South Minneapolis restaurant owners have seen big changes

Sophal Nhep and his wife, Tevy, Cambodian war refugees from the 1970s, have owned and operated the Best Steak & Gyros House for 22 years in a small strip mall at the once crime-ravaged corner of E. Franklin and Chicago Avenues in south Minneapolis.

They remember bullets and fists flying, muggings, drunks and drug sales that have diminished markedly over the years.

The dive bars and liquor stores, partly shut down by neighbors in the 1990s, have given way to more housing and commerce. And less crime.

"It's gotten better little by little," Sophal Nhep said recently before his rainbow coalition of customers started to arrive for the lunch rush. "It was all new to us back in 1992. The liquor stores, the drunks, the gangs, the violence, the police calls. We treat everyone with respect, but it was tough."

A decade ago, the Nheps were part of an immigrant-investor group that bought Chicago Crossings, where their restaurant is located, for about $1 million from nonprofit developer Project for Pride in Living (PPL). Sophal and the other investors recently sold the center to Baraka Plaza, a Somali-led development group, for $2.4 million.

That group plans to propose a residential-commercial complex, including an 80-unit apartment building and townhouses, that would keep some of the existing strip mall and expand to several adjacent vacant lots, according to Saleban Garbiye, a member of the Somali group, and Don Gerberding, their developer at Master Properties.

The city recently gave Baraka exclusive development rights to five city-owned lots for up to 24 months as the group prepares a development plan, according to the Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development. The department estimates the project value at $11 million to $14 million based on early discussions with Baraka.

The PPL investment in Chicago Crossings, which included several investors and banks, ended up losing money in the 2004 sale to the Cambodian group. Regardless, it helped trigger a slow turnaround that has included the nearby Ancient Trader's Market, an Aldi grocery store, the Franklin Street Bakery, and Robert Beck wholesale florist.

In all, the revival has attracted a few dozen small restaurants, art galleries, stores, services, and a new PPL headquarters and service center in a once-abandoned building. The city and Hennepin County overhauled the street and remodeled the historic Franklin Avenue library, where generations of immigrants learned English and studied for citizenship tests.

The Phillips neighborhood around E. Franklin has been an immigrant haven since Swedes and Norwegians started settling there a century ago.

Sopahl, 62, and Tevy, 56, who survived the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1970s, have benefited from the increased commerce and property values. They made about $100,000 on their share of the Chicago Crossings sale. That was a well-earned gain. Their combined take from the restaurant always was less than $50,000 annually, they said.

"We also would bring some leftover food home to eat," Tevy Nhep quipped, as she unloaded groceries from Aldi to cook for lunch at Best Steak.

"We've had to work our butts off," said Sophal Nhep, who also worked in factories and other restaurants before buying his own place. "And we're still here, six days a week."

Nearing retirement age, the couple also would be open to selling their business as part of the redevelopment and expansion of Chicago Crossings.

Joe Selvaggio, hanging around E. Franklin for 45 years, is a regular at Best Steak. He is the retired founder of PPL, a nonprofit housing developer, manager and job-training business that was founded in 1972. He is pleased that PPL's little development in 1992 on an abandoned lot has turned into a profitable investment for the Nheps and their partners. And his eyes light up with the promise of even more development, jobs and housing at the intersection through the Baraka proposal.

"This inner-city stuff takes a long time to turn around," said Selvaggio, 77. "But it's worth it. I think its self-evident that people who are doing business, working, shopping aren't doing drugs or robbing each other. Commerce beats crime. In the 1970s it was more bars and people hanging out on E. Franklin. It was getting like 'Skid Row.' I have wanted to revitalize it for 40 years. It shouldn't have taken that long. A lot of people have been involved, including the Nheps. There's a critical mass of business there. It's not gentrification. It's businesses that people in the neighborhood can use. "