Where to eat in Grand Forks.

[Und Princess]

Just now, SIOUXFAN97 said:

is skies even in the running for best high end dining in town?

ely's ivy?

 

I think it should be! Along with Ely's ivy

[gfhockey]

3 hours ago, Und Princess said:

I think it should be! Along with Ely's ivy

Can’t beat the speedway tho!

[Und Princess]

1 minute ago, gfhockey said:

Can’t beat the speedway tho!

That's good too!!!

[JohnboyND7]

On 5/23/2025 at 12:20 AM, gfNDfan said:

Hey el-chapo needs a shoe shine on BS-ville - go away

I am not sure what this even means

[NewUndFan]

I heard Dave's hot chicken is coming to grand forks in the old firehouse subs space. 

[SIOUXFAN97]

3 minutes ago, NewUndFan said:

I heard Dave's hot chicken is coming to grand forks in the old firehouse subs space. 

I thought that whole complex was getting torn down?

[NewUndFan]

45 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

I thought that whole complex was getting torn down?

Looks like construction crews are outside there. I think they are repairing it.  

[Dustin]

On 5/22/2025 at 12:10 PM, crb1 said:

I don't know how anyone would want to open a restaurant in GF. I was born and raised here but this town is so fickle when it comes to restaurants, even decent places come here to die. 

On 5/22/2025 at 3:22 PM, JohnboyND7 said:

Grand Forks is a bit culty for its size. 

I don't know for sure, because I don't have data, but I think there are two factors at play here:

1) In the past, Winnipeg traffic/tourism helped drive Grand Forks to have more amenities than normal for a town of its size.  The Grand Forks restaurant scene really ballooned during the early oil boom.  Oil is (was?) a primary driver of Canada's economy, and for a while, the Canadian dollar was on par with the US dollar.  With American investment in oil, however, the strength of Canada's dollar against the US dollar has settled back to where it had been historically (around 0.75) and can't gain ground on the US dollar anymore when oil is high.

2) Even though UND is at record enrollment, many of those students are online and not on campus.  When there aren't students on campus, restaurants have harder times filling out staffs.  It seem like most places close because of lack of workers, not lack of customers.

[SIOUXFAN97]

51 minutes ago, Dustin said:

I don't know for sure, because I don't have data, but I think there are two factors at play here:

1) In the past, Winnipeg traffic/tourism helped drive Grand Forks to have more amenities than normal for a town of its size.  The Grand Forks restaurant scene really ballooned during the early oil boom.  Oil is (was?) a primary driver of Canada's economy, and for a while, the Canadian dollar was on par with the US dollar.  With American investment in oil, however, the strength of Canada's dollar against the US dollar has settled back to where it had been historically (around 0.75) and can't gain ground on the US dollar anymore when oil is high.

2) Even though UND is at record enrollment, many of those students are online and not on campus.  When there aren't students on campus, restaurants have harder times filling out staffs.  It seem like most places close because of lack of workers, not lack of customers.

bingo and

bingo

bo needs to fix the mall thingy and the winnipegers will stop in gf like they used to (not in the same numbers...).....and get those shelly and mayville people to go north to shop and eat instead of south....

maybe these new ssd stuff will get some people that normally didn't have to work at all for welfare will now at least go to work at mcdonald's for a few hours a day and then progress to full time....

[JohnboyND7]

2 hours ago, Dustin said:

I don't know for sure, because I don't have data, but I think there are two factors at play here:

1) In the past, Winnipeg traffic/tourism helped drive Grand Forks to have more amenities than normal for a town of its size.  The Grand Forks restaurant scene really ballooned during the early oil boom.  Oil is (was?) a primary driver of Canada's economy, and for a while, the Canadian dollar was on par with the US dollar.  With American investment in oil, however, the strength of Canada's dollar against the US dollar has settled back to where it had been historically (around 0.75) and can't gain ground on the US dollar anymore when oil is high.

2) Even though UND is at record enrollment, many of those students are online and not on campus.  When there aren't students on campus, restaurants have harder times filling out staffs.  It seem like most places close because of lack of workers, not lack of customers.

Seems like an uphill battle in general for Grand Forks over past few decades. Did it start with the base shrinking by like 70-80%?

[SIOUXFAN97]

29 minutes ago, JohnboyND7 said:

Seems like an uphill battle in general for Grand Forks over past few decades. Did it start with the base shrinking by like 70-80%?

they are called the "brown years"....that says it all

[Dustin]

1 hour ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

they are called the "brown years"....that says it all

Big time disagree.  After the flood, Grand Forks got a big boost with lots of things that make it great - Alerus Center, Ralph, flood protection system and its associated parks and greenway.  What really hurt was the consolidation of media in eastern North Dakota.  Losing WDAZ newscasts, and a scale down of the Herald, made it much harder to Grand Forks to be seen amongst the shadow Fargo had begun casting, especially with Bison-mania.  

[SIOUXFAN97]

3 minutes ago, Dustin said:

Big time disagree.  After the flood, Grand Forks got a big boost with lots of things that make it great - Alerus Center, Ralph, flood protection system and its associated parks and greenway.  What really hurt was the consolidation of media in eastern North Dakota.  Losing WDAZ newscasts, and a scale down of the Herald, made it much harder to Grand Forks to be seen amongst the shadow Fargo had begun casting, especially with Bison-mania.  

agree to disagree ....mayor "ill take one more dinner to go after city meetings bc i don't have to pay for it ...the city will" brown is and was a cheap vindictive sob

alerus-nothing to do with him

ralph-absolutely nothing to do with him

dykes and greenway-our fed congressional guys got it after owens didn't make the big call to save parts of the city in 97

people aren't shopping here bc kevin nicewanger or travis's wife aren't doing fluff pieces about mosquiteos at 5:30 anymore.

