Look back at the News Tribune’s top business stories of 2024 – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH – The News Tribune never seems to have a shortage of topics to cover on the business beat.

After writing 190 articles over the past year, I’ve always been very interested in telling the stories of Northland business owners, startups and community leaders.

I hope the readers were too.

Our humble team of reporters, editors and visual artists work hard to bring these stories to our audience for our coverage area of ​​most of Northeast Minnesota and beyond.

Whether it was a new restaurant opening, entrepreneurial dreams come true, travel trends or outright tragedy, the News Tribune has it covered.

Here is a recap of the most read articles from the 2024 business period.

Located about 20 minutes outside of Duluth,

small restaurant/arrival at the south end of Island Lake

gained a lot of attention as the lease changed hands from one well-known Duluth restaurateur to another.

The Smiling Loon Restaurant & Bar and Jack Frosty Drive In have taken over the lease in the space that was home to Lake Effect Restaurant & Bar and Lake Ave Drive-In for just over a year.

Owner Robert Giuliani has brought elevated casual American cuisine to the cottage community he frequented as a child, reinventing the site of the former Porky’s Drive-In and Boondocks Saloon and Grill. The Island Lake community continued its growth with the addition of a nearby convenience store, another property owned by Midlife Investment Group.

It will be exciting to see what Robert Giuliani does, brother of Clyde Iron Works owner Alessandro Giuliani and uncle of Canal Park Chachos Taqueria owner Alex Giuliani. Here’s a hint: Maybe he changed business direction

Tacos Tacos Tacos

in the city center.

It’s no secret that housing is in short supply in Duluth.

Transformation of the historic Old High School

to 122 mixed housing units was one step towards a solution.

The $34.9 million Zenith DCHS project was funded using private and government funding sources, including tax increment financing, historic tax credits and opportunity zone incentives.

At more than 158,000 square feet and four stories, the building has approximately 100 floor plans—each providing hints of its past with chalkboard walls, a gymnasium floor, and closets made from converted vaults.

Half of the rental applicants are from outside the Duluth area, mostly relocating to work for employers such as Essentia and Cirrus Aircraft, according to the owner of Saturday Properties.

A dream more than ten years in the making,

The Duluth Whiskey Project joins the burgeoning Lincoln Park Craft District.

Owner and CEO Kevin Evans first became involved in the Duluth distillery scene after the passage of the “Surly Bill,” which made licensing more affordable and allowed breweries to sell alcohol where it’s made.

For years, Evans worked closely with the Vikre family until he was ready to part ways with his own brick-and-mortar location. The 3,500-square-foot cocktail room and lounge at 2224 W. Superior St. is expected to open soon.

The Duluth Grill Family of Restaurants has given Chick-fil-A a run for its money

the recent opening of Chicken & What

on December 9.

The casual fried chicken restaurant is located in the KornerStore in West Duluth. You can’t miss that. Check out the quirky “chicken bath” murals on the exterior of the building.

Chicken & What marks the restaurant group’s first venture outside of Lincoln Park, adding to the recent growth that has been lifting the area since the loss of Kmart in 2018. If successful, there is potential for the new Chickens to become a KornerStore chain.

Club One Under recently opened

in the former Rex nightclub space in Fitger’s Complex. Its launch was a big hit among News Tribune readers.

The 6,000-square-foot sports bar features five fields of Full Swing golf simulator systems—the same kind you might find in the homes of Tiger Woods and Jon Rahm.

Brothers and co-owners Mike and Derek Locker are no strangers to business. Their father, John Locker, was an inventor and business owner in Duluth.

Club One Under joins a handful of businesses owned by the Locker brothers, including Locker Innovations. They are also partners in Signature Golf Products, where innovators can pitch their product ideas during the Golf Pitch Challenge, similar in concept to the TV series “Shark Tank.”

Brix owners Tiegen and Keenan Brickson purchased properties in two historic Duluth buildings with the intention of offering unique retreats for large groups.

The couple’s newly completed Airbnb venture

is located in the former Marshall Wells Hardware Co. warehouse building. at the Canal Park gate.

The interior of L’Etoile du Nord gives a nod to local history with enlarged black and white photographs across the walls in each bedroom and a giant mural of the Aerial Lift Bridge in the living room. They also started managing two other properties in the same building.

In late 2023, the Bricksons also purchased the entire third floor of another nearby Marshall Wells building, 345 Canal Park Drive, next to Cold Stone Creamery and above the I Love Duluth store. They are seeking to convert former commercial office space into two more Airbnb rentals in the tourist district.

A historic Lincoln Park building was saved from a vacant lot when Duluthian

DeBora Rachelle and her son Charles Bernick III bought it in September.

The couple has big plans to turn the 33,000-square-foot former Anderson Furniture building into a warehouse and retail center for Rachelle’s new travel case company, Packwrite LLC, with additional space for retail or office tenants, vacation rentals, apartments and a restaurant.

Rachelle first started in the formalwear industry and later moved into bedding before developing a packing cube system that is currently in prototype stage.

Minnesota’s new law, which will take effect on January 1, 2026,

has small business owners worried about what it will mean for their bottom line.

Paid time off in Minnesota provides job protection and partial wage compensation to skilled workers in any size business who may need to take up to 12 weeks of leave to care for themselves or a family member. The total limit is 20 covered weeks per year.

The program will be paid for from insurance premiums equally by employers and their employees.

As of December 2023, more than 100 Minnesota Paid Leave meetings have been held across the state, a new division of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development that collected information during its rulemaking phase. The final draft rules are now available.

Local representatives in the hotel, restaurant and attraction industry

shared their insights during a local tourism update last August,

which provided a gloomy outlook for the previous quarter.

Bad weather affected outdoor dining sales in May and June 2024. Although 2022 and 2023 were good for restaurant footfall, owners saw increased costs with “marginally rising” food, labor and tax costs.

Local attractions were also hit by the weather, with attendance down 3% on the previous year, as well as a drop in donations and retail sales.

Local hotels reported that 2024 delivered inconsistent, low or flat occupancy rates. With summer typically serving as Duluth’s busiest season in terms of tourism, people in the hotel industry described July as “horrendous.”

This lengthy, in-depth investigative piece profiling the historic Lutsen Cabin and its owner, Bryce Campbell, was of great interest to our readers. A fire destroyed the state’s oldest operating resort on February 6, 2024, which Campbell immediately vowed to rebuild.

However, according to Minnesota state and Cook County public records, Campbell faced delinquent Minnesota liquor taxes, state unauthorized work charges, outstanding fire code violations and numerous lawsuits in Minnesota District Court from contractors, employees and property owners who allege were never paid.

While investigators continue to search for the cause of the Lutsen Lodge fire, Campbell has since

lost control of Superior Shores

the Two Harbors resort he bought with his late mother in 2019 for $14.5 million.