Groveland Gallery
Founded in 1973 in a restored 1890s mansion just south of the Walker, Groveland focuses on contemporary representational painting, drawing, and prints by Midwestern artists. New exhibitions every six weeks.
Hennepin Avenue theaters, the Foshay, the IDS Center, the Walker just to the west. A downtown still finding its shape, with some of the best music venues and hotels in the metro.
Founded in 1973 in a restored 1890s mansion just south of the Walker, Groveland focuses on contemporary representational painting, drawing, and prints by Midwestern artists. New exhibitions every six weeks.
The room. Prince filmed Purple Rain here. The black stars on the outside wall track every act that has played the venue. The Mainroom is one of the best mid-sized rock clubs in the country, and the 7th St Entry next door is the small room where bands try out the city before they grow into the big stage. If you only see one show in Minneapolis, see it here.
A massive Art Deco former National Guard armory turned into one of the largest concert venues downtown. The arched roof gives it real visual drama, and the standing-room layout works equally well for hip-hop, EDM, and stadium-rock acts looking for a tighter room than Target Center.
A serious jazz club downtown, with a supper-club seating arrangement and a bookings calendar that brings in genuine national touring jazz acts week after week. The room is dim, the steaks are real, and the music is the focus.
A multi-floor downtown space carved out of an old movie palace, mostly hosting electronic and hip-hop touring acts. Multiple stages, a studio room, and a programming calendar built around the late-night dance crowd.
Founded by Dudley Riggs in 1958, Brave New Workshop is the longest-running satirical comedy theater in the United States. Now operated by Hennepin Theatre Trust as the Dudley Riggs Theatre. The mainstage shows still routinely sell out.
This is Minnesota's longest-running free civic forum, and it is the gold standard for big-name public talks in the Twin Cities. Past and present speakers run from epidemiologist Michael Osterholm to James Comey and Nina Totenberg, all wrestling with ethics, democracy, and the issues of the day. Talks happen midday or early evening in the sanctuary, with a free reception after, and you do not need a ticket to walk in.
A free author lecture series in Pohlad Hall at Minneapolis Central Library, built around urgent voices and the kind of conversation that sticks with you. The crowd is curious and engaged, the talks are accessible to everyone, and you cannot beat the price. A great way to hear a serious author without spending a dime.
The Gay 90’s has been operating in some form on Hennepin Avenue since the 1940s and is one of the largest LGBTQ entertainment complexes in the country. Multiple bars, dance floors, drag shows, karaoke, and the kind of multi-generational crowd that has been showing up for decades. An institution.
A downtown Minneapolis gay bar that has been a fixture on Hennepin for decades. Dance floor, strong drink program, late-night energy. The most reliable Saturday-night move in the downtown gay scene.
A small Loring Park gay bar that has been a quiet community anchor since 1952, making it the oldest continuously-operating gay bar in Minneapolis. Conversation-friendly, low-key, no dance floor. The right move when the dance clubs are not.
Not a venue but worth listing here. Late June every year, Twin Cities Pride takes over Loring Park for the festival and downtown for the Sunday parade. One of the largest Pride celebrations in the country and one of the most genuinely civic events the city does.
The Parasole steakhouse that opened in 1988 and has been the metro’s definitive special-occasion meat palace ever since, now inside the Foshay at 9th and Marquette. The cuts come to the table on a rolling meat cart, the portions are gleefully excessive, and the bone-in ribeye is the order. Regularly named one of the best steakhouses in the country.
A downtown Minneapolis lunch staple on Portland Ave, open weekday late mornings into early afternoon. Gyros done right and fast. Easy weekday fix when you need something quick and filling.
Bold, made-to-order Thai cooking you can chase down on Nicollet Mall at lunch or outside Target Field on game day. The pad Thai and crispy Thai egg rolls are the reasons people line up. Menu rotates with fresh, fragrant dishes all week.
Downtown’s most reliable lunch counter does sandwiches as well as it does brunch. The grilled cheese with tomato soup is the cold-weather order. The turkey club is the year-round one. Solid, generous, no fuss.
In the Minneapolis skyway, quietly serving slices to half the downtown workforce for decades. The pepperoni curls into little grease cups exactly like it should. A ritual for the people who eat there every week.
Downtown’s most reliable brunch since forever. The hash list is unreasonably long, the biscuits are fluffy and serious, and the staff treats hangovers like a medical condition they have been trained for.
