Delayed But Determined: A New Travail Finally Opens to the Public
The popular Robbinsdale restaurant Travail Kitchen and Amusements, had to delay its big grand opening of its brand new space due to COVID-19. Now after four months, the restaurant is finally ready to accept customers.
“It’s really nice to feel the connection with the food again, and the connection with the people,” said Mike Brown, Travail’s chef/owner. “Even though there are barriers that are necessary because of COVID, I feel like those barriers kind of wash away with the environment that we’ve created up here. It just feels really nice.”
Travail Kitchen and Amusements started welcoming customers to its rooftop patio on West Broadway on July 16.
Travail was supposed to open the week of March 16, but the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions put in place by Governor Tim Walz put those plans on hold.
A Travail employee preps food for the evening.
Now, four months later, the restaurant is set up to allow customers into an open-air environment that allows for social distancing.
Reservations are required and they only allow 36 people to be seated on the rooftop at a time.
“The tickets are probably going to fly off the shelf, because there’s a couple things that you can get here,” Brown said. “A rooftop experience, a cantina/fine dining tasting menu, and then live music. And those, for me, those three things are what it’s all about, you know.”
Tickets for the next round of reservations will go on sale July 22 on Travail’s website.
For now, restaurant seating will be limited to the rooftop. No word yet on what Travail is going to do in the late fall when temperatures start to drop.
