Commander Building to Become Downtown Stillwater's Newest Restaurant

The Commander building will soon become home to downtown Stillwater’s newest restaurant.

Tin Bins will be a coffee shop, café and bar owned Sherri Hopfe Franke and Mike McGuire, proprietors the Dock Café. The Stillwater City Council on Tuesday will likely approve a full liquor license for the new establishment.

“We will not open before everything is set,” Hopfe Franke said. “We want to be fully operational the day we open.”

Tin Bins will serve “coffee shop food” including cold sandwiches, salads, appetizers and picnic baskets customers can take to Lowell Park. The restaurant will serve coffee drinks and plan on having a full liquor license.

Tin Bins will also have about 40-50 seats on a patio that overlooks Lowell Park and the St. Croix River.

“This will be a great place to have a cup of coffee or Bloody Mary,” Hopfe Franke said. “We’re just really excited about having another patio overlooking the river.”

The plans are to be open this spring, Hopfe Franke said. The restaurant will open early in the morning, and be open until early evening.

“We’re aiming to serve appetizers, sandwiches and some early-evening drinks,” she said. “We’re not looking to be a late-night hot spot.”

The project came together as the result of changes coming to downtown Stillwater, and because McGuire owns the building and it has sat empty for a number of years, Hopfe Franke said.

“It’s a cool old building and you want to utilize that and keep it alive,” she said. “It’s been sitting empty for a number of years now, so we’ve talked about it for a long time. Now seems like a great time especially with all of the new stuff going on downtown.”

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Originally a grain mill, the Commander building was most recently home of P.J. Asch Otterfitters, which closed a few years ago.

When restoring the space into a restaurant, the main concern was trying to preserve it, and expose as much of the character as possible, McGuire said.

Two of the former climbing bays have been turned into kitchens, one an office, and another a private meeting room.

Originally the Commander building was on the corner of Main and Nelson, where the current Stillwater Farm Store is, McGuire said.  The original building was about a 35-by-40 foot box, built with scantling to deal with the demands of the grain bins.

In about 1908, it was moved by horse to its location to be closer to a railroad track, McGuire said. The side pieces of the building were tacked onto the grain bins, and the building was made higher when it was moved to Nelson Street.

The new space carries the tin of the original building inside, while preserving and accentuating the scantling and character of the original mill.

“The idea is to preserve the character of the original building, yet find a contemporary use for a building where the functionality no longer exists,” McGuire said. “In doing that we are essentially trying to find a new use that appreciates the character the old building, and doesn’t turn it into a parody.”