St. Anthony Park cafe Hey Bear to shutter abruptly over rent dispute with landlord
St. Anthony Park breakfast/lunch cafe Hey Bear is shutting down this week, after less than a year in business. The last day is May 14.
The closure appears to stem from a long-running dispute between the cafe and its landlord, building owner Raymond & Territorial, LLC, over rent.
While remodeling the space before opening last fall, Hey Bear owners were informed by the city that the building's basement prep kitchen, which had allegedly been built out by previous tenant Foxy Falafel and which Hey Bear intended to keep using, was not compliant with city codes and could no longer be used for food preparation, according to a civil complaint filed by Raymond & Territorial in April in Ramsey County Court.
In response, Hey Bear owner Shawn Person requested that rent be cut in half due to the 50 percent reduction in usable space, according to emails attached to the court filing. The landlord declined, saying the cafe had leased the building as-is and without having negotiated any distinction between 'rentable space' and 'usable space,' a distinction Person disputes, per the filing.
Raymond & Territorial claims the cafe has not paid any rent at all since October 2024, and the company filed an eviction summons against Hey Bear in late April 2025. Hey Bear agreed to leave the space by the end of May rather than go to trial, Tim Jordan, a co-owner of Raymond & Territorial, said Tuesday afternoon.
In a closure announcement on social media, Hey Bear frames the situation as out of its hands.
'Our landlords are being unreasonable and kicking us out by the end of the month. We were as amicable as possible and this is where we landed,' kitchen manager Oskar Johnson wrote on the restaurant's Instagram page.
'We didn't expect to be on the Saint Paul Restaurant Chopping Block and we (ought) not to be,' Johnson wrote. 'I'd like to think we were a candle that burned brightly…and had plenty of time left to go.'
Hey Bear opened in fall 2024 in the spot formerly occupied by Foxy Falafel, which closed in summer 2023 after more than a decade. The cafe quickly became well known in the neighborhood for hearty, affordable and very delicious breakfast burritos, reubens and other sandwiches with house-made ingredients like corned beef and chorizo.
Jordan, the building's owner, said he is already working with a prospective new tenant 'in the food industry' but declined to specify who might take over the space.
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