Chipotle! Mmmmm

I think Sarah's suggestion of Chipotle's is a good one. Not because of it being Chipotle's, but because of it being along Highway 3 in one of the strip centers. If Northfield were to get another franchise, I would much rather see it along Highway 3, instead of our historic downtown.

I'm with the two of you. A Chipotle would thrive in Northfield!

About once a month, I submit this site to Chipotle at:
http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/talk_to_us/development/development.aspx

I have yet to hear back, but I think the space meets the criteria. I think that Chipotle thinks Northfield needs a few more people to make it viable.

A great NY Style Deli! Enough chains already. :P

As to the space, there has been recent demolition in there. The wall to the "Family Room" has been removed, as well as the wall to where the arcade machines was. Also, the walk-in cooler behind the bar was removed.

The space is somewhat oddly configured, as it wraps around the kitchen. The kitchen is long and narrow, with a very narrow space behind the kitchen for the scullery. There is not a commercial dishwasher in the space, and I am not sure of the status of the walk in refrigerator and freezer coolers behind the kitchen.

I would like to see something in there, rather than just empty space.

It would be nice to have a place that is locally owned, that customers could watch sports, have an occasional adult beverage with your meal, ALWAYS family friendly, and have good quality, reasonably healthy, reasonably priced food items... utilizing local labor paid a living wage.

I know, it is a lot to ask, and those criteria are currently EXTREMELY difficult for a small business person to achieve. We can only hope, and patronize the heck out of such a place when/if it comes to town.

Red Lobster, Champs type of a sports bar, Chilis, Olive Garden etc... My opinion is that Northfield doesn't do to well with fast food joints on that end of town for some reason, so why not give Northfield a restaurant that we would normally travel to Burnsville for? And I also think that Northfield needs a good sports bar... lets face it, the bars in this town suck! I would love to have a place to go to to have a few drinks and apetizers other than the Reub, VFW or Froggy Bottoms... I think all of these bars are over rated and the Reub is just way too expensive, Froggy's is in a dungeon and I feel clostrophobic whenever I had been there.

Buffalo Wild Wings would be a good one :)

Maybe a better Chinese place, all the ones around here are terrible! Or a seafood place, there is no good seafood around here either! I think somewhere should be a Red lobster or Olive Garden have you seen those places they are always packed, they could be raking in the doe! Maybe where the KFC is they should put one of those.

Not to overstate the obvious, but if people want a family-oriented place where people can go watch sports on TV and enjoy and adult beverage...why did they not patronize Beef O'Brady's?? That's EXACTLY what that place was! They even had wings! Great food, good drinks, family-friendly, budget-friendly, and several large flat-screens with all sorts of sports. That seems to be what folks are suggesting replace Beef's...but Beef's failed despite offering what folks are asking for. Why?

There seems to be a lot of love for Chipotle. I think we've got several good Mexican options in town, including the lesser-known (or at least lesser-visited) El Triunfo next to the Quarterback Club. I've also heard good things about the Corner Mart by Chuck and Don's in Dundas, but I haven't made it there yet.

I started to go to Beef O' Brady's right before it closed down... I regret not knowing about the place sooner than I did as it was a nice place to go to.

The reason why business fail has to do with the owners and the management !!! If there is poor management and the owner doesn't do anything about it will 90% fail eventually. Otherwise Beef O' Brady's would still be there. I know of some Beef O' Brady's that have been open a long time and do very well, due to management!

I really loved Beefs, and we went there often. I am not sure it failed so much because of business as much as bad management.

I would be more then happy with a Chipotle, but not sure we really need another restaurant in town. I do agree a good Chinese restaurant would be awesome, the two here are not good.

Never had bad management at our Beef's either...not sure why it failed.

Northfield really needs a Dickey's bbq. no more pizza places or fine type dining. Where in northfield can you go for ribs, brisket, potatos with all the toppings, all the good bbq sides? If you dont belive me then check one out.

(I wrote too much, so I need to break this up into a couple posts.)

I know the former management of Beef's quite well, and I know that they worked very very hard to make the location a success. I was there A LOT, and drank a lot of iced tea during its run. They opened and had a really great first year, then the economic downturn hit, and traffic coming into the store dropped to absurdly low levels.

