When a critically acclaimed fine dining restaurant closes because of a pandemic, you replace it with a market.
That's what Jami Olson, the restaurateur behind Popol Vuh, figured out when she and co-owner and chef Jose Alarcon decided last summer not to reopen their intimate Mexican-inspired restaurant in northeast Minneapolis.
Instead, they replaced it with Vivir, a casual cafe with a strong takeout element and a selection of home goods and Mexican treats.
On the shelves are housemade spreads and salsas, frozen cookie dough and ultra-dark chocolate bars. Packaging the kitchen's handiwork under Vivir's logo to sell alongside other brands was always part of the pandemic-necessitated plan, Olson said. When guests fall in love with Vivir's salsa on their torta, they can take a jar of it home.
"It's a way to make our ingredients more accessible, and on the business end of it, we want to enhance our profitability as much as possible," Olson said.
In search of new streams of revenue, more food and drink establishments in the Twin Cities are branding themselves as retailers with one-of-a-kind products you won't find in supermarkets. They are sticking labels on housemade sauces, bottling up cocktail mixes and putting proprietary seasonings into the hands of home cooks, with the hope that customers will return for the tastes they can't get anywhere else.
The front entry at Tattersall Distilling's northeast Minneapolis cocktail room has been transformed into a gift shop of sorts, with newly branded merchandise and bottles of bitters and simple syrup, jars of barrel-aged honey and jugs of cocktail mixers.
"We're trying to offer something unique here to actually get people to come in," said Tattersall co-founder Jon Kreidler. "Otherwise, our booze, you can go in any liquor store and get it."
