It's a busy time on the biz front, with expansion and acquisitions making headlines in a month when many expected less positive news.
The biggest news involves Surdyk's, which finally nailed down an agreement to have an outlet at the airport. Jim Surdyk told me last September that even though airport officials approached him rather than vice versa, the process was very complicated: a 75-page lease, "pink screws in certain places instead of silver ones, stuff you wouldn't believe." But the Shea-designed space will open in the large shopping concourse, probably in May. There will be a bar and some tables, plus more seating out in the concourse. On-premise items will include sandwiches, cheeses (including, perhaps, Bento boxes with olives and salami), flights of wine, beer and booze. Customers also can buy bottles of wine and cigars to carry onboard their flight. "They say I have to tell people they can't drink the wine on the airplane," Surdyk said Wednesday with a chuckle. "They originally said I could sell hard liquor by the bottle, but then they squelched that deal." Also adding a second wine outlet this spring will be Kowalski's Markets. A wine shop in front of the Woodbury grocery outlet will be slightly larger than the current space in Eagan, said manager Brian Mallie. Construction has started in Woodbury, where Mallie will oversee the opening while Dave Burggraaff will take over day-to-day operations in Eagan. Having savvy wine pros such as Burggraaff is part of the overall gameplan, Mallie said Wednesday afternoon. "We want to have industry professionals at every store. Customer service and recommendations and having tasted everything here is germane to everything we're trying to do." The long-range plan is for several Kowalski's stores to have adjacent wine shops. Perhaps the most ambitious move of all came from my pal Joe Heron, whose locally based Crispin Cider Company just acquired Fox Barrel Cider. Fox Barrel bottlings include an old-school apple cider, what Heron calls "an incredible pear cider, super-perfumed" and a black-currant cider. Crispin's clear beverages are "more of a modern interpretation of cider," Heron said, "whereas Fox Barrel hits a sweet spot for a lot of people who are more traditional." Fox Barrel ciders will debut in this market soon, and both brands will be expanding into points west (Texas, Arizona) and east (Virginia, New Jersey). Heron also is about to launch a new Crispin product, "the Saint," which he said would be the world's first cider to use Trappist beer yeasts. But he sounded even more excited about one of Fox Barrel's offerings. "Pear is a global cider phenomenon right now," he said, adding, in his trademark exuberant fashion "we've got some really cool [stuff] going now."
