18 minute read
Remembrances of Businesses Past
One thing we know about the people of the Twin Cities is that they never quit.
Regardless of what happens tomorrow or next year, our community will continue to produce vibrant, creative, meaningful businesses, organizations, institutions—you name it.
But 2020 was tough. It’s important to take a moment and pay homage to the places and institutions that didn’t make it. Whether it’s a grimy underground nightclub where you could feel deep kinship, or an unofficial-official newspaper that connects you to a city, or a love story gone cold, or a fabulous burger deal a few blocks from work—when it comes down to it, these places are the building blocks of our lives.
One thing we can take from 2020 is that our businesses matter. Not in the way that they generate tax revenue or provide jobs for our community, though that is very important. Rather, it’s that they play a fundamental role in our lives. They help us through the tough times and let us celebrate the good. They provide for us in a way that friends and family can’t.
People say you can’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone, but that might not be true. Maybe by looking back and paying homage to the businesses we lost in 2020, we’ll better appreciate the new crop of meaning-makers that will surely come into our lives in our community’s next chapter. We can hope.
We asked six writers from the Twin Cities to reflect on a business that’s meant something to them. Here is what they had to say:
OCTO FISHBAR
by ANDY STURDEVANT
Having a favorite bar is sometimes a lot like having a good friend you met because you were college roommates, or because their last name came right before yours in middle school homeroom. It’s not chosen through a rigorous selection process or even shared interests, but solely because of proximity. In the case of the Octo Fishbar, in St. Paul, it was a matter of proximity that, like a friendship that blossoms over time, became something I relied on. And, probably like a lot of friendships, I didn’t realize how much it meant to me until it was over. For years, I worked in Lowertown St. Paul and took an express bus home to south Minneapolis at the end of the day. Express meant it only departed Lowertown every halfhour. If I got stuck on a phone call or something came up at work right at close, a delay of only
a few minutes meant I’d miss my bus. In those situations, I’d have twenty or twenty-five minutes to kill before the next one came. Especially in winter, what other choice would I have but to duck in for a drink somewhere?
Lowertown is full of bars, especially in the years leading up to COVID. Every year I worked down there, another handful would open. Most of them were just fine, if a little overpriced— nice places to hang out for a bit and drink a $10 cocktail surrounded by exposed brick, elbow to elbow with all the other Lowertown office workers and high-rise residents doing happy hour withtheir colleagues. In a fairly competitive marketplace, nothing about the Octo Fishbar seemed any more promising than its neighbors. I loved Tim McKee’s other restaurants, but the metrics in choosing where to have a fancy night out don’t often overlap with deciding where to get a beer on your way home.
But damned if I didn’t return to the Octo Fishbar more and more, eventually forsaking all other options. Sometimes I’d even dawdle at work on my way out, ensuring that, oh shoot, I missed my bus, guess I have to get a drink at the Fish Bar. The happy hour menu had two items on it that, when purchased together, would cost as much as a $10 cocktail elsewhere: a Miller High Life pony and a burger. On days where I had a little bit of extra time, I’d just order two of each. I did hope, in my heart of hearts, they’d name the twofer after me somehow, the dream of every delusional bar counter habitue. They never did, but at some point, the bartender stopped asking me what I’d like, and just had a burger and pony ready when I sat down. That’s truly the measure of a great place.
That burger, too, was truly something special. Made with beef from Peterson Meats, who were right across the room in the Market House, it had an egg bun, some pickles, and a slice of white American cheese on top, all wrapped in paper. The Market House, a cavernous, open air mini-food hall anchored by the Octo Fishbar, wasn’t cozy exactly,but the bar staff were very warm, friendly people you’d enjoy chatting with. They even got the TV right, which never happens in a bar. If a bar must have a TV, it should be playing late 20th century basic cable bangers, like Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Money Pit. Octo Fishbar always were.
Right before the pandemic, my office moved out of Lowertown, and my reason for dropping in on the Octo Fishbar ended abruptly. Then, of course, the pandemic ended dropping into any bar. The Octo Fishbar closed permanently last summer, one of dozens of COVID closings. So much of what I’ve missed in the past months—low-stakes social interactions with friendly acquaintances, nursing a drink at a bar, public transportation—was rolled up in the experience of having a burger and a pony at the Octo Fishbar. I enjoyed it at the time. Nothing suggested I’d miss it as much as I do now, but after the past few months, I really do.
