Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
The Dirt on Minnesota
Getting this out of the way up front: There's no obvious time-peg for us to be sharing the Minnesota episode of the travel series Dirt, which aired about a year and a half ago. YouTube recommended it to my colleague Jay yesterday, and he liked it a lot—so much so that he watched it twice—and now we're sharing it with you! That's how the Flyover sausage gets made, baybeee.
In each episode of Dirt, host Josh Rosen travels to a new city, and then travels beyond that city, learning all about the region's food and then preparing a big meal with a host chef. On this beautifully shot episode of Dirt, Rosen picks up a pair of boots from Red Wing, chats with the the Northern Waters Smokehaus folks, and spends a lot of time with wonderful local chef Yia Vang, who takes him to the Hmong Village shopping center and helps him prepare a big, locally sourced feast.
Rosen also visits wild honey harvesters on the prairie (and gets Dave Simonett of Trampled by Turtles to serenade the bees), highlights the work of Black hemp growers, and visits with Native wild rice harvesters. Somehow, he finds time to surf Lake Superior, take a mini Boundary Waters trip, go on a pheasant hunt, and harvest veggies from the Vang family farm. It's got a nice, Charlie Parr-heavy soundtrack and is really a delight, even if you only watch it once.
Here's What Will Become of the Kmart Space on Nicollet
Minneapolis City Council has a broad-strokes plan for the former Kmart at Lake Street & Nicollet Avenue, reports Dave Orrick for the Star Tribune, and it sounds pretty good.
The broad strokes: Nicollet will be reconnected as a two-lane road for the first time since the Kmart bisected it in the 1970s. A bicycle and pedestrian promenade will provide connections to adjacent bike routes like the Greenway, and a new city park—potentially as big as two acres, Orrick writes—is also in the plan, along with a new ADA-accessible access ramp to the Midtown Greenway at First Avenue.
The fine-tuning won't happen for a while yet, and construction won't start until 2025 at the earliest. But we've gotta say, that sounds... pretty darn good. Which could help explain why City Council voted overwhelmingly to go ahead with the plan.
Tax Troubles for Hamburguesas El Gordo
Not a great week for local restaurateurs and taxes! Yesterday we learned that Brian Ingram of Purpose Restaurants, the group that includes Hope Breakfast Bar and The Apostle Supper Club, is in hot water with the Attorney General after its accompanying nonprofit org, Give Hope, had its 501(c)(3) status revoked by the IRS last year. Whoopsies!
Today, Nick Ferraro at the Pioneer Press reports that Hamburguesas El Gordo owner Claudia Iveth Gutierrez Mendez has been charged with 10 felony tax crimes related to her burger and taco chain. According to the charges, Minnesota Department of Revenue investigators discovered that Gutierrez Mendez underrepresented restaurant sales and the corresponding sales tax owed by the business between March 2018 and November 2022. The charges also allege that she didn't file tax returns at all between December 2022 and February 2023, “despite conducting business as usual and collecting taxes from customers."
All in, Gutierrez Mendez owes more than $260,000 in state taxes, the charges say. She's not in custody and will make her first court appearance on June 18. Perhaps she should try the “not a big rule guy" defense Ingram appears to be going with?
A Very Reasonably Priced Wolves Deal
Wanna watch the Wolves go for the sweep at Target Center on Friday? Want to do it courtside?
You can! Well, you "can." For the low, low price of $16,000 per courtside seat, via secondary ticket marketplaces like SeatGeek. What's a second mortgage here and there? You might never have another chance like this again—imagine what courtside seats will go for should (*knocks furiously on wood*) the Timberwolves make it to the finals?
Check out this KARE 11 report for more details on the "insane" demand for Wolves playoff tickets. And don't show up without a Naz Reid tattoo.
