Monday, June 12, 2006

Newsbits: Dakota Cafe, mysterious construction site, Sam's Club strip mall

I noticed a couple of business-related things around town this weekend so I thought I would put together a quick Newsbits about them.

•It looks like Columbia Mall's new food court, the Dakota Cafe, has lost a tenant. Little Caesar's appears to have vacated their spot. It's too bad to see a restaurant leave the food court so soon. There are still a few empty spots in the food court and now this is another spot that the mall will have to fill. The mall initially had trouble filling the food court, but then they seemed to be doing quite well with finding tenants. However, the food court has not gained any new restaurants in quite a while and now they have lost one. Word is that Taco Del Mar is interested in the food court so hopefully something happens with that restaurant soon. Little Caesar's was operated by the Conneran family of Grand Forks who own and operate many restaurant franchises throughout town. In the Dakota Cafe, the Conneran's operate every restaurant except for Magic Chopstix. Let's hope their other food court ventures are going over better than Little Caesar's. Check out my recent poll about what readers want to see in the mall's food court.

•I'm really curious what is under construction on 30th Avenue South near all of the hotels west of Columbia Mall. I hear that the property is owned by Art Greenberg. The site doesn't have the best visibility from major roads so I'm not sure if we can expect anything too exciting, but I guess we'll have to wait and find out. Does anybody have any information regarding this building site?

•There is a new GameStop coming to the strip mall in front of Sam's Club. I'm not sure what this means for the exisiting GameStop in the strip mall in front of Target. Also, I have heard talk of a liquor store setting up shop in the Sam's Club strip mall.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that the location you are wondering about is going to be Express Personnel and other Greenberg "things", just hearsay though...

Anonymous said...

Gamestop has either planned to open another location in GF or relocate since the strip mall in front of sam club was built, because I worked on the construction of it and the prints had "Gamestop" along with all the other tenants.

Rick said...

If Gamestop would build another location in the mall in front of Sam's that would be too close, in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Like I have said all along. The mall is does not do enought volume to have the cafe there. We are not Fargo! I wouldn't be shocked if the stores switch alot over the years.

Jeni.Ann said...

In regards to the GameStop rumor, I decided to get some info on it and actually asked someone in the current store for information.

The new GameStop in front of Sam's Club will be a second location, technically a third location for the total company, since GameStop and Software Etc. are sister companies. The new GameStop, though, according to the clerk, will be more of a DVD/movie store than a game store, a replacement for the now-closed Suncoast Video. He stated that there will be video games and systems for sale there as well, but the primary business function will be movies.

GrandForksGuy said...

Good work, Jeni! I believe that Minot also has two GameStop stores...at least I think so. That's interesting that this will be more of a DVD store. Will it be a rental store or a place where you actually purchase the movies?

I would like to see a new dvd rental store on 32nd Avenue. I would be very happy with a second Hollywood Video.