Restaurants Posts

Best Duluth Restaurant Poll

In a previous poll, PDD readers made it clear there are four restaurants in the Duluth area worthy of consideration for the distinction of “Best Restaurant.” They are: Duluth Grill, Lake Avenue Restaurant and Bar, New Scenic Café and Zeitgeist Arts Café. So now it’s time to pick a winner.

What is the best restaurant in the Duluth area?

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This poll is now closed. The results were:

New Scenic Café — 30.7 percent
Zeitgeist Arts Café — 28.7 percent
Duluth Grill — 25.7 percent
Lake Avenue Restaurant — 14.9 percent

PDD’s Best Restaurant Poll

Through the highly scientific method of asking people what they think, we developed a list of 38 nominees for Best Restaurant in the Duluth area. This poll whittles the list down to manageable list of finalists.

What is the best restaurant in the Duluth area?

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This poll is now closed. The four top restaurants in alphabetical order, are:

Duluth Grill
Lake Avenue Restaurant and Bar
New Scenic Café
Zeitgeist Arts Café

What is the best restaurant in the Duluth area? We’re working our way up to a poll.

Next in PDD’s series of restaurant awards is probably the one we should have started with — the grand champion: the best restaurant of them all. We’ll begin this process by taking nominations in the comments to this post.

The criteria is somewhat up to you. In our previous polls there were a limited number of restaurants that could be considered “new” or “breakfast” restaurants, but virtually any restaurant in the territory is eligible to be considered “best.” And whatever makes it “best” is certainly subjective.

We expect people will lean toward fancier operations and consider money no object on this one, but if you truly feel the best restaurant in town is a cheap pancake house or burger joint, we’ll respect that. However, if you nominate a fast-food chain we’ll tell you right now it won’t be on the ballot. So here it is right up front we so can all get a good laugh: “I nominate the West Duluth KFC.” Oh, ha ha ha. Very funny.

Also, we know some of you snobs are dying to rant about how Duluth doesn’t really have any good restaurants because your advanced taste buds can barely survive outside of New York or Marrakech. Shut up.

And, of course, we must define our territory: Any restaurant in Duluth or 10 miles of its border is eligible. So establishments in Superior, Hermantown, Proctor and the various bordering townships all qualify; Two Harbors and Cloquet are out of bounds.

With all that out of the way, let’s begin. Once the nomination list reaches a satisfactory conclusion, a poll will be posted.

Mean Beans Espresso & Creams

I just moved into the Chester Area and have noticed that Mean Beans hasn’t been open for the past couple of days. Does anyone know if they have closed the doors for good?

RJ’s Coffee Den in West Duluth

RJ's Coffee Den

RJ’s Coffee Den reopened at a new location, 330 N. 57th Ave. W., just shy of a month ago. The Den was formerly located in Proctor, and closed in October 2011. The new owner, Renea Johnson, has hopes to keep the business alive having remodeled the former Erbert & Gerbert’s sandwich shop next to the Kom-on-Inn Bar.

Shorty’s Pizza & Smoked Meat

A new restaurant on Tower Avenue in Superior has been generating some new energy along a strip that is struggling through major road reconstruction.

Perfect New Restaurant: Pak’s Green Corner

West Duluth had never seen the likes of schnitzel or poutine, much less a pad thai burrito, until Pak Williams converted the former China Station restaurant into Pak’s Green Corner in summer 2012. The friendly and funky little Asian-fusion joint — located across the avenue from a long-shuttered auto lube — was the clear-cut winner of Perfect Duluth Day’s Best New Restaurant poll.

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Above: Pak Williams with the fancy Perfect New Restaurant plaque, flanked by cook Hieng Wilaiphan (left) and waitress Vicki Boynton (right).

Pak’s got off to a rocky start following its opening day, when word of the new restaurant leaked out and a positive recommendation on PDD led to a full-house showing up for lunch on day two. With one server out sick and no one around with a strong command of how the cash register or credit-card machine worked, it was a rough day to say the least.

Now, with a full year of working out the kinks behind it, Pak’s Green Corner can claim the title of Duluth’s Perfect New Restaurant, having captured 51.9 percent of the vote. Honorable mentions go out to Tycoons Alehouse and Eatery (second place, 32.5 percent) and 7 West Tap House (third place, 15.6 percent).

