It never makes Minnesota Monthly's getaways list, but when the sun is high and the budget's low, a person could pass a lovely summer weekend right down on Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis. Check it out:
Grab a frosty coffee from Anodyne to enjoy while shopping the Kingfield Farmers Market. Don't forget to peek into Corner Table to see what Scott's cooking. Seek sage advice on DIY projects and a new propane tank from the weirdly worldly workers at Diamond Lake Hardware -- somehow even the high school kids there can tell you step-by-step how to dig fencepost footings or rebuild your flux capacitor. Try out ice cream cone cookies at the new Sunstreet Breads. Wander through Tangletown Gardens and imagine you are in the secret garden grotto at the Prince of Wale's summer castle. While there you can buy some crystallized wolf urine to scare the rabbits out of your pepper plants or just to mess with your neighbor's beagle. And then head next door, hand the children a role of nickels for vintage pinball and sit outside enjoying a custard with sprinkles at Liberty Custard. If you are lucky, the firefighters across the street will be washing their truck and will let you -- your kids, I mean -- climb on it.
But wait! This was my most-Saturdays plan for summer. Until Liberty announced it was closing and I became convinced it was the final nail in an apocalyptic winter that would never end. Liberty closed! Spring is a lie! It will be winter in Minnesota FOREVER!
Then, light. Hope. Deliverance. A note arrived from Dean Engelmann and Scott Endres, those clever gardeners at Tangletown. Perhaps we would be interested to know that they were preparing to open a restaurant. Right there in the old Liberty Custard space. A casual joint, serving food they grow themselves out in Plato, Minnesota. Masters at branding, they'll call it Wise Acre Eatery. Why yes, Dean and Scott, we at SGT would be interested in your delicious new idea.
Wise Acre Eatery teams the former University of Minnesota horticulture grads and gardening entrepreneurs (heretofore known as gardentrepreneurs) with chef Beth Fisher and wine and beer expert Caroline Glawe, Lucia's alumnae, to create a neighborhood gathering spot serving locally sourced food on the spot or to take home. It will be casual, and it has promised to like my children. It will still serve custard, but custard made with cream from a local dairy and sweetened with honey; in other words, I will be able to down all the custard I want and still feel like I am eating something good for me.
I talked to Dean about the new venture. I had seen cukes and eggplants in the Tangletown Gardens store when I was buying my wolf pee powder, and had heard that they'd started a CSA. I did not realize that it had grown to more than 300 members in just a couple of years. The 40 acres they grow on (they are adding another 17 acres this summer) accommodates both nursery plants and produce, with the height of the season in the greenhouses wrapping up just as the fieldwork hits its stride. It is an effective marriage of uses that allows Tangletown to keep the farm and its staff working productively for an extra long season. What I was most curious to hear about, though, was TG's plan to supply not only the produce, but beef, pork, and poultry to Wise Acre. The evolution of producing tulip bulbs to producing radishes was logical, but the leap from growing a head of lettuce to a herd of cattle? Were they sure about this?
For Dean and Scott, supporting both produce and pasture-raised animals is both the most 
economically and ecologically sound way to farm. The land is managed with animals and crops on a cyclical rotation, rebuilding the soil constantly. (Dean will loan you his research library on this issue; I would just point you to one of the ubiquitous Joel Salatin videos, because Salatin is so darn entertaining.) Dean says on a farm practicing multicropping, the return per acre "blows conventional farming out of the water." (Hear that, other hort grads? Tangletown Gardens is challenging you to an agricultural smackdown!) TG has been working with animals on the farm for several years. They started with two chickens, in part because Dean had such happy memories of picking eggs with his grandmother, and grew to selling eggs out of the store. Similarly, a few cattle made way for 40, and those 40 are making their way to Nicollet Avenue.
When Dean gets to talking about the animals, which include grass-fed Scottish Highland Beef, pasture-raised Large Black and Berkshire pork, and free range chicken, turkey, and duck, he gets giddy. What makes me giddy is that they have found a processor in Watertown who is working with them on seasonal recipes for brats, sausages, and hot dogs ... hot dogs that they hope will find their way inside a corn dog! Reader, if you are not the parent of a young child, you may not understand why this is the most important news you will hear this year. A corn dog made with 100 percent grass-fed beef is the Holy Grail of local food children's meals. The dream is alive my friends. And it lives in south Minneapolis.
Wise Acre is set to open in mid-May. The renovation of the building, once a filling station, is proceeding apace. In keeping with their devotion to responsible land stewardship, the owners have managed to salvage, recycle and repurpose just about everything they need, from the tabletops to kitchen equipment. Food scraps will make their way back to the farm for compost or to some very happy pigs.
Wise Acre Eatery (opening soon)
5401 Nicollet Avenue South, Minneapolis
612.822.4769
wiseacreeatery.com
Laura Zimmermann has the best intentions and worst results growing food, but is a smashing success at eating. She lives with her family in south Minneapolis, within biking distance of Wise Acre Eatery. Laura is an editor at SGT.
