Here’s my theory: the brains behind Parasole Restaurant Holdings (owners of Manny’s, Chino Latino, Good Earth, Muffuletta, Figlio, Salut, and Pittsburgh Blue; and originators of Oceanaire and Buca di Beppo) have buried enormous, powerful magnets beneath all their restaurants. Then they abducted the entire citizenry of our state, one by one, and implanted corresponding metal chips in our necks.
Now maybe I’ve just watched too many old episodes of the X-Files. But you have to admit, it would explain a lot.
I was at Pittsburgh Blue, the newest Parasole creation, last Saturday. And it was mobbed: mobbed in that can’t-get-into-the-parking-lot, six-deep-at-the-bar sort of way. The food was good, tasty but definitely not arterial-cleansing. It was mammoth and meaty: salads heaped with bacon, huge hunks of beef, the best yellow corn I’ve ever tasted, though I’d bet my next paycheck it was swimming in heavy cream. People were — literally — eating it up.
The same thing happened when Salut opened in 2005: I remember walking in one night and asking for a table, to which the young host gave a snort. “How’s a week from Thursday?” she asked before disappearing again into the fray. It’s still packed every night. And now, Parasole is planning to open a second one next spring, in the Milton Mall, across from J Crew on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. The restaurant will be about the same size as the one in Edina, but Salut St. Paul will sport a large, secluded patio, rather than having its outdoor dining streetside.
And the partners at Parasole are already thinking about the next Pittsburgh Blue location, too; less than three weeks after opening, PB Maple Grove is looking at a “run rate” (that’s restaurant-speak for annual gross profit predictions, based on the average so far) of more than $7 million. It’s a potential gold mine.
Phil Roberts, co-founder of Parasole, says they’re scouting for locations like Maple Grove and Edina. “We’re talking about the Chicago suburbs,” Roberts told me. “Places like Northbrook. But Northbrook is just a metaphor for the kind of place we want: a high-income bedroom community.
In fact, Roberts is — even as I write — on his way to Honolulu, home to one of the biggest Buca di Beppos in the country (piles of pasta on the beach. . . .it doesn’t sound right to me, but that’s why I’m not a restaurant mogul) to shop for real estate. There’s talk that Parasole will start doing “communities” of restaurants in particularly favorable locations.
Imagine: a Manny’s, a Chino Latino, a Salut, and a Pittsburgh Blue all lined up like storefronts on Hawaii’s white sands. Mark my words. Tourists will begin disappearing for a couple hours at a time and when they come back, they’ll all have incisions just under the left ear and a rabid craving for bacon, steak, creamed corn, and red wine.
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