Bloomington's Smack Shack Ditches Seafood-Only Menu for Steak, New Name

Smack Shack's Bloomington restaurant is trading its seafood-only identity for a wood-fired steakhouse concept, with a new name to match. Smack Shack Steak debuts September 15 at 3801 Minnesota Drive, the former home of Fuddrucker's, bringing USDA Prime steaks and fresh seafood cooked over a 10-foot wood-fired grill while keeping Smack Shack staples like Maine lobster tails on the menu.

The rebrand was first reported by Bring Me The News, which detailed how the new menu will blend Smack Shack favorites with additions like snapper, ahi tuna and Alaskan king crab legs. Co-owner Josh Thoma said Smack Shack Steak creates something new while retaining Smack Shack's seafood, energy and personality, according to the outlet's report. Co-owner Kevin Fitzgerald described it as a distinct live-fire dining concept that still carries Smack Shack's personality forward.

A Chef Returns to the Wood-Fired Grill

Executive chef Ben Pichler, who has worked at Grand Café and Burch Steak and Pizza Bar, will lead the kitchen at the new concept. Per the same report, Pichler said he looks forward to returning to a wood-fired grill and showing the Twin Cities the effect of cooking over Minnesota hardwood. The Bloomington property expanded in late 2021 as Smack Shack's sister restaurant before this latest overhaul.

The Bloomington building itself has a design pedigree worth noting. When Smack Shack first announced its expansion into the former 344-seat Fuddruckers space in March 2021, Minneapolis-based firm Shea Design was brought in to transform the building, a firm also behind Twin Cities dining venues like Khâluna and StormKing BBQ. The site includes three private dining spaces, The Funky Little Shack, the Rockport Room, and the Saltwind Room, which per EventUp have hosted everything from informal lobster boils to formal plated dinners.

Flagship North Loop Location Stays Put

While Bloomington gets the steakhouse treatment, Smack Shack's flagship restaurant in Minneapolis's North Loop will see no menu changes at all. That location opened at 603 N. Washington Ave. in February 2013, according to the North Loop Neighborhood Association, marking the brand's transition from a food truck and dive-bar kitchen into a full-service restaurant. Smack Shack also runs outposts at Potluck Food Hall inside Rosedale Center, at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and at the 1029 Bar in Northeast Minneapolis.

That last outpost carries particular weight for the brand's origin story. Smack Shack launched as a food truck in the late 2000s and later cooked out of the 1029 Bar's kitchen for years before going brick-and-mortar, and Thoma and Fitzgerald bought the dive bar outright this past April. The location got an unexpected national boost in the early days, too: after filming in November 2011, Smack Shack appeared on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in April 2012, which Twin Cities Business reported drove a 500 percent jump in sales and customer traffic while the business was still operating out of that same dive-bar kitchen.

A Growing Restaurant Portfolio

Thoma and Fitzgerald's restaurant group extends well beyond Smack Shack's seafood roots. The pair also run Burger Dive and St. Paul's historic fine-dining institution The Lexington, which they restored and reopened in 2017 after it originally opened in 1935, according to a report tied to The Steel District project. In June 2022, the two announced a 10,000-square-foot, three-story tequila-focused concept in the North Loop's former Alliance Française building at 113 1st Street N, again working with Shea Design to preserve the 1885 structure's architecture.

The group has also expanded outside Minnesota, partnering with developer Lloyd Cos. in May 2021 to bring three riverfront restaurant concepts totaling more than 500 seats to The Steel District redevelopment in downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Smack Shack's core brand has kept picking up recognition along the way; in March 2025, OpenTable named it a 2024 Diners' Choice recipient, and digital lifestyle outlet Cheapism listed it among the country's top seafood destinations, per a report from B105.

Whether the wood-fired steakhouse model spreads to Smack Shack's other locations remains an open question, as does how longtime Bloomington regulars will react to a menu now built around live-fire cooking and Prime beef rather than seafood alone. For now, the transformation is confined to the Minnesota Drive address, with the North Loop flagship preserving the seafood-forward identity that built the brand in the first place.