Month: June 2020

The National Weather Service in Grand Forks has issued a Thunderstorm watch for portions of the KROX listening area in northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota.

A severe thunderstorm watch has been issued until 11 p.m. The watch includes the following Minnesota counties – Polk, Beltrami, Clearwater, Kittson, Lake of the Woods, Marshall, Pennington, Red Lake, and Roseau.  The watch includes the following North Dakota counties – Grand Forks, Nelson, Pembina, and Walsh.  The watch includes the following cities – Crookston, Argyle, Bagley, Baudette, Bemidji, Clearbrook, East Grand Forks, Greenbush, Hallock, Karlstad, Lancaster, Red Lake Falls, Roseau, Stephen, Thief River Falls, Warren, and Warroad.  Cities in North Dakota included in the watch are – Aneta, Cavalier, Drayton, Grafton, Grand Forks, Lakota, McVille, Neche, Park River, Pembina, St. Thomas, Tolna, and Walhalla.

Numerous severe thunderstorms are expected to develop across northeast North Dakota by 4 p.m., and then move east into northwest Minnesota by late afternoon, exiting by early evening. Very large hail greater than 2 inches along with a possible tornado will be the initial threat, with a transition to a damaging wind threat as the activity moves into Minnesota.

Additional numerous severe thunderstorms are expected to develop across the southern Red River Valley into west-central Minnesota this evening, mainly after 6 p.m. Activity will become more widespread after 9 p.m. Clusters of storms will bring primarily a damaging wind threat to this area, continuing until well after midnight.

Crookston’s restaurants are continuing to prepare for opening up indoor dining on Wednesday.  Restaurants can open at 50 percent capacity inside with up to 250 people following social distancing guidelines.  They can also have up to 250 people outside following the appropriate guidelines.

DRAFTS SPORTS BAR & GRILL
Drafts was closed Monday to do some prep work for reopening inside.  Owner Jasmine Melsa said besides opening indoors Drafts will keep its expanded patio and curbside to go in place. “We’ll be reopening the indoors on Wednesday,” said Melsa. “We’ll have the seating at 50 percent capacity inside, the patio, and keep the curbside to go as well.  We’re just going to see how busy things are and where the need is.  The hours will be similar to what they were before maybe just slightly shorter days.”

EAGLES CLUB
The Crookston Eagles Club will reopen for the first time since March on Wednesday.  Manager Jake Fee said even though patios were possible last week the Eagles Club didn’t have room to accommodate their customers. “We made the decision not to have outdoor seating,” said Fee. “We had pretty limited space and just wouldn’t have been able to accommodate our customers. So, we decided to wait until we could be indoors and come this Wednesday, we’ll be at 50 percent capacity. Still a lot of guidelines we have to follow with social distancing, our employees wearing facemasks, extra hand sanitizer and extra cleaning regiments will be doing up here. Definitely a little different but at the same time it’s going to be close to normal.”

Fee added there would be some slight changes to hours, while bingo will resume on Thursday nights. “We did slightly reduce our hours,” said Fee. “We’ll be doing 3-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. We do close Sundays and that’s normal for us.  We’re going to try to bring back bingo on Thursdays at 7 p.m. and as of right now we’re not going to do Saturdays as we slowly try to ease back into it.”

I.C. MUGGS/MUGOO’S
I.C. Muggs and Mugoo’s will open up indoors on Wednesday at 4 p.m. before resuming their regular hours on Thursday. Owner Justin Paul said he’s looking forward to people being able to see the new bar inside and that they are currently working on new drink specials and a revamped menu. “Wednesday we’ll open 4 p.m. to close, right back to our regular hours, 4 p.m. – 1 a.m.,” said Paul. “The rest of the week it will be 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. We’re going to leave the patio the way it is, extended like that. We’re going to have a bunch of new drink specials and some new apps. We’re going to be revamping our menu, so when we get that all finalized it will be a good time. Just looking forward to seeing some people inside the building. They can come in and check out the new bar.”

SCOBEY’S PUB & GRUB AT CROOKSTON INN
Scobey’s Pub & Grub will open up in the afternoon and evenings beginning on Wednesday, while curbside will remain available said owner Laurie Stahlecker. “On Wednesday we will open up from 4-9 p.m. for the bar and restaurant,” said Stahlecker. “We are going to evaluate the 10 p.m. closing time for drinking. If we have people, we’ll stay open. If not, we’ll continue to close at 10 p.m. We are going to keep our curbside open, so Monday’s hours for curbside are 4-9 p.m., Tuesday through Friday 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. and Saturday is 4-9 p.m. as well.”

Stahlecker said they would not continue to offer the patio because of the difficulty they have with the wind in their location. “No,” said Stahlecker. “With it the way it is out here with the wind we can’t even keep the umbrellas in, so no, I don’t think we’re going to do that.”

TACO JOHN’S
Taco John’s will open up select hours for indoor dining and patio dining, while drive-through, curbside and mobile ordering will remain available throughout the day said manager Renee Voss. “We are going to open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday in our lobby,” said Voss. “So, it will be every other booth basically. We still will have our outside seating open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day. Same with our drive-through, mobile ordering, curbside pickup. Whatever you feel comfortable with we will be here to serve you.”