A skyway counter quietly run by a former Origami chef. Osaka-style pressed sushi, rice bowls, and udon, mostly built for the lunch rush. Worth knowing about if you work downtown.
Chef Ann Ahmed’s Lao restaurant in Loring Park, the one that made the New York Times best-restaurants list and refuses to dial down the heat for a Minnesota palate. The larb, the sticky rice, the jeow: cooked the way they should be. Walk-in only, lunch and dinner, seven days.
The bar inside the Dakota, the city’s serious jazz club. Order a drink, listen to whatever set is happening, and take advantage of one of the more sophisticated bar rooms downtown. Cover may apply for the music; the bar itself is open all night.
The 510 Groveland building near Loring Park has been a serious drinking address since the La Belle Vie days, and P.S. Steak keeps the tradition. There are two bars: a brighter casual lounge and the formal Victorian bar in the steakhouse proper. Take the lounge for a martini and a wedge without committing to the full dinner.
The bar at Manny's is the play. Half-off steakhouse classics, the legendary prime rib sandwich, and the kind of dim clubby room that is exactly what Tuesday at 5pm should feel like.
Half-priced fish and chips, draft specials, and the rooftop lawn-bowling green that is the closest the metro gets to a London pub on a Friday. Get there early or fight for a table.
The bar at 801 runs a weekday happy hour that gets you oysters on the half shell at prices that do not require a tie. Drink prices vary, so ask the bartender what is on. A civilized way to spend an hour on Nicollet Mall before anything else.
The biggest Jameson account in the country, and the bar feels like it: dark wood, a proper Irish pour, a crowd that has been coming for years. Monday through Friday from two to six there are appetizer and drink specials. A Nicollet Mall institution worth knowing.
In the 1929 Foshay Tower, the city’s first skyscraper and a registered National Historic Landmark. The W layered its design language onto the original Art Deco bones. The 27th-floor Prohibition bar has city views that justify the elevator wait alone.
In the 1930 Ivy Tower, originally a Christian Science temple. The building’s pyramid roof is a downtown skyline fixture. Inside, the design is calm and contemporary, the spa is one of the city’s best, and the location anchors you between the convention center and Loring Park.
A Marriott Tribute Portfolio hotel inside the 1929 Rand Tower, with the original Art Deco lobby restored to gleaming. The rooftop pool overlooks downtown. The location is steps from First Avenue and walkable to most of the music venues, theaters, and restaurants on this site.
A small art-forward hotel one block off Hennepin, with a contemporary art collection rotating throughout the public spaces. The rooms are minimal in the European register, the location puts you in the middle of the theater district, and the bar consistently ranks among the better hotel bars downtown.
A Hilton Curio Collection property inside the IDS Center, the Philip Johnson tower that defines the downtown skyline. Skyway access to most of downtown, a quiet contemporary design, and one of the more reliable downtown business-traveler rooms.
A contemporary Loews property tucked into a quieter corner of downtown, with rooms that consistently feel newer and more designed than the rate suggests. The lobby Cosmos restaurant is unexpectedly serious. The pool is a draw.
A 214-room Westin inside the former Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank, a 1942 modernist landmark. The original limestone, terrazzo, and bank-vault details are still throughout the public spaces. The location splits the difference between the convention center and Nicollet Mall.
One of the newer downtown design hotels, in the former Powers Department Store building. The rooftop bar is one of the better summer drinks-with-a-view spots downtown, and the rooms feel like they were built for a city that finally caught up to its own design ambitions.
The 1883 Great Northern stone bridge across the Mississippi at Saint Anthony Falls is the central pedestrian artery of the riverfront. Walk it from the West River Parkway across to Saint Anthony Main and you have done one of the city’s essential public-space loops.
The full-service spa inside the Hotel Ivy. Massages, facials, body treatments, and a relaxation lounge. Open to non-guests and one of the more thoroughly luxurious hotel-spa experiences in the metro.
A bright, joyful little room on Nicollet serving Somali comfort food for the modern eater. The sambusas are the move, from the classic beef and veggie to versions stuffed with buffalo chicken or Philly cheesesteak, alongside a case of sweets. Open late on weekends, the kind of place that does not show up on the tourist list but should.
A scaled-down Washington Monument with an open-air walkway on the 30th floor and a small museum about Wilbur Foshay, the financier who lost the building in the 1929 crash a month after opening it. The bottom-up view of the IDS through the gap is unique to this perch.
A bronze cast of Mary Richards flinging her tam in the air, standing on the corner where the opening credits were filmed in 1970. Touching the hat for luck is local protocol.