If you live around the lake, you already know the intersection. Water and 2nd, the front door of downtown Excelsior, went dark after the pandemic and stayed that way for years. In under twelve months it has become the busiest dinner corner on the south shore, and the shape of a weeknight in town has quietly reorganized around it.
This is a guide for people who already drive past the water tower to get home. Not an introduction to Excelsior. A read on what actually opened, who is behind it, and how to plan a Thursday.
One corner, three concepts, one operator
The sprawling former Irish pub at 200 Water Street now holds three restaurants under Jester Concepts, the Minneapolis group behind Borough, P.S. Steak, and Starling. Owner and chef Mike DeCamp told the Star Tribune that walking past the dark building every day had become "depressing," which is the sort of quote a chef only gives after signing three leases to fix it. The rollout landed in this order:
| Concept | Opened | Format | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parlour Excelsior | Fall 2024 | Basement, 1,200 sq ft, 60 seats, walk-in only | The Minneapolis burger-and-cocktail room, reproduced with tartan and taxidermy |
| Shiki | Summer 2025 | Main level, 630 sq ft, 30 seats | Ramen, dumplings, sake, open kitchen; the name means "four seasons" |
| Mirabelle | July 28, 2025 | Main level, 2,700 sq ft, ~140 seats plus a 40-seat mezzanine and a 30-seat patio | American supper club, popovers, crab-stuffed walleye, weekend brunch since September 6, 2025 |
The three share a wall and a kitchen team but not a menu, which matters if you are hosting out-of-town guests with different appetites. You can start with a spritz upstairs, split a bowl of ramen next door, and finish with a Parlour Burger in the basement without moving your car.
Across the street, a second big-name arrival
The other lease that reset the block belongs to David Fhima, the Minneapolis chef behind Fhima's and Maison Margaux. His Sicilian restaurant Vagabondo took over the former Red Sauce Rebellion space, which locals still know as the old Bacon Drug Store. It runs two shifts: a daytime counter for espresso, pastries, and sidewalk spritzes with a peek-a-boo view of the lake, and a dinner service built on wood-fired pizzas and handmade pastas. Breakfast and lunch are on the way.
Fhima has been direct about what he is not trying to do. He told the Star Tribune he expects to "become one of many" once the opening buzz fades, and that the goal is longevity rather than novelty. Read that against the room designer Amanda Maday's line in the same piece, that a restaurant "on an island somewhere" cannot survive alone, and you get the actual strategy behind the cluster: two headline operators opened days apart, on purpose, because a single destination cannot carry Water Street through February.
The anchors that made the new arrivals possible
The new corner would not work without the businesses that kept the lights on during the vacant years. Worth naming, because the map only makes sense with them on it:
- Maynard's, still the waterfront-dining benchmark on the lake, with the seats that get booked first on any warm Friday.
- Haskell's Port of Excelsior, the bar and grill attached to the liquor store, whose corner patio one regular quoted in the Star Tribune calls "prime realty" for a Lake Minnetonka view.
- Layline, opened in 2023 from InnerBloom Hospitality, the same group behind Wayzata's Josefina and Macanda, with bold wallpaper and a fresh-oyster program.
- Red Bench Bakery, a scratch cafe with live-music nights that has functioned as the neighborhood living room since before the boom.
- Excelsior Brewing Co., next door to a takeout barbecue window run by James, son of Dave Anderson of Famous Dave's, which solves the beer-and-brisket problem in one block.
- The 1980s-era ice cream parlor with housemade waffle cones that has been the summer-night finish line for two generations.
The point is not the list. The point is that Water Street now has enough operators of different price points and hours that a resident can walk the strip on a Tuesday in October and find something open at 9:15 p.m., which was not true in 2022.
A routing suggestion for a Thursday
Because the corner is dense and the parking garage referenced in the Star Tribune's coverage now absorbs the overflow, an evening in town is a walking loop rather than a single reservation. One that works:
- Park once. Start at Vagabondo's daytime counter for an espresso and a pastry if you are early, or head straight to Layline's bar for an oyster and a first cocktail.
- Reserve at Mirabelle for the main sit-down. The popovers, the shaved prime rib salad, and the crab-stuffed walleye are the dishes the opening coverage keeps returning to. Ask for the mezzanine if you are a group of six or more.
- Slip downstairs to Parlour for a nightcap and, if you are still hungry, the burger. It does not take reservations, but the text-message waitlist starts once you check in at the host stand.
- Walk to Haskell's patio or the ice cream parlor depending on the temperature and the company.
That is a four-stop night that did not exist eighteen months ago. It is also a Thursday you can now offer visiting family without leaving the west metro.
The question everyone in town is actually asking
Excelsior's mayor Gary Ringate told the Star Tribune that the restaurant world is "churning" on Water Street and that there is still appetite for more. The counter-question, raised in the same piece, is whether four new restaurants can hold a corner through a Minnesota winter once the foot traffic thins.
Two data points from the coverage worth carrying into your own read of the block. First, the new operators are not independents rolling the dice on a first location. Jester runs multiple concepts across the metro, and InnerBloom Hospitality has been expanding across the west metro since Layline arrived in 2023. That is capital and payroll depth that a single-owner debut does not have. Second, the corner was designed as a cluster from the start. Mirabelle, Shiki, and Parlour opened staggered rather than simultaneously so that Jester's kitchen and front-of-house could stabilize one concept at a time. The strategy assumes a slower shoulder season, not a permanent summer.
The read for a resident, then, is straightforward. The Water Street of 2026 is not a fragile pop-up. It is a bet by two experienced restaurant groups that a walkable lake-town main street, twenty-five minutes from downtown Minneapolis, can hold four to six destination rooms year-round if they cooperate. The dachshund races at James J. Hill Days in Wayzata still pull the summer crowd north across the lake. The dinner reservation, increasingly, points south.
What to try first if you have not been back in a while
If your last dinner in downtown Excelsior was before summer 2024, the shortest path to catching up is one weekend:
- A Saturday brunch at Mirabelle, which launched service on September 6, 2025 and has become the harder reservation of the two brunch options on the block.
- A weekday lunch at Vagabondo's cafe counter, followed by a walk along the Commons.
- A late ramen at Shiki, which is small enough that a 9:00 p.m. arrival on a weeknight still gets a stool at the open kitchen.
Three visits, one weekend, and the map of downtown you carry in your head will match the one your neighbors are using.
Excelsior's next chapter is being written by chefs and operators, but the block is still a neighborhood. If you are thinking about what your own home on the lake is worth in a market where Water Street is suddenly a headline, Hays + Baker Real Estate is here to talk. Begin your curated real estate experience with a conversation about your property, your timing, and the corner of the lake you call home.