Blue Door Pub’s newest location will be at the Lindbergh terminal of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The popular local chain is best known as the creator of The Blucy, the pub’s distinctive take on a Twin Cities delicacy, the Jucy Lucy – a hamburger patty stuffed with molten cheese.
The pub replaces the Itasca Grill at a space near the rotunda, where Concourse A, B and C meet.
A lease with Blue Door was approved in March by the governing body of the airport, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), and gave its blessing to an on-sale liquor license that will be effective through January 2019.
Blue Door Owner Jeremy Woerner said Tuesday that construction is already underway. The restaurant is slated to open on July 1.
Excluding its new outpost at MSP, Blue Door has four restaurants in the Twin Cities, including one in St. Paul and three in Minneapolis.
Last fall, MAC announced that it had 30 new food vendors on deck to take over about 78,000 square feet of space at the terminal, but did not name them at the time.
MAC spokesperson Patrick Hogan said Wednesday that Blue Door is the most noteworthy addition to a revamp of the airport’s concessions, though more are likely to follow. The airport will be closing its main food court in the next few weeks as it embarks on a $17 million expansion project there. MAC is enlarging the food court by pushing the space out onto what is now the roof, Hogan said.
The new and improved food court is expected to reopen in 2019.
