What's up with all the business closings on St. Paul's Grand Avenue? City council member weighs in
The St. Paul restaurant that claims to serve the most walleye in the world is calling it quits.
The family who has owns Tavern on Grand on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue is closing the decades-old landmark in early June. They shared the news on Facebook.
“We are truly grateful to have been able to make our famous walleye and homemade meals for nearly 35 years. This could have only been accomplished with the love and support of our customers, community and staff. We are thankful to have been like a home to many over the years with memories to last several lifetimes,” reads the post.
“So should you join us between now and then to reminisce and celebrate a great run? You Betcha!”
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The tavern isn’t alone. Along the five-mile boulevard known for its tree-lined streets, Victorian-style homes and bustling shopping and dining scene, more stores have shuttered recently.
Popular French restaurant Salut Bar Americain closed earlier this month. Pottery Barn is closing before the end of January. And several other buildings stand empty.
St. Paul City Council Member Rebecca Noecker represents the ward and says she’s taking these closures seriously.
“I don’t know that there’s any one cause that’s led to the closures that we’re seeing,” she told MPR News. “A lot of the restaurants and businesses that survived the pandemic were really weakened by that crisis. And people’s retail habits have also changed. People are looking for more experiences rather than just going to a store and buying something that they might be able to buy from their homes, on their computers. So I think a lot of those different trends are sort of piling up.”
Downtowns nationwide have been struggling since COVID-19 began to spread. Many are now desperately working to revitalize.
“We’re seeing similar challenges, I think throughout the city, and frankly, throughout cities across the country,” Noecker echoed.
She says the City of St. Paul’s role should be to encourage new development.
“The more that we have people living and working in an area, the more people there are to support those retail corridors,” Noecker said. “We can also do a lot to make our commercial corridors more inviting. So having those trees along the streets … having wider sidewalks, redoing the streets, reconstructing them, to make it more easy for people to traverse them.”
St. Paul passed a small sales tax increase last year which will fund some of those reconstruction projects. Gov. Tim Walz also proposed nearly $1 billion in infrastructure and construction spending as part of the bonding bill that will be discussed in the legislature next month.
Noecker says she and her fellow council members are committed to supporting the small businesses “that make our neighborhoods and St. Paul really feel the way they do and have the character that they do.”
Short-term plans include convening Grand Avenue businesses to ask how the city can better support them, according to Noecker.
“It’s too late to reach out to a business when you find out that it’s planning to close. We need to be in touch much sooner,” she said. “And we need to do all we can from a public safety standpoint, from infrastructure, from financial assistance, if necessary. Make sure that our businesses truly feel supported.”