Mill Valley Kitchen hopes to be cooking in downtown Rochester by late summer

Apr. 12—ROCHESTER — A new restaurant is on the menu for downtown Rochester as

Mill Valley Kitchen

gears up to open in

Pescara's

former space in late summer.

Construction is underway for the restaurant in the street level space of University of Minnesota Rochester Student Life Center, formerly the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, at 150 South Broadway Ave.

Minnesota-based

Northern Hospitality & Co.

, which also operates the Benedict's Morning Heroes restaurant in downtown Rochester in the nearby Hilton Rochester Mayo Clinic hotel, is the company behind this project. It is owned and managed by the husband and wife team of Mike and Abby Rakun.

Mill Valley Kitchen's menu pays homage to the Northern California style of cooking. It is described as emphasizing "thoughtful, creatively crafted dishes that showcase fresh, responsibly sourced ingredients."

It will offer signature dishes like duck breast, ratatouille, orecchiette, flatbreads, hummus plates and other seasonal entrees.

The Rakuns are aware that Rochester diners were disappointed when

Pescara's closed in April 2023

, after 14 years as a popular spot for seafood in downtown Rochester.

"Mill Valley Kitchen will definitely showcase plenty of seafood on the menu. We regularly offer salmon, scallops, shrimp, seabass and a variety of clean proteins, and we'll also feature an oyster bar," stated Abby Rakun.

This will be Northern Hospitality's second Mill Valley Kitchen. The original MVK restaurant is based in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

"We love Rochester. People seem to have really embraced Benedict's Morning Heroes. There are the logistical advantages of operating more than one restaurant in the same city," wrote Abby Rakun about the project. "Plus, having an existing restaurant here gives us some insights into the community that we might not have had otherwise."

When completed, the new Mill Valley Kitchen restaurant will seat 150 customers between the main dining room and the bar area plus another 30 on its patio. Northern Hospitality anticipates staffing the Rochester restaurant with a team of about 40 people.

The restaurant will feature a pizza oven and an oyster bar next to each other to bring what Abby Rakun describes as "an open kitchen energy into the dining room." She also calls the restaurant's décor "airy, fresh, casual and contemporary with soft white tones and blonde woods used throughout."

The public will access the restaurant in the mostly university-occupied building via the main Broadway entrance and through the skyway access during the restaurant's hours of operation.

The Rochester Mill Valley Kitchen will not be identical to the original Twin Cities location.

During the day it will have a self-serve grab-and-go area with ready-made salads, sandwiches and snacks for customers to either take with them or eat on-site in a specially-designated seating area. That section will disappear behind a sliding wall in the evening as the restaurant transitions to cater to "more intimate dining and socializing."

The addition of Mill Valley is

the latest change to the building

that operated as a hotel for decades in the heart of Rochester.

As part of a deal with the University of Minnesota, the hotel's owner, Titan Development & Investments, made an estimated $7.63 million in renovations to convert it into "a student housing and dining facility with ancillary recreational space." It reopened as the Student Life Center in 2023.

The university is leasing nine floors — floors three to 11 — to use the 200 former hotel rooms to provide up to 400 student beds.

The U of M's lease is for $3.06 million annually for 12 years with the gross rent increasing 1.75% a year. The deal includes the university paying a pro-rata share of real estate taxes and utilities, which was estimated at $1.01 million for the first year.

Earlier this week, I wrote about

the recent $4.7 million sale of a 66,000-square-foot retail/industrial complex

at 2411 Seventh St. NW.

To be clear, Tile Superstore & More and plumbing wholesaler Roberts-Hamilton Co., businesses who lease space in the 55-year-old building, intend to continue to operate in the building under the new owners.

The only change happening at the building is the ownership.