Photo and blog post by John HoffJNS blog previously reported on Olympic Cafe on West Broadway and their hopes of staying open later. Despite opposition in the community--those of us who feel like Olympic primarily serves chicken drummies to drug dealers who hang out at Hawthorn (sic) Crossings strip mall all day long, the kind of "lower than low end" establishment we call a "thug store"--word came that Olympic got approval to extend their hours.
In regard to the extension of the hours, I was told other businesses in the area had late hours, and failing to approve hours for Olympic might have exposed the city to unacceptable liability. So Olympic got its approval--with teeth clenched during the "aye" vote, I imagine--and the next step for neighborhood activists is closely monitoring the business...calling in vigorously on any litter, graffiti, suspicious characters hanging around outside, that kind of thing.
As part of this "close monitoring," a couple nights ago I dropped by there with some friends...
...hoping to have a gyro. Word was their gyros were fairly good, served with a standard but perfectly adequate gyro sauce.
However, when we arrived outside the restaurant--this must have been around 1:30 in the morning--the restaurant was closed, though it was lighted inside and loud Middle Eastern music was playing. A sign on the window said the cafe closed at 1 a.m.
We were disappointed but, then again, NOT disappointed. If this place closes up at 1 a.m. despite permission to stay open later, all the better.
We're still watching like hawks.
29 comments:
This is excellent news. We needed a late night option and there's nothing wrong with a place that serves chicken wings. There is also nothing wrong with calling the cops on suspicious characters however please do be mindful not to be profiling the community already sees enough of that going on.
I am, in fact, crazy about chicken wings. In fact, my family did small scale poultry processing to make money, and I was raised on chicken. I even like the gizzards, which many people don't.
But are the thugs who sell drugs at Hawthorn (sic) Crossings equally enthusiastic about chicken wings? They sure are.
If I can get together just a few dollars –maybe ‘bout $5 or $10
I can run and get that chicken wing special down at the carry-out
and a pint of gin
I believe this old pickle jar here has enough to take me through
I just need to take it to the coinstar machine at grocery store
to make it do what it do
Ya’ll don’t hear me
I mean I got a taste for some of them chicken wings bad!
and all the fries you can give me
Just throw me some of that mumbo sauce in the bag
Then I’ll dip on over to Earl’s Liquor store to get me a little pint of gin
If I can get together just a few dollars — maybe ‘bout $5 or $10
This is horrible news. I don't care if the city gets sued, i just don't want more places for thugs to congregate at night. I may move to Brooklyn Center after all.
I am not ok with this place. Even when it is not open late. When I working downtown I used to take a bus to work everyday that went down Broadway back in 2005. While at the bus stop on Bryant we heard shots being fired from the inside, the front window shattered then the back window on the bus... I heard a lot of fighting and shouting coming from inside.. I got off the bus and walked down Broadway. Later that day I had the same bus driver. He told me "One of the people that worked there was the one getting shot at, didn't get much detail but I know for a fact I've seen that man selling crack..."
Sad but true....
Anybody remember RibKing?!?! Cause they had the BEST chicken I've ever had (better then my mom's and she's from KY).
I NEVER saw thugs there cause the women who owned the joint did not allow it.. Too bad its that easy
Eyedea, I remember rib king! That is one of the first places I went to on northside even years before I ever lived here.
For those that weren't around then, Rib King was in the place where Pair of Dice is now. Rib King was awesome and yes, the couple that ran it were awesome, very clean well run restaurant with great food.
Maybe Brian and I scared 'em - if they were open later we'd be THERE later... lol
Was the neighborhood consulted on this? It sounds like we need to grant additional powers to neighborhood comittees to regulate what hours the local businesses can operate. Maybe we should start showing up with we watch we call signs at midnight until they curtail their hours.
Frankly Idea, it doesn't matter whether you're ok with this place. It is a lawful business that keeps hours that are consistent with other businesses in the area. It is perfectly legal to buy and sell chicken wings in NoMi, notwithstanding your hearsay story about some unnamed person who was shot because they sold crack.
Are you up in arms about cub foods or taco bell? Your efforts to gentrify my neighborhood have failed and they will continue to fail. If you don't like the people who live here or the businesses that operate here move out.
Frankly Shamika, your opinion doesn't matter either.
Your efforts to label us as gentrifiers have failed. Unless lower income residents are actually displaced from their neighborhoods then gentrification has not occurred. Clearly there is still room for EVERYBODY in Nomi (and we're a long way from a housing shortage).
It is legal to cater to the late night crowd and it is also legal to call in 311/911 reports about businesses that don't follow basic standards (or people eating chicken wings and slinging crack in the wee hours) notwithstanding your hearsay story about gentrification efforts.
If you don't like people that CARE about the neighborhood they live in (and own property in) then you are also free to move out... although I highly doubt you are much more than a figment of someone's imagination.
If you really do exist... you should stick around and benefit from our efforts to make Nomi a better place to live.
