Bank on Bank for Good Food in Minneapolis

I'd been wanting to eat at a restaurant called Bank in Minneapolis.

It opened about a year ago, but I just hadn't made my way there. Now that the sun is shining and spring appears to have arrived in the Twin Cities, I've been feeling the need to get out of the house and into the city. And so I made a lunch date with Bank.

The restaurant gets its name from its historic location. The building it is in was built in 1941 and was the Farmers & Mechanics Bank.

A few years back, the building was gutted and turned into a hotel. Now it is the Minneapolis Westin.

The restaurant is in the hotel's lobby, but it is also in the space that used to be the bank lobby, and it feels like a bank when you walk in -- an old-money sort of bank.

The decor is rich and earthy, lots of wood, lots of windows, and impressive, funky chandeliers that look like huge pineapples.

The old teller counter is still there. Now, instead of withdrawing money there, though, you can sit at the teller bar and sip a cocktail while watching the action going on in the kitchen.