Centro to open first dedicated Hippo Pockets restaurant
Centro Restaurant Group has been rapidly expanding in recent years, adding new locations for its namesake taco chain, as well as opening new concepts.
Among those new concepts has been Hippo Pockets, a delivery-only (more or less) hub for crunchy, tortilla-wrapped pockets. Centro is now giving Hippo Pockets its own storefront.
It'll open a brick-and-mortar location at 735 E 48th St. in south Minneapolis at the soon-to-be former home of Herbie Butcher's Fried Chicken, which will close on March 30.
Representatives for Centro say the goal is to open by early June, which they think is achievable in part because of the small size of the storefront. There will be about 20 seats inside the restaurant.
Hippo Pockets launched in 2023, originally stemming from a Taco Bell-inspired pop-up dish that was available through Centro. The item proved so popular that the group expanded the pocket idea and gave it its own front-facing concept.
That original, once dubbed the Centro Crunch, is a fried tortilla packed with seasoned beef, queso, lettuce, tomato, lime crema, and cheese.
What started as a tortilla idea with ties to Centro's menu quickly expanded to dessert pockets (S'mores), plays on other fast food favorites (The Royale, which channels a Quarter Pounder with Cheese), and other sandwich-adjacent recipes (Falafel, Cubano).
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