After Meeting With Super Bowl Planners, La Belle Crepe Reopens

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- We're counting down to the Minnesota Super Bowl, which is just about 100 days away at U.S. Bank Stadium, and it seems the big game has already saved a popular crepe shop on Nicollet Mall.

La Belle Crepe announced last week it would close from construction losses but a meeting Thursday changed the owners' mind. A sign once blaming construction hardship on Nicollet Mall for closing is replaced with a more welcome one for many -- a reopening this Saturday.

Alain Lenne's pho soup, crepes and Bahn Mi sandwiches have been a staple in the Medical Arts building for nearly a decade, but he estimates construction has cost him nearly $200,000 in business.

"How long can you go to work and spend money instead of making money?" Lenne asked.

Lenne thought he'd reached his limit last week until he heard from Super Bowl planners who made a pitch for him to stay, giving Lenne a sneak peak of what his block will look like for the 10-day festival.

"It looks fantastic," he said.

Super Bowl organizers would only release a few renderings to us for now. When the mall will be called Super Bowl Live. With giant ice carvings, music stages and all things winter on display.

"We're hoping to leverage this opportunity to host the Super Bowl to put a showcase everything we love about Minnesota that includes our businesses here in downtown," Lenne said.

Businesses like Lenne's that after the last few years, might just be ready to party, even more than football fans.

"I will be able to make up some of the losses you know. It will be fun, it will be fun to be in the middle of all of that, too," Lenne said.

All of the intersections along the 12-blocks of Nicollet Mall are now open. On Friday, the barricades will start coming down along these five most southern blocks of the project. Planners are still saying the entire construction project will all be substantially complete sometime next month.