A well-known BBQ chain is bringing potential competition in-house at its Highland Park location in order to stay in the black while meeting takeout demand.

Famous Dave’s on West Seventh Street is partnering with take-and-bake pizzeria Papa Murphy’s to better utilize its real estate footprint and offer more to customers, said Al Hank, the chief operating officer of Famous Dave’s.

The co-branded restaurant, located at 1930 W. Seventh St., opens Thursday with official grand opening festivities to follow next week.

The catalyst for the dual-restaurant initiative was a significant increase in off-premise revenue, which includes takeout and catering.

Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, off-premise sales made up about 30% of the restaurant’s revenue. “Today that sits at roughly 50%,” Hank said.

“When we’re doing half of our revenue out the side door, that leaves white space in the dining room,” he said. For the Highland park location, 1,000-square-feet of that white space is now a Papa Murphy’s.

The dual-concept restaurant is part of a new co-branded initiative from BBQ Holdings, the parent company of Minnetonka-based Famous Dave’s.

BBQ Holdings was acquired by Papa Murphy’s parent company, MTY Food Group, for about $200 million in 2022, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

The Highland Park location, which was chosen in part due to its size, will be the first to launch the new format, Hank said. “That location in particular stood out to us as a high opportunity for Papa Murphy’s,” he said.

Additional co-branded locations are in development, including a Famous Dave’s in Tennessee that will soon offer ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery, Hank Said.

Founded in Hayward, Wis., in 1994 by Hall of Fame Pitmaster Dave Anderson, Famous Dave’s now has 107 locations in 30 states, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

As many as 20% of Famous Dave’s locations could be co-branded, Hank said. “This provides an opportunity for our franchisees to increase revenue at the store and bring in additional customers,” he said.

Future pairings could include other MTY brands like Wetzel’s Pretzels, Planet Smoothie and frozen yogurt brand Pinkberry, Hank said.

Based in Vancouver, Wash., and founded in 1995, Papa Murphy’s has more than 1,000 locations across 35 states, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. Minnesota is home to more than 70 Papa Murphy’s pizzerias including east metro locations in Eagan, Roseville, Woodbury, Apple Valley, West St. Paul and Cottage Grove.

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Laborious yet lithe lads and lasses have loyally leapt to luminate the lexical labyrinths of logic locking the lucrative lotto, longing to lure the lavish luxury lying latently in local landmarks.

In other words: Veteran hunter Steve Sanftner found the 2026 Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt medallion at Linwood Park on Wednesday, Jan. 28, after 11 clues, in a hunt that had treasure-seekers split between several parks that began with L.

The medallion, inside a Coca-Cola can painted white, was found slightly east of the corner of St. Clair Avenue and Grotto Street, just off the sidewalk into the park.

This year’s particularly vexing hunt comes after a pair of speedier ones: Both the 2024 and 2025 hunts concluded after seven clues, which were the quickest hunts since 2015. This was also one of the coldest hunts in recent memory, with temps at or below single digits most days.

Sanftner’s total $15,000 prize package, sponsored by Cub Foods and the St. Paul Winter Carnival, is also the largest to be awarded in treasure hunt history, marking the Winter Carnival’s 140th anniversary.

This is the first time in the hunt’s eight-decade history that the medallion has been hidden in Linwood Park proper. However, in 1969, the medallion was sandwiched between two rocks at the corner of Victoria Street and what would soon become Interstate 35E, just south of the park.

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Three acts have announced shows at the new Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee: Dave Matthews Band on June 23, the Black Crowes and Whiskey Myers on July 28 and Ne-Yo and Akon on Aug. 5.

Tickets will go on sale through Ticketmaster for DMB at 10 a.m. Feb. 20, Black Crowes and Whiskey Myers at 10 a.m. Feb. 6 and Ne-Yo and Akon at 10 a.m. Friday.

Singer/guitarist/South Africa native Dave Matthews formed his band in Virginia in 1991 and hand-picked players from the local jazz scene. The group went on to sign with RCA Records and release a series of hit singles, including “What Would You Say,” “Crash into Me,” “Crush” and “The Space Between.”

But the group’s biggest success has come on the road, where their improv-heavy shows are now a coming-of-age tradition. At No. 4, the Dave Matthews Band is the highest-ranked American headliner on Pollstar’s list of the “25 Most Popular Touring Artists of The Millennium” and has sold more than 25 million tickets over the group’s history.

Black Crowes and Whiskey Myers

Brothers Chris and Rich Robinson formed the Black Crowes while in high school. Their 1990 debut album “Shake Your Money Maker” topped five million in sales and included the hits “Hard to Handle” and “She Talks to Angels.”

