It was 10:00 a.m. Friday when Aubry Walch flipped the front-door sign from “closed” to “open” at the Herbiverous Butcher shop in northeast Minneapolis.
It had been six months since the nation’s first vegan butcher shop closed when fire swept through the place on First Ave. NE.
One by one, a handful of customers shuffled in, the tiny bell above the door announcing their arrival with a distinctive ringing.
Pascal Sloman was there early but after taking a seat, three others passed him to get inside.
“I went from first in line to fourth in line,” he said. “But I managed to be the first one to check out, so I managed to be first."
That first order; a turkey dill havarti sandwich and a wedge of mozzarella cheese.
Walch co-owns the place with her brother, and said the community that helped build their business up didn’t abandon them when things were shut down.
“It really felt like, when it happened, we couldn’t come back, and we did,” she said. “I thought it would happen in a shorter period of time.”
That’s because their steady customers helped raise money for the restoration through GoFundMe donations.
Community kitchens offered their facilities to allow Walch to keep cooking.
The place looks almost the same as before the fire, which started in the kitchen and spread.
All of the equipment is brand-new.
What isn’t new is the people working there.
“The biggest worry was we were going to lose our staff, and we came back with them,” she said. “That’s because the community was there for us.”