John Rimarcik Obituary – Death: Minneapolis, MN, Restaurateur and Commercial Real Estate Investor, John Rimarcik Passes Away
John Rimarcik Obituary; John Rimarcik, an 84-year-old restaurateur who helped shape Twin Cities cuisine and the North Loop, has passed away. At his request, the Rimarcik family has decided to reopen the Convention Grill for takeout on a limited basis. When John Rimarcik was a DeLaSalle High School student in the 1950s, he used to stroll home through warehouses that had outlived their usefulness. “It was inconsequential. He mentioned barren, windowless buildings in a 2016 interview with the Business Journal.
He later purchased and invested in several of those buildings, as well as several of the businesses housed within them, igniting a revitalization in what is now Minneapolis’ lively North Loop and St. Anthony Main neighborhoods. Rimarcik, a visionary restaurateur and commercial real estate investor with a 60-year career who owned and operated 50 restaurants, died of brain cancer on December 11 at his home in Minneapolis. He was 84.
Rimarcik bought his first restaurant, the Peacock Cafe, when he was 25 years old, and went on to open or renovate Waters, Rachel’s, Dante, Dirty Face Hamburgers, Cafe Havana, Tubby’s, and other Minneapolis establishments.
He then became interested in preserving antique restaurants that had a sentimental value for diners. In 1974, he purchased the then-40-year-old Convention Grill in Edina. He expanded his portfolio by opening restaurants in Rochester, La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota. John Rimarcik sought a career as a showman in his teens and twenties, first in stage magic and comedy, then in broadcast as a Top 40 radio jockey under the moniker DJ Johnny Vincent.
He did, however, do the most of his business in Minneapolis. Annie’s Parlour in Dinkytown, the 1906 saloon Monte Carlo, Pracna on Main, Minneapolis’ oldest bar at the time, the Art Deco treasure Paramount Cafe, the St. Anthony Main Theatre, former burlesque establishment Runyon’s, and the Kitty Cat Klub were all his properties.
