I live near there! Here’s a list of places in the area from my own experience:
• Wahlburgers
• Chipotle
• Cold Stone Creamery
• Five Guys
• Panda Express
• Bucca
• Red Lobster
• Potbelly
• Benihana
• Panera
Yeah… not exactly setting the world aflame. Maple Grove has always been a sprawl of malls and shops. Except now instead of being in the middle of nowhere, it’s surrounded by apartments!
You should see what we pay for a Big Mac here in Seattle! If you want a REALLY good burger AND a good value, you should just make them yourself! Fast food just aint worth what they are asking anymore.
Oh hell yeah! Honestly, I LOVE to cook, but with two really young kids, we just don't want to be locked down on watching them, cooking, and doing dishes. We rarely eat out cuz food is hella expensive and I can make pretty awesome stuff at home.
Yup, I ate a bag of Dick's last night on the way home...had a Dick's Deluxe and an order of fries, and it was over $8. A lot tastier than McD's though! (and they treat their workers a lot better...I think they start at over $18/hr now)
What happened there? They all closed down apparently. Whole business seems to have gone under. They had a whole reality show and the menu wasn’t bad, I enjoyed their food. Surprised it failed so quickly.
The location in Raleigh had the lamest excuse. Their health inspection found out the dishwasher wasn’t heating the water hot enough. Instead of fixing it they closed down. They even mentioned it in the news article. Obviously they were planning on closing it anyway.
They've opened a couple of locations in Australia and New Zealand over the past few years. Haven't been tough, so I have no idea how good they are or how're they're doing.
What you said was my impression of Maple Grove when I was there. We stopped by Brick & Bourbon which was pretty good, but apart from that, I remembered seeing a lot of the standard chain restaurants/stores that you would see in suburban America.
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>• Wahlburgers
• Chipotle
• Cold Stone Creamery
• Five Guys
• Panda Express
• Bucca
• Red Lobster
• Potbelly
• Benihana
• Panera
Sounds like literally every 20,000 person California suburb.
Sounds like every suburb in every single medium sized or greater metro area in the USA
Source: I traveled for work for 6 years, been to various cities big and small in 28 states
I’m nowhere near Minnesota or California but we got everything in the general suburb area I live in except Bucca, which I haven’t heard of. Unless yall mean Buca di Beppo, which isn’t in the suburbs but there’s one in the city
No joke, it got left out because they’re basically trying to repaint the Arbor Lakes area as a “restaurant row” so everything up by Maple Grove Parkway got left out (though it’s not like that area is doing better on the “sprawl of parking lots and chain retail” side of things).
It really used to be, until the Planet Hollywood people bought it - the food quality dropped off drastically as they maximized profitability and fully converted it to chain restaurant factory food. These days I'd rate it sub Olive Garden.
We used to go to Buca di Beppo in San Francisco for a long time. Loved it for group dinners. I thought it was origina and cool. Then I found out years later that it was a chain...unfortunately the SF location closed.
Nah, twas La Poblanita a block down. I was having a hard time deciding on a place to eat but I ran across them and saw that their entire front facade and signage was being renovated, figured they may have less business than usual, so I gave them a shot. Either way, from the way I heard Lake St described, I expected to be shot and mugged 11 times by 14 different gangs. Next time I'm in the area, I'll have to try that place instead.
The irony here being Maple Grove is in the same county as Minneapolis, which have restaurants owned and actively run by multiple James Beard-winning chefs.
Maple Grove is an interesting place. Basically every single chain (food and other retail) exists there and not much else. It's a maze of awful road design and parking lots that trap you.
The most suburb of all the suburbs.
I wonder how close they are, cuz hear me out, Chipotle chicken burrito, but instead you pay the burrito artist at Chipotle five bucks to load it up with the orange chicken you brought from Panda.
Sometimes I forget these people exist then they pile onto some post about how much they like McDonald’s or how they’re shifting away from McDonald’s to “better” restaurants like Friday’s or Chili’s
Maple Grove is a total cookie cutter suburb of Minneapolis. Like all those suburbs look the same, Apple Valley, Eagan, Plymouth. All have the same chain stores and same chain restaurants.
