For a stretch of years after the pandemic, the corner of Water and 2nd in downtown Excelsior sat dark. The building had cycled through an Irish pub, then another one, then nothing. Mike DeCamp, the chef and co-owner behind Jester Concepts, has said that walking past an empty storefront at what amounts to the main entrance of the city felt genuinely deflating, every single day.
That corner does not sit empty anymore. It holds three restaurants inside one building: Parlour in the basement, serving the same smash burger and craft cocktails that made the Minneapolis original a fixture, and Shiki and Mirabelle sharing the floors above it, a compact ramen and dumpling bar next to a supper club with a coastal menu and a cast iron fireplace the building had before any of them arrived. Three concepts, one address, one restaurant group betting that Excelsior could support all of it at once.
They were not the only ones making that bet. A few doors down, chef David Fhima opened Vagabondo inside the old Bacon Drug building, a space that runs as a coffee counter by morning and a Sicilian restaurant by night, complete with pizzas built on a 130 year old family sourdough starter. Old Southern BBQ Smokehouse moved in next to Excelsior Brewing Company. Layline, MontegoBlu, and Coalition filled in around them. For a town that had spent years watching its bigger Lake Minnetonka neighbor, Wayzata, get most of the culinary attention, Water Street quietly became one of the more talked about dining stretches in the Twin Cities.
If you live here, none of that is news. You have already had the burger, already stood in line at Vagabondo's sidewalk patio, already picked a side in the debate over whether the walleye is better at Maynard's or the salmon bowl at Haskell's Port of Excelsior. What is less obvious, unless you have been paying close attention to how these restaurants are actually built and staffed, is that most of them opened with a specific worry baked into their plans: an Excelsior summer is not the same market as an Excelsior winter, and nobody running these places is entirely sure what happens when the patios close.
The boom was built for warm weather
Excelsior's downtown works because of density that shows up seasonally. Boats pull up to the docks. Out of town visitors treat Water Street as a destination. The sidewalk patios at Vagabondo and the corner seat at Haskell's that regulars fight over both depend on foot traffic that thickens from May through September and thins out considerably after. Excelsior's mayor, Gary Ringate, has described the current restaurant activity as churning, with more operators still interested in opening here. That is a real signal of confidence. It does not answer the harder question of what happens once the leaves turn and the boats come out of the water.
Colleen Anderson, who runs Old Southern BBQ Smokehouse, has been direct about not knowing what to expect from her first Minnesota winter in this location, saying other operators have made it sound rough. Her plan leans on takeout, including orders from Excelsior Brewing next door, and a catering business that does not depend on a warm patio to function. That is not a hedge you build unless you genuinely expect the dining room traffic to drop.
DeCamp built his menus with the same seasonal math in mind. Mirabelle leans on prime rib and pasta portions sized for a colder month. Parlour, being underground, was already positioned to feel like a destination regardless of weather, all cocktails and cheeseburgers in a room with no windows to remind you it's fifteen degrees outside. Shiki, DeCamp has noted, reads as more of a wintertime restaurant to begin with, a bowl of hot ramen being an easier sell in January than in July.
Fhima has said something similar in different language, framing Vagabondo's goal as staying power rather than a moment of buzz, since the opening rush eventually fades and gets replaced by the next new place. Amanda Maday, whose firm Studio Grey designed both Mirabelle and Vagabondo, put the stakes plainly: restaurants on a stretch like this need each other, because carrying a full year alone on one block is a difficult way to run a business.
What's actually new since the pandemic-era vacancy
It helps to see the full lineup as it stands now, because the density is the point. Water Street currently carries new full service dinner concepts in Vagabondo, Mirabelle, Shiki, Parlour, Old Southern BBQ Smokehouse, Layline, MontegoBlu, and Coalition, layered onto longtime anchors that never left: Maynard's, open on the water since 1947, Haskell's Port of Excelsior, Red Bench Bakery, and the ice cream counter at Licks Unlimited that has outlasted every restaurant cycle the block has been through. The city has backed the growth with infrastructure, adding a parking garage and continuing to pursue more apartment units, medical offices, and coworking space downtown, all aimed at building a year-round population rather than a five month tourist one. Two more projects, one at 10 Water Street and another on a former gas station site, were reported in the pipeline as the current wave of openings took hold.
That is a lot of new capacity added inside roughly a year. It is also a lot of new fixed costs, staffing, and lease obligations riding on whether Excelsior residents keep showing up once summer stops doing the marketing for them.
Apple Days is the last full-capacity weekend before that question gets answered
This year's Excelsior Apple Days runs September 18 through 20, right at the point where, as one recent write-up on the boom put it, the leaves begin to change and foot traffic inevitably slows. The festival has run since 1935, and this year's version brings the usual mix of craft booths, food vendors, and a street dance, plus a new addition for 2026: a LEGO Free Build Saturday for families looking for something other than another pie stand.
If you are planning your weekend around it, the practical details are:
- Friday, September 18: 5 to 10 p.m.
- Saturday, September 19: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., including the Apple Pie baking and eating contests and the LEGO Free Build
- Sunday, September 20: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Festival grounds run along Water Street between 3rd Street and Lake Street, admission is free
- The Historic Water Street Walking Tour departs at 11 a.m., covering the town's run as a steamboat landing in the 1800s
- Paradise Charter Cruises offers complimentary community cruises during the weekend
- Parking is available at the ramp on One West Drive, the Excelsior East Lot behind Excelsior Brewing, and Mount Calvary Lutheran Church on Saturday, with paid street parking as backup and no shuttle service
None of that programming is new information if you have lived through an Apple Days before. What is worth noticing this year is the timing relative to everything above. This festival lands at the exact moment the restaurants around it are watching to see whether locals turn out once the tourist season officially ends. A packed Water Street on September 19 will look, from the sidewalk, indistinguishable from any other Apple Days. To the people running Mirabelle, Vagabondo, and Old Southern BBQ, it will read as one more data point on whether the last twelve months of expansion holds through a Minnesota winter.
Whatever happens after the festival wraps, the corner at Water and 2nd is no longer dark. Three restaurants sit where nothing did for years, and the operators who remember the empty version of that block are the ones most invested in seeing the lit-up version last. That is the part of this story that will actually get decided this fall, long after the pie contest winner is announced and the street dance packs up for the year.
If you're curious what any of this downtown momentum has done to home values in Excelsior itself, Steve Pemberton has spent decades watching how neighborhood change like this shows up in local real estate. What's My Home Worth?
