Remember when Nicollet Mall was once the city's preeminent retail address? Here's another reason why it has evolved into downtown's Eat Street: the Oceanaire Seafood Room (50 S. 6th St., www.theoceanaire.com) has traded 12-plus years at its original location, deep within the Hyatt Regency Hotel, for the street-level former home of the M&S Grill, at 6th Street and Nicollet Mall.
The spiffy new restaurant, which is currently serving dinner daily starting at 5 p.m., will kick off its weekday lunch service Jan. 30.
Speaking of the Hyatt (1300 Nicollet Mall), the hotel is undergoing a $25 million renovation that includes a remake of its in-house restaurants.
The hotel's mammoth lobby is being gutted and reformulated to include a bar (complete with massive stone fireplace) overlooking Nicollet Mall, as well as a breakfast-lunch-dinner restaurant and a grab-and-go deli. A May opening is planned.
Coming this spring
George and the Dragon is going into the building that has replaced the burned-out former home of Blackbird and Heidi's Minneapolis, at 50th St. and Bryant Av. in Minneapolis.
Co-owner Fred Navarro is encouraging soon-to-be customers to think "public house," and not "pub."
"'Pub' is a word that gets used too often," he said. "We want to create a place for the neighborhood, where families and friends can get together. We want to offer interesting things to drink, and we want to make regular food and make it great."
