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KREWE Restaurant Opens in St. Joseph with Minnesota SBDC Assistance

Success Story: Minnesota
KREWE Opening
L-R: Brianna Knowles and Devin Larson (Minnwest Bank), Mateo Mackbee and Erin Lucas (KREWE owners and chefs), and Berny Berger (Minnesota SBDC)

Experienced restaurant owners and chefs Mateo Mackbee and Erin Lucas will be opening their much anticipated New Orleans cuisine restaurant, “KREWE,” at 24 North College Avenue in St. Joseph on July 1st. Mateo and Erin will specialize in their Creole and Cajun dishes from Mackbee’s food heritage, which is rooted in his mother’s hometown of New Orleans.

The menu will feature a variety of dishes that hearken back to The Big Easy, like muffuletta, jambalaya, and gumbo from family recipes, and shrimp raised locally in Minnesota. Erin operates their partner business – Flour and Flower, a European style bakery, which opened May 21st, located next to KREWE at 26 College Avenue North.

Mateo and Erin have been managing and/or owning food businesses for the past 15 years – most recently, the “Model Citizen” restaurant in New London, where Erin had become known as the “Young Pie Lady.” Erin describes KREWE as unapologetically Creole and Cajun. The name, which she devised, comes from “kru,” an old English word that came to America via the French Creole. Mackbee said a “krewe” is the group of people that creates the floats that take center stage during Mardi Gras.

Mateo received planning guidance from Bernadette Berger, a professional business consultant at the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at St. Cloud State University. The SBDC’s assistance with their business plan and financial projections enabled KREWE to receive financing for the project through MinnWest Bank in St. Cloud, along with assistance from the St. Joseph EDA. Share on X

“The SBDC is pleased to provide business planning assistance to Mateo and Erin, to help them fulfill their dream of opening KREWE and Flour and Flower in St. Joseph,” said SBDC Director Barry Kirchoff.

For more about KREWE, visit facebook.com/krewerestaurant, and for more about the Central MN SBDC, visit stcloudstate.edu/sbdc.  To find your nearest SBDC, click here.

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