Dale Bishop, Mount Royal Fine Foods
Marla’s Indian & Caribbean Cuisine
By Wendy Webb

A long way from three-bean salad: Twin Cities’ Chef Dale Bishop upscales a Northwoods deli

In a northern Minnesota city where the local Cub Foods was considered to be a high-end store, the recent transformation of a small, neighborhood grocery has tongues wagging (and salivating) all over town. The Mount Royal Fine Foods store in Duluth is in the midst of a major overhaul designed to make it the only upscale grocery store within 200 miles. Everybody’s talking about it.

Sure, people are impressed with the fancy new shelves, check-out stands and the calming, muted color scheme, but what is really turning heads in this small community is the store’s massive new deli section. People here haven’t seen anything like it since their last trip to Byerly’s in Minneapolis.

Chef Dale Bishop was hired by store owner Scott Driscoll to upscale this Northwoods deli. He’s been on the job three months.

Bishop comes to his new job from an entrepreneurial background. He owned a Twin Cities-based catering business, Simply Elegant, which focused on providing fine dining for events and gatherings both large and small. Moving to Duluth from the Twin Cities wasn’t his idea, however. His wife was offered a job in Duluth, good enough to make the couple consider pulling up stakes and moving.

“She has moved for me a few times in the past, so I figured it was my turn to do it for her,” Bishop explained. But being a good husband meant losing the catering business he built in the Twin Cities.

“I don’t have the kind of connections and contacts in Duluth necessary to start that kind of business from the ground up,” he said. So Bishop was pounding the pavement. He immediately heard of the opening at the Mount Royal store.

“They were looking for someone with a fine dining background to push the deli up to the next level,” he said. “It was a great fit.”

Not everything has gone upscale. Bishop explained that, after researching customer preferences, they decided to create a deli menu that features some old standbys while also breaking into new territory.

Patrons will still find their favorite fried chicken or tuna salad in the deli case, but Bishop reported that it hasn’t taken long for them to notice the new offerings as well.

As customers enter the new deli area, the first thing they see is a brick oven cooking flatbread pizzas and paninis to order. A soup and salad bar caters to on-the-run, workday lunchers. An olive bar features several varieties of imported gourmet olives. The fresh sushi bar will likely flummox some Duluthians at first. (What’s that? Smelt?) Another case is filled with exotic cheeses from around the world and yet another contains single-serving, fresh salads (Cobb, southwestern and the like) and prepared dinners, designed to appeal to those who want food, fast, not fast food.

The deli case itself now contains things like wheatberry salad, coconut shrimp skewers and towering vegetable tortas, all made fresh that day. There’s also a new hot food section, where work-weary Duluthians can stop to pick up dinner. And the desserts? Please. Gourmet cheesecakes, flans, tarts, cakes — enough to make an Atkins dieter insane with grief.

In the hot food case, Bishop and his cooking staff stir up nine to 11 dishes daily, anything from basil salmon to shepherd’s pie to pot roast and gravy.

“We try to have chicken, pork, beef and fish selections every day,” he explained. “I want people to see something new every time they come into the store.”

It was a gamble, all of this upscaling on Lake Superior’s north shore. How would people take to all of this change? If early results are any indication, they’re taking to it just fine. The most popular new items include the artichoke and spinach pizza, the wheatberry salad and the paninis. That’s a long way from three-bean salad and fried chicken.

“I’ve heard nothing but positive comments from customers,” Bishop said. “People are loving it, and that’s great.”

Renovation is not yet complete at the store. When spring finally descends upon Duluth (which could be any time between April and June), the deli will include a new sit-down area with a fireplace, booths and tables. There will be no table service; the area will simply function as a place for customers to sit and eat the hot food they find in the deli. Once summer comes, the area will include outside seating as well.