Walk the 700 and 800 blocks of Washington Avenue North this summer and you'll see brown paper taped over one set of windows, a hand-lettered sign in another, and a storefront that has sat empty since Billy Tserenbat first walked through it back in 2018 finally showing signs of a build-out. Three restaurants on the same short stretch of sidewalk are changing hands or changing identity within the same twelve months, and none of them are being replaced with more of the same. That's the part worth sitting with if you eat in this neighborhood regularly. The North Loop isn't losing a restaurant here and gaining one there. It's watching its most established block trade polish for volume, on purpose, and the people making that trade are telling you exactly why.
Thirteen Years, One Closing Notice
Borough served its last plate on June 27 after thirteen years at 730 North Washington Avenue. It opened in January 2013 to enough acclaim that Bon Appétit named it one of the fifty best new restaurants in the country that year, and it spent the next decade as something like a finishing school for Twin Cities kitchens. Joe Rolle worked the line here before opening his own restaurant, Dario, a few blocks away in the T3 building. Karyn Tomlinson passed through as pastry chef before going on to open Myriel. Mike DeCamp came on to run the kitchen in 2016 and is now a partner at Jester Concepts, the company that owns the space.
Jester's founder, Brent Frederick, didn't frame the closure as a failure. He framed it as a read on where the neighborhood's appetite has actually moved.
"People's mindset has changed a little bit. Maybe small, refined dishes aren't what people are looking for anymore."
That's not a throwaway line. It's the reason the space isn't becoming another tasting-menu restaurant. It's becoming a full-service Revival, the fried chicken and Southern comfort food concept that Jester bought the rights to after its previous owners abruptly closed all four Twin Cities locations in January 2025. Frederick has known those owners, Thomas Boemer and Nick Rancone, for years, and the deal covered the name, the recipes, and even the food truck. The new Revival is targeting a September 2026 opening in the remodeled Borough space, and the redesign says as much as the menu does: Borough's gold-embellished mirrors and white subway tile are being replaced with beadboard and sunflower wallpaper, with design work led by Studio Grey in Minneapolis. Cozy booths are going in. It will be full service, with a full bar, and it will include the Revival burger alongside the fried chicken.
That last detail matters more than it sounds. One floor down, in the basement space that opened months after Borough back in 2013, Parlour has spent over a decade building a cult following around its off-menu smashed burger, the one that's credited with kicking off the current wave of smash burgers across the metro. Parlour closed briefly for its own refresh, from June 28 through July 5, and reopened July 6 with the same burger and cocktails locals already know. Once Revival opens this fall, the building will offer two different burgers stacked on top of each other, an upstairs-downstairs pairing Jester is already calling the shortest burger crawl in the neighborhood.
What's Actually True Right Now
If your dinner plans touch this block before winter, here's where things stand as of this August:
- Borough is closed for good. The space is under renovation.
- Parlour reopened July 6 with its usual menu, unaffected by what happens upstairs.
- Revival is targeting a September 2026 opening in the old Borough space, though Jester hasn't locked in an exact date.
- The TractorWorks annex between Bar La Grassa/St. Pierre and the Borough building is under new ownership but still unnamed, with build-out ongoing.
- Bar La Grassa and St. Pierre, the anchors on the other side of that annex, aren't part of any of this. They're the stable reference point on a block that's otherwise in motion.
The Annex That Waited Eight Years
The most telling piece of this isn't the Borough-to-Revival swap. It's what's finally happening in the 10,000-square-foot space wedged into the TractorWorks complex, set back from the street between Bar La Grassa and the Borough building. Billy Tserenbat, who owns Billy Sushi a few doors down, first toured that space in 2018. It sat vacant for years while he ran other restaurants and raised a young family. Last year he partnered with Marty Collins, co-owner of NOLO's Kitchen, and the two bought the space outright.
What they're building isn't a quiet neighborhood restaurant. Tserenbat has described the concept as an homage to two long-gone Minneapolis nightlife institutions, Chino Latino and Bellanotte, the kind of restaurants people still tell stories about years after they closed.
"Everyone had a good story about Chino Latino, and everyone had a good story about Bellanotte," Tserenbat said when the plans were announced. The menu will blend Asian, Latin, and American influences, and the goal is volume and energy rather than restraint. An original spring 2026 opening target has slipped, and as of this summer the restaurant still doesn't have a public name. But the direction is clear, and it lines up with what's happening at 730 North Washington one door down: a decade-old vacant space isn't being filled with another refined small-plates concept. It's being filled with something built to be loud and busy on a Friday night.
Two doors matter here because they're not a coincidence. Frederick's comment about small, refined dishes losing their pull wasn't just an explanation for one restaurant closing. It's the same logic playing out in the space next door, made by an entirely different set of owners who've never worked together.
The Rest of the Block Is Filling In Around the Same Idea
This isn't limited to the two highest-profile spaces. A few blocks away, in the former Guacaya Bistreaux space, chefs Warren Seta and Jess Kelley are opening a second location of Ono Hawaiian Plates, expanding from their original spot in the United Noodles building in Seward, which they're keeping open. Ono is known for kalbi ribs, whole fried snapper, and lumpianadas, the Filipino version of an empanada. It's another format built around generous, shareable plates rather than a tasting menu's careful portioning.
And at 208 North 1st Street, Parcelle is opening its second location less than a mile from its original spot in Northeast Minneapolis. It's a California-inspired organic cafe, a daytime format rather than a dinner destination, but it's one more sign that the businesses moving into the North Loop this year are choosing formats built around everyday frequency rather than special-occasion dining.
None of this means the North Loop is becoming less interesting to eat in. If anything, a neighborhood that spent over a decade defined by one or two flagship tasting-menu restaurants is now getting several distinct reasons to show up on a Tuesday, not just a night you've been planning for weeks. What's changing is the kind of ambition on display. Borough's ambition was refinement. What's replacing it, from the fried chicken upstairs to the party restaurant next door to the poke bowls a few blocks over, is built around being the place people default to, not the place they save for.
If you've lived in the North Loop for a while, you already knew Borough was closing. You probably knew something was eventually going into that annex Tserenbat has been sitting on for years. What connects them, the fact that this entire stretch of Washington Avenue is trading polish for volume in the same twelve-month window, and that the people making those bets are saying so out loud, is the part that doesn't show up if you're only tracking one restaurant at a time.
Keep an eye on this block through the fall. The upstairs-downstairs burger crawl alone is reason enough to pay attention once Revival opens, and whatever finally emerges from that TractorWorks space after eight years of sitting empty is going to be worth a look regardless of what it's called.
If you're already living the North Loop life and ever find yourself curious about what your building or your block is actually worth in a market like this one, Isaac Kuehn tracks the neighborhood as closely as its restaurant openings. Get your free Minneapolis Condo & Loft Guide to see how the details you notice on your daily walk connect to what's happening in the market around you.
