Out with the Mayan, in with the Oriental
I’ve heard the Maya Mexican Restaurant at 220 W. Superior St. has been closed for a few weeks. It was indeed locked up today during the lunch hours.
One block up and one block over, the former Chef Yee’s location has a sign promising a new Oriental restaurant.
They also moved their Central Entrance location to where Tejas was… I say we need Mongolian!
Here’s a link to a recent Business North story about Maya moving it’s Miller Hill location.
Road redesign forces Maya restaurant to relocate
And here’s a link to the PDD post from last summer about Maya opening downtown (and several comments predicting its swift demise).
Looks like Maya is expanding
Is it safe to say we can add PDD as a classifier to the Predictive Model for new businesses in Duluth?
I think a better predictive model would be that anyone who moves into that storefront is doomed.
It’s not surprising after 2-3 failed restaurants in that space. So, who’s next? I give them 2 years at the most.
I’m trying to remember the timeline of restaurants that were occupied 220 West Superior. Anyone want to help?
Maya – June 2010 – May 2011
Grapevine
Taj India
My Buddy’s Place
Burger King
Mr. Nick’s Famous Charburger
Do I have the succession right? Anyone have dates on these or know what was in there before that?
[img]https://ironic1.com/mrnicks.jpeg[/img]
That was also covered in the previous Maya post:
Kudos to Ironic1 for remembering that My Buddy’s Place existed.
Maya Mexican Restaurant — June 2010 to April 2011
Grapevine — 2008 to 2010
Taj India — 2005 to 2008
My Buddy’s Place — 2002 to 2005
Mr. Nick’s — 1998 to 2002
Burger King — 1996 to 1998
Mr. Nick’s Famous Charburger — 1968 to 1996
By the way, My Buddy’s Place was owned by Allan “Chef” Yee, in case we needed another reason to connect 220 W. Superior St. and 319 W. First St.
I’d vote for an East African restaurant (now that I can finally afford to eat out once in awhile), but I really don’t want someone to lose their shirt. What empty storefront would make a great Ethiopian or Somali restaurant?
Didn’t it switch back to Mr. Nick’s for a short time after it was Burger King? I might be imagining that.
I was right. Via the News Tribune Attic:
Mr. Nick’s finally closed in 2002.
I miss My Buddie’s Place. Me and some friends of mine went there weekly for “Ultra Fat-ass” Burgers. Not sure who nicknamed them that but they were good. Gwanto probably remembers.
Thanks, Paul. I can rest easy now.
That place didn’t fare well as a music store, either.
I will never understand why they booted Chef Yee’s out.
The photo posted by Jim M. is from a News Tribune Attic post, available here with more information in case anyone wants to read more:
Dugar Music Co. and the Kasbar, 1961
I am still sad about Taj India. I loved that place.
I loved Taj India too. Best Indian food in Minnesota. Wonder what happened to the chef/owner?
Yes, Taj India rocked.
Yea, Taj Indian was awesome! What happened to the people who ran that place? I miss it soooooo much.
I had checked the Maya twice last week during lunch and no activity. I just walked past this morning and noticed the hours sign has now been removed, as well as all the furniture/fixtures. Adios.
I can’t agree about the Taj, as the three times our lunch group (of 3-5 people) had visited the food was blah/greasy/overcooked, and twice little to no effort was made to replace empty lunch buffet dishes, and twice the waitstaff were inattentive when the restaurant was nearly empty of other patrons. Two were reluctant to revisit at all as they had poor prior experiences on their separate visits as well. Three strikes was enough for me.
Alternately, last weekend I had some really delish Cuban fare in Mpls, and would love to see something like that here, or the African as mentioned, anything ethnic/cultural for sure.
Adam, Chef Yee’s wasn’t booted out. Alan Yee’s wife Amy told me at the time that he had such bad repetitive stress injuries from cooking that he wanted to stop cooking Chinese food for a while. They were opening a place outside of Woodland attached to a bowling alley that served more American food. Does anyone know if that happened?
The bowling alley up in Woodland is/was Ridgeview and a Yee’s was in there for a while at least. Now there is a “branch” of the Twig Bakery franchise in their, but I do not know if Yee is involved. Ate there once this summer — standard American diner fare, reasonably priced as I recall. There was some remodeling to accommodate the new restaurant and I’m not even sure if the bowling alley is still there.
Thank you for the clarification.