Co-owner Laura Hanson said about halfway through North Side Cafe’s first day at its new location, which sits just across from Ralph Engelstad Arena, that she has been preparing customers for the move for a long time.
“We’ve been talking about this for the last three months with all of our regular customers, and that’s what we’ve been seeing,” Hanson said. “Now, I’ve seen a couple of different faces today that I haven’t seen, but I’m seeing all of the people that we had.”
Many of Hanson’s regular customers showed up before dawn at 6 a.m. to eat the first round of breakfast at the cafe in its new location just as it opened up. She said once she saw that, she knew it was a good decision.
“My sister, brother and I are in business together, and there were a lot of things that we had to consider, because we also own the Kegs Drive-In,” Hanson said. “Do we want to do this? What do we want to do? And you know, I’m 67 years old. I’m getting a little tired. So far, I think it’s a really good move for us.”
Hanson said the restaurant just received its beer and wine license, but that’s all it will serve -- no liquor. The restaurant also will not be open after hockey games to serve the crowds pouring out of Ralph Engelstad Arena next door.
The restaurant will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
“Hockey nights, we’ll have a totally separate menu so we can get people in and out real fast,” Hanson said.
The building itself was in good shape, having previously housed the Albatross Indoor Golf Club. It already had a working bar, but all the beer tap lines had to be changed because they had not been used in some time and were filled with mold. Hanson said it turns out, things needed some touching up in order to turn a building that housed golf simulators into a restaurant.
“Well, they had most of the furniture in storage, so there was a lot of scrubbing,” Hanson said. “There was a lot of repairing. We did some re-staining on the chairs. The kitchen hadn’t been used as a kitchen in about six to eight years. So, getting all the equipment going, calling the refrigeration guys, getting a new compressor put in the walk-in cooler, it was just a little bit of everything."
As for the first day of business in the new location, Hanson said things went better than expected and that it should be a sign of things to come.
“We have some things that we’ve got to tweak,” Hanson said. “Like, what happened in the kitchen. We plugged in both brand-new toasters, and the circuit busted, so we’ve got to get an electrician over for that. This morning, everything went (smoothly) except for a couple of odds and ends things. We expected things would not go tremendously (smoothly), but I’m surprised it’s gone as well as it has.”
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November 07, 2021 at 06:00PM
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North Side Cafe opens in its new location next to Ralph Engelstad Arena - Grand Forks Herald
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