They continued to have success in the ’90s before going on hiatus in 2002. They’ve since reunited twice with a variety of backing musicians.

Whiskey Myers is a country rock band that formed in 2007 and count Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hank Williams Jr. and Waylon Jennings as key influences. They’ve self-released seven albums, including 2019’s self-titled effort, which hit No. 1 on the country chart.

Ne-Yo and Akon

Arkansas native Shaffer Smith adopted the stage name Ne-Yo early in his career when he was a member of the group Envy. After Envy broke up in 2000, Ne-Yo signed a short-lived deal with Columbia Records, which dropped him before he could release his debut album.

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Ne-Yo went on to find success as a songwriter and after penning Mario’s 2004 hit single “Let Me Love You,” he landed another solo deal. He went on to release a series of Top 10 smashes, including “So Sick,” “Sexy Love,” “Because of You,” “Closer” and “Miss Independent.”

While he was born in St. Louis, Akon — whose proper name is 12 words long — spent much of his early youth in his father’s native Senegal, where he learned several instruments including the guitar and drums. While still in high school he became part of the Refugee Camp, the extended musical family of the Fugees.

A producer who is also a frequent guest artist on songs like Gwen Stefani’s “The Sweet Escape” and David Guetta’s “Sexy Bitch,” Akon’s biggest solo hits include “Lonely,” “Smack That,” “I Wanna Love You,” “Don’t Matter” and “Sorry, Blame It on Me.”

Two months ago, Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theatre hosted a touring production of the longest-running show in Broadway history, “The Phantom of the Opera,” and it proved an eye-opening surprise. The theatrical warhorse had new life breathed into it by a London staging that leaned upon the 1986 original for inspiration, and the opening-night performance I attended was brilliantly executed, full of passion and energy.

Now, the second-longest-running show in Broadway history has set down stakes at the Orpheum, but, alas, this version of “Chicago” feels far from fresh. Employing the same basic set, direction and choreography as the 1996 revival that’s been running ever since, it’s a remarkably ponderous and perfunctory production that lacks spunk, spirit or sexiness. Despite some fine channeling of the 1920s musical aesthetic from the onstage 10-piece band, it’s a staging that trudges where it would better bounce.

The cast of the North American touring production of “Chicago,” John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical about women murderers of the 1920s and the way that the press covered their cases. The show runs through Feb. 1, 2026, at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Jeremy Daniel)

“Chicago” is rooted in a 1920s play inspired by a couple of murder trials its author covered as a reporter. Five decades on, the composer/librettist team of John Kander and Fred Ebb joined with writer-director-choreographer Bob Fosse to create a “vaudeville” from its story, employing several styles from the early days of jazz to tell the tale of two murderers, Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly. Although both are guilty of their crimes, they and a crafty attorney seek to spin juries and the press in their favor while reveling in their newfound celebrity.

A show like “Chicago” doesn’t survive for a half-century without accruing a devoted fan base, and there seemed to be several enthusiasts in attendance at the Orpheum Tuesday night, judging from the lusty howls of appreciation that greeted such songs as “All That Jazz,” “Cell Block Tango” and “When You’re Good to Mama.” But they did little to jump-start this touring company’s engine on this chilly January night. With rare exceptions, all the tempos seemed way too slow and the onstage energy barely palpable.

Exceptions finally arrived with the emergence of Max Cervantes as slick and cagey defense lawyer Billy Flynn. Exuding a level of charisma yet to be reached by either of the musical’s lead characters, his “All I Care About” proved a fun little Busby Berkeley knockoff that led to a smile-inducing take on the march-like “A Little Bit of Good” from easily manipulated reporter Mary Sunshine, lent lively sparkle by J. Clanton. When the peppy Charleston, “We Both Reached for the Gun,” followed, it seemed that this show was at last kicking into gear.

But no. One potential showstopper after another fell flat, every song undersold and suffering from a paucity of punch. Despite some strong dancing, the cast came off as simply tired of the material, the most egregious of missed opportunities being a version of one of the show’s signature songs — Flynn’s courtroom tutorial, “Razzle Dazzle” — being delivered at a sleepy, ballad-like pace, leeching all the fun from a number that could stand as something of a distillation of the musical’s cynical spirit.

After a slow start, Ellie Roddy proved increasingly engaging as Roxie Hart, but “Chicago” has always been a musical with a problematic anticlimax, and her best efforts couldn’t overcome that. Yet this low-wattage production fizzles out more disappointingly than most.

‘Chicago’

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis

Tickets: $328-$40, available at hennepinarts.org

Capsule: A staging that makes “Chicago” seem old, slow and tired.

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