Earlier this summer, I had the honor of helping cut the ribbon at the new location of Luro Boots, 7831 Portland Ave. S. Luro Boots is owned by Gilberto Diaz, a Bloomington Kennedy graduate and a long-time Bloomington resident. I first met Gilberto two years ago when we featured Luro Boots at the State of the City Address. At that time, the business was in a 900-square-foot facility on Nicollet Avenue and they had been there since 2009.
Luro Boots is a popular place. Their customer base extends as far as Canada and when it came time to expand, Gilberto honestly could have gone anywhere. I’m very happy and proud he decided to stay here in Bloomington and move just a couple of blocks to a 4,000-square-foot store.
I also had the chance to be part of another ribbon-cutting in June at a new restaurant Waffle Bar, at 3810 W. Old Shakopee Road. If that name sounds familiar it’s because they have a very successful food truck operation and two other locations in the Twin Cities.
Julie and David Chen are co-founders and owners of Waffle Bar and they have a great back story. Julie grew up in Rhode Island and when she was a kid, her parents would drive the family to Chinatown in Boston on a weekly basis. Julie loved the Chinatown street vendors who would make and serve warm egg-custard bubble waffles. She always thought the egg waffles would be great with ice cream and delicious toppings. Believe me, she was right.
Backstory Coffee Roasters will also be opening at the end of August at the former Fiddlehead Coffee location,
8061 33rd Ave. S.
We’ve also had exciting news recently about organizations choosing to move to Bloomington.
Wilderness Inquiry is a unique and inspiring organization whose mission is to connect people of all ages, backgrounds, identities and abilities through outdoor adventures and programming. They’ve been around since 1978 and in that time have served more than half a million people.
TKDA, an engineering, architectural and planning company, have also moved their headquarters from St. Paul to Bloomington. They’ll be in the old Ceridian Building at 3311 E. Old Shakopee Road. This move means all 300-plus TKDA employees in the Twin Cities will be located here.
Now, the City can’t take all of the credit for all of this good news, but the directed and intentional work the City has done over the past couple of years to promote small businesses and entrepreneurs, and to connect with and support businesses of all sizes in Bloomington, has certainly played a part. Cultivating an enduring and remarkable community includes developing our commercial base, diversifying industry and growing jobs. It all leads to a place where people and businesses, want to be.
