By Adia Morris
Drop into Black Dog Cafe in St. Paul, Minnesota, on a typical weekday morning and you’ll find plentiful sunlight, unobtrusive ambient music, breakfast meetings and regulars stopping by for their coffee to go.
Turn the clock forward to a Saturday night and the cafe transforms: multi-colored lights give the room a festival-like glow. A tight five-piece ensemble holds sway on stage. Improvised jazz and the hum and buzz of a packed house fill the room, punctuated by the occasional burst of shared laughter or applause.
It’s rare that a cafe or restaurant survives past its first year, let alone 20 years through major municipal infrastructure construction and a rapidly changing neighborhood, but Black Dog Cafe remains an integral part of the Lowertown area. The cafe’s ability to transform may be one of the keys to its survival.
A foundation built on coffee and jazz
Black Dog Cafe sits on a corner of downtown St. Paul just one block south of a new minor league baseball stadium that’s home to the St. Paul Saints, surrounded by factories-turned-artist lofts, co-working office spaces, luxury condos and apartments and the St. Paul Farmers Market. The light rail train stops just a few blocks away.
Regulars and newcomers visit the cafe for a variety of reasons: They stop in for a beverage and a pastry on a break from work, or during the farmers market. Others are jazz night devotees.
“Some people come for breakfast and then are totally shocked that we could be packed on a Saturday night,” said Sara Remke, co-owner of the cafe with her siblings Andy and Stacy Remke.
Ask Sara about the music nights she’s responsible for booking and her eyes light up. She can rattle off the names of musicians who’ve graced the stage over the last 20 years, drawing crowds from all over the Twin Cities metro area who might not otherwise set foot in St. Paul.
Black Dog Cafe established itself as a late night venue early on, long before other downtown St. Paul venues regularly hosted music and events.
“We’ve been doing music from the first year,” Sara said.
Eventually, Saturday night jazz at the Black Dog became an institution. Steve Kenny—host, curator and trumpet player—and the cafe have kept the event going for 195 consecutive Saturdays.
The jazz nights are what drew Frank Atlas, painter and Lowertown resident, to the area in the first place. Atlas first heard about the jazz night on Bill Cottman’s jazz show on Twin Cities community radio station KFAI.
Atlas has become a recognizable face in the Black Dog since moving into the adjoining building four years ago.
“Frank’s a great support guy,” Sara said. Regulars like him, who spend their money at local businesses whenever possible, keep neighborhoods alive, she said.
“That’s how neighborhoods survive.”
Changing and staying the same
Light rail transit construction from 2010 to 2014 left the Black Dog and several other businesses in the area struggling to stay alive.
“It was really dire,” Sara said. “My brother and I put in 80 hours a week for a few years… We didn’t know how we were going to hang on. And we did.”
The addition of the transit system that brings trainloads of people to the farmers market and Saints games was only one of several changes to the neighborhood. Artist living and working spaces closed, their buildings bought and renovated by developers, and new apartments and condos took their places. New neighbors looking for a sit-down dining experience weren’t thinking of the Black Dog when considering their options.
Sara described the cafe’s early’s days as having a somewhat “hippie” and “piecemeal” vibe. The small kitchen, serving limited fare like soup and sandwiches, was located inside the square bar in the center of the room, and the shop served only non-alcoholic beverages.
“We used to do everything in that (square), and it was just untenable,” Sara said.
The Remkes decide to remodel almost two years ago and expanded into the vacant space next door. The cafe added a full bar, an expanded kitchen, table service and an event space.
The Black Dog has tried to maintain its neighborhood charm while adapting to attract new clientele.
“(The neighborhood) moves, and how do you move with it and still maintain some semblance of who you are?” Sara said. “We really wrestled with, how do we maintain who we are in the midst of the new influx of people coming in? … And that can really be a challenge.”
‘We want you to feel at home’
At the bar in the late-afternoon sunlight, Atlas talked up some of the musicians appearing on the Black Dog stage, including percussionist Davu Seru and guitarist Dean Magraw.
“I love Dean Magraw,” the server on duty chipped in from behind her workstation.
“She’s quite the singer, too,” Atlas said, gesturing to her.
“I’ve performed here once,” she said, with true Minnesota humility.
Their easy banter is a testament to the atmosphere that the owners of the Black Dog have tried to cultivate over the years, despite the evolution of the cafe’s identity.
“It’s really important to us that all different kinds of people feel comfortable here,” Sara said. “Whether that’s an artist that lives upstairs or the guy in the suit from down the street, or whether that’s a Saints (fan), our thing is that we want you to feel at home.”
Even though home can mean different things to different people, that ethos seems to be holding true, judging by Atlas’ description of his favorite thing about the cafe.
“It’s like being at Cheers. If I walk in the door, (the server) will say, ‘Frank!’ ” he said, laughing. “Sometimes you want to come in anonymously, but that ain’t gonna happen.”
This article is part of “Living for the City,” a Rewire initiative made possible by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
This article originally appeared on Rewire
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