| |
|
Photo by Gregory J. Scot
Ryan Stechschulte is the new executive chef at Harry’s Food and Cocktails on Washington Avenue.
|
Biz buzz :: New chef at Harry’s
|
By Gregory J. Scott
New chef plans menu changes at Harry’s
Harry’s Food and Cocktails has a new executive chef. Ryan Stechschulte, 29 years old, took over the kitchen in December, filling a leadership gap that has affected the restaurant since Alex White left last February. White had been the sous chef under Colon Murray, who departed the restaurant in August 2008. Murray had been the sous chef under renowned culinary iconoclast Seven Brown, who departed in the fall of 2007 after opening the restaurant the summer before.
Stechschulte previously spent five years at the Nicollet Island Inn, where he started as a grill cook and worked his way up to sous chef. In May of 2009, he left the Inn to help open Victory 44, a new gastro-pub in North Minneapolis. The Harry’s gig is Stechschulte’s first job as executive chef. His first round of menu changes is set to take place at the end of January.
After Murray left, Harry’s refrained from hiring a replacement right away, Stechschulte said. “They kept their kitchen employees here, they kept their traditional menu and they just let them do their thing. But there wasn’t a lot of leadership there, and consistency started to waver.”
Stechschulte’s first goal as executive chef, then, is to re-establish a culinary identity for the Washington Avenue restaurant. But that doesn’t mean dramatic changes.
“I want to bring the quality and consistency back to what Steven Brown originally started with,” Stechschulte said of his menu strategy. “He’s inspired so many chefs in this town, and he’s done a lot of great work.”
Stechschulte’s started with a few desserts, which have already made their way onto the current menu. And while it may not be traditionally German, the new Fluffernutter sandwich has been an early crowd pleaser. The dessert is a bite-sized sandwich, with housemade red skin peanut butter and housemade marshmallows squeezed between a few slices of buttered Texas toast. It comes with a scoop of Sebastian Joe’s malted vanilla ice cream, which is dusted in milled peanut brittle.
———
Upscale pen store closes in the IDS
Barry Rubin has announced the closure of Ink, a specialty pen store that he opened on the 45th floor of the IDS Center. Rubin, the former chairman of Ardea Beverage Co, opened the store in late 2006 as an attempt to make a business out of his lifelong fascination with rare and limited edition pens.
Ink’s pens range in cost from $18 for a run-of-the-mill note jotter to around $50,000 for the store’s crown jewel, a Mont Blanc encrusted with diamonds and rubies in the shape of an American flag.
Rubin acknowledged that Ink’s perceived exclusivity also hurt business, a strategic misstep that he takes full responsibility for. The shop was on the 45th floor of IDS. Shopping there required a special appointment with Rubin himself. “There was this perception of a store where you had to spend a lot of money, which wasn’t true.” Ink also suffered a loss of corporate business, Rubin said, when companies cut back on buying gifts for managers and retiring board members.
A major sale has begun, with heavy discounts on pens, some going as low as $10 each. Rubin says the sale will last until all inventory has been sold. He will man the store from Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.–noon and 1 p.m.–4 p.m. He still has 18 months on his lease in the IDS Center.
———
New Holiday station store opens near Target Field
A new Holiday station store opened Jan. 7 at 601 N. 5th St., less than a block from Target Field, the new Twins baseball stadium.
The same Mankato limestone that was used in the ballpark’s façade has been incorporated into the store’s construction, providing a thematic link between the two.
