeast Minneapolis, and by mid-autumn will have a brick-and-mortar restaurant that will sell both frozen dumplings and hot foods four days a week at first, and eventually daily.
Opening their own restaurant is a long way from Saturday Dumpling Company's origin as a pandemic project in their Minneapolis condo kitchen.
"It's really wild," Cao said. "I'm very overwhelmed, but more than anything, super excited."
Using Bian's family recipes, the couple made dumpling care packages for friends to celebrate Lunar New Year during isolation, early in the pandemic. Word inevitably spread, and soon, people were picking up packs of frozen dumplings from the trunk of Bian's car.
For nearly three years, Saturday Dumpling Co. has operated out of Dot's Gray, a north Minneapolis shared commercial kitchen, where lines would snake around the corner on Saturday mornings for dumpling pick-ups, and, increasingly, hot food, including Instagram-viral scallion pancake burritos.
It became clear to Cao and Bian that they'd outgrown that space, but it took about a year to secure a permanent home with a kitchen that wouldn't need much renovation. They found it at 519 Central Av. NE., the former home of Glam Doll Donuts — even if the kitchen didn't quite meet their requirements.
"It turns out there's no overlap" between doughnuts and dumplings, Cao said, laughing. Everything will get a new look, even Glam Doll's peachy-hued walls in favor of SDC's cooler-toned pink. Christian Dean Architecture is behind the design, with contributions from SDC's in-house brand designer.
The restaurant will be counter-service, seating 45 indoors and 10 outside. The menu will have pork, beef, chicken and vegetarian dumplings, plus rotating specials, cooked in three styles. There will also be rice bowls, Chinese sausage sliders and those scallion pancake burritos.
Frozen packs of dumplings will continue to be sold in the new restaurant, and they plan to keep collaborating with Twin Cities-area chefs on dumpling specials.
"We have the space now, so it would be nice to give back to the hospitality community, like other small makers, to use our space, collaborate with them, and maybe do one or two dinners ourselves," Bian said.
All of SDC's dumpling production and catering services will move to the new kitchen. The hope is that this will become what Cao calls a "dumpling factory," supplying dumplings to additional locations they hope to open around the Twin Cities.
Cao and Bian are "kind of in disbelief" about how far they've come. "When we think about it, it's really wild," Cao said. "Starting from this very off-the-cuff idea of testing out a concept in our little shoebox condo to today where we're thinking about building out a restaurant, is just unbelievable to us."
Wine on the menu at new Aki's BreadHaus location
After 10 years on Central Avenue in northeast Minneapolis, Aki's BreadHaus, the German-style bakery from German-born baker Aki Berndt, is moving to a bigger location. And it's adding an all-day wine bar called WunderBar.
"We've outgrown our space here," said Nancy Martinez, Aki's BreadHaus co-owner.
With the bakery's 10-year lease almost up, Martinez and Berndt began to look for a bigger place. They found the perfect spot along the Mississippi River, in half of the building that's inhabited by Broken Clock Brewing Cooperative and Curioso Coffee Bar.
"It just seemed right in so many ways," Martinez said.
They'll go from 16 seats in their current location, at 2506 Central Av. NE., to 60 seats in the new one. The patio looking over the river will be shared with the neighboring businesses.
"We want to be a place where people can come and stay and feel like they can meet up with their friends — come for bread, stay for wine," Martinez said.
They're getting ready for the move, which will come later this summer, by trying wine and developing a food menu to go with it. "We want to still give a nod to Germany, but it's not going to be predominately that," she said. There will "definitely" be bread, she added.
They're working with Shea Design on the cafe space and on Berndt's vision for a new kitchen, with more room than ever for production for their wholesale bread business. "They're really good on working on both sides and pulling something together that's going to look really cool," Martinez said.
Aki's BreadHaus and WunderBar is aiming for a late-summer opening.
Downtown St. Paul's historic 'cop bar' reopens
Alary's Bar (139 E. 7th St., St. Paul) staged a comeback last week. Open in downtown St. Paul since 1949, the bar closed last year and changed hands, but much remains the same. With 20 TVs, Bears fans don't need to worry about their game day gathering plans; the new owner is Chicago native Bill Collins (Camp Bar). The bar also still identifies as a "cop bar," according to a news release, with displays of paraphernalia, and food and drink specials for first responders. Speaking of food, the bar is open, but the kitchen is still coming together. Till then, the menu is just bar pizzas from Heggies.
Edina's new crêpe shop
File this away for Bastille Day: The very first Caribou, which closed in 2023, is now home to Oh Crêpe!, from Breizh Crêperie's Claire Corvaisier. The chef, who was born in France, first launched her Twin Cities crêpe business at Minneapolis Cider Co. Now at her brick-and-mortar (4408 France Av. S., Edina), she is making sweet and savory crêpes, plus taking special orders for crêpe cakes. Open daily except Tuesdays, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
North Loop winery closes
AxeBridge Wine Company's North Loop tasting room (411 Washington Av. N., Mpls.) closed June 30 after a three-year run. The winery is shifting operations back to its sister location in Waconia, at Schram Vineyards, where the AxeBridge brand will live on, according to an announcement.
