Grandma’s Restaurant Group closes Duluth location, cannabis dispensary planned

A familiar Miller Hill restaurant site is about to flip from plates and cocktails to cannabis retail, a change that could reshape jobs, foot traffic and the commercial feel around Maple Grove Road near Miller Hill Mall. Grandma’s Restaurant Group will close its 2202 Maple Grove Road location on Sunday, May 3, and Vireo Growth Inc. will take possession of the property.

The closing ends 35 years of full-service dining at the site, where Grandma’s said the restaurant has operated since 1992. Brian Daugherty, president of Grandma’s Restaurant Group, tied the decision to shifting consumer habits since the pandemic, including fewer late-night diners and less traffic in retail corridors like Miller Hill. Grandma’s said it will keep operating its waterfront restaurants, signaling a consolidation rather than a company-wide retreat.

For Duluth, the move is more than the loss of one recognizable restaurant name. It replaces a longstanding local gathering place with a cannabis business at a prominent retail address, the kind of conversion that can change how a shopping strip feels from morning to night. The practical questions now are whether the new use will draw a different kind of customer mix, how much parking demand it will create, and whether the site’s new role will add to or subtract from the activity that nearby businesses depend on.

Vireo Growth already operates Green Goods dispensaries in Minnesota. The company said in 2025 that Green Goods had eight retail dispensaries in the state, including locations in Minneapolis, Blaine, Bloomington, Burnsville, Duluth, Moorhead, Rochester and Woodbury. Its existing Duluth-area store is at 4960 Miller Trunk Highway in Hermantown, making the Maple Grove Road property a separate presence in the Duluth market if plans move forward there.

The transition lands in a milestone year for Grandma’s itself. The company is marking its 50th anniversary in 2026, with the original Canal Park restaurant opening in 1976. That history makes the Miller Hill closure feel like a local turning point: one longtime dining destination is giving way to a business tied to Minnesota’s expanding cannabis market, and the shift will be measured not just in sales, but in how the corridor around Miller Hill Mall evolves next.