The Burnsville Source: Local News, History & Business

📖   The Beginnings  — A Small Room with Big Flavors Not every story on Nicollet Avenue belongs to a national chain. Lemon Thai Kitchen is a small, mom-and-pop Thai restaurant at 12621 Nicollet Avenue, a few steps from the Caribou Coffee — its own website even gives directions that way: "Visit us on Nicollet Ave near Caribou Coffee."

🥖 The Park Picnic and Pre-Show Pivot Point  Imagine grabbing a freshly built Footlong sub and walking just a few steps to spread out a blanket at Nicollet Commons Park or catch a concert at the Ames Center. Tucked into the landmark 12601 Nicollet Avenue building—right next door to Caribou Coffee—this Subway location is designed for pure local convenience. Whether you are assembling the ultimate weekend park picnic, grabbing a quick dinner before a theater performance, or keeping it local on a late-night run, it serves as the ultimate food hub right at the epicenter of Burnsville's Heart of the City. 📖 The Startup: From a $1,000 Loan to a Global Empire Subway's origins trace back to 1965 when 17-year-old Fred DeLuca borrowed $1,000 from family friend Dr. Peter Buck to open "Pete's Super Submarines" in Bridgeport, Connecticut, aiming to fund his college tuition. Following a 1968 rebranding to "Subway" and the 1974 launch of its franchising model, the cus...

The Start Up: A Coffee Company Born in Alaska, Raised in Minnesota Caribou Coffee started with a vacation. In the early 1990s, Boston management consultant John Puckett took a trip to Denali National Park in Alaska and came home inspired by the caribou roaming the tundra. He and his wife, Kim, decided to build a coffee company around that rugged northern spirit—warm cabins, real ingredients, and a shop that felt like a lodge, not a laboratory.

  Parking for a Downtown That Didn't Exist Yet The Heart of the City parking ramp was born with the downtown itself. When the Grand Market Place development broke ground on August 1 — 76 owner-occupied townhomes, 108 rental units, 48,000 square feet of office and retail, and a culinary school at Nicollet and Burnsville Parkway — the plans included a structured parking ramp from the start.

How a Suburb of 60,000 Built Itself a Downtown Nicollet Commons Park exists because Burnsville decided a suburb of 60,000+ people ought to have a downtown. The idea surfaced in the Partnerships for Tomorrow visioning forums of the 1990s, where residents named "a central meeting area" as a community goal.