Lake Street, Powderhorn Park, the Mississippi gorge, the Juicy Lucy origin bars on Cedar. The neighborhoods that cover the largest and most diverse stretch of the city.
A contemporary gallery founded by Ryan Fontaine and Kristin Van Loon, now in its tenth season in Minneapolis with a second space in New York. Programming spans painting, sculpture, sound, and dance. Open Thursday through Sunday afternoons.
A nonprofit gallery in the Ivy Arts Building hosting rotating member and juried exhibitions. Open during shows on Mondays and Thursdays in the early evening and Saturday afternoons.
A community photography center in the Ivy Arts Building offering darkroom access, education, and rotating photographic exhibitions. Public hours on Saturday and Sunday with weekday appointments.
A converted 1907 firehouse running an eclectic music and theater program with a strong local-artist focus. Two-room setup with a big outdoor lot for warm-weather shows. The kind of room where you discover three new bands in a night.
A theater inside a community center, deeply connected to its South Minneapolis neighborhood and committed to community-driven storytelling. The work is often urgent, frequently new, and consistently among the most necessary in town.
A 50-seat non-profit repertory cinema in the Longfellow neighborhood. The programming runs from silent film with live accompaniment to obscure 80s genre to careful retrospectives nobody else would touch. Membership-supported, beloved, and the most film-literate audience in the metro.
A single-screen 1948 theater in South Minneapolis showing second-run movies for under five dollars. The lobby is a perfectly preserved mid-century time capsule, the popcorn is the right kind of buttery, and the balcony seats are first-come-first-served.
A South Minneapolis single-screen theater connected to Pepito’s Mexican Restaurant. The programming mixes repertory cinema, live comedy, and concerts. The room itself is small enough to feel like a private screening with friends.
A beloved Minnehaha Avenue bookstore that runs author readings, poetry nights, and its recurring 5x5 reading series featuring five writers in one evening. The vibe is welcoming and a little scrappy in the best way, with a cafe and bar attached for sticking around after. Strong on local voices and independent presses.
Sean Sherman’s Indigenous barbecue counter inside NATIFS Wóyute Thipi, the old Seward Co-op Creamery on Franklin. The name means smoke or clouds in Dakota, the same word that lives inside Minnesota. The kitchen follows the Owamni rules with no wheat flour, dairy, or cane sugar, and turns out smoked meats and fish alongside maple-baked beans, dirty wild rice, braised greens, and a three sisters bison stew. The decolonized menu, now in barbecue form.
A Black, woman-owned cafe near the river that pours fair-trade coffee through the morning and turns into a wine bar in the afternoon. The fact that it does both well is the appeal. Neighborly, unhurried, the kind of place you end up staying longer than you planned.
A nonprofit cafe in the old Peace Coffee space that hires and trains youth experiencing homelessness through a six-month program. The Longfellow Latte is the signature, and the coffee holds up entirely on its own merits. The mission is real and the room is genuinely good.
A South Minneapolis bakery that has been doing it the same way since the 1980s. Crullers, doughnuts, real cinnamon rolls, and the kind of glass case display you wish more bakeries committed to. Cash only and very much the point.
A South Minneapolis institution near Minnehaha Parkway, baking since 1961 and routinely called the metro’s most-awarded doughnut shop. The glazed doughnuts melt; the donut holes are free, one per customer; and the Saturday cinnamon rolls and fritters are the reason people set an alarm. Smiles come standard.
The Twin Cities' most established dedicated GF bakery, open since 2013 and distributed across fifty-plus metro locations. The donuts are the introduction — Eater TC called it the city's go-to for GF doughnuts — but the cinnamon rolls, focaccia, pizza crusts, and Scotcheroo bars are all real. Dairy-free options throughout. The products show up at Dogwood Coffee shops and independent markets across the metro if you are not near South Minneapolis.
Run by a family with celiac disease, small-batch and celiac-safe. What makes Atuvava stand out is the bread: a proper baguette and sandwich loaves with structure, crust, and flavor that are genuinely different from what the GF category usually produces. Cinnamon rolls, scones, cookies, and turnovers fill out the case. Fair-trade ingredients, limited hours, and a line out the door before opening on weekends. Get there early.
