InForum: Downtown Fargo Fryin’ Pan plans move to nearby Gateway North building
April 8, 2021
The restaurant’s move is planned for August as EPIC Companies nears completion of the mixed-use building. A phase II building is planned to include more commercial space, condominiums, and perhaps apartments, an EPIC spokeswoman said.
Written By: Helmut Schmidt | 8:15 am, Apr. 7, 2021
FARGO – A city permit has been issued to fit up a new home for downtown’s Fryin’ Pan Family Restaurant, though the move won’t be far.
If all goes well, sometime before the end of summer the restaurant will move from its current home at 300 Main in the Gateway Center strip mall to the Gateway North building still under construction at 310 Main.
“Sometime in August, hopefully,” Fryin’ Pan manager Patrick Jones said Friday, April 2.
Jones is looking forward to the move.
“Anytime you get a new building it’s always a good thing,” Jones added, before heading off to help his staff handle the press of Good Friday customers.
The Fryin’ Pan Family Restaurant, seen Friday, April 2, 2021, at 300 Main Ave. in the Gateway Center, will move across the parking lot to 310 Main Ave., Fargo. Michael Vosburg / Forum Photo Editor
Fryin’ Pan’s $600,000 fit-up of a shell space in Gateway North will include electrical, plumbing, mechanical systems, commercial kitchen equipment, and restaurant furnishings and fixtures, the permit said.
The total space to be used by the restaurant will be 5,136 square feet.
The $12 million Gateway North building is being built by EPIC Companies.
EPIC spokeswoman McKenzy Olson said plans call for the building to be ready for apartment tenants to move in starting Sept. 1. There is also space available for other commercial tenants, she said Friday.
The project along the busy Main Avenue corridor on the east edge of downtown was announced in December of 2019.
“It’s really, really going to be a nice building. A good place to live,” Olson said.
A second phase of the project is still in development. It will include another building with commercial space and condominiums overlooking the Red River, Olson said. Though there is a possibility that some apartments could be part of that building, too, she said.
“It’s been a really unique project. It’s nice (for EPIC) to have a presence on Main Avenue,” Olson said. For tenants, “It will be great for walking around that area (and to) really connect with Island Park.”
EPIC Companies has developed several mixed-use buildings and entertainment spaces in the area, including The Lights on the corner of Sheyenne Street and 32nd Avenue West in West Fargo, the redevelopment of downtown West Fargo, including Sheyenne Plaza, Pioneer Place and the POW/MIA Plaza, and Block E in Moorhead. EPIC also has projects in Bismarck, Jamestown, Minot, Grand Forks and Horace in North Dakota, and Detroit Lakes, Minn.