Just in time for landing on North America’s 50 Best Restaurants, Diane Moua has unveiled the glow-up for Diane’s Place in Northeast Minneapolis.
With her parents on stage, longtime friends and supporters in the room, and event planners grabbing up croissants and business cards to make reservations, Moua celebrated two years in business and the realization of a dream. “It’s a happy accomplishment feeling,” she told me. “Is it stressful? Yes, it’s aging me quite fast. But I’m having fun, I love what I do.”
Diane’s Place now has two new private dining rooms, a separate grab-and-go cafe, a fully renovated patio—in all, 6,000 more square feet on top of her existing 6,000. What’s that mean for you? Instead of 65 seats inside the restaurant, there will now be 100. Does this mean an easier reservation? I doubt it.
Eliesa Johnson
Those tables in the hallways that led to the Event Center and bathrooms are now gone. The patio is an option for people struggling to get reservations.
For her team, she has expanded prep kitchen space, a walk-in cooler, and a freezer—things they were largely working around in the early days when they were wedged into a corner in Kieran Folliard’s Food Building. Now Diane’s Place is more than half of the food building, along with production space for Baker’s Field Flour & Bread and Lowry Hill Provisions.
I’m most excited about the cafe. Diane’s has always had great coffee, but now you have a walk-in space to grab an espresso, get one of Diane’s incredible green scallion danishes or mango, passion fruit, and lychee croissants, and maybe even a delicious ube soft-serve ice cream treat. This should also help traffic flow at the check-in desk for the main restaurant, where people used to stop in for merch or for pastries. (The grab-and-go cafe hours are 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday when the restaurant is closed for dinner, and until 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.)
The former Alemar Cheese Co. space also houses an expanded dining room for Diane’s. I feel like the remodel has created a space which matches the caliber of the food: elegant but not stuffy, with personal touches everywhere including Diane’s framed Hmong wedding dress, framed baby clothes, and silver neckwear. “It’s really amazing. Every day is different. I don’t know what I’m doing, this is the first time I’ve owned a restaurant, we went from 65 seats to 188, but my team is incredible,” she said.
Eliesa Johnson
I would love to have a private dinner in one of the separate dining rooms. They can host gatherings of 8 to 12 people in one; the other room’s a little bigger and you can host 15. Right now they’re doing two seatings each night, so if you just want to book a family dinner you call the restaurant. You can also buy out the room for an evening with a $1900 food and beverage minumum.
Diane’s has always utilized a large 2,000-square foot event space, which was so popular from the jump, it made me wonder if she would ever add dinner service to her restaurant. Luckily for us, she did, and word at the launch party is that they’ll soon be adding Monday and Tuesday nights into the mix, as prime reservations are booking up as soon as they go live on the first of the month.
What’s next? The goal is to open 7 nights a week for dinner, adding Monday and Tuesday into the mix. “How crazy do I want to be,” Moua laughed. While most restaurants are dropping lunch and doing dinner 5 days a week, Diane’s Place does breakfast/lunch daily and dinner five nights a week plus a very busy event space. And yet – the idea factory doesn’t have an off switch.
Diane’s Place, 117 14th Ave. NE, Minneapolis, 612-489-8012, dianesplacemn.com