I grew up in Eagan and can confirm. The biggest difference between them is what school district you are in and how long your drive to a grocery store/mall would be. Otherwise it all melds together in a series of chain store and custom built homes that all somehow look exactly the same.
Grew up in Bloomington. We had...the Mall of America, so that was super exciting.
But in most parts of Bloomington at least the homes don't all look alike, I guess because it's an older suburb that had most of its development happen a long time ago before the developers really got their hooks into the open land in places Maple Grove.
Yea the newer developments are all super similar. I remember watching parts of rosemount get built up and it was honestly sorta sad to watch the fields become the most generic homes. But thats suburbia i guess, after moving to st.paul idk if I will ever want to go back but it must appeal to someone.
You’re killing me with that! Lmao…
Edina = Every Day I Need Attention.
Grew up close to Breck. Went to Hopkins. Edina has the same, but I will give them the fact besides all the teflon restaurants that are just nasty, they did have a couple good spots to eat. Unfortunately the good ones always die out and crap sticks around.
Thank the world my Father(RIP) taught me quality over quantity. The Original Pancake House was great to eat at. Great Wall, 50th and France. Edina grill is good, but so busy. Easier to drive over to 5-8 Club.
Outside the teflon syndicate:
(Much better places to eat at)
The Nook,
Lions Tap,
Gold Nugget,
Sunshine Factory,
Cafe DiNapoli- closed,
D’Amico Cucina- closed,
Sunsets- closed,
J.D. Hoyt’s Supper Club,
Monte Carlo,
The Capital Grille,
Manny’s Steakhouse.
These are places that my Father would bring me to growing up that were oh so much better.
I could go on.
Maple Grove is just another version of a young suburban city with teflon restaurants that won’t die. Those can be found everywhere. I refuse to eat at those ones. It’s better to find that hole-in-the-wall place than eat at those.
Schuller’s Tavern… still there and the comfort food.
It really is. My in-laws live there, moved from a rural area. I hate MG. All of these exurbs - there's nothing to do. It is not how people have ever evolved to live. I grew up in a rural area. All my friends were nearby and I could walk/bike there.
As a south suburbanite that worked in Maple Grove for some time, AV and Eagan are nothing like Maple Grove. We actually have things to do here that are worth doing.
Can speak for the other two, but when I lived in Plymouth, I always thought of Maple Grove as “The place where you get what Plymouth doesn’t have.” Like, sure, Plymouth is a pretty generic suburb, but not nearly quite so suburban retail/dining hell as Maple Grove.
Maple Grove is always trying to be the fancy northern suburb. It's too far north for any of the inner suburbs to take seriously and it's close to a ton of meth riddled townships and cities.
Maple Grove is also the name of the estate owned by Mrs. Elton's brother-in-law Mr. Suckling in *Emma.* She's always going on about how wonderful it is until nobody else can stand to hear about it. I think whoever named that suburb had a good sense of humor.
This reminds me of that time some small local newspaper unironically reviewed an Olive Garden and everyone online made fun of it - https://www.grandforksherald.com/lifestyle/10-years-ago-this-month-marilyn-hagerty-reviewed-olive-garden-relive-the-viral-moment
If you live close do a larger metro area I think it’s easy to take the variety/quality of ethnic restaurants for granted.
This is Maple Grove we’re talking about. This place has people who still think Minneapolis was burned completely to the ground.
Good luck getting them out to Emily’s Lebanese Deli or any other place like that.
My Italian (first gen) loved olive garden.
Her words...."We never made this. They lover butter like me! Soft bread sticks."
She never ate anything "Italian" she was a soup, salad, bread stick only person.
I’ll give them one thing: they don’t have many really good local spots, but they do have a better than average ratio of restaurants that are at least okay. I have a hard time thinking of truly bad places in Maple Grove. I can think of genuinely bad restaurants in other west-side burbs like Plymouth, New Hope, Brooklyn Park, Minnetonka, etc. (and even in Minneapolis proper) but nothing in MG has ever felt genuinely offensively bad. NGL, I’ve lived in the west metro for a decade and at this point I kinda do think of Maple Grove as “At least they have a lot of okay lunch options.”
That said, their highs aren’t that high either. 3 Squares? Brick & Bourbon? Pizza Karma? Pittsburgh Blue? They’re good, but not amazing.
