(Or words to that effect. \u00a0It’s from Google Translate. \u00a0But I figure most of my audience isn’t going to be able to correct me on this [1])<\/p>\n
So I went to Mai Village last night. \u00a0Mai Village was one of the little welter of ma-and-pa small businesses that, between the mid-eighties and the beginning of the Central Corridor construction, helped make University Avenue…<\/p>\n
…well, not exactly “thrive”, but then the only thing that really thrives in Saint Paul is government. \u00a0But compared to the desolate, vacant, blighted strip that the street was in the eighties, a couple of waves of Southeast Asian immigrants – Vietnamese and then H’mong, Lao and Cambodian – at least brought people, activity, commerce and\u00a0life\u00a0<\/em>to the Avenue.<\/p>\n But it wasn’t the kind of business that Saint Paul’s government or the Met Council wanted – white, MPR-friendly, upper-middle-class, Caribou\/Patagonia\/Noodles-And-Company kinds of businesses. \u00a0So they decided to drive their accursed train straight down University. \u00a0This, on top of Minnesota and Saint Paul’s already-crushing regulatory burden.<\/p>\n Someone asked in the comment section the other day “what kind of business will make it on University?” \u00a0Little service-oriented businesses that don’t need parking, maybe? \u00a0Tiny hole-in-the-wall places with as little overhead as possible and fanatical little clienteles, I’d suspect. \u00a0The big winners, of course, will be the big national chains – Caribou, Patagonia, NoodleCo, Chipotle – that have the financial wherewithal to ride out the construction and the political clout to score vacant space near the stations<\/a>\u00a0that will squat in the street every half-mile through Frogtown and the near North End.<\/p>\n Of course, if you’re in between those stations, you’re screwed.<\/p>\n Mai Village isn’t a hole in the wall – not anymore. \u00a0When I first when there, of course, it was almost literally that; a nondescript little warren you entered through a door in a seedy-looking brick wall with very little fanfare directly off of Uni, with fantastic food. \u00a0They made the “mistake” of investing in their business and in University avenue, back before the Central Corridor. \u00a0They built a\u00a0beautiful\u00a0<\/em>restaurant, full of Vietnamese artifacts and decor and big gorgeous windows looking out on the street, back when the street was a slowly rebuilding strip of humanity. \u00a0It’s big, comfortable, serene – and I do love the food.<\/p>\n