Restaurants
RJ’s Coffee Den in West Duluth
RJ’s Coffee Den reopened at a new location, 330 N. 57th Ave. W., just shy of a month ago. The Den was formerly located in Proctor, and closed in October 2011. The new owner, Renea Johnson, has hopes to keep the business alive having remodeled the former Erbert & Gerbert’s sandwich shop next to the Kom-on-Inn Bar.
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Shorty’s Pizza & Smoked Meat
A new restaurant on Tower Avenue in Superior has been generating some new energy along a strip that is struggling through major road reconstruction.
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Perfect New Restaurant: Pak’s Green Corner
West Duluth had never seen the likes of schnitzel or poutine, much less a pad thai burrito, until Pak Williams converted the former China Station restaurant into Pak’s Green Corner in summer 2012. The friendly and funky little Asian-fusion joint — located across the avenue from a long-shuttered auto lube — was the clear-cut winner of Perfect Duluth Day’s Best New Restaurant poll.
Above: Pak Williams with the fancy Perfect New Restaurant plaque, flanked by cook Hieng Wilaiphan (left) and waitress Vicki Boynton (right).
Pak’s got off to a rocky start following its opening day, when word of the new restaurant leaked out and a positive recommendation on PDD led to a full-house showing up for lunch on day two. With one server out sick and no one around with a strong command of how the cash register or credit-card machine worked, it was a rough day to say the least.
Now, with a full year of working out the kinks behind it, Pak’s Green Corner can claim the title of Duluth’s Perfect New Restaurant, having captured 51.9 percent of the vote. Honorable mentions go out to Tycoons Alehouse and Eatery (second place, 32.5 percent) and 7 West Tap House (third place, 15.6 percent).
City’s 58th Street Diner in South Superior
City’s 58th Street Diner is bringing the 1950s back to South Superior. With its classic malt-shop feel and reasonable prices, it’s like taking a step back in time. (more…)
Poll: Best New Restaurant in Duluth
A previous poll on PDD narrowed the choices from a baker’s dozen down to the three best new restaurants in the Duluth area — Pak’s Green Corner, 7 West Tap House and Tycoons Alehouse. Now it’s time to determine the champion, so we ask …
[poll id=”42″]
This poll is now closed. The results were …
Pak’s Green Corner – 51.9 percent
Tycoons Alehouse and Eatery – 32.5 percent
7 West Tap House – 15.6 percent
You must be logged in to your Perfect Duluth Day blogging account to vote. If you need to create an account, click here. You can register and login simply with Facebook by clicking here. If you need help figuring it out, click here.
Poll: Best New Restaurant
After some careful analysis, we developed a list of nominees for Best New Restaurant in the Duluth area. Now we ask you to pick your favorite.
[poll id=”41″]
This poll is now closed. The three top finishers, in alphabetical order, were:
Pak’s Green Corner
7 West Tap House
Tycoons Alehouse & Eatery
Pirate Pizza
There’s a new covert pizza alternative operating out of a secret location on Goat Hill here in Duluth. Pirate Pizza delivers home made pizza from a home made oven with largely local ingredients to your door via a motorbike that once, according to the pirates, “used to run contraband around the Gaza strip.”
Best New Restaurant Nominees
Two weeks ago, we announced Duluth Grill won our poll for Perfect Breakfast Restaurant. Now we’re wondering which restaurant among the newbies you like best.
Before we open the voting, of course, we have to establish a list of nominees. What qualifies as a new restaurant? Well, these are all fairly new:
Shorty’s Pizza and Smoked Meat (Superior; Aug. 2013)
Citys 58th Street Diner (Superior; June 2013)
Canal Park Brewing Co. (Nov. 2012)
7 West Tap House (Oct. 2012)
LeeAnn Chin (Oct. 2012)
Noodles & Company (Sept. 2012)
Pak’s Green Corner (Aug. 2012)
Grizzly’s Wood-fired Grill (Canal Park location; May 2012)
Giant Panda (Feb. 2012)
Oriental House II (Jan. 2012)
Tycoons Alehouse & Eatery (Dec. 2011)
Azteca’s Mexican Grill (Dec. 2011)
Vitta Pizza (June 2011)
What territory are we talking about? Anything in Duluth or 10 miles of its border — so new restaurants in Superior, Hermantown, Proctor and the various bordering townships all qualify; Two Harbors and Cloquet are out of bounds.
