Twin Cities Restaurant Going Green In Its Construction
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A red-hot Twin Cities restaurant just raised more than $250,000 from friends and fans to help build a new spot in Robbinsdale.
The Kickstarter campaign hit its goal of $75,000 in just six hours. Two years ago, Travail was named one of the Best New Restaurants in America. They're inventive in the kitchen, and with the construction of their new building.
Only on WCCO This Morning, we're going inside Travail's state-of-the-art building project.
It's hard to imagine that in a couple months it will be the hottest restaurant to open in the Twin Cities. Travail's new downtown Robbinsdale restaurant is taking shape.
"I guess its cutting edge technology for a cutting edge restaurant," said Michael Anschel, the architect for the project. "Efficiency was big on their mind, operating costs, but also a good story for the restaurant that the community could feel good about as well."
Anschel specializes in green construction and said not many commercial structures are built with the type of efficiency Travail has.
As the president of Panelworks Plus, Curt Stendel is obsessed with walls.
"We'll have panels manufactured up to 8 feet wide to 24 feet long to make basic building components. bigger pieces. Fewer pieces, less joints, less labor, More efficiency," Stendel said.
Prefabbed in Cottonwood, Minn., a normal commercial building is insulated at R-5. This is R-32. It's so tight, Travail needs half the heating/cooling equipment of a conventional building.
"In fact this structure is being built faster than a conventional structure, and it's more efficient," Stendel said.
Anschel said the kinds of people who care about innovative food, also care about innovative design. Years ago, it was a tough sell to get clients to introduce green features. He said what Travail is doing is still ahead of the curve.
"It's a huge stretch commercially and even still a big stretch residentially. It's changing, it's definitely changing. Ten years ago this never would've happened and today it's happening with relative ease," Anschel said.
Construction should be completed in the next month or so, and Travail expects to open its new location in mid to late December 2013.
