Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Lowry Cafe - Offically Opening This Friday!


Photos and Blog Post by Nomi Passenger

The much anticipated opening of The Lowry Cafe is this Friday, May 6. Go ahead, everyone stampede at once and form a line out the door. The staff have been practicing and they will be ready for you. I had the chance to get a sneak peek during one of their practice runs recently and I snapped a few photos to share here, including the menu.

The Cafe's hours will be...

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday - Breakfast and Lunch only 6am to 3pm
Wednesday through Saturday - Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner 6am to 9pm

In the top photo above, the cover of the Cafe's menu features an actual historic photo taken on the same corner of Penn and Lowry Avenues where the Cafe sits today.  Look closely at the photo and you'll see the sign for The Lowry Cafe hanging above the children's heads.  No, there was not a Lowry Cafe in the 1920s. A fun little photo trick was used to make a great menu cover, but they could have fooled me.

A display case will hold the desserts, which will vary day to day. Cakes and pies and such.  An exciting offering will be four flavors of Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream, a popular and highly acclaimed local business which self describes their ice cream as "super premium" and I'd have to agree with them on that.  The four flavors at the Lowry Cafe currently are Vanilla Bean, Chocolate, Raspberry Chocolate Chip and Pavarotti(caramel, bananas, chocolate chips - super yummy- I got to try a spoonful!) I'm not sure if they will rotate the two specialty flavors but I imagine they will always keep vanilla and chocolate in stock.

This past Saturday I didn't have time to eat, but I got a salad to go and gave it to John, who gave a two thumbs up (see photo below). I know it's not much of a review, so you'll have to dine their yourselves and share here with the rest of the JNS audience.

For now, take in the photos and preplan your order from the menus below.

Here are five of the nine servers.  From Left to Right we've got Paula, Amy, Matt, Tonya and Geisha.  They were all super friendly and professional. Geisha is quite funny, you'll have a laugh or two when you meet her.

Chef Steve checks the plating of food before it's carried out to the table.
One of the Signatures: Meatloaf on texas toast w/ onion bourbon glaze; shoestring onions and garlic mashed potatoes.
Early Bird Burger features breakfast on top of your burger.
Buffalo Chicken Wrap
Buffalo Wings - I hear the sauce is on the mild side - safe for everyone
Chicken Tenders
The Spinach salad with candied pecans, bleu cheese crumbles and strawberry vinaigrette

The walls display the works of local artists. Right now the first featured paintings are befitting. They are by Nomi resident Pat Waddick who is actually also the architect of the Cafe.

The Lowry Cafe is a welcome addition to the up and coming Lowry Avenue corridor - check out the facebook page started to promote all the great things happening on Lowry. The New Lowry Avenue Page
(Do Not Click "Read More")

6 comments:

boathead said...

I hope that this restaurant is successful and brings a new stability to that stretch of our community. My wish is that North Minneapolis goes back to being the most diverse and interesting place to live in this city. There was a time that this area was so vibrant and alive with entertaining events and activities....not that long ago.... working together for the common good and taking care and watching out for each other. With the Lowry Cafe opening Friday and other businesses set to locate here, this will be the defining decade to see what is in store for our unique area. Good luck to all new establishments and me and my guest will take a buffalo chicken wrap and meat loaf sandwich with glazed onions, please. Good Day.

Carla @ Hammers and High Heels said...

My husband and I checked out The Lowry Cafe for breakfast on Sunday, it was great! I ordered the Meatsa Omlet and my husband got the Heat Hungry- both were delicious! Our service was great and everyone there seemed so friendly. The cafe itself is very bright, clean and welcoming. It seemed to get busy while we were there, I hope it is successful! I think it is great seeing new businesses open up in NOMI, I hope there are many more!

The Goddess of Glass said...

I Have the gift shoppe next door and have seen a tremendous increase in customers and sales since the cafe opened just a few days ago. I will be increasing my hours to accomodate gift shopping diners :-)

I also grew up in this area and remember when there were 48 businesses at Lowry & Penn including a couple of 3.2 bars, pizza, bakery, shoe repair, plumbing company, flower shop and more. And like so many others, am very excited for what's yet to come.

MikeT said...

Had breakfast there this morning.
Breakfast was tasty, service was good. Coffee could have been stronger.

I'll have lunch there later this week.

boathead said...

The Goddess of Glass is an example of the, let me see, i could use the trickle down theory but that would give people bad flashbacks about the Ronnie Ray-Gun era( that is the way Gil-Scot Heron penned it) so i will say that the residual effect of one business opening and potentially thriving has a domino effect that is very rewarding, and what this beautiful area needs to rebound with the pro-active vibrancy that was once the rule around here. Ms. Goddess of Glass knows the deal and i will be visiting her shop and spending money there also because that is what it is all about. Good luck to all entrereneurs and i wish you the best.Thank you. P.S., The Godfather of soul just came on the radio and i got ants in my pants and i need to dance. Good Day.

Johnny Northside! said...

Lowry Cafe received a positive mention in this STrib article.

http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/152116975.html?page=2&c=y