Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Rose.
Hi Michael , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My wife Annie and I have both worked in the service industry for most of our lives; Annie primarily as a server and manager in bars and restaurants, and I as a bar back for some time, and for over a decade in the world of coffee shops.
After decades of combined experience, we decided we were done working for other people (at the time, Annie had been working at Dark Horse Bar and Eatery in Lowertown, which she had helped to open 7 years prior, while I was working at Caffetto Coffee House in Minneapolis, where I had been for over a decade), and that we’d like to create a space of our own that would encompass a bit of all the things we felt we had sufficient experience in: coffee, food, and drinks. Covid restrictions were just beginning to loosen up, and we decided that an establishment that could be diverse, and that didn’t “put all of it’s eggs in one basket”, would have the best chance at survival.
We actively began looking for a space that we could take over in early 2021. We tried to figure out what a “Business Plan” was, and started scouring the internet for places that were for sale or going out of business. Although we knew many parts of the service industry intimitly, we knew next to nothing about how to start or run a business. We weren’t really sure what we were doing, or where we even wanted to be – but were (relatively) confident that there was somewhere out there for us.
Over the previous two years, Covid had ravaged the restaurant world, and banks were more than hesitant to loan money to anyone, let alone a couple that had no ownership experience and no money to speak of. Confident that this was the move we were meant to take, we did the one thing we could think of – we refinanced our house and took out a $70k home equity loan to try and start our business.
It was slow going at first. We talked to a few people, and looked at some spaces, but the money required was more than we could swing. It was stressful and discouraging at times, but we continued to feel that things would eventually begin falling into place.
In September of 2021, Annie and I went out for her birthday, with the plan of going to Bar La Grassa, one of our favorite Twin Cities restaurants. Of course, we forgot to make a reservation, and BLG was packed as usual. We decided to head across the hall to their sister restaurant, Snack Bar, where we knew their then GM Brad, who Annie had worked with years ago at Liquor Lyles, in Uptown.
We told Brad that night of our desire to open a space – that we wanted it to be a coffee bar and cafe during the day, and a bar and restaurant by night, but that we had yet to find the right space to do so. He said, “Well, it just so happens that my sister Michelle is a restaurant consultant, and she’s trying to fill a space in Lowertown that might be perfect for you! And they just might be desperate enough to talk to you guys!”
They were, and they would! Jeff Heegard, the owner of the 213 E 4th Street in Lowertown, was attempting to sell the building that he had owned since the 1980’s, and the restaurant space on the first floor, which had been occupied by several different businesses, most recently the Elephant Bar, Hyyga, and most famously the Bedlam Theatre, had sat uninhabited for two years. He desperately wanted a new tenant to increase the buildings market appeal, and after meeting and vetting us through his trusted restaurant consultants, he decided he was willing to take a chance on us.
Jeff graciously put his trust in us, structuring a deal for the space that was friendly to us as renters, and selling us the equipment that had been left behind for pennies on the dollar. (Without his help and trust, it is not likely that we would have been able to create what we have. It is not often that people such as us, with as no ownership experience and no start up cash are given such a chance in situations like this, but he trusted that we had a vision for something that could work, and thankfully threw caution to the wind!)
We took the bit of money we had gotten from refinancing our home, and used it to fix what needed to be fixed, and acquire the remaining coolers and equipment that were needed. We painted the walls, had my old friend Jason Miller (MPLS MN Design Co.) design a cool logo and brand, ordered some coffee beans from a few of our favorite local roasters, and opened our doors to the public as a coffee shop only (that served a hand full of sandwiches) on April 9th, 2022.
After all it took to get open; insurance, inspections, and initial product, we didn’t have enough money left to hire employees, so Annie and I worked on the floor all day every day for the first couple months, often switching places with one another to pick our kids up from school or take them to appointments, or to go shopping for the coffee bar.
We worked day and night, and scrimped and saved, and hired a head chef and our first coffee bar employee in late May, finally got our liquor license, and were able to open our full kitchen and bar to the public in late June of 2022.
It felt good to be moving in the direction that we’d intended, but it’s not like things exactly took off right away.
