New restaurant joins the Stillwater community
With collectively over 20 years of restaurant experience under their belt, Brad Nordeen and Joe Ehlenz both 2002 graduates from Stillwater will be opening up a new restaurant located in downtown Stillwater. The restaurant will be located directly off of Main Street right next to Marx. The restaurant will be named LOLO American Kitchen and Craft Bar, LOLO’s for short.
LOLO’s will be both Brad and Joe’s first restaurant that they have ownership of. Brad and Joe both plan on the restaurant opening March 1, 2014. LOLO’s is an acronym for locally owned, locally operated.
Brad Nordeen received his restaurant experience by working at Phil Tara’s Hideaway as well as 112 Eatery in Minneapolis.
Joe Ehlenz met Nordeen while managing at Phil Tara’s Hideaway. After leaving Phil Tara’s Ehlenz went on to manage at Lake Elmo Inn and Smalley’s Barbeque.
Speaking to a St. Croix Valley journalist Ehlenz said, “When you’re open, time flies… I can’t imagine life at a corporate job, in a cubicle, inputting data… to me that doesn’t seem very fun at all.”
Nordeen will be the head chef while Ehlenz will be the restaurant manager.
Ehlenz explains the restaurant role situation, “I’ve always been more of the front-end guy… I love what I do. I can’t say I’m blind when it comes to skills in the kitchen, but I can’t hold a candle to Brad.”
Local businesses are helping the two entrepreneurs with funding including Eagle Valley Bank and Kurt Kohl the owner of Olive’s Fresh Pizza Bar.
“I think they look at it as another member of their teams going on to do something grander… We don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, or mimic or copycat.
— Joe Ehlenz
When Nordeen is asked what he is going to do with the money he explained, “Pay everybody back… If we wanted to be rich, we wouldn’t be in the restaurant business.”
Nordeen and Ehlenz are not opening just to beat out the competition or become the number one restaurant in Stillwater, they simply just want to own a business and make a good living doing it.
“I think they look at it as another member of their teams going on to do something grander… We don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, or mimic or copycat,” explained Ehlenz.
LOLO’s will be designed to seat 50-60 guests. The sample menu that can be seen on their ‘LOLO American Kitchen’ facebook page consists of everything from a nine dollar burger to an $18 steak. Their facebook page is growing in popularity with already 500 plus likes, LOLO’s has set the stage to be the next big restaurant in downtown.
Madison • Mar 25, 2014 at 11:05 am
Good article. I liked the links that you chose to add. Overall well written and informative.
Maddy Boettner • Mar 3, 2014 at 8:06 am
I liked how it was shorter and got to the point. I also liked how you explained what kind of restaurant it would be. The best part was your quotes. You took the time to interview good people for this paper, and the quotes were awesome!
Alex Pierson • Feb 20, 2014 at 2:17 am
Very informative article, nice to see a quote from someone directly involved in the restaurant. Very well written.
Orjana Stepien • Feb 19, 2014 at 3:03 pm
This article was really well written and you had strong quotes from the people opening the restaurant themselves. The article is not too long but has a lot of informative information that is helpful! Good job!
Nick Spiess • Feb 19, 2014 at 1:55 pm
The article was greatly written. I really like the great uses of quotes and actually going in depth on the restaurant, but not saying useless facts throughout the whole thing.
Sam Jakupciak • Feb 19, 2014 at 5:17 am
The quotes used in the story were good and covered lots of topics, but nothing went too in-depth or really let the reader know a lot about something. That being said, it was pretty well-written.
Hannah Crawford • Feb 19, 2014 at 4:26 am
This article was very interesting to read. The quotes were thoughtful and fit well in the article. One thing I would make sure to keep in mind is after saying a full name use the person’s last name to refer to them.
Lucy Langmack • Feb 19, 2014 at 2:53 am
I loved the detail you used to add to the story and back story of Joe and Brad! The details and quotes contributed to a great flow and encouraged me to keep reading! Good job creating a story out of news!
Colin Peters • Feb 19, 2014 at 12:43 am
You had some interesting and original quotes from the owners. They kept me engaged and were a nice break from the usual “we love to cook” kind of quotes!
Emily Lodahl • Feb 18, 2014 at 10:38 pm
I really like how this article has a lot of information on the restaurant and it’s specifics, like menu items to the amount of people it seats. I agree that it could use maybe one more interview, but other than that I think it attracts people to want to eat there. Nice job!
Olivia Braun • Feb 18, 2014 at 10:36 pm
Really like how this article uses compelling words and quotes. The links are very good and add to the depth of the article, overall vert great job. The only thing I would improve on is to add more interview quotes.
Katie Beedle • Feb 18, 2014 at 3:29 pm
I like how you got an interview from the manager, it’s cool that you could talk to someone so involved in the new restaurant, even if it couldn’t be the owners. The only thing to improve on is maybe get one or two more interviews.
Dan Strand • Feb 18, 2014 at 2:21 am
Awesome job at informing readers about the new restaurant. Good background information and great interviews. The concluding paragraph was informative as well as a good ending.