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.
A printmaking studio and gallery that is both a working production space and a public-facing exhibition program. Free shows, the press equipment is visible through the gallery, and the prints are a great gift if you want something local that is not a t-shirt.
A small Lyn-Lake gallery that has been showing emerging Minnesota artists for over twenty years. Always free, always changing, the kind of place where you accidentally find a piece you want on your wall.
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.
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.
Isaac Becker’s steakhouse in a converted Lyn-Lake mortuary, with a downstairs pizza-and-pasta room called Pizza Bar. Two restaurants in one building, both genuinely worth the visit. The downstairs is more casual; the upstairs is the steakhouse.
A small Lyn-Lake bakery doing serious breads, breakfast biscuits, and one of the best chocolate chip cookies in the metro. The breakfast sandwiches on house-baked English muffins are the order most regulars never deviate from.
Ann Ahmed’s modern Lao restaurant runs a lunch banh mi that is unlike any other in the city. Lemongrass pork, pickled vegetables, and bread the kitchen actually pays attention to. Worth dropping in even on a weekday lunch hour.
Sameh Wadi’s casual Lyn-Lake spot pulling from Mediterranean, Korean, and Mexican street-food traditions. The Yum Yum Bowls get the headlines but the lamb shawarma sandwich and the Korean BBQ pork are the sleeper picks. Quick service, big flavors.
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.
Ann Ahmed’s modern Lao restaurant runs a brunch service that looks nothing like anyone else’s. Khao soi, sticky rice, grilled mango, and a room you remember after you leave.
The first sake brewery outside Japan when it opened, and still a Lyn-Lake landmark. Ramen, steamed buns, and a sake list pulled straight from their own tanks. The upstairs deck is a summer favorite.
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.
Sameh Wadi’s ice cream concept, leaning hard into bold base flavors and unusual mix-ins. Black is the signature, a charcoal-colored coconut number that has outlasted the trend.
A genuine speakeasy hidden behind an unmarked alley door in Lyn-Lake. Reservations through their cryptic email, classic cocktails done by people who care, and a room that takes itself just seriously enough to be fun. Worth the discovery process.
A downtown Minneapolis hotel bar with a serious cocktail program and a bar menu that takes itself as seriously as the drinks. The kind of place that is the move when you want to feel like the city is bigger than it is. Reservations recommended on weekends.
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.
Paul Westerberg drank here. The Replacements wrote about it. The vinyl jukebox is real and the cheeseburgers are better than they should be. Come early on weekends or come on a Tuesday.
A bar that has resisted every wave of gentrification by stubbornly being itself. Cheap pitchers, a kitchen that takes the basket food seriously, and the kind of regulars who treat their barstool like an assigned seat.
A small Western shrine sitting just off downtown. Live country and rockabilly most nights, line dancing on the right night, and a bar staff with no interest in your drink theory.
A rooftop patio above one of the city’s most beloved bowling-alley-and-actual-theaters. Strong cocktails, a brunch menu that holds up on the deck, a Lyn-Lake view that hits different at golden hour.
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.
A Lyn-Lake institution that has been one of South Minneapolis’s anchor boutiques for over a decade. Eclectic mix of contemporary brands, a strong jewelry case, and a buyer who is not afraid of a clear point of view.
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.
The bowling alley side of Bryant-Lake Bowl, after the kitchen is technically closed but the bartender is still pouring. Sticky floor, working PBR taps, and the actual best small bowling experience in the metro. Bring quarters for the jukebox.
A tiny doughnut counter that punches well above its size. Brioche dough, careful glazes, and small-batch flavors that rotate weekly. The maple long johns are one of the best dollar-fifty things in the city.