Their number's up
By DEBORAH CAULFIELD RYBAK
5, 28, 20, 21 sounds like a quarterback's call at the line of scrimmage, but these numbers signal a different kind of lineup -- the names of some of the Twin Cities area's trendiest restaurants.
Last month saw the opening of the Five restaurant in Uptown. Before that, there was the 112 Eatery and 20.21, Wolfgang Puck's restaurant at the Walker Art Center. That's in addition to Kafe 421 in Dinkytown, 101 Blu in Calhoun Square, Cafe 128 in St. Paul and Cafe Twenty-eight in Linden Hills.
What's up with all the digits?
The Twin Cities doesn't appear to be following any noticeable trend. In fact, among the 60 or so restaurants set to open in New York over the next year, only two use numbers as names.
"New York is still suffering from its Prune, Butter, Salt, Earlobe trend of naming restaurants after simple ingredients and body parts," said food and restaurant consultant Clark Wolf. Digi-named restaurants, added the New York-based consultant, "is a trend that pops up and down. It's cyclical."
The Twin Cities has ridden that trend before, with high-end restaurants such as the 510 Restaurant and the cafe un deux trois bistro, both of which had longer-than-average runs.
Simply mentioning Five's name sent Wolf into fits of laughter. "That's really funny; it's like 'How many in your party?'" However, Five co-owner Stewart Woodman said the name had a more complicated genesis.
Because the restaurant is located in Minneapolis' original fifth precinct building, Woodman and his partner originally "tossed around the idea of calling it Precinct or the Fifth Precinct," he said.
Then, at dinner one night, the two partners and their spouses began to talk about the number five "and how relevant it was in all our lives," Woodman said. "I'm the fifth child, my partner is the fifth child and his brothers had a restaurant at the State Fair called Brothers Five. Plus it was my fifth job as an executive chef. So we just said, 'What the hell, let's call it Five.'"
Woodman said he's gotten a lot of questions about the name, "Why?" being the most frequent one. "People have even said to me, 'You're so arrogant, you think it should be five star [ranking].' And I never meant that."
It's Woodman's first numbered restaurant. "When we were naming the thing, Per Se [the hot New York restaurant] was the big talk. And what I loved about the name Per Se is that during the course of a normal conversation, those two words might come up and you automatically start fantasizing about sitting at a table there in New York," he said. "I love the fact that 'five' comes up in conversation all the time. Hopefully someday people might fantasize about sitting at Five."
The Walker restaurant, 20.21, was named after the art featured most at the museum: works from the 20th and 21st century. However, to consultant Wolf it sounded like "good vision and a young person allowed to drink ..."
For other numbered restaurant owners, using digits was a last resort.
"It's the address and it was the only generic enough name we could agree on," said Natalie Obee, who co-owns Cafe 128 on Cleveland Ave. in St. Paul with her husband, Brock, formerly the chef at Table of Contents. "At the time [1996] we didn't even know if we'd be in business for three weeks."
(The similarly named Cafe Twenty-Eight in Linden Hills is in former firehouse 28. Co-owner Linda Haug said she hadn't heard about Cafe 128 when she and her husband decided on the name in 2001).
Isaac Becker, chef and co-owner of the 112 Eatery in downtown Minneapolis also had an original name that no one liked: Concept Eatery.
"We liked the Eatery part because we wanted the freedom to serve whatever we wanted," he said. "Then 112 is the address. I didn't really feel I was doing anything different; lots of restaurants use their addresses as their name."
Becker said the name also appealed to him "because I'm not French and I'm not Italian, so I'm not going to give my restaurant a French or Italian name -- and I didn't want to call it 'Isaac's Place.'"
Making numbers count
Coming up with a name was one of the hardest parts of the process, he acknowledged. "We didn't want to sound pretentious, but we didn't want to call ourselves 'The Cafeteria,' either."
Restauranteur Phil Roberts, mastermind of Twin Cities eateries such as Muffuletta, Figlio and the new Stella's Fish Cafe and Prestige Oyster Bar, said he's never used numbers.
"It's so chic it makes my teeth hurt," he joked. "It doesn't say a darn thing about who you are or what you stand for."
Take Manny's Steakhouse, he said. "It's got the word 'man,' with red meat and blood and gore in my teeth. Stella's Fish Cafe sounds a little redneckish and low country."
However, a no-label name is exactly what Becker and Obee said they were looking for.
"My old boss [from Cafe Lurcat] likes 112 Eatery because he said it sounds like you go there to eat and he's exactly right," said Becker. "I want people to come in with the goal of eating, not having some crazy experience."
Natalie Obee of Cafe 128 agreed. "The only thing we intended to do was serve food that we thought was great at a great value in a comfortable atmosphere. We liked the fact that our name didn't immediately tell you exactly what we were about. It wasn't ethnic, it wasn't very accessible and that's what we were looking for."
When consultant Wolf was told about the 5-8 Club, at 58th St. and Cedar Ave. S., his comment was, "That sounds legendary."
He was right.
The Twin Cities' oldest numbered restaurant, the 5-8 Club is 78 years old, said manager Penny Jernberg. It still serves one of the best Juicy Lucys in town.
Deborah Caulfield Rybak • 612-673-4996