Downtown St. Cloud’s The Pickled Loon set for America's Best Restaurants filming

ST. CLOUD — Downtown St. Cloud patrons might want to get camera-ready. Media crews will be filming at The Pickled Loon on Sept. 4 as part of the America’s Best Restaurants series.

“We’re excited to just kind of let people know what we're all about, get more and new customers in and kind of diversify our customer base,” said Mike Illies, owner of The Pickled Loon.

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The restaurant was selected roughly a year and a half ago, Illies said. Decisions on which restaurants make the cut are made by the series' internal vetting and customer recommendations.

America’s Best Restaurants has more than 1,500 episodes with content appearing on its website and social media pages, such as YouTube. The series was created to help local restaurants stand out and to better adapt to a changing market.

Illies said The Pickled Loon is unique because it isn’t just a restaurant, it also has a “nightclub” atmosphere to it at times. This uniqueness comes from coupling entrée options like salmon and meatloaf with a DJ for dancing.

“It’s almost like we’re two separate entities, like we have our menu and our craft cocktails and craft beer during the day, and then right around 10:30 p.m., we transition into that place where people come dance and have a good time with a DJ going,” Illies said.

Film crews will be at The Pickled Loon from 4 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 4. The Picked Loon opened in 2013 under the direction of Illies, Rhiannon Ahrens, Michael Ahrens and Buddy Jost.

Corey Schmidt covers local government for the St. Cloud Times. He can be reached at cschmidt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Downtown St. Cloud’s The Pickled Loon set for America's Best Restaurants filming