Restaurant roundup: Too Good To Go launches in Minneapolis, St. Paul to cut food waste

Too Good To Go, an app that lets consumers purchase surplus food from local restaurants at a discount, launches in the Twin Cities on Wednesday with 55 participating vendors.

• The Buttered Tin, Mama Sheila's House of Soul, T-Rex Cookie Kitchen, Backstory Coffee, and Butter Bakery Cafe are partnering with the app, which is currently available in 19 cities across the U.S.

• The average discount is 1/3 of the retail price, according to a news release.

In other restaurant news...

🍳 Minneapolis landmark Band Box Diner reopened last week for the first time in three years, it announced on Facebook. It's currently open Wednesday-Sunday.

🧋Twin Cities Chatime franchise locations will be rebranded as Niko Niko Boba. The bubble tea shops are now independently owned and will make the change in late September, per a news release.

🥐 Café Cerés hinted at opening a new location inside a Hiawatha apartment building sometime this fall, it said on Instagram.

• The acclaimed bakery led by James Beard Best Pastry Chef finalist Shawn McKenzie currently has three locations across Minneapolis.

🍕 New York-style pizzeria Slice Pizza opened its first St. Paul location in Frogtown late last week. A fourth will open in Mall of America later this year.

✨ Restaurateur Kim Bartmann's latest project Star Bar & Bistro, a French restaurant and cocktail bar, is now open inside the new Indigo Hotel in downtown Minneapolis.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that 55 vendors are participating in the app, not five.