News & Articles

Remains of an ancient Ground Round restaurant was discovered in the Panera Bread parking lot Tuesday. City of Duluth Comfort System workers uncovered the prehistoric restaurant while working on underground sewer pipes.   Comfort Systems spokesman Ed French said that work was immediately halted to allow the excavation of the site to proceed without damaging any artifacts.  Archaeologists from the University of Minnesota Duluth were very excited at this rare opportunity to study prehistoric Duluthians.
Bernard Ruble of the NERRI Institute believes that this location may well prove to be the best preserved prehistoric restaurant in the Upper Midwest. Ruble stated “We hope to learn a great deal about ancient 1960s Americana.”
Ruble, speaking off the record as an anonymous source, revealed that scientists have already discovered a “small mountain of well preserved peanut shells” in a subterranean chamber quaintly known in prehistoric times as a “basement”. According to old folk tales passed down generation to generation, Ground Round restaurants throughout the land gave away popcorn and peanuts for free, as an enticement to lure the easily frightened superstitious savages into their establishments.  The combination of allowing these early settlers to throw endless handfuls of shells onto the floor, then throw lit “cigarettes” on the floor;  led to several late night fires at these early Ground Rounds; and scientists speculate this may well have precipitated their extinction. “Cigarettes” were a thin tube of tobacco rolled in paper;  early Duluthians apparently would light them on fire (on purpose)  so as to inhale the fumes.
Fossilized remains of Bingo the Clown were discovered in the southeast corner of the ruins.   Bingo the Clown was previously understood to be a mythical creature that early parents would tell folk tales about to frighten their children.
Incredibly, Ground Round restaurants of the time apparently