At 1809 Plymouth Road, across from Ridgedale Center, a Wells Fargo branch site has been rebuilt as a Shake Shack. It opened Oct. 21 and runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Its neighbor on the same pad is a Chipotle that opened at the end of July, according to Bring Me The News. Both are counters. You order, you eat and the table turns over.
Down the road at 12241 Wayzata Blvd., Redstone American Grill closed in September after 27 years around Ridgedale. Bring Me The News' September roundup reported the closing. Redstone was a full-service grill, and its operator says parking was the problem.
Put those two addresses together and you can see what's changing around Ridgedale. For years Minnetonka has been building on the mall's surface parking. What goes up on that land is a park, apartments or a pad-site counter. The full sit-down dinner near Ridgedale now mostly happens inside the mall, and two of those dining rooms are inside department stores.
Fifty years of asphalt, and the plan to build on it
Ridgedale Center opened in 1975. In the city's 2025 commercial market study it was a 1,144,973-square-foot regional mall with a 2.6% vacancy rate, about 30,000 square feet empty. The mall has stayed full, so the change has happened outside it, on the parking lots.
The city has worked toward that for a long time. Here's how it went:
- 2018. The Sun Sailor reported that the City Council was looking at a vision for Ridgedale. It added housing and restaurants, made streets better for walking and biking, and replaced surface parking with underground or structured parking over time.
- 2022 to summer 2023. The city built Ridgedale Commons, its first urban park, on two acres of the mall's parking lot. It cost $8.5 million. The park has a stage, a lawn, a water feature, a 1,200-square-foot building with year-round restrooms and infrastructure for a future skating rink, according to Finance & Commerce.
- 2025. The city's market study listed the infill already around the mall. It named Avidor apartments to the west, retail and restaurant pad sites to the west and northwest, iFly Minneapolis to the northwest and the Minnetonka Farmers Market to the southwest.
- 2026. Chipotle and Shake Shack opened on the Plymouth Road pad, and Redstone closed.
Kelly O'Dea, Minnetonka's recreation director, described the Commons to Finance & Commerce as a place "where we turned a parking lot into a pretty cool urban park." That line could describe the whole district.
What the parking lot cost Redstone
Redstone opened near Ridgedale in 1999 at a different location and spent 27 years in the area across two sites. Its operations director, Joe Fresta, explained the decision to Bring Me The News:
"We had every intention of staying in Minnetonka long-term, but parking continues to be a challenge for our guests."
The same story cites the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, which reported that parking around Ridgedale has gotten harder over the past nine years as development took lot space and surface parking moved into structures. That is the 2018 plan doing what it set out to do, and it costs most at a sit-down restaurant, where every table needs a car parked for the whole meal.
Redstone still runs restaurants in Eden Prairie and Maple Grove, and staff were offered positions with the same hours at those two locations. If Redstone was your usual table, Maple Grove and Eden Prairie are now the closest.
What the new pads are built for
The Plymouth Road pad shows what the redevelopment tends to produce. The Business Journal reported plans for Chipotle and Shake Shack on a Ridgedale outlot in October 2024, and both are open now. Bring Me The News' October roundup listed the Minnetonka Shake Shack among the month's openings. The chain has a habit of locating near malls. Its other Twin Cities locations are within or near Mall of America, Southdale, the Shoppes at Arbor Lakes and Rosedale.
A counter suits the new parking setup, because its guests eat and leave quickly and can walk over from a garage, an apartment building or the park.
Ichigo Cafe is another Minnetonka counter from this fall. It serves Tokyo-style crepes and other Japanese sweets at 10988 Cedar Lake Road S. The Star Tribune's restaurant roll call says it opened Oct. 1 as a second location alongside its Eat Street Crossing shop in Minneapolis.
The sit-down tables are inside now
For a full dinner near Ridgedale with a server and a check, you'll be eating inside the mall. Ridgedale Center's directory lists these sit-down rooms:
| Restaurant | Where it sits |
|---|---|
| Big Bowl | Level 2, near Macy's |
| The Tavern Grill Restaurant+bar | Level 2, near Macy's |
| The Social Kitchen & Libations | Inside Macy's |
| Ruscello | Inside Nordstrom |
| The Cheesecake Factory | Level 2, near Dick's |
| Ichiddo Ramen and Sushi | Level 1 |
Three of these six are inside or right next to Macy's, and Ruscello is inside Nordstrom. These restaurants use the mall's own parking, so a lost lot outside doesn't take away their customers the way it did Redstone's. For counter food inside the mall, the dining page lists Café Zupas, Leeann Chin, Caribou Coffee and Häagen-Dazs, among others.
Big Bowl is also a holiday regular. The Star Tribune's 2025 holiday dining guide listed its Minnetonka location as open on Christmas Eve last year from 11:15 a.m. to 8 p.m.
December happens on the same ground
The mall's holiday season is starting, and most of it happens at Center Court:
- Santa photos. Santa is booking photo appointments through the mall's partner site, and walk-ups are welcome daily until closing.
- Pet Night with Santa. Level 1, Center Court, 4 to 7 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays from Nov. 23 through Dec. 15, according to Ridgedale Center.
- Christmas Corner. A seasonal shop for ornaments, décor and gifts on Level 2, Center Court.
- Mall hours. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, and the mall advertises expanded holiday hours.
The city's own Winter Market is 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12, at the Minnetonka Community Center, 14600 Minnetonka Blvd.
Ridgedale Commons, on the old parking lot, is now home to the Minnetonka Farmers Market. Last year it also marked the start of winter. On Dec. 6, 2025, the city held Light Up the Commons at 12590 Ridgedale Drive. The evening had a glow-stick and candy hunt at 5 p.m., then the park lighting and a DJ, with cocoa, a food truck and a fire performer until 6.
Ridgedale's evenings now play out on that two-acre lawn, at the Plymouth Road counters and in the dining rooms inside Macy's and Nordstrom.
If you own a condo or home near Ridgedale, changes like Ridgedale Commons and the Plymouth Road pads affect what's within walking distance of your door. Isaac Kuehn watches projects like these for clients across Minneapolis and the first-ring suburbs. Get your free Minneapolis Condo & Loft Guide to see how amenities and parking play into the value of a building.
