Part of an Excellent Beer History Panel on "One Pint Stand" Podcast

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of being on a panel on beer history as part of a podcast created by my long-time friend, Dan Beaubien. I have known Dan since high school and Boy Scouts -- we also were in a group going to our high school prom together! --  and have been happy to follow his career as a teacher and beer journalist. I was able to give a bit of history about local bars, alongside legendary local beer history author Doug Halverson and brewer Chris German. 

The episode is live now. It was fun! Enjoy. 

Art Gallery Blab about Bars with Andy Sturdevant and Mary Gibney this Sunday

[A Mary Gibney painting from the Are You With Me? show.]

I was privileged to be invited to give a talk at brilliant local painter Mary Gibney's art opening this Sunday. She's a longtime West Bank denizen and gumbo chef who has a great eye for local culture and a paintbrush to match. She graciously invited my Closing Time co-author, Andy Sturdevant, and I to come chat about bar history this weekend at the Rosalux Gallery in South Minneapolis. 

We'll likely go from 1:30 - 2:30, come down if you can! I can promise great art and above-average conversation.

[link is here]

Book Signing and Discussion for "Closing Time" at Yoerg Brewing on February 27

[The awesome building where Yoerg can be found...] 

I'm excited to announce another book signing event! My "Closing Time" co-author Andy Sturdevant and I will be at Yoerg Brewing on Thursday, February 27th from 7 to 9pm to chat about our new book. Yoerg is a special place to have this event because they are carrying on the 19th century legacy of Yoerg's Brewer, the first brewery in Saint Paul, that dates all the way back to 1848.

The brewery has great food, beer, and wine,  and carries on a lot of the saloon and brewery traditions that are mentioned in our book. It also has very obscure German lagers...

Come by for some gemütlichkeit and grab a book while you're at it!

Details here:

YOERG BREWING COMPANY: Book Signing 

BOOK FEATURE: CLOSING TIME - Saloons, taverns, dives and Watering holes of the Twin Cities - 

WHEN: Thursday, February 27th - 7:00pm to 9:00pm 

We are super excited to have the authors of this wonderful book on the history of the great bars and saloons of the Twin Cities coming in. Bill Lindeke and Andy Sturdevant are the authors and will be appearing at the Yoerg Brewing Company to talk about the book and sign copies.

378 Maria Avenue.

As an extra bonus, you get to come to Dayton's Bluff, which is always worth doing.

N.E. Yacht Club 120th Anniversary Party this Sunday

One of northeast's coolest dive bars is having an historic bash this Sunday. It's the Northeast Yacht Club, located at 8th and Marshall right by the Plymouth Avenue bridge. And they're having their 120th birthday this Sunday. Details below.

The Yacht Club is one of the many bars in Closing Time, my upcoming book on bar history with the Minnesota Historical Society, that I've co-authored with my good friend Andy Sturdevant. (It's coming out in October and you should buy it!)

[Town Pump / Yacht Club, c. 1965.]

The bar began as a Glueks Beer tied house, and used to be called the Town Pump. I have a whole chapter on the bar in the book, but I also wrote about it in my Dive Bars of Outer Northeast Guide Booklet (available for purchase!).

Here's the except:

There are different so stories about who named this bar, whose joke it really was. By one account, it was the Poles, famous for self-deprecation. “Let’s call it the Yacht Club,” they said. “That’ll show those snobs up the hill.” This one is probably true. 

I’m fond of the other account, told to me by a regular one afternoon. You see, if you go to the Yacht Club you'll probably overlook the well-appointed newspaper rack. But if you stop and think about it, it's unusual for a bar like this to have copies fo the Wall Street Journal for sale. 

I believe that this stack of papers is perhaps the last remnant of the old Yacht Club newsmen culture, as this bar used to be a hangout for newspaper workers. The place got its name because of a running joke amongst Star and/or Tribune men poking fun at the city’s class hierarchy. (Example of old-school newspaper humor: “let’s retire to the Yacht Club gentlemen") The other ope newsmen joke was that they were working on the "white edition" while at the bar, reminiscent of the old chestnut about “sailboat fuel.” 

