So I'm in a bar on Franklin Avenue. There's a popcorn machine by the door and a row of black vinyl stools by the bar. The carpet has seen better days -- and a lot of spilled Miller Lite since those days. Nearly all of the other patrons are guys and, truth be told, there are a fair number of beer guts in here. One of my companions has a platter of wings. The other is polishing off a fairly standard club sandwich.

Me, I've got a whole Star Prairie trout, delicately battered and fried with the head still on. It's stuffed with mushrooms and cranberries and served on saffron-yellow rice.

One of these things is not like the other.

If you last set foot in Tracy's Saloon about five years ago, you surely remember the Miller Lite and the wings and the carpet, probably a full ashtray or two. A lot has changed since then -- and I don't mean just the smoking ordinance.

In 2006, Sanjaya Wanduragala heard through the grapevine that Tracy's owners were looking to sell. Owning a bar had been his cubicle-escape dream since his days in business school. So he called his wife, Debra, and friend Robert Erickson. And you know how one joking "Hey, we should buy it" leads to a laughing "Yeah, right," which leads to a Small Business Administration loan application? No? Well, that's what happened.

So the Wanduragalas and Erickson found themselves the owners of a bar that had been serving working-class folks and students in the Seward neighborhood since 1979. They wanted to put their own mark on the place, but, says Sanjaya Wanduragala: "We didn't want to insult or scare away people. This place is going on 31 years and we want to respect the clientele who have been loyal to it. Anything that was a good seller we kept and tried to make better."

So, rather than tossing out the menu and beer list on the first day, they started a quiet evolution. They cut down the long, redundant sandwich list. They switched from frozen burgers to hand-formed patties, bought fresh from the butcher down the street. They switched from a butter-margarine mix to a 100 percent butter coating on the wings.

But one thing he won't be doing is ditching the Totchos -- tater tots buried under nacho toppings. "I naively came in and said, 'What is this? This is an abomination!' But people like it. I'd probably hang from a tree if I got rid of the Totchos."

The area's newest gelato joint is now open in Edina. Pandolfi, opened last week by local "mompreneur" Jeanne Riha, is serving chocolates, candies and Palazzolo's gelato. The shop is located in the alleyway at Edina's 50th and France, at 3904 W. 50th St.