Heh, that's what was said in Cincinnati, too. "There's a place for everyone here"...until rent was too damn expensive for anyone to afford, and the former residents were all pushed out by the white yuppies relocating there.
I know, I know. That hasn't happened here yet, and I hope it never does. It's one thing to run criminals out, but it's another to run everyone out because they didn't meet the standards of whom should be living in the neighborhood.
I hope it does happen. I can't wait for rent to rise in NOMI this will ensure that only folks that deserve to live her can. Folks that the JACC deems worthy of populating the neighborhood.
" run everyone out because they didn't meet the standards of whom should be living in the neighborhood."
So, let's see, having standards of decent, safe AND affordable housing, NOT shooting guns or selling dime bags or SEX, NOT having a mortgage fraud slummy real estate empire, NOT having a store front facade that screams crappy, rundown neighborhood, NOT having concentrated sex offenders on every block, NOT stealing money and equipment from the nonprofits that are here to serve the neighborhood and its citizens, NOT assaulting people at public meetings, NOT having politicians who get caught at convicted gangbangers homes, or NOT pushing women from a moving car, NOT walking in the middle of the street .... etc... I could go on and on....
So these standards should be lowered to allow EVERYONE to live here?
I don't think so. If you haven't noticed, all the above mentioned standards are BEHAVIOR oriented. So a movement of neighborhood activists saying "hey, we want well behaved people who meet a higher standard of civility and decorum so we can all enjoy a safe, decent place to live" is hardly the definition of gentrification.
The "G" card is getting about as old as the "race" card.
Behavior people, its about behavior!
Shamika should stick one of them tasty chicken wings up her smelly ass.La fils en ripple rose should maybe go back to 'natti if she liked it so much.I guess she would rather suck our welfare system clean since she probably used up her "BENEFITS" in 'natti.Meanwhile good hardworking responsible flotsam and jetsam get off the Mega-bus in minnindianapolis.Seriously folks we have a serious problem with folks coming here and bitching about shit after getting run out of their respective towns. Most are sent here with a one way bus ticket and told to either go to Mary Jo Copelands(who is a living saint, folks!)or its off to the drake or p.p.l and so on and so on.Shamika is a fake ass made up sorry excuse from someones simple ass imagination and gets responded to because unfortunately their are alot of losers out there like the mindless fuck with the fake name.All of you malcontents and fraud perpetrators unite and take your feeble minds back to your failed home cities since you helped bring them down!!!!!P.S.... learn how to pronounce minneapolis correctly all failed newcomers.Boathead wishes you a good day.... somewhere else. Quit messing up our beautiful city anymore than you already have and don't let the broken door hit you on the way out.Boathead sees you.
la_via_en_rose:
Yep, pretty sick of the whole "white yuppie thing" also the "former residents were all pushed out by the white yuppies relocating there" *i know your not talking about mpls.
( I was pushed out by crime AND racism, drugs..ect Born and raised here.. Makes me wonder why my family was ran out..)
You know damn well it will not happen here.. I am white and so is my fiancé. We are not making rent go up, nor are we hating on or kicking anyone of any race out of north. I wish you would understand more why we (me particularly) care so much about turning north around.. Its not about race...Its about the drug dealers, gangs, kids getting shot over a fucking bike, women whoreing themselves on the street to feed their crack addaction or even thats the only job they can get cause of their lack of education cause they decided to drop out of highschool to join a gang and now they can't get a job cause of the lame ass tatto's all over their arms and face.
I want this place to be nice for everyone, every age every race every background for hard working people..
over the years I have read some pretty mean things about what the outsiders think of north minneapolis, like " lets just nuke it, who wants to live there anyways "
Who thinks like that? People that come here and see all this shit on the streets and have seen many efforts to change it that have been unsuccessful.. We can't give up anymore...
I don't know if you recall 1992, but I do, and boy oh boy was it fucked up
How come when non people of color move in it is gentrification and I do not hear people complain with their is a concentration of people of color only in a few areas instead of being dispursed through the metro area.
Boathead,
Your grammar and syntax are so horrible that I don't think there is anything that could be done to improve them.
Idea,
"Your" is a possessive pronoun. "You're" is a conjunction that means you are. Try to get them straight.
MeganG,
I agree with you 100%. This is about people's (not peoples) behavior. It has nothing to do with skin color or JACC approval. If you can't conduct yourself in a civilized manner, get out of NoMi.
Economics. Pure and Simple.
Desireable location near a downtown urban center... Property values will increase. Property values increase, cost of living increases, cost of living increases, those who cannot afford it move. The process itself is colorblind. The disparate impact is not. Stay in school. Read. Stay in School. Read. Work your ass off. Stay in School. Become educated. Work your ass off. Live close to downtown. Spend Money.
That's the program. Either get with it or don't. Doesn't matter.
Ok, I may have been a little rough to ya rose. I quit smoking cigs now I'm just a raging bitch... so sorry.
But I agree with got it all figured out : "Economics. Pure and Simple."