Honey MPLS
HONEY
by BRETT ELIZABETH JENKINS
My favorite Yelp review of Honey MPLS says “You are paying a cover charge to party in a dirty basement.” And in no uncertain terms, we were.
To be honest, that was the allure of the place. Made to mimic the underground club feel of New York City, Honey had that grime-charm about it. The kind where you sometimes had to wait ten minutes at a packed bar toorder a Hamm’s, and you had to squish yourself up real close against the wall to make your way to a too-small bathroom to put on red lipstick under a halfburnt-out vanity light. The kind where somebody named Krista was having her hair held by three of her best friends in the stall next to you while they rubbed her back. The kind where you might slip on a puddle of beer on the dance floor, but somebody would always help you up. And we were all doing it together.
The first time I stepped into Honey I was late, because I had trouble finding it. I was on my way to a poetry reading that PANK Magazine was hosting in 2013. I was nervous because I had just moved to the Twin Cities and I didn’t know anybody. Walking into Honey felt like walking into an old friend’s house—dim lights, cheap drinks, and plenty of seats. I didn’t know it then, but I would end up returning to Honey many times to host my own poetry readings, to send off friends before they left for Mexico, and to grind my body up against other bodies after my marriage ended in 2017.
My fondest memories of Honey were the wild 90s dance party nights they would throw—
when everyone would be sweaty and smelling of gin, drinks in the air, throwing their bodies up against one another while Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” poured over us like, well, honey. And I would always get accidentally body-checked by a guy who looked like his name was Seth.
But it’s 2020 and I haven’t touched a stranger in ten months. What I wouldn’t give right now to be body-checked by a stranger in a dirty basement.
Chino Latino
CHINO LATINO
by MICHAEL KLEBER-DIGGS
At a certain point, a fling becomes a thing that persists to the point that you might almost take it for granted. At first, you like it enough to vibe with it for a while. So you do that. Early on, everything is fresh and new. This fling thing checks a lot of your boxes: exciting - check, fresh - check, tasty - check, cheeky - check. You enjoy hanging out even as it becomes familiar. You think this is a good sign, but this is actually when things get perilous. Still, you’re not thinking about that, because, at a certain point, familiarity feels like love. Maybe you wonder if you’re drifting apart.
You stay constant for a while, then mostly faithful even as, sure enough, a few of the things that used to be cute start to get a little annoying. Like, when you hang out, sometimes you find yourself caring a lot about things you never used to think about. For example, why must everything be so dark all the time? Could we lighten things up a bit every once in a while?
And forte is cool. I may have fallen in love with you at forte, but could you mix in a little pianissimo? Not every time, just every so often.
Yes. You still kick it, but it gets less fun, even difficult sometimes. Your situation becomes, if not precarious, then precarious adjacent. You want to be steadfast, but, in spite of your best intentions, you find your eyes start towander. It’s a sexy city. Appetizing alternatives are in abundance.
The last time I ate at Chino Latino, my wife and I had lunch with friends from Seattle. The time before that, I went for drinks and hors d’oeuvres with a high-school buddy who now lives in Dallas. It probably occurred to me that I only went to Chino Latino when I was visiting with friends from out of town. I’m super St. Paul now. Also, I’m lazy and Uptown takes effort. I’m old-school Uptown. I was mostly running around there in the 90s—when I lived there, when Hennepin didn’t feel too narrow for four real lanes of traffic, when I never thought about parking, when Uptown was still a little weird.
Our lunch was before the pandemic, of course. I remember we were in the front room where the light was good, and I could pretty much hear what everyone at my table was saying. Michele Bachmann was seated right next to us. I recall my wife giving me that “don’tstart nothin’” look, and I remember not starting nothin’. I don’t remember what I ordered, but I know we got a couple of orders of that spicy corn dish they had. I’m pretty sure I had received the fortune in my fortune cookie a couple of times already.
