WE’VE BEEN GETTING ATTENTION

A new restaurant is now open in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood with a mission of reconnecting the community.

Sometimes, a plate of fried chicken is about more than being perfectly crisped and juicy. Sometimes it’s about history, heartbreak, family, and legacy. It’s a statement of survival.

St. Paul’s Taste of Rondo Bar & Grill shouldn’t have to exist, for many reasons. When America built the interstate highway system in the 1950s and ’60s, I-94 carved St. Paul’s Black community in half, destroying much of its commercial heartbeat. An American Legion hall on the south side of the highway near Lexington Parkway was one of the only businesses remaining, and in 2012 hometown guy and local Catholic Cemeteries manager Charles Carter bought the building.