Within about three months, the Kingfield stretch of Nicollet Avenue lost both of its bakery cafes. Butter Bakery Cafe at 3700 Nicollet closed Dec. 31, 2025, when owner Dan Swenson-Klatt retired. That ended more than two decades of scratch baking, workforce training and a community-focused mission. Then Sun Street Breads at 4600 Nicollet closed in the spring of 2026 after its owners announced they were moving to Grand Marais to start a new chapter.
The strip has been busy since then. In a little under a year, a deli, a cocktail-forward neighborhood restaurant, a Tibetan and South Asian kitchen, a temaki bar and a taiyaki shop have all opened between 37th and 48th Streets. Most of them keep afternoon and evening hours. The early-morning bakery counter that Butter and Sun Street kept at each end of the corridor is the one piece of the old Nicollet that hasn't come back yet, and the next opening on the street is aimed squarely at it.
What filled in, and when it opens
The new places are good additions, and they open later. Going north to south, here's what's on Nicollet now and when each place's own website says it opens:
- Little Bird Delicatessen, 3749 Nicollet. Alison and Steve McMullen, who started Little Bird Gelato, opened it Nov. 12, 2025 in the former Abang Yoli space. It serves sandwiches, up to a dozen gelato flavors, roast chicken to go and dog treats. Its site lists Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Company Bar, 3800 Nicollet. The former Petite León reopened under the same ownership Jan. 17, 2026, with a refreshed dining room and a new bar program. Le Petit Cheeseburger stayed on the menu. Its site lists evening hours, with doors at 4 or 5 p.m. depending on the day.
- Inti Kitchen & Bar, 4537 Nicollet. It took over the former Revival and Corner Table space near 46th Street after a deep refresh and serves South Asian and Tibetan food with a full bar. Heavy Table reported in September that owner Chogyal Tenzin hired the chef from the former Tibet Kitchen in Stevens Square. Inti's site lists an 11 a.m. start Tuesday through Sunday, and it's closed Mondays.
- Taizo Taiyaki, 4743 Nicollet. Chef Hide Tozawa's newest shop opened this fall. Its site lists Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 8 p.m.
- Nokko, 4747 Nicollet. Also Tozawa's, it opened in early November 2025 in the space Fast Eddie's Pizza last held. The menu is built around temaki, the rolled cones of sushi, along with sake and Japanese cocktails. Its site lists dinner hours starting at 5 p.m., and it's closed Mondays.
Put those together and almost all of the corridor's new energy starts at lunch or later. On a weekday at 7 a.m., the strip has far fewer lights on than it did when Butter and Sun Street were both baking.
The one counter open at 7
Silverbird Coffee at 4237 Nicollet carries the early hours by itself for now. Its cafe page lists 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. The Silverbird Roasting Co. shop opened in Kingfield in the fall of 2025. It sells beans from its roastery to take home, makes lattes like the "Woodsman" with maple-ginger syrup and birch nectar, and keeps a vinyl-record library.
Its pastries come from local bakeries rather than its own ovens. So for most of 2026, the corridor that used to bake its own morning bread has gotten its croissants delivered.
Evergreen Cafe is built for the morning
That gap is what Shawn McKenzie's Evergreen Cafe is moving into, in the old Sun Street Breads space near Nicollet and 46th. The Star Tribune reported in September that McKenzie, a James Beard Award-nominated baker who opened Cafe Ceres and Cardamom and later ran the baking at Rustica, expects to open before the end of the year. It will be counter service with tables for anyone who wants to stay.
She isn't treating the address as a blank slate. She told the Star Tribune:
"I'd like to bridge the gap and honor Solveig [Tofte] and Sun Street by offering specials like fresh doughnuts or my take on biscuits and gravy."
The hours tell you what the place is for. Mpls.St.Paul Magazine reported in September that the first phase might run "maybe just 7 a.m. until noon," with hours stretching to 3 p.m. later and fuller hours in 2027. Racket's November restaurant roundup describes the plan as pastries, bread, cookies, scones, and biscuits with eggs for sit-down breakfasts and lunches. Racket's Em Cassel put it simply: "It sounds a lot like Sun Street!"
The menu itself leans on McKenzie's Pacific Northwest childhood. She told the Star Tribune she "grew up eating oysters, salmon, and crab," and that her chef father taught her to cook in a way where "nothing was complicated. Just delicious." If it opens on the schedule she's described, the south end of the strip gets its 7 a.m. ovens back in the same building where they used to be.
Meanwhile, the warm thing in hand is a fish
Until then, the most winter-ready stop on the strip is a block south at Taizo. Taiyaki are fish-shaped filled cakes served hot. Tozawa told Mpls.St.Paul Magazine that his strongest taiyaki memories come from childhood in Akita, Japan, where he ate them most often in autumn and winter, sometimes from the trays kept warm at grocery-store hot bars.
His version uses a gluten-free rice-flour batter, and the magazine reports that all the fillings are gluten-free too. He and general manager Alek McMullen Cheng took the menu past red bean. "When I was trying to prepare Taizo, I realized it doesn't have to all be sweet," Tozawa told the magazine, and so the shop makes savory taiyaki too. You'll find red bean, Oreo, Nutella with banana, and vanilla and chocolate custard, along with Spam and cheddar, cheese pizza, tuna mayo and plain cheese. There's also a taiyaki ice cream cone with soft serve.
Taizo also sells Ishigaki Island-style onigiri with fried fillings like tonkatsu or curry croquettes. That's a cousin of the rice rolls Tozawa is known for at Okome House, his original shop at 4457 42nd Ave. S. With Nokko right next door at 4747, the 4700 block now has two Tozawa storefronts side by side. One handles the afternoon and the other handles dinner.
The rest of the strip's winter calendar
Two more additions within a block or two of Nicollet will shape the next few months.
Steven Brown, the chef and owner behind Tilia and St. Genevieve, is building Marrone's at 4250 Nicollet. The Star Tribune described it as a wood-fired pizza place with around 30 seats and a back courtyard modeled on the ones in New York City neighborhoods. Racket's November roundup describes a look inspired by late-'70s New York, quotes the Star Tribune's phrase "pizza oven that looks like a disco ball," and says the team is aiming to open before the end of the year.
A block east at 38th and Grand, Cultured Crust has taken over the former Good Times Pizza space at 322 W. 38th St. Good Times closed in October. Cultured Crust makes sourdough pizza, and Racket says to watch its social accounts for bagel pop-ups and other events.
For a Saturday morning before Evergreen opens, the Kingfield market season keeps going indoors. Neighborhood Roots' Winter Market opens Saturday, Nov. 14, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the greenhouse at Bachman's on Lyndale, 6010 Lyndale Ave. S. It brings together vendors from the Kingfield, Southwest and Nokomis farmers markets. The rest of the season runs on Jan. 9, Feb. 6 and March 13. The full schedule and vendor list are on the Neighborhood Roots site.
A year ago, a 7 a.m. walk down this part of Nicollet passed two bakeries with their own ovens. This winter it passes Silverbird, then a long run of places that open at lunch or dinner, and, if McKenzie keeps her timeline, the old Sun Street storefront lit up again before the year is out.
Kingfield homes sit a few blocks from all of this, and a corridor that keeps filling its storefronts is part of what buyers notice when they walk the neighborhood. If you're curious how this past year on Nicollet shows up in what your Kingfield home is worth, The Steve Schmitz Team is glad to talk it through, and you can start with a quick look at your home's value.