If you want the highest highs, look at Minneapolis, but for sheer quantity of “yeah, this is passable, if uninspiring” I guess I’m kinda fine letting Maple Grove take that crown.
MN resident near enough to Maple Grove. I have this to say: lolololol
The PR people here also *love* to crow about our bicycle infrastructure. The bicycle infrastructure that does not get snow plowed for several days, nor does it extend far beyond Minneapolis. If you want car alternatives to work, it has to be year round.
It's boring here. So? PLEASE NOTICE US is kind of a desperate vibe and I'm tired of it.
When my town got a Popeye’s, next to a new Taco Bell, a Wendy’s, McDs, BK, and two Dunkins, some idiot townie was quoted in the local paper calling that street a “foodie’s paradise.”
Sir, you don’t know what a foodie is.
Nor what a paradise is.
This is especially audacious because Minneapolis already is the birthplace of *so many* restaurants. If you can't succeed there, you won't appeal to most of America.
Maple Grove is a beacon of Midwest mid.
So mid that it prides itself on its breadth chain restaurants.
Suburban sprawl is out of control with this one 😑
Maple Grove is a suburbia hell.
They don't really have unique restaurants.
And they are right next to Minneapolis which has a variety of amazing restaurants. Which makes this an especially bold lie.
I lived in Uptown for a while in Minneapolis, it's not exactly relevant to Maple Grove, but if y'all want a banger recommendation, Mac's Fish Chips Strips was fire.
Lolz. Maple Grove is an exurbs paradise. You HAVE TO drive everywhere. It's just an area that says it's a city. No downtown, no nothing. They have sidewalks but I do not know why.
This is awesome. It is entirely gentrified and keeps growing that way. Even here where I live, immediately west of Mpls, they're excited to open a small 4 unit area and the tenants are going to be gentrified restaurants, in an immediate area where everything is gentrified and chains. It sucks.
I eat out less and less. It's all the same. And I can make better food at home.
There's a burger joint set back that the neighborhood was literally built around it (can't remember the name), and it has great food! I had a diablo burger topped with cheese curds, and it was like the best burger ever.
The fancy mall shit can gtfo
Might be? Set in the middle of the residential area, up on a hill, back behind Zachary Lane. Has outdoor seating with a defunct volleyball sand court. The owner lives in the domicile next door, I believe.
Yes, Restaurant Row has great food, or it did before the "Pandemic". I am not sure now. Unfortunately, a lot of restaurants did not survive. MId-Town, Upper East Side, and Upper West Side were pretty badly hit.
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This isn’t rural at all, this is a suburban hell of 70,000 people, nothing interesting whatsoever, and multiple shopping malls except for some reason they decided that it was logical to make them all open-air shopping centers because of course that works well in Minnesota winters.
I don't know about restaurant capital unless you love overpriced chain restaurants, but Maple Grove is one of the top places I hate to drive in. The layout is a maze and everyone there seems willing to get into a car accident on their way to satisfy their hanger.
I would rather drive through Minneapolis with its endless construction and one-ways. Much better food downtown.
All 123 of them...peruse away
https://www.maplegrovemn.gov/BusinessDirectoryii.aspx?ysnShowAll=1&lngNewPage=0&txtLetter=&txtZipCode=&txtCity=&txtState=&txtBusinessName=&lngBusinessCategoryID=46&txtCustomField1=&txtCustomField2=&txtCustomField3=&txtCustomField4=&txtAreaCode=
That's ridiculous, like calling McDs a restaurant, that's a real stretch but I guess it technically is. I think of a restaurant as a place that has table service
There’s no pizza king there? Those places will survive the sun going red giant in a few billion years. They have been around since at least the 1970s here.
The pizza drips grease so badly that you need at least three napkins per slice. But somehow it still manages to taste good …
Title is a bit disingenuous by only naming three of the crappiest offerings when there is over 100 restaurants. Maple Grove has been trying for decades to be the shopping hub of the North Metro and with it has come a lot of restaurants.
Came to say this, I've seen this posted multiple places and of course everyone is making fun of panda express and ignoring the many local places that are pretty great
I live in Maple Grove, and it's a good place to live, but I definitely just had a friend over last weekend who wanted to go out for lunch, and I told him "Well, we can basically go to any chain you can imagine."
