Old new burger alert: Edina's Convention Grill is back
It would have to take more than a global pandemic to close the Convention Grill for good.
More than four years after the Depression-era diner shut down along with the rest of the restaurants in the state to allay the spread of COVID-19, it is finally back.
Much of it looks much the same as it used to — the classic diner counter, the brown wood booths, black-and-white checked floors — despite significant reconstruction of the kitchen. But it reopens in a different world.
John Rimarcik, the longtime owner and legendary Edina restaurateur, died at the end of last year, just short of his goal of reopening, leaving his sons, Tony and Tom Rimarcik, as the heads of the business.
The diner will officially open to full capacity on Wednesday, May 8. But it's already slinging burgers and malts at limited capacity while it waits for a new grill and some other equipment. It is currently operating daily 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and will expand to 9 p.m. next week.
Reopening, so far, has been "incredible," Tony Rimarcik said. "We've seen so many regular customers already."
Two of those regulars were having burgers, fries and malts Friday afternoon, one of them for the second day in a row.
"When places like this close, it's forever. It's normal for people to have that sense of loss," said Mike Fisher, of Edina. "For this to come back and reopen, it's like euphoria."
The Convention Grill, which was founded by a pair of metalworking brothers in 1934, was a one-room old-fashioned burger and malt shop. After Rimarcik took over in 1974, he gradually acquired the neighboring businesses, expanding it into a full-fledged diner known for its chicken soup, coleslaw, Plazaburger and tulip-glass malts.
During the closure, the family fielded intense interest from regulars about a reopening date.
"It's hard to estimate that sense of nostalgia and ownership and belonging. It's really humbling," Tony Rimarcik said last December.
John Rimarcik had hoped to reopen Convention Grill and Dinkytown's Annie's Parlour by the end of 2023. (Annie's Parlour reopened in February.)
"Dad will never see these places," Tony Rimarcik said shortly before his father died. "But I'd like to be able to tell him that they're open."
