Local Effort Cooperative Opens Chez Garage, a Hyper-Casual Dining Pop-Up in Edina

Chez Garage is Local Effort’s answer to a question the co-op keeps getting: can you get chef cooking without the occasion that usually comes with it. The format is a garage, a pizza oven, a smoker, and a menu that changes with what Minnesota farms have that week. Guests order online, pull up, and leave with dinner and with food for the rest of the week.

The cooperative calls the format hyper-casual dining — the food is the only formal thing about it. The same Minnesota-grown ingredients and technique the team puts into private dinners and weekly meal prep are handed over in a driveway, on a paper plate, at pop-up prices.

The Edina run opens Thursday, July 30 and closes Sunday, August 2, 2026. The menu includes twelve-inch pub pizzas made to order — a classic cheese with mozzarella and brick at $13, a green leeks pizza on tomatillo sauce at $15 — alongside cherry-rubbed pork belly at $32 and pantry goods such as ramp oil at $24. Frozen pizzas built on puffy sourdough crusts, topped and vacuum sealed to bake at home, run $24 for a two-pack to $74 for a six-pack. Delivery orders have a $75 minimum; some items are pickup only.

Chez Garage also travels. The cooperative will bring a chef, an oven, and the rest of the equipment to a host’s own driveway for up to 40 guests, at an estimated $25 to $45 per person with a $200 deposit holding the date.

Local Effort Cooperative has cooked from Minnesota and Midwest farms, mills, creameries, and co-ops since 2022. It is worker-owned: every staff member is offered equity in the business.