The New Uptown Cafe Closes on Hennepin, Ending a Sister Concept

The cafe opened in the former North Face space in Uptown as a sister concept to the Uptown Diner, trading on the better-known name with a familiar, reasonably priced breakfast-and-lunch menu. In its closing message on Facebook, ownership called it a difficult decision and thanked staff and customers without giving a specific reason; outstanding gift certificates are now redeemable at the Uptown Diner, which remains open.

The closure removes an all-day option from a corridor that has lost a string of restaurants. Breakfast-and-lunch spots run on volume and daytime walk-ins, the patterns most disrupted by Hennepin Avenue's two-year reconstruction, which fenced sidewalks and shifted access along the street until it reopened in late October 2025. That a sister concept of an established local name still closed underscores how little a known brand counted once foot traffic thinned.

The closing leaves a turnkey restaurant space on a block still counting its losses. Whether an operator bets on the rebuilt street, now with wider sidewalks and steadier traffic, is the open question; for now the corridor logs one more departure as the Uptown Diner carries on without the offshoot a few doors down.

[unverifiable: the article's reference to the Uptown Business Association having "counted dozens of closures" along the corridor could not be confirmed in a named source and is omitted.]