Downtown Red Wing announces $100,000 for 2025 Retail & Restaurant Challenge

In 2024, Michelle Tracy of The Creative Hand, was one of two winners of Downtown Red Wing’s Retail & Restaurant Challenge. “It made a huge difference for me, and allowed me to expand a part of my store that I wouldn’t have been able to do without it,” she says.

Local restaurateurs and entrepreneurs will now have the chance to realize their business dreams, as the 2025 Challenge begins.

Downtown Red Wing has $100,000 available for as many as four businesses. There are four eligible categories for businesses: new restaurants, new retail, new location of a business established in another town, and expanding a current business with a new business concept.

Tracy fit the latter category when she won last year. She has been running The Creative Hand for over five years, and used her winnings to add a Hat Bar, where shoppers can decorate their own trucker hat. Building off of that momentum, she is adding the opportunity for guests to make their own charm bracelets and necklaces. “It gave me a great boost,” she says, “it showed that my ideas are valid and make sense to other people, so that was really great.”

Other past winners of the Challenge include Riverbend Floral, Red Wing Bicycle Co., and Rivertown Comics & Games, which all still reside downtown.

In addition to the monetary award, winners will receive social media guidance, and support in working with local landlords and additional grant providers.

Current and proposed businesses need to be located in the Downtown or West End District of Red Wing to be considered.

Applications open on May 17 and close June 15. For the initial application, candidates must explain the market for their business, and how their business would be a unique addition to the Red Wing community. These applications will be judged by a panel of local economic development partners and the Red Wing Downtown Main Street board.

Those picked for the second round will provide a detailed business plan and make an in-person presentation to the panel, which will determine the final winners. Any applicants in need of assistance in developing their business plans can contact IgniteMN in downtown Red Wing. More information on IgniteMN is available at ingnitemn.org. 

When Tracy won the challenge last year, she had no idea what to expect, but decided to apply anyway. “If you have an idea or a dream and it seems weird or a little out there, go for it,” she says.

Downtown Red Wing Executive Director Andrea Hanson adds that locals should tell business owners in other towns too. “The more people we have telling restaurant owners about Red Wing, the better,” she says.

Applications can be found at www.downtownredwing.org.

Funding for the Challenge is provided by the Albrecht-Poss Family Foundation, the Jones Family Foundation, the Red Wing Area Fund, and the Wings Foundation.

This story originally appeared in the Red Wing Republican Eagle.