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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Andrew Tellijohn
June 2003

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Expansion


Need for bigger kitchen,
expanded hours drives
opening of Manny’s Tortas

Manny Gonzalez had a successful sandwich operation in the Mercado Central Cooperative in Minneapolis for two years. But his expanding catering business demanded a bigger kitchen, and the Mercado closed early.

He looked in downtown Minneapolis for a second location but found the rent to be too high. He went to St. Paul but didn’t like what he saw.

Then he found a vacant building at 2700 Lake St. South in Minneapolis. After consultation with Mike Temali, executive director of the Neighborhood Development Center Inc. in St. Paul, Gonzalez last fall opened Manny’s Tortas, fueled by loans from American Bank and through NDC. The move helped Gonzalez and his wife, Victoria, to garner the NDC’s neighborhood small business owner of the year award in April.

Manny’s Tortas is open until 3 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and has an outdoor seating area. Boldly colored quotes on the walls say “what’s on your mind” in English and Spanish.

“I wanted something different,” Gonzalez says. “People keep asking me, well, what’s on my mind, and I tried to explain to them. So I thought that’s a good quote to put on the wall, what’s on your mind? It’s like a piece of conversation.”

Business has been slower at the second location because people don’t know it’s there yet. Revenue at the first location topped half a million last year. But he says the expansion was worth the risk. “This business is really hard. You really have to live it every day. You have to be here and you have to work,” Gonzalez says.

Manuel Gonzalez, Manny’s Tortas: 612.728.1778. Mike Temali, Neighborhood Development Center: 651.291.2480; www.windndc.org