New restaurant will have 'three types of foods in one location'

A veteran Rochester restaurateur is a cooking up a new project that will offer flavors from three ethnic traditions.

Tien Danh, best known locally as "Tinn"of Tinn's Grilled Philly Steak Subs, is working on a new place at 4180 18th Ave. N.W. in front of the Cedarwood Plaza.

He started out in 1998 in downtown Rochester in the former Galleria Mall Food Courtwith the Grand Junction Grill, which later became the original Tinn’s.

While he and his wife, Sophanny Prum, are still trying to decide what to call their latest restaurant, they do know what will be on the menu.

"We’re going to have three types of foods in one location — authentic Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai," Danh says. "Everything will be made fresh."

Chinh Danh, one of Tinn’s relatives as well as the head cook at Hunan Garden,will be the head chef in the kitchen creating those Asian dishes.

Examples of what customers can expect include the Vietnamese bread called banhmi, spring rolls, pho noodles and pad Thai, according to Tinn Danh.

He hopes to open the doors of this new Med City Asian eatery in early March.

This restaurant building is the one that was last occupied by John Hardy’s Bar-B-Q. That was John Brockman’s experiment of opening a third location of his popular Med City barbecue joints. That one closed in September, though the other two remain open.

Now Tinn is sub-leasing the Cedarwood building from Brockman. Bucky Beemanof Counselor Realty of Rochesterhandled the deal.

Mayo checks in

Mayo Clinicpicked up a downtown Rochester hotel at the end of October for $3.7 million.

Brentwood on Fifth, now called 5th Avenue Inn & Suites, at 20 Fifth Ave.S.W. is Mayo Clinic’s latest acquisition in that area. It bought the property from Brentwood Annex LLC, a firm led by Rochester commercial Realtor and developer Ed Pompeian.

This purchase follows Mayo Clinic’s purchase of two lots in the block between First Street and Second Street Northwest and between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue in June. It paid almost $4 million for that land, which was sold by Pompeian’s Brentwood Annex and his Brentwood Developmentfirm.

The land is near an eight-level parking ramp Mayo Clinic built in 2008 on an existing clinic parking lot. Mayo Clinic also has two other parking ramps nearby.

In May, Mayo Clinic also purchased four downtown houses, three on Fifth Avenue and one on 414 Third St., for $625,000.

So the $3.7 million question is, what plans does Mother Mayo have for its new hotel?

Will it face a fate similar to the Colonial Innon Second Street Southwest, which Mayo Clinic purchased and demolished to make way for a parking lot?

"This site is considered strategic for future growth. However, no immediate plans are in the works," says Mayo Clinic’s Bryan L. Anderson. "In the interim we will continue operating this economy hotel to serve numerous Mayo patients and visitors."

Whatever happens, Mayo was able to purchase the hotel for the same amount it sold for back in September 2005.