Local Businesses Staying Busy Before Grandma’s Race

Today is the last day of prep before the big race tomorrow, and tourists are wasting no time checking out everything Duluth has to offer.

“We’ve been pretty much gearing up for this is our busiest weekend of the whole year. So, it’s a lot of prep, heavy staffing, and just kind of getting ready for the party of the weekend,” said Aaron Maloney, owner of ‘Chachos Taqueria’.

In Duluth today, it’s what locals are calling “The calm before the storm.”

Chachos, a local taqueria in Canal Park, has been open now for four years.

And the owner said, this isn’t their first rodeo. They have 10 cases of meat prepared for the big weekend.

“It kind of turns into, like the State Fair down here for like a weekend, crowds are pretty intense. We’re right near the finish line. So, this is kind of the end point where a lot of the gathering happens,” laughed Maloney.

Another business in Canal Park is offering a unique experience. ‘Lake Superior Art Glass’ markets themselves as a shop, and a show.

This is a once in a lifetime experience. In my opinion, there’s very few places in the world you can go and be invited into an actual hot shop and make something with your own two hands out of molten glass. You have to go, sometimes another country to get this kind of experience that we offer you here,” said Kristen Austin, Director of Operations at ‘Lake Superior Art Glass’.

Having the shops gives folks who are out and about the opportunity to take a break from marathon festivities.

“So, we get a lot of people who are the spouse or the partner, the kids, family of the runner, and they’re looking for something to do. And they come down to canal Park, and you get a really, a really great energy that kind of infuses the space that isn’t our normal June field,” explained Austin.