Cloquet Happenings 2024

218 TapHouse offers bowling, 29 brews

Cloquet business aims to provide something for everyone

BY MACKLIN CARUSO Cloquet Pine Journal CLOQUET

After more than a decade, bowling is returning to town — accompanied by 29 selfpour taps.

In late December, 218 TapHouse opened its doors at 918 State Highway 33 intending to provide a little something for everyone. Its menu features a wide selection of craft and domestic brews; pizza and exclusive menu items from local favorite Sammy’s Pizza; and duckpin bowling, a variation of bowling using smaller balls and wider pins than conventional 10-pin bowling.

We wanted to be more than the 21plus crowd coming into the bar.

DEAN CROTTEAU,

CO-OWNER, 218

TAPHOUSE

“It takes very different ideas we’ve seen out in the marketplace and kind of melds them into one,” said Dean Crotteau, who co-owns the business with his wife, Alison. The Crotteaus routinely saw people driving to the Twin Ports to go to breweries and enjoy offerings outside the

traditional bar scene in Cloquet. Even though Cloquet does not have a brewery, the Crotteaus believed they could offer a similar experience a little closer to home.

“We just wanted to bring a little bit of elevated experience to the bar scene,” Alison said.

The Crotteaus own neighboring Cold One Liquor and have noticed increasing sales of craft beers, especially local brews. Hoping to provide a place for local craft beer drinkers to congregate in one spot, they decided to feature all of the offerings they could think of in one location.

TapHouse on A7

Game Play Stay owner hopes to provide safe space

Sara Kenwood wants gaming store to serve as Cloquet community hub

BY MACKLIN CARUSO Cloquet Pine Journal

CLOQUET — In a nondescript location downtown, games, collectibles and a seemingly endless amount of memorabilia line the walls of Game Play Stay, the community’s new gaming destination. For owner Sara Kenwood, it’s not just a place to play games and geek out over rare memorabilia — it’s a place where people can escape and be themselves.

“I wanted to create a community space for troubled teens and stuff to have a safe place to come relax and get away from struggles they go through,” Kenwood said.

Game Play Stay, 305 Broadway St., is something of a living museum for gamers and collectors. Board games line the walls, from classics like cribbage to modern games like Villainous, one of Kenwood’s favorite games.

There are rows of collectible cards for sale, including vintage Pokemon cards from Kenwood’s personal collection. When gaming gets out of hand and gamers lose track of time, candy and soda are for sale to serve as possible latenight fuel.

Game Play Stay opened in October and has been undergoing near-constant renovation as Kenwood aims to create the ultimate gaming destination. She hopes it will soon be able to host full-scale tournaments and serve as a community hub for people with a shared passion for gaming.

“We might not know you personally, but we care about you. If you come in here having a rough time, come sit down, play a game, relax, think, breathe. I’ll offer that space all day, every day,” Kenwood said.

The store’s name also serves as its motto and much like gaming itself, Kenwood hopes her store can provide an escape from the stress and negativity of day-to-day life.

“(Gaming) takes the stress out of daily lives away. It just offers a great release from life,”

Game on A7

Pedro’s Grill and Cantina opens in Superior

BY SHELLEY NELSON Superior Telegram

SUPERIOR — A flurry of activity surrounded the long-awaited opening of Pedro’s Grill and Cantina on Monday, Jan. 15.

The long-vacant Epic Restaurant and Lounge at 3223 Tower Ave. was bustling with a steady flow of customers. About a dozen wait staff moved around the kitchen, the bar and dining area, collecting orders and delivering food and drinks.

Outside, the large parking lot was nearly full, and tables filled quickly inside the restaurant so people could get an

authentic taste of Mexico.

The crowd on the day it opened came as no surprise to Cloquet restauranteur Erika Aranda, owner of Pedro’s Grill and Cantina in Cloquet and Superior.

“It was like this when we changed locations in Cloquet,” said Aranda, owner of the family-run restaurant. “We hired a lot of people expecting this. It was like this for two full months in Cloquet when we changed locations.”

Aranda purchased the building in Superior in July with plans to open a second restaurant.

“It took us a little bit

to get here, but today is our opening day,” Aranda said Jan. 15. “We had a few things to do with plumbing and electrical, and we did some cosmetic work, some painting.”

Once that work was complete, Aranda said they spent the last two weeks hiring and training the people that will cook for and serve guests in Superior.

On Sunday, Jan. 14, she said they held a soft opening for friends and family to make sure employees would be familiar with the operation before the doors opened Jan. 15.

Macklin Caruso / Cloquet Pine Journal

218 TapHouse owners Alison and Dean Crotteau.

Macklin Caruso / Cloquet Pine Journal Game Play Stay owner Sara Kenwood opened her Cloquet business in October.

Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group

Pedro Aranda, left, poses with his mother, Erika Aranda, center, and sister Stephanie Aranda behind the register during the grand opening of Pedro’s Grill and Cantina in Superior Jan. 15.

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The Superior restaurant is modeled on the success of the Cloquet restaurant.

From the menu of authentic Mexican food and beverage offerings to outdoor dining in the summertime, Aranda said customers can expect most of what’s available in Cloquet in Superior.

“It was delicious,” said Mark Johnson of Superior, who stopped in Jan. 15 for lunch with his wife,

GAME

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Kenwood said.

For Kenwood, opening Game Play Stay wasn’t as much of a business decision as it was personal. It represents something Kenwood didn’t have when she was growing up in Cloquet. Kenwood is a lesbian who has struggled with depression and felt when she was growing up, she and her friends just didn’t fit in and didn’t have anywhere they could go to be themselves. By opening Game Play Stay, she hopes to

Anndrea Ploeger.

The Cloquet restaurant also has an event center.

“The menu’s the same except we added a few things that people have been requesting, but we’ll add them in Cloquet,” Aranda said. “I also brought my main cook in Cloquet just to keep consistency in flavor.”

The restaurant is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. SundaysThursdays and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

“We might extend the hours in summertime,” Aranda said.

foster a community she never had.

Kenwood wasn’t responding to any economic incentive to open a store, instead, just the feeling that she could create something that Cloquet needed. Though there were always game stores in the nearby Twin Ports, Kenwood wanted to build something that belonged to Cloquet, noting that if she had a place like this growing up, “I would have felt safe to be myself sooner.”

Kenwood grew up playing card games like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon

There are 29 self-pour taps that customers are free to pour and sample themselves. There is a strong emphasis on featuring local breweries and cideries on their tap menu such as Voyageur Brewing in Grand Marais, Castle Danger in Two Harbors and Ursa Minor in Duluth. That said, their selection is not limited to those breweries and the featured taps are constantly rotating.

“It’s just kind of a revolving door of new beer,” Alison said.

However, 218 TapHouse aims to be much more than just another bar. By offering duckpin bowling and Sammy’s Pizza, it plans to position itself as the go-to spot for everything from family gatherings to the after-school hang — regardless of customers’ age and alcohol consumption.

“We wanted to be more than the 21-plus crowd coming into the bar,” Dean said.

By including duckpin bowling, 218 TapHouse has brought bowling back to Cloquet for the first time since Southgate Bowl closed in 2012.

“We’ve had a really, really great response on the return of bowling,” Alison said.

It is not a large, conventional bowling alley. The Crotteaus had just enough space to squeeze three lanes into a compact room behind the counter. Still, because of the small space where 218 TapHouse operates, duckpin bowling was a perfect fit. It doesn’t require special shoes and it only uses one ball, which allowed the Crotteaus to scale

We might not know you personally, but we care about you. If you come in here having a rough time, come sit down, play a game, relax, think, breathe.

SARA KENWOOD, OWNER, GAME PLAY STAY

— both popular trading card games for kids growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s — and always enjoyed board games. As an adult, she took up playing Pokemon again, which was when the idea first struck her to open a

store.

“I’m like, ‘I could make a store, make a shop,’ you know, a gathering place for people to come and play because we don’t have anything like this here,” Kenwood said. Before opening her

back on some of the technology and infrastructure required in larger bowling alleys.

“People call it the great equalizer of bowling,” Alison said, because according to her both expert and novice bowlers will walk away with similar scores.

Because they decided to convert their excess space to a bowling alley, the Crotteaus knew it would compromise any hopes of opening their own commercial

business, Kenwood read a few books on how to run a game store by fellow game store owners. But aside from that, she opened the store without much business experience and is navigating the realities of operating a business in real-time.

To keep up with the cost of running the store, Kenwood also works in shipping at Sappi. When she can’t be at the store because of a scheduling conflict, she will often ask a friend or family member to step in. For Kenwood though, Game Play Stay isn’t a

kitchen. The dilemma, however, presented an opportunity, and the Crotteaus partnered with Sammy’s Pizza to serve pizza on the premises as well as an array of exclusive menu items.

It’s something that has never been done before in Cloquet, but the Crotteaus are confident that everybody will find something to enjoy.

“Really, it is something for everybody,” Dean said.

matter of simple dollars and cents. It represents something bigger than that, and though she might be catering to a niche audience, if she can provide a sense of safety and community for just one person, she will have done her job.

“The world is just pressing negatively at you from all angles, every aspect, and it’s really hard to manage, but there is help, I guess, and we’re here to help people who walk in our door,” Kenwood said. “If I can help provide that for one person, everything is worth it.”

Photos by Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group Pedro Aranda works behind the bar on the opening day of Pedro’s Grill and Cantina in Superior.

Macklin Caruso / Cloquet Pine Journal 218 TapHouse co-owner Alison Crotteau demonstrates how to operate the self-pour taps.