Mexican-Vietnamese fusion restaurant Vellee is indefinitely closing all of its locations, including its original spot in the downtown Minneapolis skyway, and leaning on a crowdfunding campaign to save them.
Vellee announced in an Instagram post on Sunday that it was “forced to temporarily close” its Nicollet Island-East Bank location after the company’s new landlord served it an eviction notice last week. Vellee said it’s also suspending operations at its other locations until the situation is resolved.
Will Xiong and Joyce Truong started Vellee Deli as a food truck in 2011 and opened their first store in the Baker Center in 2015. They expanded with Vellee on the ground floor the NordHaus Apartments at University and First avenues in 2022, three years after the couple signed a lease for the space. Just five weeks ago, Vellee launched a pop-up in Brooklyn Park, which was expected to run through October.
Xiong started a GoFundMe campaign with the goal of raising $150,000 to keep Vellee going. That includes $90,000 to settle overdue rent. The remaining $60,000 would be used to stabilize operations.
“The aftermath of Covid, inflated costs, and relentless road construction have pushed us to the edge,” Xiong said on the GoFundMe page.
Vellee was able to negotiate rent relief with its previous landlord, but that deal became null when the NordHaus Apartments sold in July to Trinity Property Consultants for $74 million. Xiong said Vellee’s new landlord wasn’t willing to even discuss a similar arrangement and instead served an eviction notice.
Vellee said in the Instagram post that all of its locations could close for good if the business is unable to work things out with its new landlord in Northeast.
An eviction hearing is scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m., according to Bring Me the News.
Another longtime fixture in the downtown skyway, Wuollet Bakery, permanently closed last week following an eviction over $42,000 in unpaid rent, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported.
Wuollet Bakery faced eviction-related closures in Hastings and Wayzata closed earlier this year. Other locations remain open in Uptown, Edina, St. Paul, and Robbinsdale.
A sign on the door of the space in U.S. Bank Plaza promises “something new and exciting coming soon.”