Minneapolis, MN
Upscale Minneapolis pizzeria Young Joni to close on Sept. 14 amid financial troubles
Young Joni will close at the end of the summer after an award-winning decade in business, restaurant owner Ann Kim announced on social media.
Its last day is set for Sept. 14.
“All things in life come to an end and this is our moment to make room for the next chapter,” Kim said in an Instagram post. “It has been a privilege to work with our dedicated teams and serve the greater community with heart, creativity and purpose. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve created and we look forward to serving our beloved guests one last time over the next few months.”
The northeast Minneapolis eatery, known for its inventive wood-fired pizzas, opened in 2014 and won Kim Best Chef Midwest honors at the 2019 James Beard Awards.
Last year, the chef closed another of her restaurants, Kim’s, shortly after her employees voted to unionize with Unite Here! Local 17.
Kim and Conrad Leifur, her husband and business partner, also run Pizzeria Lola in Minneapolis and Hello Pizza in Edina under the banner of Vestalia Hospitality.
Landlord sues for unpaid rent
Court records indicate some financial trouble was brewing under the surface at Young Joni.
A lawsuit filed by property owner 1300 LLC alleges Young Joni owes more than $140,000 in unpaid rent.
The landlord had leased the restaurant space to Young Joni for a 10-year term that expired in August 2024. When the lease came up for renewal, the two parties discussed the new terms.
1300 LLC, citing comparable market rates, wanted to charge $30-36 per square foot. Young Joni countered with a rate of $18 per square foot.
In June 2024, when they still hadn’t agreed on a rate, the landlord proposed going through arbitration to resolve the dispute, but Kim declined because she didn’t have “the time and energy to go through such a process” due to a labor dispute at her other restaurant.
When the original lease expired and there was still no renewal agreement for Young Joni, the landlord retained the restaurant as a month-to-month tenant and imposed a higher rent.
The lawsuit claims Young Joni is now in default on its lease, owing more than $100,000 in rent underpayments dating back to Aug. 1.
“Young Joni has not paid the appropriate amount of holdover rent for August 2024 or any subsequent month,” the filing states.
Additionally, in 2020, the landlord had agreed to defer more than $42,000 in rent due to COVID-19, with the condition that it be paid back once Young Joni was operating at full capacity. That rent deferment was still unpaid as of this month.
Then there is the “not my problem” theme. “I live in the suburbs” or “greater Minnesota” so Minneapolis is not my problem. We saw this in Aaron Brown’s column, in which he did a “what about my issues” for greater Minnesota (“We do live in ‘A Precarious State,’ but place-baiting won’t solve that,” Oct. 8). Greater Minnesota has serious issues, too, and deserves a documentary just like the metro area, except there is only so much time in one documentary.
But most concerning is what former legislator Pat Garofalo called the “strategy of denial.” Brown’s column reflected this — how he strolled safely from the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus to downtown Minneapolis. Eric Roper did a column for the Star Tribune (“Doomsday docs aside, Mpls.’ lush urbanity makes it a special place”) that literally talked about walking down a passageway of sunflowers in Minneapolis. With a picture of sunflowers and sunshine. He said:
“I’ll be biking up a protected bike lane and whiz past charming homes near quaint clusters of small businesses. I’ll be running around the lake and see sailboats framed beneath the downtown skyline. I’ll be at the annual alley dance party with my neighbors, a little toasted.”
The message was clear. Minneapolis has “lush urbanity,” not the crime and decline shown in the documentary. Well, only if you read through the literal picture of sunshine and flowers, then the picture of beautiful, well-maintained homes, then past the picture of happy people at a street festival, then pictures of joyous people wandering around downtown on a warm Saturday night, and then past the people lounging by the river did you get to the picture of drug dealers, people passed out on the street, trash, filth and garbage right on his protected bike lane. My friend in the Phillips neighborhood understood the real message – what is happening in your part of the city doesn’t matter because it isn’t what I experience. This was mirrored by many commenters from Minneapolis.
You see the same strategy of denial from columnist Evan Ramstad in the Star Tribune (“Crime isn’t our biggest problem,” Oct. 17). First, Ramstad brings up the question of who funded the documentary. Then he notes it has gone viral in business and right-leaning circles. Apparently he thinks moderates and the left are not watching it, which is depressing if true, because the issues in the documentary are real.
Crime is the one issue Ramstad talks about. He states:
ST. PAUL — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is scheduled to visit Minneapolis on Friday, Oct. 24.
Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, is set to “discuss ICE operations and update on the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement operations in the Twin Cities,” at the Bishop Henry Whipple Building in Minneapolis, according to a media advisory from DHS.
At least one group,
“50501,” has planned to protest
outside the event on Friday afternoon.
The visit comes three weeks after the
Justice Department sued Minnesota
over its “sanctuary policies.” Gov. Tim Walz
has rejected that
Minnesota is a sanctuary state, while Twin Cities Mayors
stand behind their separation ordinances.
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