It was slow going at first…there were defintly daunting months where it seemed nearly impossible to continue – months where we had to take out loans to make payroll, where we both worked 80 hours a week but had nothing left to show for it.
We both came into this businesses with substantial experience in the world of coffee and restaurants, but owning and operating proved to be harder than either of us could have imagined (maybe Annie imagined it, but I didn’t!!)…but we kept pushing forward, slowly adding staff and learning to navigate personalities, adding and refining menu items, tweaking our hours, trying to create what we envisioned for the space while also trying to listen to what the people of the community wanted from us.
In one month, we at Lost Fox will celebrate our 3rd birthday! If you know anything about the restaurant business, you know that making it that long isn’t a given, and we are incredibly thankful for all the people, both staff and customers, that have helped us make it this far. We are very proud of the little place that we’ve created, and the community that has been built up around it. We’ve gone from Annie and I working all day every day, to a staff of over 30!!
We know we’re not perfect, and have many things we want to improve upon and many goals that we’re still making our way towards; but on a weekend afternoon, when I look around at a full house, and listen to the laughter and chatter of conversations and watch as our employees glide about, knowingly doing their jobs, I try not to take where we’re at for granted. It’s pretty wild to put something into motion and see where it can go.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I guess I maybe got a little ahead of myself on question 1?
I mean…no, it’s never easy. Neither Annie or I came from money, so every aspect of this endeavor has been tricky and difficult to facilitate or navigate, because there’s always that added stress for us of “do we have enough in the bank to cover that?” And there’s always something that needs to be covered. I hate to say it, but much of this business just comes down to “how much money do you have to throw at it.” Most people don’t realize how much it typically takes just to get the door open on day one. Most restaurants are a million dollar build out, on the low end. We managed to get open for 70k, but in doing so, had to make many decisions in regards to priorities. What do we NEED in order to operate right away, and what can we wait on? So we had to cut corners where we could, or wait to do this or that until we had the funds to do so. Theres a long list of things that we haven’t gotten to even three years in. I gotta say….I go into certain establishments and experience a sort of pang of jealousy, because you can just tell that they had the capital to do what they wanted from the outset, and that’s just not where we’ve ever been. But there’s something to be said for learning to operate as we have…having limitations forces you to prioritize, it makes you learn how to be patient, how to be frugal.
We’ve learned that there’s always going to be bumps in the road. There’s more bumps than smooth terrain, for sure. In fact, I’ve learned to not take the smooth times for granted or get too comfortable with them, because the bumps are the norm, and they’re everywhere.
If you try to take a day off or go out of town for the weekend, you can pretty much expect your hood system to go down, or your entire kitchen staff to catch COVID, or your espresso machine to stop working for some odd and random reason. It’s just like that.
You try to be as prepared and organized as you know how, but it often feels like whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Im not trying to complain….we both feel incredibly thankful and fortunate to be in a position where we can work of ourselves – but the trade off is that if something goes wrong, its on you to fix it. And with a place with as many moving parts as ours, something will need attending to, likely sooner than later.
We’ve had countless pieces of expensive equipment break; like most places, we can hardly go a day or two without someone calling in sick, or not showing up; we’ve had to take out loans to cover payroll; we’ve had to pay unthinkable sums to fix this or that or bring things up to code unexpectedly. And every time you think you’re maybe going to get a little ahead, insurance or some random tax you forgot about gets taken out, and you’re back to square one. It’s kind of a cruel business like that.
We’re also in a neighborhood that’s experienced a good deal of ups and downs over the last 5 years. Covid did a number on most places, but for one reason or another, Lowertown has been slower to recover than some. Lowertown is a beautiful area, but it’s been ravaged by relatively unchecked mental health and drug abuse issues, which has led to escalating crime and the perception that it was no longer a safe place to be.
There were times when it wasn’t – we’ve kind of famously been broken into numerous times; we’ve had our doors and windows smashed in, and have had to deal with unstable and often violent or disturbed people coming in and threatening the safety of our staff and customers on an all too regular basis. We’ve had to put coded knobs on our restrooms because they were being used of drug abuse regularly if left unchecked.
