HuffPo: T-Paw has Plans, including Google testing applied to government services. You’d think he was running for President or something. (MinnPost gets into the details.)
City Pages: “Are so!” “Am not!” (And the Poynter Institute offers up some advice: “How to write about Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann without invoking a ‘catfight’.”)
PiPress: Totino’s to close: Historic family-owned restaurant meets perfect storm.
June 8, 2011 at 6:45 am
I think there is more to the Totino’s story than the owners are sharing. They seem to be doing quite well in their early years at the Mounds View location. Mrs. Lungs and I dined there several times, and when I asked, they said their business was up since the move from NE Mpls.
We ate there again a couple of months ago and the difference was striking. No wine, no beer, fewer customers, poor service and lackluster food. Something changed, and I don’t think it was the economy.
Must have been the smoking ban…
June 8, 2011 at 7:37 am
or light rail construction…
June 8, 2011 at 7:46 am
The US Postal Service is in candidate T-Paw’s crosshairs. I’ll bet Pawlenty’s fundraising fliers get “lost” in the mail.
June 8, 2011 at 7:49 am
If there’s any justice…
June 8, 2011 at 7:54 am
As has happened at other times, with other things, the second-generation sometimes loses interest in continuing to run the “family business.” The Yelp reviews were so-so, and there’s a mention that a violation of some kind (or a tax deliquency?) cost the restaurant its liquor license. So, yeah, it probably was the smoking ban. 😉
June 8, 2011 at 10:20 am
it would be nice if something ever becomes of the old totino’s location.
June 8, 2011 at 11:16 am
Not suprising at all about Totinos.
They let their original building become a blighted eyesore. It took them 6+ months to board up mulitple broken windows, covered up graffitii on red brick with green paint, and a total lack of sidewalk snow removal this winter.
If they show this much disrespect for the community that supported them for so many years in NE MPLS, I can imagine that lack of management shows itself elsewhere in the Mounds View location.
June 8, 2011 at 1:07 pm
when totinos moved their reasoning was all their customers had left northeast. now their customers won’t “follow them” to mounds view. they seem to have a lot of excuses, but i ate at their mpls location once. i wouldn’t walk across the street for it.
June 8, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I just read somewhere that the old Totino’s site has a new buyer, cubbie.
June 8, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Interesting, Tortino’s wasn’t the only NE Mpls restuarant owner to leave and move to Mounds View. Just down the road (old Highway 10) from Totino’s is Moe’s. Moe’s is owned by Jeff Moritko, who sold Mayslack’s and took the famous garlic beef sandwich with him. Moe’s has done well, and he has opened a couple more “Moe’s,” I believe.
Why did Moritko sell and start again in MV? Because of the smoking ban (I’m not kidding this time). MV is in Ramsey County, which briefly allowed smoking in “enclosed” rooms. The state law changed all that.
Oh, and there is a Totino’s connection, too. Moritko is a defensive line coach for the Totino-Grace High School football team.
June 8, 2011 at 2:07 pm
IMHO the proliferation of “Totino’s Pizza” in the freezer section did nothing to enhance the reputation of the restaurant (even though all Pillsbury did was buy the name; not the restaurant’s recipe).
June 8, 2011 at 5:28 pm
mayslacks food drastically improved sometime over the last couple years, maybe when it changed ownership? i did a quick search, bob, sounds like a developer bought the old totino’s. condo’s, probably. which is too bad because what this area could really use is, ahem…a good italian restaurant.