By some measures, the Northeast Yacht Club is no dive. It’s too well-kempt, with food attentive staff, mostly rule clientele, and a logo available on tee-shirts. Yet it remains a large space with a pool table and menus that fit roughly onto an index card, placed in those plastic doo-dad holders on the bar or small tables along the wall. What you call it is up to you. 

Once I was avoiding vague duties at the Yacht Club toward the end of some wintertime daylight. A handful of old-timers had pulled themselves snug up to the long wooden bar, and I set myself next to a small window to watch the bare trees framing the Plymouth Avenue bridge lose their silhouettes. My daydream was interrupted by an older, plaid-shirted man placing a scrap of yellow paper on the table before me.   

“You need any veggies?” he said, and halfway grinned before turning back to talk weather with the regular men.  

I looked down at the hand-written list.  

red potatoes $3
jumbo onion $3
large white mushrooms $5
1 lb. bacon $3 

... and on and on. 

Sadly, though my fridge was bare, I didn’t have the pocket change. The prices were as reasonable as the goods available, and you can’t beat dive bar delivery.  

Such moments of surprise and entrepreneurialism are the hallmark of a great establishment; nothing trumps the timely arrival of a tamale lady or a man peddling roses. I imagine that today’s underground dive economies are a pale shadow of their former selves, that in the old days wandering vendors were staples holding these rough places together. 

The Yacht Club is one of a handful of Northeast joints that have been halved in height. It you examine the rooftop corner by the entrance, you’ll see the angled space where a staircase used to climb between the first and second stories. Past the far corner of the bar itself, old photos hang along the wall depicting its younger days. It used to be called “The Town Pump” because of the well-used well just outside. (Imagine the days of women or children gathering water, carrying it back to hand-built houses.) At some point there was just enough of a fire that the powers-that-were decided to decapitate, leaving the first floor somehow intact.  

I’d guess that few people today imagine that this place was once more than it is, one-story building being commonplace now. But a century ago such spatial profligacy was unthinkable. 

The other Yacht Club rumor is that there was once (and still is?)  a tunnel through the basement. This was once the half-way staging post for prohibition booze, smuggled underground from the river and over to Elsie’s bowling alley across the street. Of course, the prohibition days were murder on dive bars, literally, figuratively, and in other ways too. One can only imagine the secrets buried in the ground along the Mississippi. How many cops blind eyes were turned at this corner? How many careers begun? 

There should be monuments to the old river tunnels, which today seem like an endless age ago. But at least the dive remains, the only living landmark.

Well, I stopped by the Yacht Club yesterday to drop of some photos (displayed here), and one of the old timers there swapped some stories and mentioned the tunnel.

Now, lots of old bars lay claim to a smuggling tunnel. You take such stories with a grain of salt or a handful of beer nuts, but in this case, he offered to show it to me.

Here it is!

[The smuggling tunnel under Marshall.]

That dark arch heading off to the left is the Town Pump / Yacht Club smuggling tunnel under NE Marshall Street that heads toward the Mississippi River. I have seen with my own eyes and it looks as creepy as you would think. Imagine a century ago unloading crates of whiskey barrels of beer, or anything else that might need to get smuggled from the Mississippi riverbanks near by.

Anyway, stop by the Yacht Club sunday to celebrate their rich history, as one of the city's greatest dive bars lives on.

[The Glueks Beer bar floor as it appears today.]

[Crowd at the bar back in the day.]

[Port of Minneapolis.]

[Great picture of the bar from the FDR years.]

[Newspapers.]

[The Yacht Club at dusk.]

Bike Rack Grades for Saint Paul Breweries

[A Minneapolis brewery.]

If there’s one thing that’s really simple that Saint Paul can’t seem figure out, it’s bike racks.