The gas station also has a carwash.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Combating cancer
UPDATED August 30, 2010, 11:42am
By Dylan Thomas
Decorated in neutral tones and blond wood flooring, the infusion room at the Hennepin Comprehensive Cancer Center was designed to feel calm and welcoming to the roughly 500 patients who receive chemotherapy treatments there each year. Center Manager Kelly Porter said one session may run up to six hours, so patients — who receive their infusions in recliners in one of 11 small patient bays ringing the room — are made to feel comfortable. They read, watch TV or, like 48-year-old Desiree Jackson of Minneapolis, three months into chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer in March, simply relax as much as possible. “I just try to nod off a little,” Jackson said. “I just like to get it done and over with.” From his desk in the center of
Full Article
|
|
|
|
|
The poison patrol
UPDATED August 30, 2010, 11:39am
By Dylan Thomas
A typical call to the Hennepin Regional Poison Center begins at a home on laundry day. A parent pours out a cup of bleach, preparing to add it to the wash. The phone rings and the parent leaves to answer it. A child reaches up for cup of the clear liquid. We’ll let poison center Managing Director Debbie Anderson take over from here: “A child takes a swig [and] they immediately throw up. So, what do parents do? They panic; they call 911.” Anderson said that call would be patched through to her call center in HCMC, where a staff of specially trained pharmacists and pharmacy students take calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The staffer would assure the parent vomiting was
Full Article
|
|
|
|
|
Savvy about sleep
By jake weyer
There’s little question that folks today are hooked on finding ways to stay awake. The massive collection of energy drinks on display in a room at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center is a testament to that. Voluntary sleep deprivation, not surprisingly, is the most common cause of drowsiness during the day. Neurologist Mark Mahowald, director of the center, sees it all the time. “People always ask, ‘well how do you know if you’re sleep deprived?’ Our first question is, ‘do you use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning?’ If you use an alarm clock, you are by definition sleep deprived because if your brain had collected as much sleep as it needed, you would have awakened before the alarm went off,” he said.
Full Article
|
|
|
|
|
Triage time
By Sarah McKenzie
No one wants to end up here. But if you do end up in HCMC’s Emergency Department, you’re in place that has a long and successful track record in trauma care. The department, housed in the hospital’s Red Building, 730 S. 8th St., takes up an entire city block and has six specialized team centers. In 1989, HCMC became the first hospital in the state certified as a Level I Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons. The distinction means that the hospital has significant operating room capacity and surgeons available to deliver emergency medical care trained in a variety of specialties. The hospital’s Emergency Department is the busiest in the state with more than 100,000 visits a year, said Michelle Noltimier, director
Full Article
|
|
|
|
|
Fruit-themed hallways and anti-smoking posters
By Cristof Traudes
Welcome to the part of HCMC that handles severe accidents but also cuts, scrapes and bruises, the part that deals with burn victims and pregnancy but also tonsil trouble and literacy. This is “peeds” — as staffers of pediatrics call it — where health care is only half of the story. Anybody up to age 18 is sent to the department and sometimes 21-year-olds are, too. As a result, peeds is set up much like a tentative parent — to entertain and educate wee ones but steer clear (as much as possible) from stepping on the toes of teens. It’s a department with yellow walls and fruit-themed hallways in one section and sleek grey walls and self esteem-boosting posters in another. Every child that walks through the door is given a
Full Article
|
|
|
|
|
Politics. Change. Prevention.
By Cristof Traudes
// Art Gonzalez talks about the health care landscape, General Assistance Medical Care and the future //
Art Gonzalez, CEO of Hennepin County Medical Center, sees change on the horizon. More than just health insurance is getting an overhaul; the way hospitals will be graded on success is, too. In the second and final part of his interview with the Downtown Journal, he talks about what that means for HCMC right now and what it will mean down the road.
Downtown Journal: What’s your sense of state leaders’ views of HCMC?
Gonzalez: I get the impression that we’re well known and well regarded. They recognize the impact that we provide in the region.
Obviously, the
Full Article
|
|
|
|
|
More than one way to give birth
By Sarah McKenzie
Hennepin County Medical Center is home to the state’s first Nurse-Midwife Service. Since 1971, midwives at the hospital have been helping women have natural birth experiences. Rita O’Reilly, director of the hospital’s Nurse Midwife Service, said HCMC practices the “true midwifery philosophy.” “We believe in the normal birth process; keeping birth as natural as possible,” she said. “We discourage elective inductions of labor without a medical indication. We encourage families to be participants in the decision making affecting their pregnancy, labor and births.” The hospital’s nurse midwives deliver more than 800 babies each year. The nine-bed unit’s cesarean section rate is 12.7
Full Article
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
