Will New Coffee Shop Survive Where Others Failed?

Owners confident they'll beat corner's run of bad luck.

When the Sparrow Cafe opened at the corner of 50th and Penn at the start of this month, you may be forgiven for feeling worried for owners Sheila and Jasper Rajendren. The coffee shop is the third such establishment to open on that corner in as many years, and its predecessor, Adagio Cafe, closed after just one year in business. To top it all off, a Bruegger's Bagel Bakery sits across the street from the store, purveying some of the same kinds of products—coffee and breakfast food—as Sparrow, but with the backing of a large corporation. In an interview with Patch, Jasper Rajendren was all smiles about the cafe's prospects. He dismissed the idea that this corner of Southwest Minneapolis was over-saturated with coffee offerings with the easy…

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Local Restaurant Aiming to Feed 8,000 Hungry Minnesotans

The staff at George & the Dragon are trying to make a dent in world hunger, locally.

Legislature Considering End to Controversial "Dual-Tracking" in Foreclosures

Minneapolis rabbi to testify, impacted Golden Valley resident Rose McGee among those attending.

Wednesday morning, State Reps. Mike Freiberg (DFL-Golden Valley), Karen Clark (DFL-Minneapolis) and Raymond Dehn (DFL-Minneapolis) introduced new legislation to end a controversial practice used by mortgage lenders during foreclosure proceedings. Southwest Minneapolis rabbi Michael Adam Latz of the Shir Tikvahsynagogue will be among the testifiers, according to a post on his Facebook page. A copy of Latz's testimony is posted above as a PDF. "Our protest is to demand that those of our friends and our neighbors, our congregants and our family members who work hard and play by the rules don’t have the rules changed along the way so the banks are favored at the expense of our homes and our communities, because this is not what democracy looks…

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Patch Brain

10:16 am on Sunday, January 20, 2013

Are we all in sympathy with Rose McGee? Occupy activists always seem to strike a nerve; perhaps there is a history of the group Occupy Homes MN behaving in an unhonorable manner. New groups experience rapid metamorphosis of membership, leadership, participation, focus, and tactic over time, especcially as their relationship with the media and public changes. I'd be interested to look at the …   more ›

Local Restaurant Aiming to Feed 8,000 Hungry Minnesotans

Lynnhurst's George and the Dragon will donate one meal to Second Harvest Heartland for every meal you eat.

When Fred and Stacy Navarro opened Lynnhurst's George & the Dragon last summer, they wanted to make giving back to the community a central part of their business. Now, the restaurant is building on eight successful months of serving the community with ambitious plans to literally double the number of people it feeds in January. For every meal a customer eats within its walls during January, the Navarros will make a donation equivalent to one meal to local food bank and hunger-fighting nonprofit Second Harvest Heartland. Two weeks into the campaign, Fred Navarro told Patch, nearly 3,000 meals have been donated. They're aiming to donate between 6,000 and 8,000 in total. To do so, they've teamed up with Eatiply, a brand-new local organization…

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PHOTOS: Huge Mural Graces New Coffee Shop

Sparrow Cafe opened Jan. 1

Lynnhurst's new Sparrow Cafe has a lot to offer. Maple-bacon doughnuts and other locally-made pastries. Organic, fair trade house blend coffee. Friendly staff and owners.  But there's one other thing visitors can stop by and see: a giant mural done by Minneapolis graffiti artists Broken Crow. (Disclosure: Co-owner Jasper Rajendren gave me a maple-bacon doughnut to try while I was taking photos. However, that did not influence my decision to photograph said pastry)

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Local Restaurants Get Some Critical Love

Food journalist names two eateries among his favorite food moments of 2012.

James Norton, editor of local foodie website The Heavy Table, was on The Current's Morning Show on Wednesday to discuss some of his favorite food moments of 2012. Not so surprisingly, he mentioned two Southwest Minneapolis restaurants on-air. The Lynn on Bryant The Lynn's "rustic" apple tart was top on his list.  "It was like edible art, it melted in my mouth," he told the hosts, praising the different textures and the house-made ice cream that tops the dessert. "It was beautifully balanced," he said. "So elegant. You put it in your mouth and you're—boom—taken away." Corner Table At one of the Heavy Table's North Coast Nosh events this year, chefs from Kingfield's Corner Table brought what Norton thought to be a delicious Pȃté en Croûte…

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Should Minnehaha Creek Bike Path Be Extended?

Locals pushing for more access to creek west of Humboldt Avenue.

According to the Southwest Journal, two Southwest Minneapolis residents need your opinions. Paul Ragozzino, president of the Lynnhurst Neighborhood Association, and Jim Tincher, Fulton Neighborhood Association president, are lobbying the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to increase access to Minnehaha Creek west of Humboldt Avenue South. The creek is currently lined with bike and walking paths between Humboldt Avenue and the creek's terminus at Minnehaha Falls, part of Minneapolis' Grand Rounds chain of parkways and trails. At Humboldt, the trails turn sharply northward to connect with Lake Harriet. Between Humboldt and the city border, the creek is publicly owned, but practical access is limited. “We started out with just wanting to …

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Anti-Foreclosure Rally, Keith Ellison Come To Lynnhurst Saturday

Community, religious groups campaigning against "unfair" foreclosures.

Saturday, Lynnhurst's Shir Tikvah synagogue will play host to the first stop on a metro-wide bus tour protesting what groups behind the tour call "unfair" foreclosures. Rep. Keith Ellison and other community leaders will lead a rally at Shir Tikvah at 12:50 p.m. in support of several homeowners facing foreclosure around the Twin Cities. The tour culminates in a concert by local hip-hop greats Brother Ali and Toki Wright. "The housing crisis has forced hundreds of thousands of families out of their homes, and, as the result of predatory loans, decimated the wealth of African-American and Hispanic communities, causing some to call it one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time," read a written statement from tour organizers Occupy …

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Waiting For Marriage Vote Tally "Deeply Personal," says Local Rabbi

One of Shir Tikvah's spiritual leaders reflects on November's same-sex marriage victory.

On Nov. 6, hundreds of people crowded into a ballroom at the St. Paul River Centre, waiting intently for the outcome of the election. More important to them than any presidential race, though, was Minnesota's vote on a constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage.  Projectors turned one wall into a pair of giant televisions streaming television news channels, to which 90 percent of eyes in room were glued. Emotions ran high among the assembled activists. Each twitch in the election returns splashed on the screens caused great waves of cheers or ripples of gasps in the crowd. For Lynnhurst synagogue Shir Tikvah's Rabbi Michael Adam Latz, the entire evening was a deeply personal affair, despite the leading role he and …

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