Bike racks are so easy to get right, and almost everywhere in Saint Paul get it so wrong.

Oh, and garbage collection.

OK. Let's try again. If there are two things that are really simple that Saint Paul can’t seem to figure out, it’s bike racks and garbage collection.

Oh, and crosswalks… Oh yeah, and tax assessments for street maintenance… And bike boulevards…  And walking in and out of downtown... And snow plowing.

Oh hell, let’ s stick with bike racks for a second.

[Only in Saint Paul.]

Bike racks are easy and inexpensive, all things considered. And yet it seems that nowhere in Saint Paul makes bike racks a priority or manages to install a bike rack that actually works well and is easy to find.

This is true almost across the board, from businesses to schools to libraries to municipal buildings. It even holds true for breweries — breweries! — which, let’s be honest, if there is one kind of business that should be catering to trendy young bearded beer-drinking bicyclists by having good bike racks, it’s breweries.

When Clutch Brewing opened up recently in the Keg and Case Market and even they, with all the high-end aplomb, did not have good bike parking, I figured it was time to look into the situation with Saint Paul breweries on a (keg and) case by case basis.

Also, I’ve taught geography for years and am used to giving out grades, so here goes.

What the bike rack grades mean:

• A+  Ideal, a Minneapolis-brewery-level achievement.
• A  Good effort, good outcome, good bike parking.
• B  At least they tried, and it could be worse.
• C  Technically there is a bike rack, but whoever bought and/or installed the rack had never parked a bike before and it sucks.  
• D  They didn’t try, but you can still park a bike thanks to nearby poles or gas meters.
• F  Failure. 

As always, any breweries that have problems with their grades can revise and re-submit their work for full credit.

[All Saint Paul breweries in alphabetical order]

12welve Eyes: C 

Bizarre.

A weirdly bad bike rack — just a railing in an alley — but they installed it there, so they get some partial credit? It is hard to mount your bike on the curb and affix it to the railing, and even if you do, you might still be worried a truck will squash it. Also, you’re in an alley. (You can also lock your bike to one of the nearby window wells.)

That said, it does say “bike parking” on the brewery’s sandwich board sign, which is the equivalent of putting a bad term paper in one of those fancy plastic binder covers.

A poor effort. That said, while this rack would normally merit a worse grade, this brewery might get some credit for extenuating circumstances.

[Not good.]

Bad Weather: B

Good, but turned in late and needed revisions.

After a few poor showings, finally came up with something that does not suck. The first effort was bad, then it was hit by a car and removed. They came back with a good rack within sight of the door, even if it is small. There are also a few small racks installed on the sidewalk.

Still underwhelming and under capacity, but could be worse.

[Before revisions.]

Bang: A+

Great!

The best bike rack in Saint Paul. Much like their beer, gets all the details right.

Now that's a Saint Paul brewery bike rack! @bangbrewing pic.twitter.com/A4HbUXHiHl

— William Lindeke (@BillLindeke) July 6, 2018

Barrel Theory: C [Updated.]

Somewhat plagarized.

Nothing but parking meters. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. They do have an actual lollipop rack installed on the sidewalk. Could use some more.

[More please.]

Blackstack: C- / D+

Terrible.

A wheel bender in a difficult alcove. Very disappointing, hard to read. Almost worse that they tried and failed than if they hadn't tried at all. [See also this report.]

It’s downright amazing how almost every Saint Paul brewery gets bike racks wrong. In Minneapolis, bike parking is almost always great. @BlackStackBrew pic.twitter.com/Ekm8ce0lxT

— William Lindeke (@BillLindeke) September 18, 2018

Burning Brothers: [Unknown]

(I have not been here.)


Clutch Brewing: B- / C+ [Pending revision.]

Not great, and docked points for lateness.

When they opened they had no bike racks at all, but apparently there are a couple hoop racks along the sidewalk now.

[Note: I am being told they have submited new bike racks for revision.]

