Edina
Enter the Convention Grill and look down: the small tiles below your feet have been there since the beginning, supporting the weight of countless patrons. Behind the counter—still the original—burgers sizzle and potatoes take their final step toward becoming fries, soon to be placed hot in heaping baskets. This a place built to endure, and the restaurant's business has been as steady as its structure is sound.
Well, almost.
Now practically a historic institution, The Convention Grill barely survived its first month in business. Located in Morningside, then a six-block village separate from Edina, the restaurant was opened by a large heating and air conditioning company and intended to be a prototype for a future restaurant chain. Current owner John Rimarcik says the restaurant opened in 1934, though the actual date is debatable, as an advertisement in a 1941 issue of Countryside magazine announces the restaurant's opening. Citing manager as John Lapsey, the ad declares that “Convention's sandwiches already are being talked about; Countryside children are captivated by the delicious hamburgers on toasted buns.” Convention, it predicted, “will prove to be a suburban landmark of distinction.”
Its hyperbolic prophecy eventually came true, but such distinction required a change of ownership. The first month in business was a failure for the restaurant, and its owners were soon ready to sell. Peter Santrizos and his wife Christine, both Greek immigrants, bought it for a mere $75, and Peter later joked that the original owners should have called it The Graveyard, so slow was business when it first began.
It was the change in ownership that soon turned the restaurant around. “Little by little, people came and it became a landmark institution,” says Rimarcik, who credits the Santrizos with making the Convention an establishment worthy of its name.
What opened as the Convention Grill is now the restaurant's front room: a large bar and a few intimate booths. The exterior is designed in an Art Moderne style, according to Marci Matson, the Edina Historical Society's executive director, with characteristic glass block windows and steel trim that still remain. There were jukeboxes at each booth where diners could pick the musical accompaniment to their evenings. Across the street was the Westgate Theatre (now Edina Cleaners, though the outline of the movie theater's marquee is still visible), and patrons would make a night of it, coming to the Grill after the credits rolled. Sometimes, Peter Santrizos would clear a space for patrons to dance to the music of the jukebox as he closed.