I look back on my Chino Latino days with a we-had-our-laughs-though-didn’t-we nostalgia. I suppose I have for years. I remember pretty good times there, even after the bloom on our romance faded, when the only thing that called me back was a desire to see myself as I was—to see us both as we were.
Chino Latino
City Pages
CITY PAGES
by LUKE FINSAAS
When I was sixteen, I used to drive to Uncommon Grounds on Hennepin Avenue, order an Italian soda, and read City Pages. I’m not sure where I found the time to make the twenty-odd minute drive—after school? on weekends?—but I distinctly remember how it felt to sit on the porch and open up those slightly greasy pages. It felt cool. Really cool. For a kid in the western suburbs, City Pages was like a pinhole onto a world I’d only seen on TV. Concerts! Chefs! Writers! Artists! And those back pages—plastered with scantily-clad men and women advertising, uh, companionship—lent everything a subtext of
danger and sex. Album reviews, investigative journalism, profiles of amazing people living just down the block—City Pages bundled up all the madness of the city and gave it to you. For free!
Of course, as I grew older and glimpsed how the sausage was made, the towering edifice shrank down to human size. I knew people who had won an annual Best Of MN and had to keep slinging coffee on Grand Avenue—hell, my literary magazine won in 2015 and we saw no benefit (beyond the very nice honor, which was very much appreciated, thank you judges). The paper just didn’t ‘discover’ people—or discovery translated to what, a few more shows at the Turf?
And it was messy. I heard about who knew who, why those folks always got put up forX award, how that reviewer had beef with that artist—or whatever. City Pages wasn’t bundling up all the madness of the city—it was only ever a very select type of madness, a madness curated by mostly white, mostly passionate, mostly mad staff. In short, a flawed institution.
I still read good swathes of it. Not every week, but it was in my monthly rotation. And it was definitely my first stop to see if anything interesting was going on in the city. The A-List…what magical pages. Even when I had stuff to do over the weekend, I enjoyed reading what was happening out there in the city,somewhere. It gave me a sense of the city breathing, moving, swelling with possibilities beyond my comprehension.
Every city needs a map and a compass. For over forty years, City Pages was both to the Twin Cities. A swirling mess of people trying their damnedest to articulate the meaning of the city—its people, history, food, culture, art—and simultaneously attempting to decipher the possibilities on the horizon. It really was a beautiful thing.
Some cities (*cough* New York) enshrine their histories, obsess over their streets, fixate on their food, shoving the rest of the world to the side. For the most part, that’s cool. We’re happy to hear what they’ve been up to.
We’re a bit more modest in the Midwest. The problem is, I could see us fading into the background. ‘Who cares what happens in the Twin Cities? Important Things only happen in New York.’
City Pages reminded us that the Twin Cities do exist, that our communities are vibrant, rich, deep, complicated, dynamic. For that, I’ll be forever grateful. And to whoever steps up and fills the void, know that I’m rooting for you, too.
City Pages
Dark Horse
DARK HORSE
by MAGGIE RYAN SANFORD
I’m one of those Saint Paul ride-or-die folk who thinks river towns should be a little rough around the edges. So when the Dark Horse went up in Lowertown, I’ll admit the words, “There goes the neighborhood,” came to mind. With its bespoke bare light bulb wrought-iron chandeliers and co-ed hand-washing area, surely this steed, like its biblical counterpart, bore an apocalyptic rider of imperial oppression. Or at least of homogeneity. One wants their beloved hood to thrive at the core like hardwood, not get particle-boarded up between faux mid-century modern condos. I’d seen it happen to my homeland of Seattle. I feared St. Paul’s time had come.
But a person advocating substantive content shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Especially not before digging in. And although it’s not befitting a person who likes to think of herself as a feminist Bukowski: I love to eat. I had regular haunts, but nowhere with a real kitchen. I had to admit it would be nice to warm the same bar stool where I could amuse my bouche.
I don’t remember what I ate on that first visit to Dark Horse. Good bacon was involved, and some unexpected ingredient like shitake mushroom, which gave me that surprise umami I hunt for on a night out. But it was how it felt in there: the server was at ease, the bartender led by following your lead. As a long-time service industry person myself, I could spot it. Whoever was holding the reins at Dark Horse was the real McCoy.