The bike racks have arrived! #mysaintpaul pic.twitter.com/p2b3GZYtmA

— Keg and Case Market (@kegandcase) September 23, 2018

Dual Citizen: A

Great effort, not ideal location.

They have lots of bike racks (including a deluxe two-level bike rack!) in the back by the patio. If you bike to the front door, though, there is nothing but parking meters.

[Extra credit!]

Flat Earth: C- [Updated.]

Wasted potential.

You have to chain your bike to a hand railing for the staircase steps. There is a basic cheap rack to the left of the front door, but it's weak sauce. This brewery could do so much more if they connected the patio to the bike trail and installed a couple good racks there. I am hoping there are extenuating circumstances, and would be wiling to offer an ‘I’ (incomplete) so that they can re-take the class again.



Great Waters: D+

Just passed.

At least it’s downtown, so there are plenty of sign poles and tree guards around.

[Typical downtown Saint Paul bike parking looks like this.]

Lake Monster: A

Great work!

Spacious wonderful racks in sight of the front door.

[They are still working on unicycle parking. If only there was a safe way to bike there!]

Summit: B

Good, but incomplete.

Four Dero racks are a good start, but should have at least three times as many of these lined up along the patio and parking lot.

[Not ideal; more racks please.]

Tin Whiskers: D+

Copied from the same source as Barrel Theory.

Please note that parking meters cannot be used as a legitimate source for full credit.



Urban Growler: C+

Shoddy work, could be better.

A small cheap rack in the otherwise spacious parking lot. Lots of room for improvement.



Wabasha: D

No effort here.

Railings are not a legitimate source to receive full credit.

[Lots of bikes, zero racks.]

Waldmann: A-

Could use some more revision, but otherwise good work.

A large bike rack on the patio grass is great, though it is a bit difficult to find and use some of the time.

Noteworthy Dive Bars of the East Side Bicycle Tour

[Google Maps.]

A little known fact: East Side dives are not just on Payne Avenue and Arcade Street. To adopt such a worldview would reduce the city’s complexity to cliché, to blind oneself to the rich neighborhood tapestry that is the East Side.

Instead, seek out the unexpected. Find the hidden dive bar on the forgotten corner, the row of nearly-bulldozed buildings, or the odd hole in the wall crouching at the periphery as you drive past at 40 miles per hour.

It turns out that, once you venture forth into the vast lands of the Greater East Side, adventure awaits. These sometimes mysterious streets house some of the finest dives in all the land, chock full of taxidermy, camaraderie, jello shots, entrepreneurial dreams, crock pots, and papered-over Zima advertisements.

[Until recently, Zima was on the menu at the Bee Hive, a 3.2 bar.]

(True!)

These are no ordinary dives, friend. This is the East Side of the East Side, some of the only places where I’ve seen people in pajamas, where I’ve witnessed the mailman deliver the mail and drink a beer. Bars that defy the supposed logic of time, some slowly wasting away, others brimming over.

We will be bicycling, a total of five (5) miles through the October evening air. A good time will be had. Some people will be happy to see us, others oblivious. What strange times are these! Trust me.

[The Sherwood Lounge: What is the Robin Hood connection?]

What: Guided bicycle tour of four (4) East Side dive bars
When: Next Thursday, October 13th, departing at 6:30pm
Where: Leaving from the Bee Hive, on 3rd and Forest
Why: Because it’s there
Who: Anyone. Free. Consider throwing a tip my way or supporting this blog on Patreon.

[Facebook invite here.]

Bizarro Twin Cities #2: Sentyrz / Morelli's

[The Twin Cities are non-identical, but they have a lot of shared traits. Sometimes they really rhyme. Here are some examples, like the Bizarro Jerry and his crew, of places that are a little too alike except for one big small difference.]

Until the recent Trader Joe’s inspired trend of collocating liquor and grocery stores in the same building but with separate entrances, there were only two places* in the Twin Cities where you could find grocery and liquor stores in the same room, produce and meat counters and stacks of beer and frozen pizzas and bottles of discounted Canadian Club all jumbled up together. One was in Saint Paul, and one was in Minneapolis: Morelli’s and Sentyrz, respectively. Somehow both these stores have survived all these years and have become the only place to purchase a can of soup and a six-pack of beer at the same time. 