PDD Awards Index

City’s 58th Street Diner in South Superior

City’s 58th Street Diner is bringing the 1950s back to South Superior. With its classic malt-shop feel and reasonable prices, it’s like taking a step back in time.

Poll: Best New Restaurant in Duluth

A previous poll on PDD narrowed the choices from a baker’s dozen down to the three best new restaurants in the Duluth area — Pak’s Green Corner, 7 West Tap House and Tycoons Alehouse. Now it’s time to determine the champion, so we ask …

What is the best new restaurant in the Duluth area?

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This poll is now closed. The results were …

Pak’s Green Corner – 51.9 percent
Tycoons Alehouse and Eatery – 32.5 percent
7 West Tap House – 15.6 percent

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Poll: Best New Restaurant

After some careful analysis, we developed a list of nominees for Best New Restaurant in the Duluth area. Now we ask you to pick your favorite.

What is the best new restaurant in the Duluth area?

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This poll is now closed. The three top finishers, in alphabetical order, were:

Pak’s Green Corner
7 West Tap House
Tycoons Alehouse & Eatery

Pirate Pizza

There’s a new covert pizza alternative operating out of a secret location on Goat Hill here in Duluth. Pirate Pizza delivers home made pizza from a home made oven with largely local ingredients to your door via a motorbike that once, according to the pirates, “used to run contraband around the Gaza strip.”

Best New Restaurant Nominees

Two weeks ago, we announced Duluth Grill won our poll for Perfect Breakfast Restaurant. Now we’re wondering which restaurant among the newbies you like best.

Before we open the voting, of course, we have to establish a list of nominees. What qualifies as a new restaurant? Well, these are all fairly new:

Shorty’s Pizza and Smoked Meat (Superior; Aug. 2013)
Citys 58th Street Diner (Superior; June 2013)
Canal Park Brewing Co. (Nov. 2012)
7 West Tap House (Oct. 2012)
LeeAnn Chin (Oct. 2012)
Noodles & Company (Sept. 2012)
Pak’s Green Corner (Aug. 2012)
Grizzly’s Wood-fired Grill (Canal Park location; May 2012)
Giant Panda (Feb. 2012)
Oriental House II (Jan. 2012)
Tycoons Alehouse & Eatery (Dec. 2011)
Azteca’s Mexican Grill (Dec. 2011)
Vitta Pizza (June 2011)

What territory are we talking about? Anything in Duluth or 10 miles of its border — so new restaurants in Superior, Hermantown, Proctor and the various bordering townships all qualify; Two Harbors and Cloquet are out of bounds.

So, the only question we’re really asking here: Are there any good nominees we didn’t think to include in the list above?

Perfect Breakfast Restaurant: Duluth Grill

What’s not to like about Duluth Grill? It’s a truck-stop style diner in the friendly West End neighborhood that buys from local farmers and grows some of its vegetables around its parking lot in raised-bed gardens. Owner Tom Hanson and his family have plans to build an urban orchard on the lot as well, with plum trees, black-cap raspberries, lingonberries, choke cherries and other deliciousness. They even get their honey from hives on the roof of the building. Duluth Grill is much more than a simple breakfast joint, but readers of Perfect Duluth Day strongly agreed in a recent poll that it is indeed the best breakfast restaurant in the area.

Is it the Scotch eggs? The breakfast stir fry? The curried polenta skillet? The smoked salmon omelet? The caramel apple French toast? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. It’s all that and more.

That pizza joint on the hill

Oh, my 40-year-old brain! I have been sitting in the same chair all day trying to remember the name of the pizza place that was up on the hill, I think, across from Shakey’s. It had a weird pizza joint / olde tyme candy shoppe / barbershop quartet theme. The logo was a guy with a handlebar mustache wearing a striped red shirt. My brother remembers enormous jaw breakers. Extra credit to anyone who can name the owners. They went to Holy Rosary.

Please help. I may never sleep again.

Chef Yee’s serving it up at Foster’s

Life just got even better on the hill — I discovered Chef Yee’s is serving up his fare Wednesdays and Thursdays at Foster’s on Arrowhead Road. I ate there tonight for the first time. It was delicious, fresh and quick — ah, just like we remembered! Paired well with a Great Lakes Brewing Co. Edmund Fitzgerald tap! Even my hubby who isn’t a Chinese food fan gave it rave reviews. We’ll be back!

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