WEST FARGO - BLVD Pub, a once-popular bar and restaurant that’s been closed for more than 18 months, and Ice Point, a Thai ice cream shop, will be reopening later this year under new concepts.
The Oasis Restaurant & Bar, an upscale seafood and steak restaurant, is planned for the former BLVD building at 3147 Bluestem Drive, according to local restaurateur John Weng.
Weng said the plan is to have The Oasis open “sometime in December.”
“It will be a pretty upscale seafood and steakhouse,” Weng said Friday, Oct. 22.
“That’s a good building and the price was right,” Weng said.
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His original plan was to open a cajun seafood restaurant, but seafood prices have risen dramatically, in part related to supply chain issues caused by the ongoing pandemic.
“Seafood got very expensive,” so Weng decided to broaden the menu. “I’m not going to charge high prices” for seafood.
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Meanwhile, Ice Point at 816 24th Ave. E., is being replaced by a sit-down ramen noodle restaurant Weng said will be called Ninja Ramen Noodle.
That restaurant will open sometime in November if all goes well, Weng said.
The neighboring Mr. Wok Chinese Express, also owned by Weng and his partners, will remain open.
The new eatery will not only take up the Ice Point area, but include space from a vacant bay next to it. That isn’t a problem, though, since Weng and his partners own the whole building.
“Right now it’s under construction. We took everything out and we’re making the place a lot bigger,” Weng said.
Weng also co-owns the Ice Point in the West Acres Shopping Center food court, which was closed earlier this year and switched over to Ginza Ramen & Poke Bowl, which opened in June.
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Weng said the decision to abandon the Ice Point concept here was climate driven: Fargo’s “cold really killed it.”
“First of all, ice cream is more like just for summer. And Fargo is literally two or three months of summer, and the rest is all winter,” Weng said after the West Acres Ice Point switchover. “We want to do year-round.”
Weng and his partners also own the two popular Izumi Sushi and Hibachi restaurants in Fargo.
Both BLVD and Ice Point had closed in March 2020 and never reopened, Weng said.
The West Fargo Ice Point opened with Mr. Wok in May 2019.
BLVD first opened in late spring 2016 along the busy Veterans Boulevard corridor, relatively near Sanford Hospital and Scheels Arena.
For 2019, city assessors valued the land for BLVD at $579,100 and the building at $1,557,900.
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