So, the only question we’re really asking here: Are there any good nominees we didn’t think to include in the list above?
Perfect Breakfast Restaurant: Duluth Grill
What’s not to like about Duluth Grill? It’s a truck-stop style diner in the friendly West End neighborhood that buys from local farmers and grows some of its vegetables around its parking lot in raised-bed gardens. Owner Tom Hanson and his family have plans to build an urban orchard on the lot as well, with plum trees, black-cap raspberries, lingonberries, choke cherries and other deliciousness. They even get their honey from hives on the roof of the building. Duluth Grill is much more than a simple breakfast joint, but readers of Perfect Duluth Day strongly agreed in a recent poll that it is indeed the best breakfast restaurant in the area.
Is it the Scotch eggs? The breakfast stir fry? The curried polenta skillet? The smoked salmon omelet? The caramel apple French toast? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. It’s all that and more.
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That pizza joint on the hill
Oh, my 40-year-old brain! I have been sitting in the same chair all day trying to remember the name of the pizza place that was up on the hill, I think, across from Shakey’s. It had a weird pizza joint / olde tyme candy shoppe / barbershop quartet theme. The logo was a guy with a handlebar mustache wearing a striped red shirt. My brother remembers enormous jaw breakers. Extra credit to anyone who can name the owners. They went to Holy Rosary.
Please help. I may never sleep again.
Chef Yee’s serving it up at Foster’s
Life just got even better on the hill — I discovered Chef Yee’s is serving up his fare Wednesdays and Thursdays at Foster’s on Arrowhead Road. I ate there tonight for the first time. It was delicious, fresh and quick — ah, just like we remembered! Paired well with a Great Lakes Brewing Co. Edmund Fitzgerald tap! Even my hubby who isn’t a Chinese food fan gave it rave reviews. We’ll be back!
Poll: Best Breakfast Restaurant
Through a recent poll about breakfast joints we have a disputable, yet official list of the five favorite places to seek ante-meridiem nourishment in the Duluth area. Now it’s time to determine which is number one, so again we ask the all-important question …
[poll id=”40″]
This poll is now closed. The results were …
Duluth Grill — 39.2 percent
Pizza Lucé — 21.6 percent
Uncle Loui’s — 17.5 percent
At Sara’s Table / Chester Creek Café — 15.4 percent
The Kitchen — 6.2 percent
Poll: Best Breakfast in the Duluth Area
A recent post on PDD asked about the “best breakfast in town.” Having gleaned the nominees from that post — and eliminated one for being too far outside Duluth — we might as well make it official and have a poll asking the all-important question …
[poll id=”39″]
This poll is now closed.
Because there were a dozen options in this poll, we considered it the first round of voting. So instead of posting the full results, we reveal the top-five breakfast restaurants, which advance to a new poll to determine the official champion.
The top-five breakfast restaurants, in alphabetical order, are:
At Sara’s Table / Chester Creek Café
Duluth Grill
The Kitchen
Pizza Lucé
Uncle Loui’s
Best breakfast in town?
Where does everyone think the best breakfast is in town?
Best Fish Fry
We are recent transplants and have visitors coming. They’ve requested to go out for fish fry … perch from the lake. Anybody know of a good place in Duluth?
