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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
April 2005

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Finance

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Expansion


Longfellow Grill marks
third restaurant for
growing Blue Plate

David Burley and his partners opened a third restaurant in mid-February, Longfellow Grill on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.

Like its sister restaurants Highland Grill and Edina Grill, it serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. Unlike those restaurants, it has a full bar and an outdoor seating area for 60 that Burley adores.

“It’s probably the nicest outdoor seating in the city,” Burley says. The full liquor license was relatively easy to get, unlike in St. Paul, he says, where “they only have so many.”

Burley, who’s CEO, started Blue Plate Restaurant Co. in St. Paul with business partner Stephanie Shimp, who handles finances. They since have brought in a third partner, Stephanie’s brother Luke Shimp, who handles marketing and other matters. They own the three restaurants outright and have an interest in the Groveland Tap in St. Paul.

“We always envisioned that we would have multiple locations, but it took us longer than we thought to get here,” Burley says, adding that the company started in March 1993. From then to now, “It’s an eternity in our business.”

The group had a restaurant in Red Wing, but they closed it. Burley says at the time they didn’t have the right supports in place. “We have a much better operation now, more systems in place. We know our limitations.”

This time he believes they’re ready, and he’s especially happy with the general manager hired to run Longfellow Grill, a woman who lives near the neighborhood and started at the company as a server.

Still, it’s a big investment, just over $750,000, funded with operating capital and a loan from Park Midway Bank in St. Paul. “We put a lot of money in this. This is easily the biggest investment” for the company to date. He projects revenue this year of $5 million, including expected sales from the Longfellow Grill.

Burley snared the prime location, on the Mississippi River, by going back a couple of times to the Lander Group, a real estate firm based in Minneapolis. “They’d had some people interested, but they either had no track record or were chains. We have a track record, and we’re not Champp’s or Applebee’s,” Burley says.

“I love the business now. It hasn’t always been easy. I haven’t always loved it,” Burley says.

“You’ve got to keep reinventing yourself. If we don’t keep coming up with new menu items, and better customer service, and run them tight, there are a lot of choices” for consumers.

David Burley, Blue Plate Restaurant Co.: 612.916.2262; david@edinagrill.com; www.edinagrill.com; www.longfellowgrill.com; www.highlandgrill.com