Fork The Fire

Minneapolis, like many cities, is full of little pockets in neighborhoods where small groupings of wonderful, locally owned shops and restaurants reside. And in such a big city with a such small town feel like Minneapolis, we consider these areas our little gems. We bring visitors to those quaint restaurants when they come into town and celebrate birthdays (and random Tuesdays) there and buy little cards and gifts at the shops. They make us happy. They make us proud of our sweet city.

At the end of last month one of those areas, on the corner of 50th and Bryant, went up in flames due to a grease fire in one of the restaurants. It quickly got into the ceiling and spread throughout all the connecting businesses. It spread so quickly in fact, that nothing was saved and the building will need to be gutted and they'll have to start over.

And when we heard about what happened to our little area of town we thought "Noooooooooooooooooooo!" and our hearts sank and we deeply mourned the loss and then tried to think happy thoughts that it will be rebuilt someday.



It was very sad and it's difficult to drive by and see all those buildings boarded up. But! But! Cut to a few weeks later and you'll see why Minneapolis is such an awesome city. Because out of this tragedy, "Fork The Fire" was born (I could use a phoenix reference here but I will refrain because it's just not quite that dramatic).

In an unprecedented show of support from their peers, more than 60 Twin Cities restaurants are coming together on March 14th to benefit the two lost restaurants, Blackbird and Heidi’s. If you live in Minneapolis there are three different ways you can get involved, and they'll all taste good.

You can eat at one of 60 participating restaurants and proceeds will go to help the two restaurants (see below links for details).

You can go to Mission American Kitchen and enjoy dishes prepared by Heidi’s chef/co-owner Stewart Woodman and chefs from a dozen Twin Cities restaurants, including Sameh Wadi of Saffron Restaurant & Lounge, Jack Riebel of Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant and Vincent Francoual of Vincent.

Or you can go to Cafe Twenty Eight and enjoy a collaboration between Surly Beer and Blackbird chef/co-owner Chris Stevens.

For more information and a list of participating restaurants click here. Or on facebook click here.



And that, people, is why this city is amazing. Because we support each other and we support locally owned businesses and we're creative enough to do it in really fun and tasty ways. Now who wants to eat out with me on the 14th?