As a 3rd generation grocery, Sentyrz is literally grandfathered-in, which is why it gets away with its scandalous mixture of booze-and-food. The store sits in a mundane looking building on 2nd Avenue in the heart of Northeast Minneapolis’ booze belt. Somehow, 2nd Avenue seems like a relatively sleepy part of the neighborhood between University and Marshall, but if anywhere North of the Slovakian church has a pulse, it’s Senterz.

With a fresh paint job, an unassuming sign, good-sized parking lot, bike racks, and a well lit entrance, Sentyrz invites you inside with a subtle choice. To the left is the booze; to the right, the food, including the locally renowned meat counter tucked into the back of the store.

(About a mile to the South, the Sentyrz meat loyalty region — MLR— bumps up against that of the more dominant reputation of Kramarczuk’s.)

Somewhere in the middle by the napkin aisle lies the liquid watershed, first two-liter bottles of pop, and then somehow they transform into beer, then wine, then spirits. There are two different checkout lines and I’m not sure but I think you can purchase either commodity from either cashier. At a certain point in the evening the store shuts down its boozy right-brain half, and transforms into a regular late-night grocery store, albeit with an aura of shadowy booze.

[In many cities, purchasing wine and tortillas would just be normal.]

[Unassuming sign.]

[Large mounted fish.]

[Looking from the food over to the booze.]

[Dog at a bike rack at Christmas.]

[The everything store.]

Morelli’s, on the other hand, in typical Saint Paul fashion, is a hodge-podge experience unlike anywhere in town. First of all, it’s cash only, which flies in the face of every possible modern day liquor retail convention. There’s a ATM in the corner, rarely used because the vast majority of patrons are regulars experienced enough to bring a roll of twenties with them.

Compared to Sentyrz, Morelli’s is a bit more hard to find, across Payne Avenue from Swede Hollow at the center of Railroad Island, itself an odd triangle of real estate between the East Side and downtown. The parking lot (currently under construction) is a routine scene of organized mayhem, cars and patrons swarming through the store in search of booze. The outside of the building features a large mural painted on the stucco wall, chock full of Italian-American symbolism.

(Noteworthy 1930s Italian restaurant Yarusso’s is just across the street.)

Inside the swinging metal door is an almost industrial sight, coolers and stacks of boxes forming an entryway to the dueling meat counters, dangling dozens of cured meats and sausages before your eyes. Further on, freezers are stuffed with frozen pizzas, pastas, and sauces, all made under the Morelli’s brand. Following the wall, a smattering of imported foodstuffs — pasta, olives, capers, oil — form a backdrop for the main attraction: the cheapest liquor in the cities. A surplus wine mound in a metal shopping cart, priced below wholesale. Somehow, because they deal in cash, because they exist on an Italian island, everything here costs a few bucks less than it would elsewhere, so it feels like getting a jar of red sauce for free. 

Another detail, a holdover of the communitarian Swede Hollow roots, is the customer service, beginning with the ruthlessly efficient counter staff, elevated high above the masses and brooking no quarter, and ending with the young men schlepping boxes of wine and meat to the trunks of the happy crowd. I once heard a clerk tell a customer, “we’ll carry your items all the way to your car, no matter how far away it is,” and I’ve always been curious to test out the axiom. (I’d have to hire a little old lady for the role.)

Somehow these two stores, on opposite sides of the cities, have survived the tide of specialization and remain forever, grandfathered-in together, at least until the inevitable beer-in-grocery laws arrive.

[Morelli's advertising wall and the then-dormant parking lot.]

[Frozen foodstuffs.]

[Morelli's is famous for advertisements that require a magnifying glass.]

[The website is vintage too.]

