Carmen's Restaurant to expand with new kitchen
Jun. 28—CLOQUET — Carmen's Bar and Restaurant has been a Cloquet staple, and has seen a number of improvements and additions over its 25-year tenure.
Co-owners and brothers Ryan Lindstrom and Zach Zezulka are continuing to expand the business by building a brand new kitchen; the current kitchen will also be refurbished as a part of the project.
Zezulka said the project has been a long time coming.
"We started working on this project actually prior to COVID, so we were in the works to get drawings and bids like two months prior to COVID and then obviously once that hit, we had to halt," he said.
Over three years later, the expansion will be three and a half times larger than Carmen's current kitchen and is expected to be complete by the end of July or early August.
They said the expansion will benefit the restaurant in a variety of ways, but most directly the cooks.
Due to the current kitchen's small size, lots of supplies are stored upstairs.
"It's not uncommon for a person to do 25, 30 flights of stairs in a shift just going and getting stuff," Lindstrom said.
Other improvements include transforming the old kitchen into a new area for servers; adding an ice machine and increased storage area on the main level for bar staff; and more food prep space in the kitchen for balancing regular restaurant hours and outside catering.
Customers won't need to worry too much about Carmen's closing down during construction, as Lindstrom and Zezulka said they were mindful about how the project would affect their hours and wanted to keep it as minimal as possible.
"They're building a brand new kitchen around our existing kitchen, so they'll be able to get this new addition 100% complete without affecting our day-to-day operations whatsoever ... we have been working closely obviously with the health department, our contractors, and the city of Cloquet to find out what the shutdown time is going to be like to just tie everything together," said Zezulka.
"There probably will be two or three days where we'll do our big switch over, get all the plates and all that stuff over to the new kitchen and ... do a training day or two with the new equipment, the new setup and operations; so, there will be a little bit of a shutdown time, but it's mostly because we are choosing to have shutdown time — and I think it will be beneficial for our staff," Lindstrom said.
They added that they will be posting updates about shutdown time and possible limited menu options during the transition on the restaurant's social media accounts.
The brothers are optimistic about the expansion despite the fact that it might take some time to adjust to a new workspace and flow.
"We have a good team — going forward I think it will be a painless transformation," Zezulka said.