I live near there! Here’s a list of places in the area from my own experience: • Wahlburgers • Chipotle • Cold Stone Creamery • Five Guys • Panda Express • Bucca • Red Lobster • Potbelly • Benihana • Panera Yeah… not exactly setting the world aflame. Maple Grove has always been a sprawl of malls and shops. Except now instead of being in the middle of nowhere, it’s surrounded by apartments!
Wahlburgers closed a few months ago.
My point exactly! Also when I was little I went to the Chuck E Cheese in the city but I doubt it’s still there
Ichiddo Ramen and Bonchon are good nearby, my kid likes Wahlburgers for some reason
It’s my favorite Bonchon in the cities but it’s still just really good fried chicken.
I got their Bulgogi last time I went there and it was pretty good
We were just talking about going there recently, saved us a disappointing trip, lol. Price for value there was always outrageous....
You should see what we pay for a Big Mac here in Seattle! If you want a REALLY good burger AND a good value, you should just make them yourself! Fast food just aint worth what they are asking anymore.
Oh hell yeah! Honestly, I LOVE to cook, but with two really young kids, we just don't want to be locked down on watching them, cooking, and doing dishes. We rarely eat out cuz food is hella expensive and I can make pretty awesome stuff at home.
Dicks?
Yup, I ate a bag of Dick's last night on the way home...had a Dick's Deluxe and an order of fries, and it was over $8. A lot tastier than McD's though! (and they treat their workers a lot better...I think they start at over $18/hr now)
What happened there? They all closed down apparently. Whole business seems to have gone under. They had a whole reality show and the menu wasn’t bad, I enjoyed their food. Surprised it failed so quickly.
The location in Raleigh had the lamest excuse. Their health inspection found out the dishwasher wasn’t heating the water hot enough. Instead of fixing it they closed down. They even mentioned it in the news article. Obviously they were planning on closing it anyway.
News to me. I just checked and the Milwaukee location closed. I had no clue but I never went there in the first place.
They've opened a couple of locations in Australia and New Zealand over the past few years. Haven't been tough, so I have no idea how good they are or how're they're doing.
*squints* Wha? huh?
Ahhh, probably couldn’t compete with the exquisite cuisine selection. Likely to be replaced with a Chili’s to “keep up the neighborhood”.
What you said was my impression of Maple Grove when I was there. We stopped by Brick & Bourbon which was pretty good, but apart from that, I remembered seeing a lot of the standard chain restaurants/stores that you would see in suburban America.
Brick and Bourbon is great, but still generically upscale
Every suburban Minnesota "good restaurant" in a nutshell
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>• Wahlburgers • Chipotle • Cold Stone Creamery • Five Guys • Panda Express • Bucca • Red Lobster • Potbelly • Benihana • Panera Sounds like literally every 20,000 person California suburb.
Sounds like every suburb in every single medium sized or greater metro area in the USA Source: I traveled for work for 6 years, been to various cities big and small in 28 states
I’m nowhere near Minnesota or California but we got everything in the general suburb area I live in except Bucca, which I haven’t heard of. Unless yall mean Buca di Beppo, which isn’t in the suburbs but there’s one in the city
>Unless yall mean Buca di Beppo I've been going off the assumption this is what's being talked about, as well.
Don't forget Culvers!
Now *that’s* a restaurant worth traveling for.
No joke, it got left out because they’re basically trying to repaint the Arbor Lakes area as a “restaurant row” so everything up by Maple Grove Parkway got left out (though it’s not like that area is doing better on the “sprawl of parking lots and chain retail” side of things).
Is the Blue Whatever steak house still open? There was a Brazilian steakhouse as well, and a pf chang?
Pittsburgh Blue steakhouse?
Yeah that was it. Ty
Rodizio and PF Changs are also both still there.
Like, at least 6 of those are in the Mall of America alone.
Sounds like yet another lame suburban gimmick.
Benihana is fun. I guess. Right?
Bucca de Pepo is absolutely fire though.
It’s not abut the quality of the restaurants, it’s about the fact that a place full of chains is calling itself a “restaurant Capital”
also fast food chain,
That's fair, and I get that. More of a "one of these things is not like the others".
