Courtesy of Fhima's
Fhima’s in downtown Minneapolis has quietly closed, serving its final tagine and final smoked Telephone Call From Istanbul old fashioned this past weekend. Chef David Fhima and his family hadn’t announced that March 7 was going to be the last night, but word spread, based on a number of reposts from Fhima’s official Instagram account. Director of operations Eli Fhima confirmed that Saturday, March 7, was the final night of service. However, he tells Minnesota Monthly that the closure isn’t the end for the concept.
As much as any closure is surprising, the real surprise here is that Fhima’s has kept operating after enduring so much since opening in 2018. Lunch and dinner business evaporated in 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic and thanks to the abandonment of downtown by employers like Target and Hennepin County. “We’ve been in that space since 2016; we’ve been there for ten years, [and] we’re the second-longest running tenant in that space outside of The Forum,” David Fhima tells me.
There are always a multitude of reasons that a restaurant closes. It’s never one thing. “Once COVID hit, we didn’t think we would re-open,” Fhima says. “We turned the restaurant into a hub to make food for Second Harvest Heartland. We increased our bakery capacity. And then when things reopened post-COVID, we got a huge bump,” he says. The bump was “people so sick of being at home, they came out in droves. But that was short-lived. And when things settled down, the reality of what the new downtown was started to settle in.”
Fhima’s kept rocking as a pre- and post-Timberwolves dinner spot, with celebrity sightings frequent in the upstairs private event space. It was one of the first independent restaurants to reopen for lunch, putting a flag in the ground and encouraging people to return to downtown Minneapolis. David Fhima reimagined the menu in 2024, leaning all-in on his Moroccan heritage.
But without corporate business, many of us were surprised that Fhima’s was able to continue operating, considering the cost of keeping the massive art-deco space—formerly the Forum Cafeteria—running. Just being a pre-game destination isn’t enough. You may have read that Target paid millions to formally exit its lease at City Center, formalizing the fact that they were leaving 1 million square feet of space in the building early. They’d been out since 2021. “That was the nail in the coffin,” Fhima says.
He says he was spending more on maintenance and repair than he was on rent in this historic space. “We had a repair truck outside the restaurant for one thing or another three times a week. It had become unsustainable. What hurts me the most is the pride we had as a family that we were taking care of this majestic [space], one of the most iconic art deco spaces in the country. That’s what hurts the most,” Fhima says.
This is not a retreat from downtown, as his family’s group of restaurants has kept expanding: Maison Margaux in the North Loop, five Mother Dough Bakeries opening throughout the downtown core, and work with the Timberwolves. “Nobody can say we gave up on downtown. But downtown has changed, and we are seeing a downtown that will be more of a destination than a daily spot for workers,” he says. “The explosion of restaurants outside of downtown is part of this; that’s ok and that’s amazing. I think the resurgence of downtown will happen, but it will be different.”
Fhima points out that he’s taking care of all his vendors and paying all his bills, and that every employee who wanted to transfer somewhere else in the company has been offered a job.
Fhima tells me he does plan on reopening the Moroccan-focused Fhima’s concept. “We’re thinking of late 2026 and early 2027,” but it won’t be downtown, he says. Fhima’s hedging a bit; with his restaurant Vagabondo in Excelsior, and the new Global Table at Plymouth’s Coborn’s Market & Table, he doesn’t have all his eggs in the downtown game. “I do think that downtown is the heartbeat of our state, but it reminds me a bit of St. Paul and Lowertown, as we were waiting for that to explode, but it never did,” he says.
