chairs and desks in office
The current space as MSP offices.
Shocker to me this morning. Jester Concepts has announced that they have found a space to launch their reimagined version of Butcher & the Boar. And it's our office.
Mpls.St.Paul Magazine has been temporarily working out of the Basset Creek Office complex in the North Loop on 3rd Street. Tucked back among the apartment buildings, across from a dog park, on cobbled streets, with a huge parking lot. And, they're making a park from part of the lot, actual green space in the North Loop! Though we've been mostly working remotely, we've come to call it Basecamp. But, we have always been temporary, as our new offices are being created in the University/280 area. We leave in October. Anywhooo.
The area that's going to be made into a park.
It's a great spot! And now it's going to be a restaurant? Not just a restaurant, but the reinvention of one of the city's most iconic restaurants? The building has good bones, that's for sure, lots of timber and old walls, great windows and light. But it also has other offices? In fact Blue Plate Restaurant Group offices just down the hall.
"We feel really lucky to get this spot," Brent Frederick of Jester told me on the phone. "It really feels like a neighborhood back here. We've done restaurants in all sorts of buildings, Borough is in an apartment building, the original Butcher was a bank or something, I think. This space and this area just really feels special." They'll be taking the 12,000 square feet and breaking it up with a kitchen, event space, probably not conference rooms. Frederick says they'll re-skin the entrance and move it to the front corner, re-landscaping the whole area and adding outdoor seating.
Shea has been brought on to make it into a restaurant, which will mean installing a kitchen (instead of a mail room) and all the HVAC and plumbing that requires.
offices and desks
Of course the original Butcher & the Boar space has become the Butcher's Tale, with much of the same interior vibe as the original, so I wonder what this next version will feel like? It's kind of cool to think it will be tucked away a little bit, off the Washington Avenue drag. Jester has not announced the chef in charge yet, but this project won't be open until at least summer of 2022. So there's time.
