Leather Works relocates to the West Side;
Revives old neighborhood market on a leap of faith
Jake Spitzack
Staff Writer
Plumes of sawdust and the aroma of fresh paint will fill the old Josephs Mexican and Lebanese Market building at 736 Oakdale Ave. on the West Side over the next few months as its transformed into a studio for Leather Works Minnesota. The business has operated in the Northern Warehouse building in Lowertown for about 14 years but in February owner Kent Begnaud, 70, decided to make the move to the other side of the river with expansion in mind. The building is more than twice the size of the company’s downtown space and will double as a coffee and donut shop dubbed Joseph’s Coffee and Donuts.
“We love Lowertown and we’re sad to go, even though we’re excited about the new space,” said Begnaud. “We’ve had chances to expand before, but I’ve never done it. Getting older, though, I thought now is the time. We’re excited to join the [West Side] community and have a storefront on street level. We’ve really enjoyed all the people we’ve met…. They’re happy [to hear] about the coffee and donuts.”
Begnaud said he loosely models his business after smaller European storefronts that focus on quality over quantity, and often stay in the founding family for many generations. Come next spring, people will be able to drop by Leather Works and enjoy a cup of joe while watching its handful of employees handcraft leather wallets, belts, journals and other products, or simply relax on the building’s new fenced-in patio. Begnaud intended for the space to be open by now but delays with zoning documents, architectural plans and utility companies have pushed the ribbon-cutting to January 2025. The former market, which opened in the 1930s, has been vacant for about a decade and required more than $350,000 worth of repairs and other work. A recent fundraising campaign promoting Leather Works’ newest wallet design brought in about $11,000 to help offset costs.
The business will sell coffee from Café Palmero, a frequent tenant at the St. Paul Farmers Market, and donuts will be supplied by Cardigan Donuts of Minneapolis. The menu may expand after a few months, and Begnaud’s daughter Sida may get a commercial baking license to sell homemade biscotti and other food as well. His son Nathan, a fulltime leather crafter who also dabbles in professional photography, plans to take over the business someday.
Kent Begnaud has worked with leather since the 1970s and started the company from his garage in 1999. The first dozen years netted little profit, he said, then all at once they were discovered by a popular blogger and subsequently featured in national magazines, including “Martha Stewart Living,” and business began booming. Today, you’ll still find Begnaud punching holes in belts or at a sewing machine stitching a wallet, and he has no plans to slow down. The company also makes a wide variety of customized products for other businesses, including coasters, menu covers, aprons, cribbage cases and key fobs. In the future, it may offer select retail products from other local artisans as well.
Before starting the business, Begnaud made luxury handbags out of alligator, ostrich and python, but he hasn’t touched those materials for many years now; Leather Works MN uses cow hide primarily from S.B. Foot tannery in Red Wing, Minn. He praised his wife Lee for her constant support over the years, as well as a late pastor living in Pennsylvania who called him twice a year just to say he was praying for their success.
“Things started changing when he started calling,” said Begnaud. “People ask what our business plan is and it’s just for my wife and I to get on our knees and pray. We find the more we pray, the more [positive] coincidences happen.”
Begnaud’s perfectionism is constantly pushing him to improve and create new products so don’t be surprised if another campaign promoting his newest creation takes off in the coming months. For more information, call 651-458-3500 or visit leatherworksminnesota.com.
