How Jucy is your Lucy?
New York has its pizza that you can fold in half. Philly has its cheesesteak. Chicago has its dog. But Minneapolis holds the trump card on deliciousness with the Jucy Lucy. It’s a burger, a thick patty with a molten surprise of American (or other) cheese tucked inside. Do not, I repeat, do not go straight for the burger when it comes to you, you’re best to nibble a few fries to let the cheese cool. Unless your mouth is coated with teflon, that is. It’s damn tasty is what it is, though, and you can find variations of it at several establishments in the Minneapolis area, as laid out by the somewhat helpful Jucy Lucy Restaurants site.
(As an aside, no, I’m not going to entertain the idea that it’s spelled “Juicy”. You can make all the arguments about the origins of the Jucy Lucy, but a guy named “Matt” isn’t going to accept any notion that this delicacy was created at the 5-8 Club. If it’s spelled “right”, you’ve got the wrong bar.)
I say “somewhat” helpful in that the site is, at best, just another blog-style offering from The Deets and not the comprehensive user-generated, owner-curated site it could be. So, in the interest of improving the site so that it better represents all the wonderfulness that is the Jucy Lucy, here’s a few suggestions (with apologies):
-Get a better system of updating locations. It seems that the current plan is to post blurbs about newly found locations on their blog, then suss out new spots via comments on said blog posts. It took a while for my closest Lucy, the Mainstreet Bar in Hopkins, to be added, even though I had tried on an off for a year to get it on the site. Recently the local chain Green Mill announced the addition of the Jucy Lucy to their menu, and I did mention this in a comment on the Lucy site well over a month ago, but all that has been reported since has been the addition of the Lodge in Robbinsdale and new Lucy variations at the Blue Door Pub.
-Update the map. Taking a peek over at the Lucy Restaurants map on Google, it seems that the last time anything was updated on it was August of 2009. I know that more restaurants have been added to the site since then.
-Ditch the “Wiki” label or own up to it. There’s a section called the Jucy Lucy Wiki, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything Wiki about it. It turns out that the list of restaurants is powered by WordPress, and registering to “help” does nothing more than create a useless username. Hey, look, I can edit my profile! But if I want to actually poke around and add a restaurant when I see it or make a few notes on Lucy offerings at pages already already created, well, I have yet to see how I can actually contribute. A blog is not a wiki, by the way.
Now, I know that this is probably someone’s pet project that doesn’t get enough love due to time constraints. I have one of those myself, which reminds me that I need to get those 2010 photos uploaded to my KVSC Trivia Team’s Website. And I don’t mean to sound harsh, but this site has so much potential to be awesome if it’s allowed to be. Please, Ed, find some time to give the Lucy site a little love. All of us who adore the Jucy Lucy and want to see word of its supreme tastiness spread far and wide are counting on you.
Great points. I’ll have my people call your people and get something on the calendar.
I’m working on getting more people involved with the site. It’s really meant to be a resource more than something I own & control. Want in on that action?
Ha! My “people” is a two-and-a-half-year-old. Sure, I opened my mouth, I can put a little time into it if you want…