[A Morelli's customer demonstrating the correct meat counter posture.]

* OK, there are actually three if you count Dannecker’s on Randolph, which I really don’t. Have you ever been there? Then you know why. There’s barely a pretense of either booze or food. That place is like a booze+foot futon that’s been left out on the curb for a while and it rained on it and now even though it’s mostly dried out it's not quite and you sit on it for some reason and you shouldn't have done that.

Red River Kitchen: the New Almost-Winner of the Beer by the River Test

[Mission accomplished.]

A while back, I wrote about the mysterious lack of riverfront cafés in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the almost complete dearth of spots where one could sit in a chair, drinking a beer, and watching the river flow by. Unimaginatively, this was the "Beer-By-The-River" (BBTR) test.

Drinking a beer by the river should be a commonplace activity in the Twin Cities, which were, after all, built around having access to the 33 miles of Mississippi Riverfront. Such a pleasing activity, one would think, would easily become a regional pastime, especially during the warmer months.

But it’s not. The list of BBTR contenders is sadly short, and in all the Minneapolis and Saint Paul riverfront area, there is only one place that offers a genuine unadulterated riverside café experience: Psycho Suzi’s in Northeast. The rest of the list pales in comparison, and Saint Paul, in particular, has almost nothing to offer.

That is, until now.

[The City House elevator. at the Upper Landing.]

Just this week, Saint Paul has catapulted up to the very almost-top of the BBTR rankings with the opening of the new Red River Kitchen in the City House elevator at the Upper Landing.

For helpful Saint Paul reference: The Upper Landing is the early 2000s residential development along the riverfront between the high bridge and the science museum, a row of 5-story buildings that for some reason had lacked any mixed-use features except for a coffee shop. The City House is an historic 1930s grain elevator right on the river that was partially restored and turned into an “event center” owned by the city’s Parks Department. The City House has a unique history, and was originally intended to be some sort of restaurant, but the potential for flooding in the space meant that no “permanent” structures could be built there.

I’d long thought that, of all the riverfront spots on Saint Paul’s East (downtown) Bank, this was the spot that had the most potential to activate the riverfront and bring people closer to the Mississippi. Unlike the rest of the riverfront, this slice of land is separated from pedestrian-unfriendly (and overbuilt) Shepard Road, and is a very pleasant place to spend time, if you can figure out how to get there. Which is why it was so strange that it sat empty for so many years…

But kudos to Saint Paul for acting quickly. We only approved this new pop-up food-truck-style restaurant concept a few weeks ago at the Planning Commission. And it’s already open, from 11am to 9pm. According to the guy who owns Republic, who is one of the organizers, it was pretty easy to park a mobile kitchen next door and hook up some tap lines. They brought in some picnic tables, and are serving food and beer in the City House as I write this.

[From left to right: a beer, barges, a rowing team.]

[The patio, with downtown in the background.]

[The biergarten-like interior.]

[The menu, with new employees learning how to work the register.]

[The mobile food kitchen.]

So how does it rank?

When I complied them last year, I pointed out that the BBTR rankings were not evenly distributed. Psycho Suzi’s was a clear #1, then there was a big gap, then you had the Saint Anthony Main cafés, and then below them, a handful of riverfront pretenders.

I’m happy to say that Red River Kitchen is the only BBTR experience that can give Psycho Suzi’s a run for its money. The only downside is that the “patio” which offers the best riverfront view, only has a few benches. The picnic tables inside are nice enough but a bit removed from the amazing riverfront-plus-beer concept that continues to haunt my dreams. So, compared to the riverside tables at Suzi’s, Saint Paul still falls a bit short.

On the other hand, this particular riverfront location is an absolute A+ when it comes to urban visual interest. At Suzi’s, the river is pretty quiet. There’s not much traffic, and the view of facing riverbank is dominated by a metal scrapyard. Sure it’s honest and gritty, but it’s hardly riveting.

[The High Bridge in the background.]

