On Tuesday, Copper Cow Kitchen & Bar announced that its Minnetonka restaurant is going out to pasture. The last day of service will be November 14.
Copper Cow opened in early 2019, quickly becoming a hit with its boozy milkshakes and burgers, including the instant foodie-favorite deep-fried burger and donut burger. Check this out:
Incredible stuff.
Danielle and Chris Bjorling, the couple behind Copper Fox, are the owners of Copper Hen on Eat Street and three Gray Fox Coffee locations in Minneapolis. They're also—scoop alert!—opening their fourth Gray Fox location next year, coming to LaSalle Plaza in downtown Minneapolis. And with two kids under age two and a third on the way: "We're just going to be busy," Chris Bjorling laughs. "It seemed like a good time to not get stretched too thin and take a little breather."
The Bjorlings owned Copper Cow's building at 5445 Eden Prairie Rd. in Minnetonka, and Chris tells Racket that initially they hoped to sell the space and lease it back to keep the Cow going. It didn't work out—the buyers, who own Kazoku Japanese Cuisine in Burnsville—wanted to put their own restaurant in.
It's kind of a win-win though, all things considered. For one, the Bjorlings were able to work with Kazoku's ownership to ensure that any Copper Cow workers who wanted to were offered positions with the new restaurant.
"Before we signed on the dotted line, it was really important to us that the new owners would be willing to hire all our staff," Bjorling says. "We've seen other restaurant closings around town and I've always had kind of a bad taste when people close suddenly and are unable to take care of their staff."
Bjorling says they'll miss the community in their Glen Lake neighborhood—Unmapped Brewery, DelSur Empanadas, Golden Nugget Tavern & Grille—but that Kazoku should be a welcome addition to the area.
"Glen Lake is kind of under the radar in Minnetonka," he says. "The lakes get all the publicity and the love, but Glen Lake is an awesome neighborhood that, in my opinion, is super underrated."
