Locally owned Colonial Market will fill hole left by Aldi’s departure in north Minneapolis

North Side resident Telisha Lindsey moved to the neighborhood in 2020 in part to be close to a neighborhood Aldi.

So the store’s closing in February 2023 hit her, and other local residents hard.

“I moved over here because they had all the stores, they had the grocery store and my day care down the street,” she said.

North Side residents got a bit of good news Tuesday when local entrepreneur Daniel Hernandez, flanked by Minneapolis officials, announced plans to open a Colonial Market at 3120 Penn Ave. N. by early December.

Colonial Markets have butcher counters, fresh produce, ice cream shops and hot food stations.

The grocery stores are especially popular among Latinos in south Minneapolis where customers are able to buy freshly made salsas and tamales.

Hernandez, a 40-year-old immigrant from Acapulco, Mexico, said minorities make up 90% of his clientele and the majority of his products are either Mexican or Latin American.

The North Side location will be different however. Hernandez said it will be the one location in his chain of stores not geared towards a Latino clientele.

“It’s gonna be probably more, like 50-50 the traditional burgers and buns and, you know, T-bones and rib-eyes,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said he was excited when he got the call from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. For him it meant an opportunity to expand his growing empire of grocery stores and restaurants.

“People who live on the North Side are super excited about a new grocery store opening up,” Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw said at Tuesday’s news conference.

Hernandez, who owns a second Colonial Market on Nicollet Avenue S., said renovations at the north Minneapolis site would begin soon.

“This is one of the best things I’m doing right now. Because this means so much for me, my background, my ethnicity, my people. It’s here,” Hernandez said.

Frey said many people had been advocating for another grocery store in north Minneapolis since Aldi left and he was glad to make the connection between Hernandez and David Wellington, president of Wellington Management, which owns the property.

“If you check out Colonial — that’s already in existence on the South Side. They’re known for their fresh produce. They’re known for some extraordinary meats. They’re known for great lengua,” Frey said.

According to Hernandez, his vision when crafting his stores was always to create a “one-stop shop.”

“You come here, you get your groceries, you get your food, you know, like fast food restaurants, you get ice cream,” Hernandez said.

On Tuesday, he also announced plans for another south Minneapolis location. Hernandez, the majority owner of Colonial Market Group, said that after some changes to the group’s growing grocery chain, they plan to end up with seven locations.

The other south Minneapolis location will be at 2100 E. Lake St. at the Hi-Lake Shopping Center near Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue, which is also a former Aldi.

The Hi-Lake location will open in September, according to Hernandez.

“Most of our Colonials are gonna be between 15 and 20,000 square feet, which is something similar to this,” Hernandez said.

David Wellington said the North Side building was built between 2006 and 2007 for Aldi. It’s only been used by them and has sat vacant for over a year.

“When they left us last year, at the end of their lease term, we were disappointed and frustrated that they were going to leave us and also the broad community of the North Side,” he said.

Hernandez said that building has about 18,000 square feet.

With the news of Colonial coming, Lindsey said she’s excited to get to walk around the neighborhood again. She said without the foot traffic from the grocery, the area feels less safe.

Some of those concerns have been brought to Hernandez. He said since news broke of Colonial Market coming to north Minneapolis he’s seen a lot of online criticism for his decision. It ranged from security concerns to whether or not it was a smart investment.

“Nobody shoots for failure, but when people say ‘You cannot do it,’ that’s when I get like ‘All right, challenge accepted’,” Hernandez said.

Other community members, like Joe Williams, also said the store’s announcement couldn’t have come at a better time. Ever since Aldi left, Williams has mostly relied on getting food at Family Dollar across the parking lot from the former Aldi.

But he can’t get meat there and his produce section is limited.

“This ain’t an actual grocery store, Aldi was the closest thing,” he said.

Williams said Colonial couldn’t open soon enough for nearby residents, who now have to travel almost a mile to get groceries at So Low Grocery Outlet or the Cub on Broadway.

“It need to come sooner,” he said.

Hernandez said neighborhood customers and seniors get a discount at the Nicollet Avenue location and he’s hoping to bring that to the north Minneapolis store while possibly increasing the savings amount.

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