Jazzy Tunes and Good Eats
One of the most awesome aspects of hanging out at the local comic shop are the quirky people who hang out there. I don’t mean the Sheldon Coopers — I mean the creators of Apocalypse City and Night of the Smurfing Dead. I mean the owner of Psher Meats, who also sidelines as a fiction writer. I mean Sir Jeff, the newest light in the kitchen at Zeitgeist, and Greg, who makes the DNT’s new creative services run like clockwork. Duluth is filled with more talented people than it has outlets for that talent.
So it didn’t surprise me that a talented light-jazz musician stopped by the shop and told us about his show tonight at Valentini’s.
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Great Lake Superior fish and chips found!
I went up the north shore looking for a little north woods fun and dinner and found a little bar/restaurant/motel just south of Two Harbors called Earthwood that has a fantastic fish and chips dinner made with lake herring caught by local fishermen and beer battered fries. Two local beers (Bent Paddle and Castle Danger) on tap and huge deck made this trip a memorable experience. Has anyone else stumbled onto any hole in the wall fish and chips shops? The Earthwood can’t be the one and only!
Beijing Restaurant closing
Beijing Restaurant‘s last day will be Sunday, July 28, according to the big guy at the counter. He said the owners are going to take a year or two off before launching another restaurant.
Hacienda del Sol: When will it return?
I miss the Hacienda. I mean, I really miss it. I just want a basket of its chips, some salsa, a beer, and a cheesy something or another. When oh when will it come back?
Good Asian Food in Duluth
My friend from Chicago is visiting. We used to go to the Lotus Inn. Where should we go now?
Vietnamese Lantern Review
I know this a Duluth blog, but I wanted to get the word out about the Vietnamese Lantern in Two Harbors. I ate there last night and it blew my socks off. The food was amazing!
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Minnesota Wine Exchange Review
I spent last Friday evening at the Minnesota Wine Exchange for the first time. It is a fantastic place to enjoy Minnesota wines and beers right in the center of Downtown Duluth (Lake Ave & Superior St.). If you’re interested in sampling wines, you can purchase a “flight” consisting of three glasses, each filled 1/3 full with a different wine for the reasonable price of $5.
If you’re hungry, there are appetizers and sandwiches which I plan on trying some day soon when I go there for lunch. If you want to relax and enjoy conversation with friends, this is the place to go. Background music for listening with local art exhibited on two levels for viewing. The paintings of the late John Peyton are currently being displayed.
This is a locally owned business selling Minnesota products which is a win-win situation. If you haven’t been there, I would encourage you to try it. The day I went there was a perfect Duluth day indeed!
Un Taco Mas is coming back!!!
Hello Duluthians, this is Rosalinda, owner of Un Taco Mas. I would like to thank all of you who keep asking and looking for us. I am sorry to say that it is taking longer than we thought to reopen. Due to certain circumstances we have not been able to get our trailer up to code. Apologizes to all. I am happy to say that we are still able to supply you with our great authentic Tex-mex food.
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Duluth Food Trucks and Carts 2013 Rundown
How many mobile restaurants are there in Duluth? What do you think of them? Let’s crowdsource a list. Below are the only ones I know of. I’ll add more to the list when you, the people, make them known.
Chow Haul – Burgers, wontons, nachos, etc.
D’s Dogs – Hot dogs
The King of Creams – Ice cream
Mrs. Delicious – Ice cream
The Rambler – Paninis, pot roast, pulled pork, etc.
Un Taco Mas by Rosie – The trailer isn’t up to code yet, but food is being made in Superior and delivered.
Is that Oriental food truck that used to be on Central Entrance still around?
Superiorites and Pizza Lovers
I’ve asked a few friends and associates about this with unsatisfactory results, so I thought I’d throw it out there for the PDD community to mull over.
In the early 90s (1990-1993), I remember going to a pizza place in Superior, but I can’t remember what it was called. Here’s what I remember about it:
- It was open late at night.
- It was kind of grimy and dark inside.
- It offered a large variety of toppings. For example, I remember getting shrimp and cashews a few times. I think they also offered sauerkraut as a topping.
- I don’t think it was a chain.
Does anyone remember a restaurant like that?