But the Mississippi at Red River Kitchen is the absolute heart of the urban riverfront. Facing the kitchen patio is Harriet Island, with the Padelford boats docking and loading all through the evening. Just turning your head, you see the entire panorama of downtown Saint Paul curving along the river bluffs, the downtown bridges weaving their way over the water as boats of all kinds make their way up and downstream. In an hour, 8- and 4-person rowing teams in skiffs, douches on jet skis, recreational boats, and a tourist “riverboat” pushed by a barge all passed by. Houseboats are docked at the marina across the water, and you can watch the bridges and bluffs and people in the parks walk around the riverfront. Here the river is alive.

And then there are the barges! City House is still used as a parking berth for barges, and if you lean over the railing, you can look directly into these massive floating steel containers. It’s a sublime experience, a bit like gazing into a canyon. On Monday, they were filled with some sort of cement gravel, but the barges are constantly being shuffled around, and who knows what will be docked there when you visit. It’s cool to be confronted with the materiality of our industrial society, and it’s even cooler to drink an IPA while doing so.

In conclusion, I’m very impressed by the new Red River Kitchen. They exceeded my expectations, particularly in the short timeline. Go down there and drink a beer by the river. The view is unmatched anywhere in town.

Ranking:

Solid #2, right behind Psycho Suzi’s. (With better patio furnishings, they would be #1.)

[Currently, the Red River Kitchen closes at 9pm, though given the nigh views, that is rather silly.]

Noteworthy Dive Bars of Inner Northeast Walking Tour

A follow up to this winter's exploratory merriment, it's time to wander the other half of Northeast, Minneapolis' dive bar promised land. Here we will explore the inner boundaries of the old "liquor patrol limits" that attempted to contain the neighborhood's boozing to its riverine margins.

Here's a bit of history from the last Northeast tour:

And, like the South Minneapolis' division, the Northeast Minneapolis alcoholic landscape has a stark geography. According to the city's "liquor patrol limits," full liquor establishments weren't allowed East of 4th Street or North of 29th Avenue. 

Thus Northeast's dive bars were contained to a small area alongside the riverfront crotch. This was ostensibly because this is the distance that the city's 19th century "liquor patrol" could efficiently walk from their downtown stations. (But everyone knew the restrictions stemmed from moralistic paternalism by city's economic and religious leaders.) That is why the wealth of the city's shrines to old school libation are as concentrated as an Otter Bar rum and coke.

This time we'll be strolling and stumbling straight south along NE 4th Street, where all the dive bars line up light tipsy dominoes along the West side of the street. We will venture South, hugging the interior of the dive district until we reach the train tracks. There we will make an abrupt left, and wend ourselves towards the season streets, an odd pocket of roadway nomenclature: spring, summer, but no winter or fall. Finally, we arrive at the mecca of karaoke, the fabled Vegas Lounge, where the bar for singing is simultaneously both high and low, a Northeast paradox.

What more is there to say? This is a fascinating stretch of living history. No Northern dive bar connoisseur should go without stepping foot on this fascinating stretch of sidewalk. Walk with me and plumb the inner depths of Northeast Minneapolis.


A note on walking

This will be a walking tour. (Bicycles are welcome, of course, and faster, and may proceed at their own leisure.) I will be walking at a relatively brisk pace between the dive destinations, and the total distance covered will be about two (2) miles. 

[The Knight Cap decorated for Christmastime.]

[Facebook invite here.]

[The flying flag of Northeast.]

What: Walking tour of five dive bars in Northeast Minneapolis

Who: Anyone. Tips accepted eagerly, either in beer or cash.

When: Thursday, May 26th, departing at 6:30

Where: Northeast Palace, Lowry and 4th

Why: Because it's there

How: Brief historical notes and discussions of each bar will be delivered upon arrival and/or departure. A pause for refreshment, then on to the next.  

[Map is here.] 

[Read about other dive bar tours here: Payne and Arcade, Outer Northeast, The Midway, South Minneapolis, and Old Fort Road.]