Boy, do we like restaurants

Mar. 6—It's not hard to figure out what's important to people in this area.

In the past couple of weeks, Free Press reporters did important stories on a candidate announcing for a local congressional seat, a story on the drawing of new Mankato City Council wards, and another looking at race-based groups in schools.

All the stories got about 2,000-4,000 hits on The Free Press Facebook page, and they got zero or just a few comments posted by readers.

A story about a new Taco Bell being built near Home Depot quickly exploded with 50,000 Facebook hits and 240 comments posted.

We do love our restaurants.

Some said they couldn't wait for it to open so they could enjoy more Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos, while others hope it will reduce the drive-thru lineup at the existing store.

But mostly people bemoaned the restaurants we don't have in Mankato or North Mankato. That's the common thread that occurs every time we write any story about any restaurant.

I never thought I lacked any choices when we go out to eat, but apparently we're nearly a fast-food desert here.

One commenter was particularly fed up with Mankato's food scene — and its residents. "Can't wait to get out of Mankato. Small town = very small minded people."

Wow. Don't let the door hit you on the way out of town.

Bring us an Outback, many said. Or a Cracker Barrel.

People always say we need a Waffle House, IHOP, CheeseCake Factory, Sonic, Shake Shack, Tortilla Factory, Braum's, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Schlotzsky's — and lots more, some of which I never heard of before.

It's understandable people want us to get the food places or stores they like, whether it's a In-And-Out Burger or a Trader Joe's grocery.

While some seem to think local governments can recruit and bring in specific stores, it's entirely up to the private sector.

Local developers will tell you it's insanely expensive building/leasing and opening even a small chain restaurant — think millions, not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Developers do try to recruit restaurants so the developer can build and lease a building to them, but restaurant chains and stores are notoriously diligent in digging up the demographics on any potential city they might look at. Mankato has good growth and size, but for many restaurants it's still a ways down their list of potential places to open.

I know a local developer who for years has worked to attract Trader Joe's here, to no avail. They apparently have plenty of bigger, more lucrative markets they can open in first.

While restaurant stories are by far the biggest attention grabbers, news of new apartment/housing projects are nearly as popular. There are a lot of big housing projects in the offing right now and every story about them brings a common thread of comments: "They need to build more affordable apartments."

But getting much in the way of truly affordable apartment projects comes about in only one way — significant federal tax credits have to be awarded to the private developer to offset the lower rents and make a project feasible.

Unfortunately, there's massive demand by cities across the country for the limited number of tax credits awarded.

Readers have an obvious interest in wishing there were more affordable rents and that their favorite restaurant or store comes to town, but it's a complicated process driven by private sector finances and business models.

For myself, I'd vote for a Cracker Barrel.

Second thought, maybe not. It'd be very bad for my waistline.

Tim Krohn can be contacted at tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com or 507-720-1300.