Dee Morales is back in the restaurant business. He opened El Jefe Bar & Grill in early October.
There’s a familiar face in the kitchen of a new eatery in the Town of Superior. Dee Morales quietly opened El Jefe Bar & Grill in early October after closing Bucktales Cantina & Grill in the city of Superior, 12 miles north. El Jefe operates out of the same building that served as the original Bucktales.
Mural artists Kevin Ballecer, left, and Mela Nguyen are painting the exterior of Chicken n’ Whaaat?! on Central Avenue in West Duluth. The pair also painted murals for Burger Paradox on Superior Street. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske).
A family-owned restaurant group that helped revitalize Lincoln Park will expand outside the neighborhood for the first time with a new fast-casual chicken eatery attached to a West Duluth gas station.
Bella, the robot server at Ichiro Sushi & Ramen, glides through the Duluth restaurant. (Photos by Melinda Lavine)
A cat-eared robot buzzed around Ichiro Sushi & Ramen. “Bella” sported white digital whiskers up top, and in its fur-less belly sat plates of fried rice and sushi.
After a series of silent maneuvers, Bella stopped at a table of two, where Cody Tesser served fellow humans their orders from the robot’s racks.
Rachel Nielsen of Duluth gets served a mac bowl and Southwest eggrolls from Bowlz n’ Thangz food truck owner Sarah Hovis. (Photos by Melinda Lavine)
Bowlz n’ Thangz’s black food truck sat outside Wild State Cider in the Lincoln Park Craft District. Every seat in the cidery’s patio and tap room were filled with trivia players and spectators, sipping and snacking.
New Duluth store manager Jessy Peterson, left, and Vice President of Retail Operations Jamie Swan stand in front of the cheese cases at the Burnett Dairy Cooperative store in Alpha, Wisconsin. The new Duluth store will feature a similar layout. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske)
Duluth cheese lovers will have an extraordinary place to shop for their provolone, cheddar and curds next month when an award-winning Wisconsin dairy opens a large specialty store in a newly developed section of the Riverside neighborhood below Spirit Mountain.
A & Dubs owners Syl and Sandy Hantz posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page that they will not reopen their drive-in Lincoln Park burger joint this summer. It was founded as an A & W in 1948 and parted with the chain to become A & Dubs in 1973.
Cori Zastera, left, and her husband Jason, stand in front of the Ritual Salad location at 1802 W. Superior St. in Lincoln Park last summer before a remodel of the building began. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske).
New Lincoln Park restaurant Ritual Salad is slated to open to the public March 17. It will serve salads and soups, and feature a gift shop with crystals, books, jewelry and more.
Fox 21 reports a Palestinian café and market will replace the New London Café at 4721 E. Superior St. in Duluth’s Lakeside neighborhood.
Lyla Abukhodair and her mother Ann have operated a Palentinian pop-up restaurant called Falastin for more than a year. They plan to open their brick-and-mortar location later this year.
Dan Lefebvre at Burger Paradox
Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood has burgeoned with new businesses of late. Three new restaurants opened there in 2023, including Bali Asian Cuisine, Burger Paradox and Oasis del Norte. A fourth, Ritual Salad, is slated to open in early 2024.
The Sunshine Café in West Duluth closed at the outset of the pandemic in March 2020. Owners announced this year it will not reopen. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)
One of Duluth’s most significant restaurant closures of 2023 technically happened in 2020. The Sunshine Café closed more than three years ago as COVID-19 swept the country. What was considered a temporary closure at the time was finally announced as permanent in September 2023.
The Twin Ports restaurant scene has stabilized and grown as the pandemic has wound down, but the closure of the beloved diner at 5719 Grand Ave. in West Duluth can be seen as evidence the coronavirus fallout lingers. The Sunshine Café had been a neighborhood gathering place for more than three decades.
The brick-and-mortar Oasis del Norte restaurant in Duluth’s Lincoln Park Craft District finally has an opening date. The Duluth News Tribune reports that Eduardo Sandoval Luna will open the taqueria-style Mexican eatery at 2401 W. Superior St. on Sept. 29, pending inspection from the Minnesota Health Department.
Sandoval Luna has operated the Oasis del Norte taco food trailer since 2015.
Cori Zastera, left, and her husband Jason, stand in front of the Ritual Salad location at 1802 W. Superior St. in Lincoln Park. The new restaurant is scheduled to open in October. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske).
A new fast-casual restaurant featuring healthy salads and soups is in the works for Lincoln Park as the booming Duluth neighborhood sees redevelopment push east along Superior Street toward Garfield Avenue.
This summer has seen lots of movement on the restaurant front: new restaurants are popping up and existing restaurants are moving or expanding to additional locations. Dig into this week’s quiz to test your knowledge of the local food scene.
The next PDD quiz comes your way on Aug. 27; it will review the month’s headlines and happenings. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Aug. 23.
Bali Asian Cuisine owner and chef Nevi Mariadi stands in front of her Lincoln Park restaurant bar.
A restaurant featuring Indonesian food and an array of other Asian fare will open in Lincoln Park as early as September. Bali Asian Cuisine will serve up fresh and flavorful food, according to chef and owner Nevi Mariadi.
Bloomer’s Drive-in was a roadside restaurant in Duluth, located near the ore docks and Wade Stadium. It opened in 1955, operated by Walter Bloomer and his younger brother Robert. It was sold in 1960.