When my wife asked a man to leave because he was harassing our customers, he slammed our large wooden door in her face, splitting the area above her eye, and causing her to need stitches. The insult to injury, is that people will sometimes see you as heartless or as the bad guy in these situations, which really sucks, because we’re both extremely sympathetic to mental health issues, and would like nothing more than to see people get the help they need. I wish I could wave a wand and make everything OK for everyone, and I try to help where I can, but we’ve learned that we have to draw a firm line for the safety of our staff and customers. It’s probably my least favorite part of running a restaurant.
But things have steadily improved. We hope that the perceptions of Lowertown catch up to the reality sooner than later, or there may not be many business’ left around Mears Park.
We’ve been impressed with Lost Fox, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Simply put, we are a coffee shop and cafe by day, and a bar and restaurant by night. We serve food and drinks and are a place to hang out; morning, noon, and night. I’d like to think that we do a top notch job with our coffee, cocktails, and food…but I hope, and think, that most people have maybe come to see us as a safe place, and a meeting place first and foremost?
I want everything we put out to be of a high quality, of course, but if we’re being completely honest, you can get food and drinks kind of anywhere, right?
From the beginning, we aimed to be more of a community than a business, as corny as that may sound on it’s face, But we have tried to make our restaurant a place where anyone can feel comfortable, as long as they are coming in with the intention of meeting other people on an equal ground.
We have a zero tolerance policy for any language or actions of discrimination or hatred of any kind; we try to make sure people have a private space for prayer or religious practice if desired; we host weekly Drag events and are very open about our support of the LGTBQ+ community; and are generally just very proud of the diverse group of people that come to work or hang at our shop on a daily basis. There’s honestly nothing that makes me happier or more proud than to see people of all sorts hanging out together and feeling comfortable in our space.
We work really hard to cultivate what others have described to me as a “warm and cozy atmosphere”. I had customer tell me recently that they felt as if they could roll out of bed in whatever they were wearing and not look out of place at our resturant, but that we were also the type of place that they could take their parents for dinner, or that they could bring a date to. I consider that to be a very high compliment! I’d like to think that we’re rather approachable if that’s what you’re looking for, but that we can be a pretty classy hang too, if that’s what you’re in the need of.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I recently was informed of the term “ambivert”, which is someone who exhibits qualities of introverts and extroverts. I think I likely fall into that grey area. I’ve always liked people and enjoy stimulating conversation, but also need time alone to recharge, and spend more of my free time by myself than choosing to be with other people.
I grew up in Cambridge, MN, a small town about an hour north of MPLS. I always felt kind of out of place there, but also appreciate many aspects of small town life. My dad was an elementary school teacher and my mom did secretarial work for the city. We were never hungry, but we were never really ahead.
I loved drawing, baseball, and as I got into my teenage years, punk rock music and culture.
I’ve always been kind of a laid back and affable dude, likely to a fault.
Annie grew up dirt poor as one of 5 kids to a single mother. She was born in North MPLS, but her mom and siblings jumped all over, usually skipping town when the rent came due. She would eventually “graduate” from St. Croix Falls HS
Annie is a bright, resourceful, and incredibly strong individual. She has been making something of nothing for as long as I’ve known her. Where most people create their own mental road blocks that prevent them from attaining the things they want or need in life, Annie has never come across a thing she didn’t think she could do. Whether it be traveling the world, living abroad, graduating from college, running a marathon, owning a house, starting a family, or building her own business – Annie has never met a road block that she couldn’t blow past.
Although she can often be perceived as intimidating or direct, she has an incredibly big heart, and would bend over backwards to help virtually anyone.
She can talk to anyone, but also doesn’t care what other people think of her – which, as a bit of a people pleaser myself, I find to be an incredibly admirable quality.
Pricing:
- For the city, I think our prices our pretty comparable to other establishments?
- Our coffee prices are less than a Starbucks I believe? We try to keep it affordable.
- We are occasionally accused of being too expense, but as someone that goes out to there places and checks the prices, I know we are an affordable place.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lostfoxlowertown.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lostfox_lowertown/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lost.fox.st.paul/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@lostfox.lowertown
