Walk Grand Avenue this week and the traffic signal at Snelling actually holds its cycle. No flaggers, no temporary four-way stop, no orange barrels stacked along the median. The city activated the new signals on September 23, and for the first time since spring the intersection runs like an intersection instead of a construction zone. Three days later, on Saturday, buskers set up between Lexington Parkway and Dale Street for the Grand Avenue Business Association's Music on Grand evening, guitars and vocals drifting past storefronts that spent the summer behind cones.
The timing places this week's events at the end of a two-year stretch in which Grand Avenue closed for construction, reopened, and welcomed new businesses on either side of the work.
Six Months Without a Street
As The Star Tribune reported, the stretch between Fairview and Snelling closed to through traffic for six months in 2025, part of a $6.7 million reconstruction that replaced underground utilities for the first time in 70 years and rebuilt the street with new sidewalks and lantern-style lighting. It reopened on October 21, 2025, with Mayor Melvin Carter cutting the ribbon near Macalester and Wheeler while a scaled-back festive atmosphere fought through cold, windy weather.
The six months in between were not gentle. Baking Betty's owner Emily Osterberg described customers unsure where to park as the road and then the sidewalks tore up in sequence. Roseline's Place, a business that had opened between Macalester and Cambridge streets in January 2024, closed that September after its owner said construction cut off the foot traffic that had carried it through its first year. A few doors down, Sencha Tea Bar's Damla Erten took a different read on the same disruption: with the nearby colleges out for summer and traffic already down, she used the slow season to retile the shop's kitchen rather than fight the closure.
Here is the timeline as it actually ran:
| Phase | Segment | Dates | What Changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reconstruction | Fairview to Snelling | April 2025 to October 21, 2025 | New utilities, sidewalks, streetlights; six months of full closure |
| Intersection rebuild | Grand and Snelling | Summer 2026 to September 23, 2026 | Bumpouts at all four corners, new traffic signals activated |
Two different construction seasons, two different reopenings, and in both cases the street came back with a version of a ceremony attached rather than just an open lane.
Businesses That Opened Before Construction
Not every new business waited for smoother pavement. Razava Bread Co., the sourdough bakery from Steve Baldinger, whose family founded Baldinger Bakery, and Omri Zin-Tamir, who ran Bakery on 22nd Street, had its official opening right around New Year's 2025, months before the Fairview-to-Snelling closure even began. That means Razava spent much of its first year of business inside the disruption everyone else was navigating around it, and it is still there today, now settled into a Wednesday-through-Sunday schedule at 685 Grand Ave.
Todd Russell's timing runs earlier still. He opened Russell's in November 2024 inside the building long occupied by Tavern on Grand, a space he bought after noticing the avenue's post-pandemic slide, the empty storefronts, the national retail exodus he watched happen from his commercial real estate office a few blocks over.
The reconstruction began five months after Russell's opened, and his restaurant was open during the six-month construction period.
The Businesses That Waited for the Ribbon Cutting
The businesses that opened after October 21, 2025 read differently. OG Zaza, the New Haven-style pizzeria from chef Josh Hedquist, opened its sixth Twin Cities location on Grand Avenue in March 2026, in the space that had held Justin Sutherland's Big E and, before that, the longtime Grand Pizzeria. Five months after the street reopened, that corner had traffic worth stepping into.
The Vermilion followed in April 2026, a late-night cocktail bar from Tom Forti tucked into what had been Iron Ranger's event space next door to the main restaurant. Six months after the ribbon cutting, a Wednesday-through-Saturday bar built around Italian wines and northern Minnesota spirits opened its doors betting there would be enough foot traffic after dark to justify the hours.
Grand Old Day, the street festival that has run for fifty years, offers one example: after a three-year pandemic hiatus, it returned with the same street-closure format it had always used, as a full-scale event rather than a quiet resumption. The avenue has a track record of marking major moments with events, not just quiet resumptions.
This Week's Version of the Same Pattern
The Grand Avenue Business Association didn't wait for the Snelling signals to finish cycling before putting people back on the sidewalk. PAWS on Grand, a dog-friendly afternoon connecting shoppers with pet rescue partners, ran on September 13, ten days before the new signals went live, while the intersection was still down to a temporary four-way stop. Music on Grand followed on September 26, three days after activation, with buskers spread between Lexington and Dale rather than concentrated at one stage, pulling foot traffic across the full width of the disrupted stretch rather than just past the intersection itself.
That sequencing, community event before the construction technically finishes, second event immediately after, mirrors what happened in October 2025: a ribbon cutting timed to the exact day traffic reopened, festive atmosphere and all, even in bad weather. The Grand Avenue Business Association scheduled events on both sides of the finish line as the street returned to normal.
What to Actually Walk By This Weekend
If you're on Grand Avenue this week for the first time since the Snelling barrels disappeared, the short list worth the detour includes Russell's for the walleye nachos that nod to the old Tavern on Grand menu without repeating it, OG Zaza for the brick oven pizza a few doors from where Grand Pizzeria used to be, The Vermilion after dark for the kind of late-night cocktail spot the avenue hasn't had in years, and Razava Bread Co. in the morning, the one storefront on this list that opened before any of the construction started and has stayed open through both closures since.
The intersection at Snelling will keep running its new signal pattern regardless of who notices. The businesses lighting up their windows this fall opened on either side of the same construction calendar the rest of the street lived through, and the avenue is better stocked for it.
Have a favorite corner of Grand Avenue, or a question about the Snelling intersection now that it is finished? William Smitten would like to hear about it. Let's connect.
