After five years in a partnership called “Cooks | Bellecour,” Grand Avenue culinary shop Cooks of Crocus Hill is separating from chef Gavin Kaysen’s bakery and rebranding back to its longstanding solo name.
Cooks of Crocus Hill plans to maintain its flagship St. Paul location as normal — minus the pastries that had been delivered daily.
In the North Loop of Minneapolis, the retail shop and bakery will close but Cooks will continue to operate a cooking school, and the Edina location will close altogether, both effective May 31.
The kitchen store and cooking school, which marked its 50th anniversary in 2023, had been renamed from Th’rice to Cooks of Crocus Hill when founder Martha Kaemmer moved it to the current Grand Avenue location in 1988.
Current owners Karl Benson and Marie Dwyer have run the business since 2008 and, in a post-Bellecour era, are planning additional programming including culinary travel, a spokesperson said.
“That is partly how we have been able to survive in this business, is constant innovation,” Dwyer told the Pioneer Press in 2023. “We’ve learned so much along the way. Make the same mistake twice? I don’t think so.”
To remain relevant, Benson added in 2023, “we have to change, to stay exactly the same.”
Cooks of Crocus Hill: 877 Grand Ave.; 651-228-1333; cooksofcrocushill.com
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