The restaurant business is sink or swim, so why would restaurants competing against one another come together to help each other? Twin Cities Originals, a group of 35 independent restaurants, has done just that—and offer deals to customers at one another’s restaurants.
For the independent restaurant owners, a common foe binds them: chain restaurants. Karl Greeman who co-owns Minneapolis-based Spill the Wine with his wife Katie, explains that chain restaurants often get better deals from vendors because of how much they are able to buy. By joining together, the TCO restaurants can support each other and sometimes reduce cost. “It’s like [the cost of] a single can of coke as opposed to a twelve pack,” says Greeman.
Andy Anderson, chef/owner of Thistles in Robbinsdale joined TCO because he saw how “chains have beaucoup bucks to spend on getting the word out.” By referring customers to one another, TCO restaurants help keep all TCO restaurants in the public eye. That can help city folk venture out into the suburbs to try a new place or vice versa.
The TCO mission is to preserve the unique dining experience for their customers. This may mean restaurateurs who know their regular customers’ names and tastes, but it also can mean offering them things they can’t get anywhere else. For instance, Spill the Wine offers a wine boutique, so customers who fall in love with a wine at dinner can purchase a bottle onsite to take home. The restaurant also offers wine flights so people can taste a variety without spending a lot of money.
Greeman says that because independent restaurants are not limited by the constraints of corporations, they can more freely buy local produce. Greeman previously worked at restaurant chains. He says, if he announced “I’m going to get the lettuce from the farmer’s market now,” his former bosses would have thought he was crazy.
But, nowadays that’s exactly what he does, regularly shopping at area farmer’s markets including the Mill City Farmer’s Market just a few blocks away. Buying from farmer’s markets is one way TCO restaurants keep their menus seasonal.
Talk to any TCO chef and you are bound to hear the words, “made from scratch” pretty often. LoTo Life Café in St. Paul, for instance, serves homemade hummus, fish and chips made with fresh halibut and a homemade Guinness batter. They also hand-toss their pizzas and bake them with a homemade sauce.
At Saffron, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Minneapolis’s warehouse district, you’ll find home-cured lamb bacon, homemade sausages, yogurt and spice mixtures.
Chef/co-owner, Sameh Wadi (pictured) says, “We treat it like our home. We use recipes our mother makes, our grandmother made.” One of mom’s popular recipes is the beef kubbeh, croquettes stuffed with ground beef in a bulgar and pine nut casing. In fact, Wadi says, his mother visits the restaurant bi-weekly to make sure the beef kubbeh comes out right. “She’s not going to let go of this one,” he laughs. The food, Wadi says, “it really comes from the heart.”
