Tuesday’s Boundary Waters Connect speaker was Christopher Glazer, owner and operator of the Boundary Waters Kitchen and Market. The business is located on Chapman Street and recently turned over ownership from Mitska’s Market in September.
Glazer, like Al Pacino in the Godfather, is first generation Italian. As such, a life lived around food and family were a huge part of his childhood. Glazer joked that, “life was lived in the kitchen.” His parents and grandparent’s recipes have followed him to his business and are regularly prepared in the course of his workweek.
Glazer started working as a dishwasher when he was 13 years old at a bakery in Burnsville, MN. As he got older, he started “working in restaurants left and right.”
He’s worked every aspect of the service industry: bartender, server, line cook, beer brewer, saucier, and “pasta guy.”
Glazer’s first introduction to fine dining experiences was a job in Omaha, Nebraska at the Grey Plume. The restaurant has changed ownership since the Covid pandemic of 2020, but in 2024 was a semi-finalist for the James Beard Award.
After the Grey Plume, Glazer began working at Travail Collective Kitchen and Amusements in Minneapolis. While certainly in the upper echelon of fine dining price range, it was a wonderful experience for any foodie.
While at Travail, Glazer worked many different roles. Travail’s model for its young cooks is, “constantly fluid, constantly changing, as engaging as you can humanly get in a restaurant.”
While there, Glazer befriended fellow chefs Nick Laurent and Maddie Wilson, joining them on their venture in 2021 when they leased the Chocolate Moose in Ely.
After the Chocolate Moose closed, Glazer wanted something with a little more autonomy and agency, but still close to the food industry. He began catering here and there for local businesses and nonprofits.
As Glazer sheepishly put it, “Then the taxman came, and I realized I needed to start my own business instead of paying for everything out of pocket.”
When the owners of Mitska’s Market on Chapman Street, decided to sell their storefront, Glazer decided it was time to move. Boundary Waters Kitchen and Market was born.
In regard to his catering business, “Catering is the core of what I do; I like being able to work for different organizations in town like Younglife, Ely Community Resource. My interest is creating jobs that are sustainable for our small town.”
Glazer also regularly hosts pop-up fine dining experiences around the holidays, if you don’t want to go all the way to the Twin Cities for a fancy date night.
Glazer currently employs two part-time employees and five full-timers. He is hoping to expand to a few new business ventures, with the goal of providing a revenue stream in the off-season.
One of these businesses in the works is a cookie company named “Jennie’s Biscotti.” Started in honor of his grandmother and mother, it could provide two more full-time positions to the community, as well as a steady stream of homemade heritage cookies.
Some of the planned flavors will rotate with the seasons: pistachio in the spring, limoncello in the summer, pumpkin spice in the fall, and a holiday spice in the winter, among many others.
Along with Jennie’s Biscotti, Glazer is working with his father to start a high-end imported tea company out of Ely. His father is an English tutor for a tea-maker’s son in China, so they already have a wholesale provider lined up.
All that’s left is figuring out how to get licensed to import, which is a process in and of itself with new tariffs to navigate, and the long journey of building trust between Glazer’s business and the Chinese government.
If successful, the business could potentially employ more full-time positions, achieving Glazer’s goal of providing jobs to a seasonal community.
Glazer has many more plans in the works to diversify his business interests, but catering remains the focus. He’s already filling up for summer of 2026.
For new Elyites, the Tuesday Group meets every Tuesday from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. at the Grand Ely Lodge. Each week, there is a different speaker for a different topic. Guests are encouraged to arrive early to dine and connect with their friends and neighbors.
