MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Jack Link’s is opening its first retail store, called Wild Side, inside the skyway level of the recently renovated Target Center, reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. 

Wild Side opens on November 15 and will feature Jack Link's beef jerky and protein products, T-shirts, hats and giftable items like a shower beer can holder, stuffed animals and water bottles, notes the news source. Additionally, most of the apparel is branded with Jack Link’s mascot Sasquatch.

The news source notes that Jack Link's considers Wild Side, at less than 800 square feet, to be a scalable retail concept, adding that the company is exploring other U.S. markets for expansion including local shopping centers like Mall of America, according to Tom Dixon, chief marketing officer with Jack Link's.
"We have aspirations to take this concept to other locations," Dixon told the news source. "I don’t necessarily see it as something everywhere, but you think about places like Vegas, New York, Orlando— these are definitely places that we think we can create this same sort of concept."

Jack Link’s signed a long-term deal to sponsor the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx last year, which play at Target Center, making the location ideal for opening a retail concept. Jack Link’s is also moving 300 of its staff into offices in neighboring Mayo Clinic Square this year, which will include space for a prototype test kitchen to create new beef jerky products sold at the Wild Side store.

"[The store] is going to enable us to test new products," Dixon told the news source. "It will be a place to get new jerky products to try before they go to market."