Your business week 6/15 – 6/21
Minneapolis
Cafe Maude is closing.
- Kim Bartmann’s restaurant empire swallowed the old dame whole.
- Partnering with Asher Miller, who has worked with Wolfgang Puck and Andrew Zimmern, expect a California influence to be added to the resto’s French roots.
- There is no name for the project as of yet.
- We’ll keep you posted.
Cheap trip: Minneapolis gives thumbs up on discount taxi rides.
- Blue and White Taxi Inc. is using new meters and new price-flexibility to compete with rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft
- Taxis have been falling behind.
- Blue and White will offer discount rides whenever they like to sway riders away from price-surged rideshares.
St. Paul
Gray Duck Tavern is now open in downtown St. Paul.
- Read our preview here: Gray Duck Tavern opens Tuesday
The Wiz King cleans up in Pittsburgh.
- The Wiz King, created by St. Paulite Matt Hunter-Swanson, cleans toilets, reduces spilling, helps kids potty-train, and even works as a nightlight for late-night bathroom trips.
- The invention was presented in Pittsburgh, PA at the Invention & New Product Exposition, looking for funds and potential investors.
Metro
McDonald’s is now delivering food in the Twin Cities, courtesy of UberEATS.
- 19 locations will have delivery capabilities, including eight in Minneapolis, six in St. Paul, two in St. Louis Park and one apiece for Bloomington and Edina.
- You can order your McChicken through the UberEATS app, or at www.ubereats.com.
Speaking of food: The State Fair has released its annual update for new foods offered.
- 30 new items, including deep fried avocado, duck bacon wontons, and battered, deep-fried red licorice (one of the few things left that hasn’t been deep-fried at the Fair).
- Full list here: New Foods for 2017
Delta is now using facial recognition kiosks at MSP in order to speed up lines.
- Four new self-serve kiosks will match your face to your passport photo and check you in electronically.
- Don’t change your hair color or grow a beard, apparently.
- They’re only for checking luggage, however, so the actual impact on line time remains to be seen; you still have to go through security, take off your shoes, etc.
Beyond
Amazon is now the proud owner of Whole Foods grocery chain.
- For $13.7 billion it could have been yours.
- Whole Foods had been struggling as of late.
- Amazon also owns Audible, Woot, Zappos, IMDB, CreateSpace, Goodreads, Twitch.tv (and countless others) as well as develops original films and television programming, and delivering just about anything you could ever want to your front door.
- Yes, Amazon is fast becoming Skynet.
Netflix will now offer personalized previews before content.
- They’re basically ads for new, upcoming, and existing content on Netflix.
- Yep, that’s exactly what they are.
- But they’ll be tailor-made to your preferences. No need to watch a trailer for Narcos when you’re more of a Lady Dynomite fan.