Dark Horse
In the years that followed, when it came time to pick a place to eat, meet or grab a drink, I found myself betting on Dark Horse more often than not. Brunch with in-laws, cocktails before a metal show, dinner with visiting friends to show off my new hometown, happy hours with hungry coworkers.
After the painful end to my marriage, I was relieved to find the Dark Horse still felt like home. Not part of my life from before, but part of my whole life in St. Paul, bigger than one person. I found myself again at the back bar, lovingly nicknamed the Cowabunguhhh Cabana due to a lack of ‘A’s in a birthday banner that hung over the liquor shelf. It was almost always staffed by fellow black clad, self-wrestling writers. After every soul search by Big River, I could wander through the back gate, and be pleasantly overserved the pre-mixed cocktail of the day, eternally fountaining the inside of those plexi prisms that hold horchata or red drink at a taco place. One bartender sent me home with a used Cormac McCarthy novel one night. Another sent me home with a meatball sandwich, offmenu, chef’s special.
Dark Horse
Then I took dates there. A beautiful masc who bought me a steak; when she cried over her departed father, the bartender just slid us two more ryes. I fell in love with my partner in the twinkle of the Cabana’s lights, while the bartender read to us from his latest short story.
Knowing what I know now, I’d bet on that Dark Horse from the start. I was sorry to see it ride off into the sunset.
Dark Horse
Midori's Floating World Cafe
MIDORI’S FLOATING WORLD CAFE
by NATHAN ROBERTS
On Wednesday nights, my wife and I would race into Midori’s Floating World thirty minutes before close. We both worked the late shift, but we knew the servers and Midori would have our table ready for us. A happy hour menu for me and a gluten-free menu on my wife’s side.
Midori’s Floating World Cafe was a dimly-lit Japanese restaurant with teal walls, coral colored umbrellas above, and bright green ferns popping up from the floor. The servers never rushed us and we made sure to be out no later than five minutes after 9pm close.
For those thirty-five minutes it was like eating in an art studio at the bottom of the ocean. Our table was three feet from the bar and we loved to watch Midori work. Midori Mori cut and rolled with the grace and determination of a painter. Her brightly colored fish, traditional sauces, and crunchy vegetables are art on a canvas of white rice.
Midori Mori grew up in Nagasaki, Japan. She and co-owner John Flomer (a NYC transplant living in Minneapolis) are both trained artists. As two self-described “tea fanatics,” their friendship blossomed over Midori’s homecooked Japanese dishes.
Midori Mori, co-owner
Midori's Floating World Cafe
Following the murder of George Floyd at the knee of Minneapolis Police, the world watched the center of the protests on the streets outside the 3rd Police Precinct—only a block away from Midori’s Floating World.
In May 2020, Midori and John watched the Minneapolis Police, National Guard, white supremacists, looters, and protesters standing off right outside their restaurant. “We kept thinking, is this finally the end? We watched, in real time, the violence, the looting, the fires, and thought ‘this isn’t going to end well.’ And it didn’t.”
Most of the buildings on their block burned down. Miraculously their’s was still standing. However, their business was gutted. “We lost our entire inventory through not only looting, but from a feeding frenzy of senseless destruction. Our equipment was destroyed or damaged, the walls and floors damaged. It was a disaster.”
Midori in the aftermath
Midori's Floating World Cafe
As they stood outside the windowless shell of their life’s work. Midori and John had a choice to make. Give up or get to work. And Midori and John refused to give up.
But they found themselves stuck in a lease with a landlord who refused to rebuild, digging through a burned pile of paperwork, with no help from the government (the same government that played a very real part in escalating the riots that destroyed their floating world).
“We also lost all our records, so we are dealing with the IRS, as well as insurance companies, who always give you less than one would need to rebuild. ”
Despite all of these obstacles, they are still committed to serving the dishes they love to the neighborhood they love. “Fortunately, we have had a tremendous amount of help from a Go Fund Me campaign and other fundraisers on our behalf.”
And their hard work, grace, and determination are paying off. In November 2020, after five months of setbacks and obstacles, Midori is going back into a new art studio, knife in hand. She will begin to serve her delicious artful food out of the Seward Cafe in South Minneapolis. It is not their floating world. But it is a start.
