{"id":9134,"date":"2026-09-14T14:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/9134\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T14:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:54:09","slug":"new-family-restaurant-experience-proposed-for-franklin-on-fourth-grand-forks-herald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/9134\/","title":{"rendered":"New family restaurant experience proposed for Franklin on Fourth – Grand Forks Herald"},"content":{"rendered":"

GRAND FORKS \u2014 Two new restaurants may be coming to downtown Grand Forks, with proposed plans including an outdoor patio, an arcade, cornhole courts and plenty of dining space.<\/p>\n

Fenders Family Entertainment Center and Earl\u2019s Pizza would move into open commercial space in the Franklin on Fourth building, leasing the space from the property owners. The two restaurants will be operating as separate businesses but will be designed to complement each others\u2019 spaces.<\/p>\n

The restaurants are being developed by Franklin Marketplace LLC, made up of several local entrepreneurs and hospitality professionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus is to bring families to a destination downtown,\u201d said Landon Bahl, one of the partners with Franklin Marketplace. \u201cObviously bars and restaurants, there\u2019s plenty of them downtown, but there\u2019s not many places that are truly kid-friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 15,696-square-foot space on the ground floor would include a full-service bar, a video wall for sports coverage and an outdoor patio and seasonal event spaces. Earl\u2019s Pizza space would have its own dining space where it could serve pizza and gelato, and customers would be able to enjoy pizza throughout the Fenders entertainment center as well.<\/p>\n

Franklin on Fourth, completed in 2024, already houses the Avant Salon and Spa, Halberstadt\u2019s Men\u2019s Clothing, ICON Architects, Core Collective Fitness Studio and an Oxford Realty boutique office, alongside its apartment units.<\/p>\n

Bahl said there\u2019s been a lot of interest in the project, leading to involvement from several local business people, including those who previously may have had little interest in the hospitality sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, once all the ownership is tied up, I would imagine we\u2019ll have well over 10 different owners \u2014 local owners \u2014 within this project, and I think that speaks for itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The space would also feature several game attractions like an arcade, cornhole boards, dart board lanes and shuffleboard areas. Bahl said part of the goal of the project is to activate the paved alleyway of the building by adding an entrance to the restaurants there.<\/p>\n

The project is estimated to cost $4 million, and Franklin Marketplace is applying for a lease\/leaseholder improvement incentive through Grand Forks\u2019 Renaissance Zone program, a state program that provides local and state tax incentives for property development and\/or improvement in certain areas of a city.<\/p>\n

The Grand Forks City Council heard details about the proposed restaurant space during its Committee of the Whole work session on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of people understand the importance of a great downtown community \u2014 downtown of any city \u2014 and if you have a great downtown, it usually means your city is doing pretty cool stuff,\u201d Bahl said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been punching above our weight for a long time with how great our downtown was, and being able to bring a restaurant downtown that is going to bring families to experience what we have is, I think, icing on the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan Rusche is the Herald’s government reporter. Email her at jrusche@gfherald.com.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

A proposed floor plan for Fenders and Earl’s Pizza in Franklin on Fourth.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

A rendering of the proposed Earl’s Pizza dining space in Franklin on Fourth.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

A rendering of the proposed video display for Fenders in Franklin on Fourth.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

A rendering of the cornhole area in Fenders in Franklin on Fourth.<\/p>\n

\"Jordan<\/p>\n

\n Jordan Rusche is the government reporter for the Grand Forks Herald.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GRAND FORKS \u2014 Two new restaurants may be coming to downtown Grand Forks, with proposed plans including an outdoor patio, an arcade, cornhole courts and plenty of dining space. Fenders Family Entertainment Center and Earl\u2019s Pizza would move into open commercial space in the Franklin on Fourth building, leasing the space from the property owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[10385,3535,3051,6557,6555,6558,6556],"class_list":["post-9134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-north-dakota","tag-grand-forks","tag-local-business","tag-north-dakota","tag-north-dakota-dining","tag-north-dakota-food","tag-north-dakota-grocery-stores","tag-north-dakota-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117269972039905119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}