2008 Woodie Awards
A Forward Thinking View of the Past: A review of the Red Stag Supper Club
By: Michael Juhasz
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: Features
Graduation is six weeks from now. We'd better get to planning receptions for our parents, the more entrepreneurial of whom may want to see some return on their $160,000 investments.
Those recent mailings which announced the expectedly uninspired order of Commencement Weekend activities have left to us the task of finding a meal on Friday night. Alas, Café Mac will be closed and we shan't be able to impress our families with one of the top rated college cafeterias in the country (as far as I can tell, the cafeteria earned its high ranking after a study suggested that only 39 percent of Café Mac patrons suffer from chronic gastrointestinal distress).
Where, then, shall we take our famished forbears? Could we find a restaurant that might convince our foreign relations that the Twin Cities are less provincial and plain than they'd thought? Maybe. I might even say probably.
The Red Stag Supper Club (509 1st Avenue NE, Minneapolis) recreates for curious out-of-towners and nostalgic locals, the barely extant supper club - a uniquely Upper Midwestern, early mid twentieth-century (20th) dining establishment which serves traditional American cuisine in a semi-casual environment. However, The Red Stag strives to "contemporize" the traditional menu and update the management of its resources.
When the Red Stag opened in 2007, it became the first restaurant in Minnesota to carry LEED-CI (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) registration. The restaurant uses only LED lights and 70 percent less water than other similar sized establishments - there's even a half-flush feature on the toilets (the requisite toilet plunger is thankfully provided). This hip reinvention of a stale and bland formula should serve as an apt display of Minnesota's rich cultural history in a non-repulsive (actually, pretty enjoyable) setting.
That being said, the Red Stag could be greatly improved if the playful reinterpretations, the modernizing revisions were played up further. The restaurant suffers a bit of an identity crisis. I can't quite tell if the Red Stag really wants to be an ironic reincarnation of the Midwest's historically perceived lack of sophistication, or if it's supposed to be a sentimental revival of a longed-for cornball innocence. Part of my confusion comes from the Red Stag's failure to fully follow through with certain themes.
Those recent mailings which announced the expectedly uninspired order of Commencement Weekend activities have left to us the task of finding a meal on Friday night. Alas, Café Mac will be closed and we shan't be able to impress our families with one of the top rated college cafeterias in the country (as far as I can tell, the cafeteria earned its high ranking after a study suggested that only 39 percent of Café Mac patrons suffer from chronic gastrointestinal distress).
Where, then, shall we take our famished forbears? Could we find a restaurant that might convince our foreign relations that the Twin Cities are less provincial and plain than they'd thought? Maybe. I might even say probably.
The Red Stag Supper Club (509 1st Avenue NE, Minneapolis) recreates for curious out-of-towners and nostalgic locals, the barely extant supper club - a uniquely Upper Midwestern, early mid twentieth-century (20th) dining establishment which serves traditional American cuisine in a semi-casual environment. However, The Red Stag strives to "contemporize" the traditional menu and update the management of its resources.
When the Red Stag opened in 2007, it became the first restaurant in Minnesota to carry LEED-CI (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) registration. The restaurant uses only LED lights and 70 percent less water than other similar sized establishments - there's even a half-flush feature on the toilets (the requisite toilet plunger is thankfully provided). This hip reinvention of a stale and bland formula should serve as an apt display of Minnesota's rich cultural history in a non-repulsive (actually, pretty enjoyable) setting.
That being said, the Red Stag could be greatly improved if the playful reinterpretations, the modernizing revisions were played up further. The restaurant suffers a bit of an identity crisis. I can't quite tell if the Red Stag really wants to be an ironic reincarnation of the Midwest's historically perceived lack of sophistication, or if it's supposed to be a sentimental revival of a longed-for cornball innocence. Part of my confusion comes from the Red Stag's failure to fully follow through with certain themes.
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