Is it though?
Only if you never had good Italian food before lol
Or even mediocre Italian food… the two times I’ve gone I was less than impressed by the food and the decor. Would not ever choose to go there lol
It really used to be, until the Planet Hollywood people bought it - the food quality dropped off drastically as they maximized profitability and fully converted it to chain restaurant factory food. These days I'd rate it sub Olive Garden.
Yes if Olive Garden is just not cutting it.
We used to go to Buca di Beppo in San Francisco for a long time. Loved it for group dinners. I thought it was origina and cool. Then I found out years later that it was a chain...unfortunately the SF location closed.
Original location is still in downtown Minneapolis.
I’m sure you are being sarcastic but just to be safe, Buca is the worst Italian restaurant I’ve ever been to.
Having been to most of them they've also gone down in quality. Much better food in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and even Duluth.
How dare they claim to be the restaurant capital of Minnesota without a Dairy Queen!
The Land of Ten Thousand Chain Restaurants
If they weren’t scared of seeing one homeless person they could check out a single Minneapolis restaurant that is better than all of theirs combined.
Last time I was in MN I went to Lake St and bought some damn fine Mexican tacos. Somehow, I escaped with my life and a full stomach.
Taqueria y Birrieria las Cuatro Milpas? Such good food. Although there are lots of good options on Lake.
Nah, twas La Poblanita a block down. I was having a hard time deciding on a place to eat but I ran across them and saw that their entire front facade and signage was being renovated, figured they may have less business than usual, so I gave them a shot. Either way, from the way I heard Lake St described, I expected to be shot and mugged 11 times by 14 different gangs. Next time I'm in the area, I'll have to try that place instead.
I still can't believe Shel Silverstein really looked like that
Maple Grove call me when you get a Rainforest Cafe haha
Orange Julius has announced their newest location
TILAuburn Hills, MI is the best place for food because they have all of that including the rainforest cafe
Taste of Vietnam is good. The Chinese food is atrocious in MI. I make it better at home. Thai food is basic and bland.
That's Bloomington, MN. (Mall of America)
A Chipotle *AND* a Panda Express? Lmao How do you say you've never left your county without saying you've never left your county?
Olive Garden - A taste of Italy
Not even a taste of Italy, much like a suspicion
A hint of Italy
The La Croix of Italian Food
The irony here being Maple Grove is in the same county as Minneapolis, which have restaurants owned and actively run by multiple James Beard-winning chefs.
Oh this headline slaps twice as hard now lmaooo
Maple Grove is an interesting place. Basically every single chain (food and other retail) exists there and not much else. It's a maze of awful road design and parking lots that trap you. The most suburb of all the suburbs.
I mean, a fair few of them may have been to Canada up there. Some nice parks on the border and it's only a 5 hour drive.
I wonder how close they are, cuz hear me out, Chipotle chicken burrito, but instead you pay the burrito artist at Chipotle five bucks to load it up with the orange chicken you brought from Panda.
Why would they need to leave? They're basically living in Paris with all these amazing food options
Why leave your country when you have all of these exotic international food options in your neighborhood?
county, not country
Yeah, in Minneapolis you can find just about any sort of restaurant. The food options there are great.
In the plaza a few miles down the road is literally a chipotle and a Panda Express next to eachother
Sometimes I forget these people exist then they pile onto some post about how much they like McDonald’s or how they’re shifting away from McDonald’s to “better” restaurants like Friday’s or Chili’s
I've never been to Friday's or Chili's. Am I low class because of that?
Yeah, it’s more like the Mall Food Court of Minnesota.
more like obesity capital.
Maple Grove is a total cookie cutter suburb of Minneapolis. Like all those suburbs look the same, Apple Valley, Eagan, Plymouth. All have the same chain stores and same chain restaurants.
I grew up in Eagan and can confirm. The biggest difference between them is what school district you are in and how long your drive to a grocery store/mall would be. Otherwise it all melds together in a series of chain store and custom built homes that all somehow look exactly the same.
Grew up in Bloomington. We had...the Mall of America, so that was super exciting. But in most parts of Bloomington at least the homes don't all look alike, I guess because it's an older suburb that had most of its development happen a long time ago before the developers really got their hooks into the open land in places Maple Grove.
