Staying on Eat Street Strategies to support community businesses on Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street

Abstract

Eat Street is a cultural corridor home to many thriving small businesses owned by immigrants and persons of color. While not all Eat Street restaurant owners are immigrants, the immigrant experience is central to the Eat Street story. “It’s a mixed culture here. It’s not one kind of people. Different position, different cultures, and different people. You have all kinds, all kinds of people” (Eat Street at 20, n.d., Harry Singh, owner of Harry Singh’s Original Caribbean Restaurant). The focus of this semester long research project is to provide targeted strategies that the City of Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED) department can take to support the immigrant and person of color owned businesses along Eat Street as they plan and prepare for projected economic revitalization with the potential reopening of Nicollet Avenue at Lake Street.