DULUTH — There never seems to be a shortage of topics to cover for the business beat at the News Tribune.
Having written 190 articles over the past year, I’ve always been thoroughly intrigued to tell the stories of business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs and community leaders in the Northland.
My hope is that readers have been, too.
For a coverage area spanning most of Northeastern Minnesota and beyond, our modest team of reporters, editors and visual artists work hard to bring these stories to life for our audience.
Whether it was a new restaurant opening, entrepreneurial dreams becoming a reality, tourism trends or a downright tragedy — the News Tribune had it covered.
Here’s a recap of the most-read articles from the business beat in 2024.
Situated about 20 minutes outside of Duluth,
a little diner/drive-in on the south end of Island Lake
received lots of attention as the lease changed hands from one well-known Duluth restaurateur to another.
Clint Austin / File / Duluth Media Group
The Smiling Loon Restaurant & Bar and Jack Frosty Drive In took over the lease for the space that was home to Lake Effect Restaurant & Bar and Lake Ave Drive-In for a little over a year.
Owner Robert Giuliani brought an elevated casual American cuisine to the cabin community he frequented as a child, reinventing yet again the former Porky’s Drive-In and Boondocks Saloon and Grill location. The Island Lake community continued its growth with the addition of a nearby convenience store, another property owned by Midlife Investment Group.
It will be exciting to see what Robert Giuliani, the brother of Clyde Iron Works owner Alessandro Giuliani and uncle to Canal Park’s Chachos Taqueria owner Alex Giuliani, does next. Here’s a hint: He may have changed the business direction of
downtown.
It’s no secret that housing is in short supply in Duluth.
Transforming the Historic Old Central High School
into 122 mixed-residential units was one step toward a solution.
Jed Carlson / File / Duluth Media Group
The $34.9 million Zenith DCHS project was financed using private and government funding sources, including tax increment financing, historical tax credits and opportunity zone incentives.
At over 158,000 square feet and four stories, the building has approximately 100 floorplans — each providing hints from its past with chalkboard walls, gym flooring and closets made of repurposed vaults.
According to Saturday Properties, the owner, half of the rental applicants are from outside the Duluth area, largely relocating to work for employers like Essentia and Cirrus Aircraft.
A dream over a decade in the making,
Duluth Whiskey Project is joining the up-and-coming Lincoln Park Craft District.
Owner and CEO Kevin Evans first became involved in Duluth’s distilling scene following the passage of the “Surly Bill,” which made licensing more affordable and enabled breweries to sell alcohol where it is made.
Wyatt Buckner / File / Duluth Media Group
For years, Evans worked closely with the Vikre family until he was ready to branch out with a brick-and-mortar location of his own. The 3,500-square-foot cocktail room and lounge at 2224 W. Superior St. is anticipated to open soon.
Duluth Grill Family of Restaurants has given Chick-fil-A a run for its money with
the recent opening of Chicken & What
on Dec. 9.
The fast-casual fried chicken restaurant is located within the KornerStore in West Duluth. You can’t miss it. Just look for the quirky tongue-in-cheek murals depicting a “chicken spa” on the building’s exterior.
Wyatt Buckner / File / Duluth Media Group
Chicken & What marks the restaurant group’s first venture outside of Lincoln Park, adding to the recent growth uplifting the area following the loss of Kmart in 2018. If successful, there’s potential for the new chicken shack to become a KornerStore chain.
Club One Under recently opened
in the former Rex Nightclub space at the Fitger’s Complex. Its introduction was a big hit among News Tribune’s readers.
The 6,000-square-foot sports bar features five bays of Full Swing golf simulator systems — the same kind you can find in the homes of Tiger Woods and Jon Rahm.
Wyatt Buckner / File / Duluth Media Group
Brothers and co-owners Mike and Derek Locker are no strangers to entrepreneurship. Their father, John Locker, was an inventor and business owner in Duluth.
Club One Under adds to the handful of businesses owned by the Locker brothers, including Locker Innovations. They are also partners in Signature Golf Products, where innovators can pitch their product ideas during the Golf Pitch Challenge, with a similar concept to the “Shark Tank” TV series.
The Brix owners Tiegen and Keenan Brickson bought properties in two historic Duluth buildings intending to offer unique stays for large groups.
The couple’s newly completed Airbnb venture
is located in the former Marshall Wells Hardware Co. warehouse building at the gateway of Canal Park.
Jed Carlson / File / Duluth Media Group
L’Etoile du Nord’s interior gives a nod to local history with enlarged black-and-white photographs spanning the walls in each bedroom and a giant mural of the Aerial Lift Bridge in the living room. They’ve also begun managing two other properties within the same building.
In late 2023, the Bricksons also bought the entire third floor of another nearby Marshall Wells building, 345 Canal Park Drive, next to Cold Stone Creamery and above the I Love Duluth store. They aspire to transform the former commercial office space into two more Airbnb rentals in the tourist district.
A historic Lincoln Park building was saved from vacancy when Duluthian
DeBora Rachelle and her son, Charles Bernick III, purchased it in September.
Jed Carlson / File / Duluth Media Group
The duo has big plans for the 33,000-square-foot former Anderson Furniture building to become a warehouse and retail center for Rachelle’s new travel suitcase company, Packwrite LLC, with additional space for retail or office tenants, vacation rentals, condos and a restaurant.
Rachelle first got her start in the formal dresswear industry, and later transitioned to bedding linens before developing a packing cube system, which is currently in the prototype stage.
A new Minnesota law, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2026,
has small-business owners concerned about what it will mean for their bottom line.
Minnesota Paid Leave provides job protections and partial wage replacement to qualifying workers at any size business who may need to take up to 12 weeks of leave to care for themselves or a family member. The overall cap is 20 weeks covered per year.
Brielle Bredsten / File / Duluth Media Group
The program will be paid for by premiums equally contributed by employers and their employees.
Over 100 engagement sessions have been held across the state since December 2023 as Minnesota Paid Leave, a new division of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, gathered input during its rulemaking phase. A final draft of the rules is now available.
Local representatives in the hotel, restaurant and attractions industries
shared their insights during a local tourism update last August,
which provided a grim outlook for the previous quarter.
Poor weather impacted outdoor dining sales in May and June of 2024. Although 2022 and 2023 were good for restaurant attendance, owners saw increased expenses with the “skyrocketing” costs of food, labor wages and taxes.
Brielle Bredsten / File / Duluth Media Group
Local attractions also took a hit due to the weather, with 3% lower attendance than the previous year, as well as a decline in donations and retail sales.
Local hotels reported that 2024 has yielded inconsistent, low or flat occupancy rates. With summer typically serving as Duluth’s busiest season in terms of tourism, those in the hotel industry described July as “awful.”
By far, this lengthy, in-depth investigative piece profiling the historic Lutsen Lodge and its owner, Bryce Campbell, was of high interest to our readers. A fire destroyed the state’s oldest operating resort Feb. 6, 2024, which Campbell promptly vowed to rebuild.
Gary Meader / File / Duluth Media Group
However, according to public records from the State of Minnesota and Cook County, Campbell was facing Minnesota liquor tax delinquencies, state fees for unpermitted work, unresolved fire code violations and multiple lawsuits in Minnesota District Court from contractors, employees and property owners who say they were never paid.
While investigators continue to look into the cause of the Lutsen Lodge fire, Campbell has since
lost control of Superior Shores
, a Two Harbors resort he purchased for $14.5 million with his late mother in 2019.