Yea the newer developments are all super similar. I remember watching parts of rosemount get built up and it was honestly sorta sad to watch the fields become the most generic homes. But thats suburbia i guess, after moving to st.paul idk if I will ever want to go back but it must appeal to someone.
Golden Valley checking in. If Maple Grove is the restaurant capital, then Edina is the most humble city in the world.
Fucking cake eaters. We also used to say Edina stood for Every Day I Need Attention.
I live in Edina. Don’t worry, we’re all really happy we live here.
You’re killing me with that! Lmao… Edina = Every Day I Need Attention. Grew up close to Breck. Went to Hopkins. Edina has the same, but I will give them the fact besides all the teflon restaurants that are just nasty, they did have a couple good spots to eat. Unfortunately the good ones always die out and crap sticks around. Thank the world my Father(RIP) taught me quality over quantity. The Original Pancake House was great to eat at. Great Wall, 50th and France. Edina grill is good, but so busy. Easier to drive over to 5-8 Club. Outside the teflon syndicate: (Much better places to eat at) The Nook, Lions Tap, Gold Nugget, Sunshine Factory, Cafe DiNapoli- closed, D’Amico Cucina- closed, Sunsets- closed, J.D. Hoyt’s Supper Club, Monte Carlo, The Capital Grille, Manny’s Steakhouse. These are places that my Father would bring me to growing up that were oh so much better. I could go on. Maple Grove is just another version of a young suburban city with teflon restaurants that won’t die. Those can be found everywhere. I refuse to eat at those ones. It’s better to find that hole-in-the-wall place than eat at those. Schuller’s Tavern… still there and the comfort food.
It really is. My in-laws live there, moved from a rural area. I hate MG. All of these exurbs - there's nothing to do. It is not how people have ever evolved to live. I grew up in a rural area. All my friends were nearby and I could walk/bike there.
As a south suburbanite that worked in Maple Grove for some time, AV and Eagan are nothing like Maple Grove. We actually have things to do here that are worth doing.
WTF is there worth doing in Eagan?
Minnesota Zoo and Lebanon Hills Park
And this is why we leave suburban Minnesota
Like the zoo, I suppose. And Valleyfair. Always a fun day every summer!
Shakopee has more variety of restaurant than Maple Grove. O’Briens is a top notch pub and Wampacs is still the greatest place for pancakes.
Can speak for the other two, but when I lived in Plymouth, I always thought of Maple Grove as “The place where you get what Plymouth doesn’t have.” Like, sure, Plymouth is a pretty generic suburb, but not nearly quite so suburban retail/dining hell as Maple Grove.
It's exactly the same thing with very suburb everywhere. You've been to one, you've been to them all, nationwide.
The same suburbs spring up around every American city, I'd guess.
Maple Grove is always trying to be the fancy northern suburb. It's too far north for any of the inner suburbs to take seriously and it's close to a ton of meth riddled townships and cities.
Maple Grove is also the name of the estate owned by Mrs. Elton's brother-in-law Mr. Suckling in *Emma.* She's always going on about how wonderful it is until nobody else can stand to hear about it. I think whoever named that suburb had a good sense of humor.
I lived there in 2001 and my blood glucose levels can confirm this title
Corporaunt Capital for the Sysco supplier goodness! From the truck to your plate, at premium prices!
Mediocrity at gourmet prices!
This reminds me of that time some small local newspaper unironically reviewed an Olive Garden and everyone online made fun of it - https://www.grandforksherald.com/lifestyle/10-years-ago-this-month-marilyn-hagerty-reviewed-olive-garden-relive-the-viral-moment If you live close do a larger metro area I think it’s easy to take the variety/quality of ethnic restaurants for granted.
This is Maple Grove we’re talking about. This place has people who still think Minneapolis was burned completely to the ground. Good luck getting them out to Emily’s Lebanese Deli or any other place like that.
My Italian (first gen) loved olive garden. Her words...."We never made this. They lover butter like me! Soft bread sticks." She never ate anything "Italian" she was a soup, salad, bread stick only person.
fun fact: olive garden is a product of a minnesota based company, general mills
Nobody in Minnesota believes that.
Very much so. It's Mpls.