Hey Patricia, would you specifically point out my error of using the word your ,you're,and since YOUR vision is beyond improvement and very obvously delusional , YOU'RE nothing but an inattentive shitbagwho makes stuff up and thinks her shit does'nt stink.SYNTAX? That is what i would suggest on a bottle of booze.I'm sorry that would be sin tax.I am sure Patricia already knew that because she is so intelligent and a legend in her own made up mind.Reread my first post dumbshit.Boathead loves stuckup knowitalls.
Boathead,
You fascinate me. Do you have a facebook page or maybe even a personal web page so I could read more of your rants? I've never read someone who could express so much rage in such a small space.
In response to 7:19, the anonymous mystery person who i fascinate,i will cast my rebuttal in a most presumptuous manner because imitation is supposedly the most sincere form of flattering someone even if they may possibly be a tad imbecilic.Rage? Whoever you are i will tell you that i was born and raised here and am over 49 years old. I am a very young looking and acting person who treats everyone the same regardless of whoever the hell they MIGHT be.I get mistaken alot for 5-0 as the petty thugs ,who do not even know who the hell Jack Lord was,either harass me or try and sell me their bunk.I am not averse to pedaling throughoutall of North Minneapolis and i know the area real well.I have seen many changes and have experienced many transitional periods in the days and times in the life of OUR NORTH MINNEAPOLIS.I am preparing quite a story about my experiences of growing up here and would like to post a condensed version on this blog.I am writing memoirs and with Johns permission i would like to post acouple of them here.It is quite a story.I am damn near computer illiterate.I am an expert North Minneapolis resident.When i post the first of what i envision as many excerpts of what i hope someday may be a book i will let others see the reality of my presumed RAGE.It is not rage.It is total realism and alot of sadness and a ton of hopefulness.I might even hire Patricia to help me with the sin tax.I refer to myself as Boathead and do it in the third party manner so often only because self deprecation is the pathway to true .....whatever.Peace to all and to all a piece.To be continued.....
To the previous anonymous commenter...
You should see the stuff from Boathead that I DO NOT publish.
Boathead says he's putting together a biography of Spanky Pete. And I'm all, like, hell...I'll be glad to take a look at that. You go, Boathead.
Oh please JNS, make BOATHEAD a contributor to your blog. I would love to see his life story serialized. Your readership would go WAY up.
It's OK, Eyedea. You have a right to express your opinion, as does anyone else, and it's OK to be bitchy, lol. I don't expect people to agree with me. I only want to share what I've gone through in other cities. I said I HOPE it doesn't happen here. And my family is white, as well (although I'm part Cherokee, but my kids and husband are all blond hair and blue eyes), so I understand how people are sick of the race card and whatnot. Again, I hope it doesn't happen here. One of the reasons I love it here so much is because it's diverse, and I don't see the same amount of racism I grew up with. In the places I've lived, racism still runs rampant, and yes, it was a deciding factor in pushing out all of the minorities when revitalizing parts of downtown Cincinnati. (And to the idiot Anon who suggested I go back there if I love it so much, I assume you lack comprehension skills because I said that I DON'T love it there which is why, gee golly, I moved!)
I understand how desirable it is to want to live around the downtown part of any city; I mean, I did take Economics in high school and in college. Yes, you work your ass off, and it sometimes pays off (I won't say it always does because I've seen such occasions when hard work was pretty much worthless effort). I didn't live here in 1992 (I was in the 8th grade), but I've read and heard horror stories. Honestly, this is a nicer neighborhood than what I've lived in before (despite getting robbed for the first time ever last year; hey, that could happen anywhere), so everyone's hard work is probably paying off.
I like it here. I'd love to be able to possibly get a house here through Habitat For Humanity, HUD, or whatnot (and no, I won't be a crappy neighbor who lets their lawn go; I was taught better). I know I'll make a rather cynical neighbor, but I've been through and seen a lot of hard times, and it made me a realist. As I said, I don't expect people to agree with me, but I would like people to at least read what I say.
As mama always said " you have to respect peoples option but you don't have to like it."
She also said "you say bitch like its a bad thing"
Amen to that!
Gee golly,red ripple rose,i can't see beyond my nose.You were in eighth grade in 1992?I guess that makes you around 33 years old.How many kids? I don't care.I used to tell people iwas 1/10 cherokee and 9/10th asshole.Alot of White people claim to have Native American heritage.What the hell that has to do with you sucking welfare BENEFITS from 'Natti than traipsing to our Shangri-la? You talk as though only Whites can be racist.One-Adam 12, see the Idiot!Racism comes in all shades of pigmentation sans the camoflauge.I did not read or even see the part about you saying you did'nt like it in 'Natti which is your excuse for moving here.What about the other cities? Emphasizing the plurality of cities makes wonder why you left the other ones on your Nomadic journey.Racism pushed your White Family out?I am a bit confused i guess.Them caucasians must have recognized that you had some Indian in you.I am reading you loud and clear and understand very well why you are here and haven't left even though you were robbed for the first time ever last year.Boathead sees the irony in it all and still has hope.
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