Your business week, 10/25 – 11/1
After an unexpected shout out from Stranger Things character Dustin, a retro Science Museum of Minnesota hoodie will be hitting shelves again soon.
- Others have already jumped on the craze: Makers on Etsy and RedBubble have already duplicated the look. SMM does not plan to take action against them, however.
- Expect to see the hoodie at the Science Museum gift shop and online within the week or so.
Minneapolis
World class: Minneapolis named, by the Wall Street Journal, one of the top destinations to visit in the world for 2018.
- Minneapolis came in at #4. That’s in the world. Not just Minnesota, or the U.S., alongside places like Kuelap, Peru, Shanghai, and Madagascar.
- The restaurant scene, including Spoon and Stable and Rabbit Hole, Bob Dylan and Prince (duh), and the coming Super Bowl, were listed reasons why Minneapolis deserves international attention.
- Surprising? It’s nothing we didn’t already know.
Capella Education, Inc. sold to Virgina-based Strayer Education, Inc.
- The downtown Minneapolis-based Capella, an online university boasting 38,000 enrolled students (thus making 3rd largest school in the state by enrollment), is located in the downtown Minneapolis tower of the same name.
- The combined schools will be called Strategic Education; though they will still operate separately, but management and office services will merge. Look for potential cuts at the Capella office, will already downsized last year.
Surly Brewing Co. expands into Colorado.
- Furious, Hell, Xtra-Citra, Coffee Bender and Todd the Axe Man are all available in the Centennial State as of this past Monday, 10/30/17.
- Colorado is a craft beer haven; now national craft breweries like Fat Tire started long ago in the mountains, and the Great American Beer Festival is hosted in Denver.
- Surly also entered the Canadian market over the summer.
St. Paul
End of an era: Muffaletta restaurant is closing November 11.
- The longtime St. Paul restaurant, open since 1977 and a mainstay of the St. Anthony Park neighborhood, was no longer a moneymaker.
- You can still find muffaletta sandwiches at Vieux Carré in downtown St. Paul.
- It was the first restaurant in the Parasole restaurant empire, which also closed Mozza Mia at 50th and France earlier this year.
Metro
Hormel buys Columbus for $850 million.
- California-based Columbus, a food brand geared towards a younger “Millennial” market, offering higher end, “premium” salamis and other Italian meats, hopes to add a different element to a company still best known for making SPAM.
- There is absolutely nothing wrong with SPAM.
- This is the largest acquisition ever for Austin-based Hormel.
Beyond
Weed and beer, together at last: Constellation Brands, the company behind Corona and Modelo beer brands, bought a 9.9% stake in the marijuana producer, Canopy Growth, for $191 million.
- Canopy is the largest legal marijuana producer in the world.
- With legalization looming on the horizon for more states than just the seven (California, Massachusetts, Maine, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Nevada) that already allow for more than just medical use, Constellation is getting into the pot game ahead of the curve. We’ll see how high (boom) they can go.