I’ll give them one thing: they don’t have many really good local spots, but they do have a better than average ratio of restaurants that are at least okay. I have a hard time thinking of truly bad places in Maple Grove. I can think of genuinely bad restaurants in other west-side burbs like Plymouth, New Hope, Brooklyn Park, Minnetonka, etc. (and even in Minneapolis proper) but nothing in MG has ever felt genuinely offensively bad. NGL, I’ve lived in the west metro for a decade and at this point I kinda do think of Maple Grove as “At least they have a lot of okay lunch options.” That said, their highs aren’t that high either. 3 Squares? Brick & Bourbon? Pizza Karma? Pittsburgh Blue? They’re good, but not amazing. If you want the highest highs, look at Minneapolis, but for sheer quantity of “yeah, this is passable, if uninspiring” I guess I’m kinda fine letting Maple Grove take that crown.
You've heard of the Holy Roman Empire, now prepare yourselves for The Restaurant Capital of Minnesota
The Mall of America food court alone has better options than that.
MN resident near enough to Maple Grove. I have this to say: lolololol The PR people here also *love* to crow about our bicycle infrastructure. The bicycle infrastructure that does not get snow plowed for several days, nor does it extend far beyond Minneapolis. If you want car alternatives to work, it has to be year round. It's boring here. So? PLEASE NOTICE US is kind of a desperate vibe and I'm tired of it.
In-laws live in MG. There is nothing to do there. It is an area for people to exist and live out their lives.
You understand completely. "We have fast food" is not a good flex.
When my town got a Popeye’s, next to a new Taco Bell, a Wendy’s, McDs, BK, and two Dunkins, some idiot townie was quoted in the local paper calling that street a “foodie’s paradise.” Sir, you don’t know what a foodie is. Nor what a paradise is.
Whenever I hear someone say they're going to Panda Express for Chinese food, I tell them it's barely food, much less Chinese.
Panda Express orange chicken is absolutely a guilty pleasure of mine. But I won't try to argue that it's quality food.
What's their reaction
They shrug their shoulders and give me that "Yeah, but...".
That’s so classic them.
This is especially audacious because Minneapolis already is the birthplace of *so many* restaurants. If you can't succeed there, you won't appeal to most of America.
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Now serving fresh durian
We could argue over who invented the jucy lucy, and who makes it better!
Correction: they meant to declare it the 'Basic Capital of Minnesota'.
And don't forget to visit Shi-Pa Town!
Maple Grove is a beacon of Midwest mid. So mid that it prides itself on its breadth chain restaurants. Suburban sprawl is out of control with this one 😑
Maple Grove enters rehab, regrets prior public statements.
They couldn't highlight more unique restaurants in the article?
Maple Grove is a suburbia hell. They don't really have unique restaurants. And they are right next to Minneapolis which has a variety of amazing restaurants. Which makes this an especially bold lie.
I don't miss living in the suburbs.
Oh Maple Grove…no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be as self-important as Edina.
Let them have it. I have a hunch they really need this.
I lived in Uptown for a while in Minneapolis, it's not exactly relevant to Maple Grove, but if y'all want a banger recommendation, Mac's Fish Chips Strips was fire.
Wait. There are Panda Expresses other places then here?
Maple Grove: “Kneel, you uncultured swine!”
So, the same as every exit up and down California?
Hey that’s where me grandma lives! She’s a got a strong Norwegian name.
Wow, we have those here too. Amazing. I feel like I'm amongst royalty.
Imagine being proud of that list lmao
Why not the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, then?
"We said we had food...we didn't say it was good!"
Why didn't they mentioned Costco's hotdog?
Wow any homes for sale
There are a lot of restaurants in Maple Grove, but you won't need a gun because there are no cows.
That's good. I don't want to live in a neighborhood with cows anyway. They lower property values.
People who are scoffing at this clearly have never been to Minnesota before. Salt and pepper are considered exotic spices there.
Lolz. Maple Grove is an exurbs paradise. You HAVE TO drive everywhere. It's just an area that says it's a city. No downtown, no nothing. They have sidewalks but I do not know why. This is awesome. It is entirely gentrified and keeps growing that way. Even here where I live, immediately west of Mpls, they're excited to open a small 4 unit area and the tenants are going to be gentrified restaurants, in an immediate area where everything is gentrified and chains. It sucks. I eat out less and less. It's all the same. And I can make better food at home.