They marketed themselves like crazy, did advertising drops and mailings, and did everything they could to get their name out there, but folks just stopped eating out. You need to have a certain amount of traffic just to hit the minimum expenses, and they were just not getting the numbers... even with a very loyal following.

I really do miss Beef's, and miss Tina greatly. It was a great place that just got caught up in the economic downturn. Even now, I go out to eat and see that restaurant traffic still has not recovered to levels shown three years ago.

I even blame some of this on the closing and lack of a movie theater in Northfield. Before the closing of Southgate, folks would eat in town and go see a movie. Now, with the theater gone, not many folks will stay and eat in Northfield, then leave for Lakeville to see a show. They would much rather head to Lakeville or points north early, enjoy a greater selection of choices in the southern metro, then go see a show in Lakeville or Burnsville.

Northfield needs to have a draw to keep folks here in town for their entertainment. A theater would be a significant step in that direction. I really wish that the developers, the city, and all of the parties concerned could have made that happen... but alas, the economy and MANY other issues doomed that development project as well.

This is just my $0.02, but let's keep talking about this!

Economic development is based upon the demand of the local residents, and if we can show demand for certain things, perhaps a business can step in and fill those needs.

My husband thinks we need a Jimmy John's here. I would LOVE to see Trader Joe's move here - that's a good location with easy highway access. I know I'm dreaming, though!

I would definitly patronize a Dickey's BBQ. That Chain is GREAT! There isn't anything like it in Northfield. It's fairly inexpensive and a great family place. The free soft serve ice cream is just icing on the cake! Yum!!!!!!!!

The Dickey's I goto is the one in Burnsville off of 35 and 13 . Theres one in Savage, Eagan, Hastings and a few other places. If you go get the loaded Potato its huge, its like $8.00 and most people cant even finish. Yum, lets go I will drive. lol. Everyone that I have told about Dickey's gets addicted fast.

I'm not sure why chains are such a polarizing idea here, especially franchised ones. It may be my lack of restaurant finance knowledge, but if it's a franchise and locally owned then isn't that enough? Chipotle makes a great candidate in that argument. And-while there is REALLY UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME FARE at Truinfo, the burrito bowl would no doubt get play from the college and high school sets.

Beef's seemed really to be about the TV's and drinks more than food and that's not how we roll for outings. So, the three times we went were on early Saturday afternoons in the summer when hardly anything was on TV. We were not impressed. Once, a very long brown hair was in my dinner.
So. Yeah.

I always think of outlets when I think of the shop-fronts on HWY 3. Things like Famous Footwear, Talbots Outlet, Ann Taylor Loft, etc. So many people err commute to city jobs...it's hard to find time to replace old work things when you have to trek to some mall.

I wish we had a proper movie theater too. But then I'm just the sort that loves a movie date.

I think the movie theater is a great idea. The area where the YMCA is suppose to go, on the other side, would be great. There is more land there...the YMcA could be in the same area as the Beef obradys was, but it would have to acquire more space probably.

Trader Joe's is not an option for any city with socialized liquor sales. Also, like many other chains, they need to locate within a population center at least three times as dense as Northfield. Businesses needing high volume levels for break even are not an option for a small city.

No to Chipotle, because EL TRIUNFO fills that niche and then some. A side-by-side comparison of a burrito from Chipotle and El Triunfo will...make you explode. Don't do it. Just eat the El Triunfo burrito. Trust me.

How about a Panera Bread, Noodles & Co., or a DQ Brazier... with all the good food along with the ice cream?? These suggestions go for all the locations that are available in town :)

I agree Northfield NEEDS a movie theatre. The town is suposed to be family friendly and a great place to raise kids, yet there is NOTHING for teenagers to do in this town. A movie theatre would be great for them.

I agree with most of you, especially about needing a good night club in this town! These bars do suck here and they sure don't know how to run a bar. One bar serves who they want to and the bartendars are either crabby or don't care! Plus some illegal stuff that people know about, but don't want to cause problems.

We used to have a movie theater...it is now Culver's. It was a nice little 3 screen theater...cheap prices, cheap popcorn...so sad to see it leave. :(