By Nigel Parry, Downtown St. Paul Voice—After opening in downtown at the end of 2017, Just/Us took the St. Paul restaurant scene by storm with a rolling series of creatively themed prix fixe tasting menus. Eater Twin Cities used phrases like “punk, no-holds-barred approach to fine dining” to describe the restaurant and lauded its “cult following.”

Many were shocked when, after just over a year in operation, the restaurant abruptly closed in April this year. Their landlord, the new owners of the Viking Apartments building on West 7th Street, had given Just/Us one month’s notice to vacate to make way for a total renovation of the property. They were told they could reopen after a year—if they liked—and pay more than quadruple their previous rent.

It was a blow to the core team of five who ran the spunky, up-and-coming restaurant as a collective. They spent much of the past year re-grouping and holding a GoFundMe appeal, and are about to reopen in November in the former Golden’s Deli space at 275 E. 4th Street, the Northwestern Building next to the Farmers’ Market in Lowertown. Watch for the official opening date at www.justusmn.com and facebook.com/justusmnrestaurant.

The quintet of artists and service industry veterans running the restaurant have served their time and earned their chops through an impressive roll call of restaurants, bars, cafes, chains, and mom-and-pop joints across the Twin Cities—as well as literally just around the corner from their new space.

Artist Mona Negasi, publicity and community outreach manager, worked for three-and-a-half years at the Black Dog Café. General manager Nathan Docken, assistant front of house manager Emily Hagen, and chef Samantha Hathaway have all worked at The Buttered Tin.

Just/Us is not abandoning its fine dining and tasting menu concepts, which brought the attention and accolades during its inaugural year. However, the new location in the heart of the Lowertown artist community has precipitated a different focus. Since each member of the management team has lived and worked in Lowertown, the community ties that restaurants work so hard to build already exist. On the walls, a mural is being created by none other than world-renowned artist and St. Paulite Ta-coumba Aiken—also known as “the mayor of Lowertown.”

He is a Minnesota State Fair featured artist and the creator of the Guinness World Record-breaking Union Depot Lite-Brite mural. Aiken has cleverly added the faces of the restaurant’s team in some of the wild, swirling patterns he is painting. He lives nearby in the Lowertown Lofts Artists Cooperative.

The restaurant team will focus on both community and art, said Negasi.

“I have such a soft spot in my heart for this neighborhood,” she said. “Every day I hear people reminiscing about Kelly’s Depot Bar,” which closed in April after almost 30 years. “It left a huge hole in Lowertown. Golden’s used to inhabit the space we’re taking over, another Lowertown place near and dear to my heart. And Bedlam is gone. With these losses, aiming at being a neighborhood spot makes sense.”

“I’ve seen Lowertown negatively impacted by gentrification over the years but I feel that there are people still here holding it down for the arts community,” Negasi added. “They need a place to be, to meet, and to do their art. And there are so many new people in the neighborhood and they all have something to share. They just might not know it yet. We want to be that place.”

“Our last restaurant was focused on breaking down the stigma of fine dining. While we’ll still offer high quality, chef-driven food as a part of what we do,in Lowertown we will be more approachable—a neighborhood cafe and hangout, a diverse and eclectic community event space and gallery, and a pub with great food.”

The physical space itself opens up new opportunities. “At our last space, we had a zine fest, a music festival, and weekly open mics, but it wasn’t set up for events,” said Negasi. “This space is huge. It has four separate areas, including an outdoor patio. We’re in an arts neighborhood now. There are so many people looking for a stage to perform on and not just from Lowertown but St. Paul in general.”

Jesse Hedman, event coordinator and booking agent at Just/Us, comes from a background of organizing community art shows and festivals, and booking bands. He previewed the type of events Just/Us will offer.

“We plan on keeping our Tuesday Open Mic show going, all ages, all types of content—just a free stage,” he said. “On Friday and Saturday nights we’ll be holding regular shows with our favorite genres—hip hop, punk, rock, and spoken word. We’ll have space for stand-up comedy and a black box stage set up and ready for anything.”

“One night a month we’ll have a salsa band so people can dance. There will be casual DJ sets while people are eating dinner, as well as heavier late night DJ sessions. There are a lot of venues that associate with a particular genre but not that many venues who showcase all genres. Like our eclectic menus, our event programming will offer variety.”

Negasi sees the restaurant’s event engine enlivening the wider Twin Cities music scene.

“A lot of venues book a band but then don’t do any promotion,” she said.

“Booking bands that already draw a crowd is important but everyone has to start somewhere. We’re doing all of our own marketing and plan on being very aggressive with it. We have a screen-printing studio on site so that we can make merchandise for bands and print flyers for our street team. Musicians and others who have shows here will get a promotional boost that ripples out beyond our single event. It’s a win-win.”

Just/Us plans to have a limited breakfast menu all week with an expanded brunch menu on weekends.

“For lunch, our chef Samantha Hathaway is excited about her pastrami sandwich,” said Docken, the GM. “We’ll offer small plates with treats like fried broccoli, and of course some of the signature burgers that we created for our highly-successful Burger Bob’s Parody Pop-up that we held in the downtown space.”

The most popular of the no-puns-barred six burgers created for Burger Bob’s was the Gouda Morning Sunshine, with a sunny-side-up egg and bacon jam topping the beef and gouda. The next popular was the Let It Brie, that topped the beef/brie combo with house-made almond butter, apple chutney and caramelized onions.

New items end up on the restaurant’s permanent menu as the result of experimentation at different events. That approach has become a trademark of the restaurant’s creativity and openness.

“We plan on opening our kitchen to other chefs to hold special events,” said Docken.

Negasi added, “One of the things that people really responded to in the last space was that our chefs were free to do what they want. You have a weird or kooky menu idea? Come take over our kitchen space. At Just/Us, it’s always interesting to see what comes out.”