Restaurants
New Duluth restaurants served up comfort classics in 2025
Minnesotans have a soft spot for comfort food, and three new Duluth restaurants are serving up hearty, warming dishes to help locals through the coldest winter months. (more…)
Popular Palestinian restaurant among 2025 closings

Palestinian deli Falastin closed after a year of rave reviews and lines out the door. A new Hong Kong-style café has taken over the Lakeside location. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske).
Two of the most high profile restaurant closings this year saw their locations quickly replaced with new offerings. It doesn’t always happen that way — some abandoned kitchens sit for years before inspiring another project. (more…)
New Hong Kong-style cafe coming to Lakeside

Chef Antony Gor is opening a new Hong Kong-style cafe in Lakeside. The restaurant will take over the former longtime home of the New London Cafe. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)
A new Hong Kong-style cafe will take over a longtime restaurant space in Lakeside as its chef-owner moves from hosting special pop-up dining events to a permanent brick-and-mortar location.
Chef Antony Gor has launched plans to open Sōl Cafe at 4721 E. Superior St., the former home of New London Cafe and, most recently, Falastin Palestinian Food. The new fast-casual, breakfast-and-lunch place is expected to open later this year. (more…)
Dāv Kaufman Eats the North Shore
Following his Duluth episode, Dāv Kaufman heads up the North Shore in this week’s edition of Dāv Kaufman Eats the World. (more…)
Lincoln Park salad shop moves to Lakeside; adds dining room

Ritual Salad owner Cori Zastera poses in the doorway of her new restaurant location in Lakeside. Zastera and friend Jenna Wersal, left, were prepping the building for paint June 11. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)
A year after opening in Lincoln Park, a popular grab-and-go lunch counter and mystic shop is moving to a bigger building in Lakeside.
Ritual Salad & Apothecary plans to open a new restaurant in a former driving school at 4501 E. Superior St. this month. The business debuted last spring in a tiny, renovated building on the corner of Superior Street and 18th Avenue West. The move will increase indoor seating capacity from five to 25. (more…)
Sunshine Cafe gets new life as training space for entrepreneurs

Family Rise Together Executive Director ChaQuana McEntyre stands outside the Sunshine Cafe, 5719 Grand Ave. The social service organization purchased the diner and will remodel it to serve as a food-service industry small-business incubator. (Photo by Lissa Maki)
A shuttered building that once housed a landmark West Duluth cafe won’t reopen with breakfast specials and counter seating but new owners will use the space for a program to train ambitious food entrepreneurs and deliver meals.
St. Louis County records show the former Sunshine Cafe, 5719 Grand Ave., was purchased in December by the Duluth social service organization Family Rise Together for $230,000. The nonprofit started renovations on the historic building this winter and has launched a fundraising campaign to install a state-of-the-art, commercial-grade kitchen inside the space. (more…)
PDD Geoguessr becomes Duluth Deep Dive (with a Geoguessr)
PDD Geoguessr is getting a rebranding for 2025. Last year’s analytics showed that a lot more people were reading the context around the games than playing the games themselves. In recognition of this, the new monthly format will put more focus on the topic rather than just providing a link for the game. To keep the posts connected to cultural geography — and to show some appreciation to the dedicated PDD Geoguessr players — the posts will still conclude with a Geoguessr challenge. This announcement marks the transition with a Geoguessr challenge that fits the old format better than the new one. (more…)

