Before Sweet Joon opened, Liz Akhavan and Matt Akhavan Smith spent days on a single ingredient. They let the ice cream base steep in cardamom and tasted it every day until the spice came through clearly without overpowering everything else. "We stirred it up and taste tested it every day," Liz Akhavan told Southwest Voices. The result is their cardamom crunch, made with a Persian-style peanut brittle of honey, saffron, rose water, pistachios and almonds. It is now in the case at 3146 Hennepin Ave. S., which used to be La La Homemade Ice Cream. Sweet Joon opened there on Oct. 28, 2026.
It is the newest of several 2026 openings within a few blocks of Hennepin and Lake. They are arriving on a street the city calls finished. The Hennepin reconstruction from Lake Street to Douglas Avenue is substantially complete. Even so, the city has a second project underway at the same corner. This one is aimed at the lane right in front of these businesses: where delivery trucks stop, where people park and where bikes ride.
A year after the reopening, the new places are bunched together
The City of Minneapolis finished the Lake-to-26th stretch of Hennepin in 2024 and the 26th-to-Douglas stretch in 2025. Sewer lining wrapped up in fall 2025, and the avenue reopened to two-way traffic with bike lanes and sidewalks. The 2026 openings came after that, and almost all of them sit along Lake Street, Lagoon Avenue or the Hennepin–Lake corner itself.
| Place | Address | What it replaced | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asher's Bar & Grill | 2730 W. Lake St. | Chilango | Week of April 20, 2026 |
| Arizona Taco Co. | 3001 Hennepin Ave. | Arts & Rec and Libertine | July 2026 |
| Tom's Thai | 1601 W. Lake St. | Open by Sept. 1, 2026 | |
| OG ZaZa | 1440 W. Lake St. | Mesa Pizza | Sept. 7, 2026 |
| Harold's Chicken | 1430 Lagoon Ave. | Daisy's and Cowboy Slim's | Open by early October 2026 |
| Sweet Joon | 3146 Hennepin Ave. S. | La La Homemade Ice Cream | Oct. 28, 2026 |
Every place on that list except Tom's Thai moved into a space that already had a food business in it. Arizona Taco Co. is a second location for a New Hope restaurant that serves Arizona-style tacos, according to the Star Tribune's restaurant roll call. Racket included Tom's Thai at 1601 W. Lake in its Sept. 1 roundup of new openings. At Sweet Joon, the signature flavor is saffron pistachio rose. The case also has chocolate brownie and mango pineapple ginger.
The closings that came after the barricades came down
Some long-running businesses closed in 2026, and two of them had stayed open through the whole rebuild. The Lowry, at 2112 Hennepin Ave., served its last meal on April 26, 2026. In the Star Tribune's report, its owners named the long, disruptive Hennepin construction as one reason. They also pointed to changing consumer habits and to costs and requirements specific to Minneapolis.
Red Cow closed its 2626 Hennepin Ave. location on June 1, 2026. The owner told the Star Tribune that sales fell 60 to 70 percent during the two years of reconstruction. Business never came back far enough to justify renewing the lease. New Uptown Cafe, at 3008 Hennepin Ave., closed in January 2026.
After Red Cow announced it was closing, Uptown Business Association president Andrea Corbin told KSTP that the construction years had hurt local businesses. She also said the new median and road design confused drivers. Johnathan Campbell, who manages H&B Gallery, told CBS Minnesota that customers have complained about the new median and the lack of left turns since the road reopened. Those complaints are about getting to a storefront: where a driver can turn, stop and drop someone off. The next project is aimed at the same problem.
The fall pilot is about the curb, south of Lake
The city's Hennepin Ave S and Lake St Connectivity Improvements project covers Hennepin from Lake Street to 31st Street and Lake Street from Humboldt Avenue to Hennepin. It runs from 2026 to 2028 and is separate from the reconstruction north of Lake that ended in 2025.
The first phase is a set of interim changes on the stretch of Hennepin from Lake to 31st, scheduled for fall 2026. They are meant to make the street more predictable and to make people easier to see. They also add curbside space to cut down on conflicts at the curb, and the city says that space may be used for loading and unloading or for metered parking. According to the open house boards the city posted Sept. 25, the interim work is mainly new striping and signage, with these limits:
- Bikes may use the full lane.
- Sidewalks will not change.
- Nothing changes south of the midblock crossing.
- More signage is planned.
This block of Hennepin runs past Sweet Joon. Once the interim layout is in, a delivery van or a pickup stop has a marked spot of its own instead of borrowing the travel lane. Those are the curb conflicts the city says it wants to reduce.
The permanent version is bigger. The city's goals include upgrading the current bike lanes on Hennepin to a two-way protected bikeway and adding a new protected bikeway on Lake Street. The plan keeps plenty of room on the sidewalks for people walking and rolling and still sets aside curb space on Hennepin. The South Uptown Neighborhood Association shared the city's call for input ahead of the first open house. That open house was held Sept. 23 at Walker Library.
Seven Points is turning into a construction site
The largest change at the corner is happening where Calhoun Square used to be. Arizona Taco Co. opened at 3001 Hennepin in July, inside the Seven Points complex. Racket first reported the move in April. On the same block, demolition has been underway since April. By late May it had taken down the former CB2, Kitchen Window and Famous Dave's spaces.
In its May redevelopment update, the South Uptown Neighborhood Association said Doran Companies planned a groundbreaking celebration for June 11. Site remediation and soil correction were set to continue through the summer. Construction on a new 247-unit apartment building was expected to start this fall and take about 14 months. The neighborhood association says Doran is developing the southern part of the site. Northpond is keeping the rest of the shopping center structure, the parking garage and the empty Lake Street parcel, and it is looking for tenants.
On that timeline, the apartment building and the city's permanent street work both land around 2028. The cranes and the curb redesign are headed for the same block on about the same schedule.
The bus that came with the rebuild
Metro Transit's METRO E Line has run since Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. KSTP covered the launch. The line connects the University of Minnesota and Edina by way of University Avenue, downtown, Hennepin Avenue through Uptown and France Avenue. It stops at Uptown Transit Station. The Hennepin & Franklin, Hennepin & 25th Street and Uptown Transit Station stops were built as part of the 2024–2025 reconstruction. Metro Transit describes service as running up to every 10 minutes. On launch day, KSTP reported trips every 10 to 15 minutes.
What's on the calendar through 2028
- Fall 2026: interim improvements installed on Hennepin between Lake and 31st.
- Fall 2026 into spring 2027: planning and public engagement on the permanent design.
- Spring and summer 2027: permanent concept finalized.
- Summer 2027 through spring 2028: detailed design.
- Spring and summer 2028: construction of the permanent improvements.
Next year is for decisions, not construction. The layout of Lake Street west of Hennepin and the final shape of the Hennepin curb south of Lake will be settled in meetings through 2027, more than a year before any permanent work starts. The project page has a sign-up for updates, and the open house boards from September are posted there.
I'm always paying attention to how a street like Hennepin changes over the years, and to what that means for the homes and businesses along it. If you have questions about Uptown or about how the work planned through 2028 could affect a property you own or have your eye on, Jenelle Nelson is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