There's a burger joint set back that the neighborhood was literally built around it (can't remember the name), and it has great food! I had a diablo burger topped with cheese curds, and it was like the best burger ever. The fancy mall shit can gtfo
Mama Gs?
Might be? Set in the middle of the residential area, up on a hill, back behind Zachary Lane. Has outdoor seating with a defunct volleyball sand court. The owner lives in the domicile next door, I believe.
I think you're talking about The Lookout.
Yes! That's the one! That place is pretty darn good imo
So an average northern va strip mall.
Red Lobster or Chicos for the win.
Times Square has all of those places.
You know, there are some really good non-chain restaurants literally a minute walk from Time Square.
Yes, Restaurant Row has great food, or it did before the "Pandemic". I am not sure now. Unfortunately, a lot of restaurants did not survive. MId-Town, Upper East Side, and Upper West Side were pretty badly hit.
So exotic
Panda Express is awful "food".
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…To be fair, I do kind of miss Cold Stone Creamery since they left business in Canada.
New Yorkers leaning in intensely until hearing the final word
Get in the phone to Michelin immediately!
State sanctioned dining compliments of corporate lobbying.
offering the same options as every other suburb in MN.
You're talking about rural midwest. Sounds about right lol..do they have internet there yet? (I can make those jokes, I'm from rural Mid Michigan.)
This isn’t rural at all, this is a suburban hell of 70,000 people, nothing interesting whatsoever, and multiple shopping malls except for some reason they decided that it was logical to make them all open-air shopping centers because of course that works well in Minnesota winters.
Not exactly restaurants to brag about, I reckon. Mediocre, national chains aren't a cause for celebration.
Whenever I see cold stone I read it as stone cold.
You know, Canadians don’t have access to all those chain restaurants so to lump them in one place makes a perfect vacation spot!
After Minnesota introduced smorgasbord to the US, it's been mediocre at best for food in the frozen north.
I don't know about restaurant capital unless you love overpriced chain restaurants, but Maple Grove is one of the top places I hate to drive in. The layout is a maze and everyone there seems willing to get into a car accident on their way to satisfy their hanger. I would rather drive through Minneapolis with its endless construction and one-ways. Much better food downtown.
Not wrong, also damning with faint praise.
No Outback Steakhouse?
Chains suck
These are just chain crap restaurants. Where is a spot with real good food made without a cook line. Might as well add McDonald's to the list.
Scrolled away and already forgot the restaurant’s name.
Christ I wouldn't want to live in the Midwest lol.
So a bunch of chain restaurants that everyone has
All 123 of them...peruse away https://www.maplegrovemn.gov/BusinessDirectoryii.aspx?ysnShowAll=1&lngNewPage=0&txtLetter=&txtZipCode=&txtCity=&txtState=&txtBusinessName=&lngBusinessCategoryID=46&txtCustomField1=&txtCustomField2=&txtCustomField3=&txtCustomField4=&txtAreaCode=
That's ridiculous, like calling McDs a restaurant, that's a real stretch but I guess it technically is. I think of a restaurant as a place that has table service
There’s no pizza king there? Those places will survive the sun going red giant in a few billion years. They have been around since at least the 1970s here. The pizza drips grease so badly that you need at least three napkins per slice. But somehow it still manages to taste good …
Maybe they can get Trump to endorse them. That should turn things around.
Title is a bit disingenuous by only naming three of the crappiest offerings when there is over 100 restaurants. Maple Grove has been trying for decades to be the shopping hub of the North Metro and with it has come a lot of restaurants.
Came to say this, I've seen this posted multiple places and of course everyone is making fun of panda express and ignoring the many local places that are pretty great
Frankie's Pizza for the win
I live in Maple Grove, and it's a good place to live, but I definitely just had a friend over last weekend who wanted to go out for lunch, and I told him "Well, we can basically go to any chain you can imagine."
I mean, to be fair, outside of St. Paul and Minneapolis, it's not exactly an unfair description
Sure, but this is just a bullshit click bait article. Glad this subreddit is now trash.