WONDERFUL LIFE FOODS
Wonderful Life Foods will continue to offer their patio seating and rearrange to allow their 50 percent capacity for indoor seating at the front of their store said owner Shawn Rezac. “On Wednesday, we’ll have our seating out front like we’ve done before with limitations like everybody else,” said Rezac. “We’re going to be doing a little rearranging to be at the 50 percent capacity. On top of that, just like everybody else, we’ve been doing extra cleaning, extra safety protocols to make everybody is safe including us that’s here in the store. Hours will be 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. During all of this we’ve luckily been able to stay open because we are considered a grocery store also on top of a deli/restaurant. We’ve been able to maintain our normal hours through the entirety of what’s been going on.”

Happy Joe’s Pizza and Ice Cream Parlor plans to continue providing delivery and carryout only at this time and will reevaluate down the road as things continue to evolve.

The Minnesota Department of Health has released the latest COVID-19 numbers.  All the state numbers are below. 
Polk County is reporting 64 positive cases, while Pennington County has 36 as the top counties in the KROX listening area.   

Data is for cases that were tested and returned positive. All data is preliminary and may change as cases are investigated. Many data points are collected during case interviews. Data presented below is for all cases, regardless of interview status. Data for cases pending interview may be listed as “unknown/missing.”

Not all suspected cases of COVID-19 are tested, so this data is not representative of the total number of people in Minnesota who have or had COVID-19. Cumulative numbers are since Jan. 20, 2020.

• Minnesota COVID-19 Public Dashboard
• Minnesota’s COVID-19 Response and Preparation Capacity
• CDC: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Cases in the U.S.
• Minnesota COVID-19 Modeling

The Crookston Police Department has received three counterfeit bills that were passed in the City of Crookston. The bills were passed at Walmart, Holiday, and the Irishman’s Shanty. Bills were passed in various amounts up to $100.  The CPD said one bill appeared to be a $10 bill that had been washed and reprinted to look like a $50.  The CPD is urging all businesses to verify the authenticity of bills when received.  If you receive a counterfeit bill, please call the CPD immediately.

Restaurants can begin serving indoors on Wednesday as part of Phase III of the Gov. Tim Walz’s Stay Safe MN Plan.  Kim Samuelson said RBJ’s will be open at 6 a.m. Wednesday and hopes to feed a lot of people. “Wednesday we have the okay to go with indoor dining,” said Samuelson. “We’ll be open 6 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 7 a.m. – 9 p.m. Sunday. We’ll have our regular menu available and takeout.  We will have to follow the 50 percent capacity and social distancing. It would be nice if our customers would wear masks. We just want to follow all the rules and feed a lot of people.”

Samuelson said it’s been a long couple of months and it’s nice to get close to normal. “It’s been a long couple of months,” said Samuelson. “Our staff is eager to get back to work. Some of them have been working in an entirely different environment then they were used to. But this is about as close as it can get to normal, so we’re going to take our chances. We’re going to feed as many people as we can.”

RBJ’s will also be holding mini-rhubarb festivals each Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. through July said, Samuelson. “Summertime is rhubarb time and RBJ’s is rhubarb headquarters,” said Samuelson. “We’ve got our rhubarb-strawberry jam, pies, rhubarb cake, and crisp available 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. You can come on in and grab it. We’ll be doing that on Thursdays. We also have some chocolate things, of course, salads you can take to the lake, and that type of thing. Please call by Tuesday if you have a special request.”

Paul Gregg at the Irishman’s Shanty said he was surprised but happy to get the news they could open indoors so soon. “I’ve got to admit I was surprised,” said Gregg. “I was just talking to Chris (Fee) on the radio on Friday saying – geez, we probably won’t get to open until July. And I’m happy to be wrong. Chris was right that there was a lot of pressure for the governor and people want things to be open and open the right way. It’s one of those I think we have to safe about it and we’re going to be. We’re going to be 50 percent capacity. So, starting on Wednesday we will have indoor dining.”

Gregg was appreciative of the community support while operations have been different, but very happy to be opening up more like normal. “We’ll be ready to go Wednesday morning and we’re very happy about that,” said Gregg. “We appreciate all the support. The local people have been supporting us with the takeout and even the dine outside. We’re very happy.  We’ve been looking forward to this and hopefully, we can stay open, do this right for everybody’s sake and keep us in business providing a service to Crookston. I keep saying I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy we’re going to be open, so it’s all good.”

The Irishman’s Shanty will be open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. for food, with the off-sale open until 10 p.m.  Gregg said how late the bar stays open will be dictated by how busy they are. “We actually have expanded now 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” said Gregg. “Off-sale is going to be open until 10 p.m. and we’ve moved the restaurant to 9 p.m. As business dictates, we’ll stay open later. Right now, we’re open at 8 a.m., the kitchen will be open to 9 p.m., and the off-sale until 10 p.m. Bar will be dictated on business. Weekends we figure we’ll be open a little bit later, maybe Friday and Saturday to 10-11 p.m. It is legal to be open all the way to 1 a.m. and we’ll see how that goes, how comfortable people are. All of us working here will be wearing masks. We’ll be doing our disinfecting. They do encourage people, we aren’t requiring it, to wear a mask to come on out. They do recommend that you wear a mask if you’re walking by tables. You can’t eat and drink with a mask on of course, but they do recommend people to have a mask handy and be safe about it.”

The Shanty will also be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. for off-sale on Sundays, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. for the restaurant and bar.

McDonald’s will continue to be available just by drive-through, as the corporate policies aren’t allowing the restaurant to open up indoors yet.  We’ll have more with local restaurants preparing to welcome customers inside on Tuesday.