[fightingsioux4life]

8 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

agree to disagree ....mayor "ill take one more dinner to go after city meetings bc i don't have to pay for it ...the city will" brown is and was a cheap vindictive sob

alerus-nothing to do with him

ralph-absolutely nothing to do with him

dykes and greenway-our fed congressional guys got it after owens didn't make the big call to save parts of the city in 97

people aren't shopping here bc kevin nicewanger or travis's wife aren't doing fluff pieces about mosquiteos at 5:30 anymore.

What could Owens (RIP) have done to save any part of the city in 1997? There was just too much water to hold back. That 1996-97 winter just dumped too much snow to melt without causing problems. The final storm in April 1997 added tons of moisture to the Red River basin and that was what made it impossible to win the war against the river.

[Kab]

Who ever owns the mall in Minot is doing things right

 they add on to the mall, it looks nice and seems to be busy even in the times of Amazon 

GF needs to tax the hell out of the mall here until it is sold , so much wasted space there, parking lot is huge 

Maybe look at something beside retail there

mixed use of apartments and retail

[SIOUXFAN97]

16 minutes ago, fightingsioux4life said:

What could Owens (RIP) have done to save any part of the city in 1997? There was just too much water to hold back. That 1996-97 winter just dumped too much snow to melt without causing problems. The final storm in April 1997 added tons of moisture to the Red River basin and that was what made it impossible to win the war against the river.

clay right down belmont...north to south

[Dustin]

38 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

agree to disagree ....mayor "ill take one more dinner to go after city meetings bc i don't have to pay for it ...the city will" brown is and was a cheap vindictive sob

alerus-nothing to do with him

ralph-absolutely nothing to do with him

dykes and greenway-our fed congressional guys got it after owens didn't make the big call to save parts of the city in 97

people aren't shopping here bc kevin nicewanger or travis's wife aren't doing fluff pieces about mosquiteos at 5:30 anymore.

I wasn't offering a commentary on the mayor, simply that there was a lot of exciting things happening during that timeframe that happened to coincide with him mayor. 

[fightingsioux4life]

1 hour ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

clay right down belmont...north to south

There was a dike built on Belmont from 13th Ave to 17th Ave. It was topped on April 18th, one day before the downtown fire that would destroy 11 buildings.

I don't think a dike built on the rest of Belmont would have prevented the disaster that unfolded 

[Big Green]

1 hour ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

clay right down belmont...north to south

I Think if the so called experts wouldn't have messed up the river crest prediction things may have been different.  If I recall they kept saying 49 feet, when anyone with 1/2 a brain knew it was going over that amount.  Maybe time would have been spend building a long clay dike down belmont.

 

[Nodak78]

20 minutes ago, Big Green said:

I Think if the so called experts wouldn't have messed up the river crest prediction things may have been different.  If I recall they kept saying 49 feet, when anyone with 1/2 a brain knew it was going over that amount.  Maybe time would have been spend building a long clay dike down belmont.

 

This is true.  Only people that didn't it was going over were national media that thought the river flows south.

[gfNDfan]

On 5/26/2025 at 9:41 PM, SIOUXFAN97 said:

I thought that whole complex was getting torn down?

No - they remodeled the exterior and somehow built it so it caught snow on the roof that eventually stressed the structure so it might collapse then decided to kick out all the renters and rebuild it...VERY SLOWLY!  Don't know who actually owns it but that strip mall is a disaster but they still keep trying to get the building back up to code to reopen it.  If you're going to rebuild it - REBUILD IT -or tear it down and start over.  Apparently time is not an issue to the property owner but it's another embarrassing strip mall horror show that's empty and sad.  Any business that would move in there - best of luck!

[tnt]

21 hours ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

clay right down belmont...north to south

You no doubt would have a problem telling Wes Rydell his house would need to be sacrificed.  By the time the water came, and we saw what it was really going to do, it was too late.   Remember, the forecasts were completely wrong on how high it would get.  You can only depend on the information you are getting at the time, but of course Mr. Hindsight has the answer to everything -- after the fact.  

[SIOUXFAN97]

14 hours ago, gfNDfan said:

No - they remodeled the exterior and somehow built it so it caught snow on the roof that eventually stressed the structure so it might collapse then decided to kick out all the renters and rebuild it...VERY SLOWLY!  Don't know who actually owns it but that strip mall is a disaster but they still keep trying to get the building back up to code to reopen it.  If you're going to rebuild it - REBUILD IT -or tear it down and start over.  Apparently time is not an issue to the property owner but it's another embarrassing strip mall horror show that's empty and sad.  Any business that would move in there - best of luck!

i htink the old churchill shoes guy (family) own it

[geaux_sioux]

On 5/27/2025 at 2:19 PM, Dustin said:

I wasn't offering a commentary on the mayor, simply that there was a lot of exciting things happening during that timeframe that happened to coincide with him mayor. 

Is that why so many people flooded to Grand Forks in that timeframe? Ever look at the population graph compared to our peers?

[Dustin]

2 hours ago, geaux_sioux said:

Is that why so many people flooded to Grand Forks in that timeframe? Ever look at the population graph compared to our peers?

It would an interesting, yet impossible, case study to see how the 1997 flood vs. no 1997 flood affected the next quarter century+.  One thing that's for sure is that GF would have had to deal with numerous more floods (like Fargo has) without a robust flood protection system, which would not have been any fun.  Another problem with growing Grand Forks is the land on which to expand.  Hard to develop residentially to the north - heavy industry that people don't really want to live by.  Hard to develop west - run into alkali.  Can't develop east - run into the river.  That leaves the only option as south - into primo farmland that fetches a pretty penny.