Matt’s opened on Cedar Avenue in 1954 and claims to have invented the Jucy Lucy (their spelling, no "i"). The burger comes out molten in the middle and you will burn your mouth on the first bite. That is the experience. Cash only, no reservations, expect a wait.
A South Minneapolis gastropub with one of the deepest craft-beer lists in the metro and a burger that locals defend with serious energy. The yardstick onion rings are famous in their own right. The neighborhood rallied to fund the rebuild after a 2013 fire, which tells you what kind of place it is.
A converted vintage Fodero diner car serving brunch food that looks like a 1950s magazine ad and tastes nothing like one. The Tots Bravas and the dutch-baby pancake are the dishes most worth the trip.
A Lake Street counter-service Ethiopian spot that makes the cuisine quick-and-casual without losing what matters. The tibs are excellent and the lunch combos are one of the better deals on the corridor.
A proper sit-down Ethiopian room on East Lake Street with a real bar, which sets it apart from the counter spots up and down the corridor. Order the doro wat and a glass of tej, the honey wine, and settle in. The combination platters are built for sharing.
A Hiawatha Avenue room serving the standards with care, including a traditional coffee ceremony if you ask. The vegetarian combination is one of the better introductions in the metro, and the kitfo holds its own against the older Snelling Avenue spots.
A South Minneapolis arrival in the old Q Fanatic space on Nicollet, and one of the more serious Hyderabadi kitchens the city has had. The slow-cooked biryani is the headline, the tandoori specialties hold up, and the house chutneys are made fresh daily. Racket called it an elite addition to the south side.
The spiritual successor to Du Nord’s original room, now in the historic Coliseum Building on East Lake. New Orleans flair, cocktails built on the spirits they distill a few blocks away, and the rare distillery bar that feels like a real neighborhood hangout rather than a tasting-room afterthought.
The neon sign alone earns it a spot. Reopened after a long hiatus, the booths still creak, the cocktails are stronger than the food prices suggest, and the late-night kitchen hits exactly when you need it to.
The Jucy Lucy was born here in 1954, spelled without the i and griddled until the molten cheese inside will absolutely burn your mouth if you do not wait. Cash-friendly, low-ceilinged, zero frills. Order the Lucy, get a beer, let it cool, do not bother with the imitators.
Open since 1932 and arguably the oldest pub house in Minneapolis. Pool tables, daily specials, and live music five nights a week with never a cover. A genuine Longfellow neighborhood relic that has outlasted nearly everything around it by simply refusing to change.
A Longfellow bookstore with a small attached indie press, a thoughtful staff, and the best literary events programming in the metro. The kind of bookstore that makes the neighborhood around it stronger. A favorite.
On East Lake Street since 1921. Half Scandinavian gift shop, half butcher and deli making pickled herring, lutefisk, lefse, and Norwegian meatballs. The kind of institution that has shaped a neighborhood. Stop in even if you only buy a single piece of marzipan.
A small Minneapolis institution producing left-leaning, often hand-drawn buttons, bumper stickers, and t-shirts since 1979. The catalog reads like a sociological survey of the last forty years of American activism. The shop is quietly one of the most Minneapolis places in Minneapolis.
A Minnehaha Avenue anchor with the attached Geek Love Cafe and the best literary events programming in the metro. Run with a clear point of view, deep on small-press and fiction, and the kind of store that makes its whole block feel sturdier. A local favorite.
Since 1977, the metro’s home for new and used science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the comics and graphic novels alongside them. Neil Gaiman has signed here more than once, and the back stock rewards a slow dig. The kind of specialist shop that outlasts trends because it never chased them.
The country’s oldest science fiction bookstore, paired with its mystery sibling, both rebuilt after the original Chicago Avenue building burned in 2020. Owner Don Blyly reopened in the former Glass Endeavors space near Moon Palace and kept the towering, maze-like used stock intact. A genre institution that refused to disappear.
A 5.5-mile former railroad cut converted to a dedicated bike-and-pedestrian path running across South Minneapolis from the Mississippi to the Chain of Lakes. Lit at night, plowed in winter, fully separated from car traffic. The closest the metro gets to a real urban bike highway.
A 53-foot urban waterfall in a 193-acre regional park along the Mississippi gorge. Free, walkable, with the Sea Salt Eatery pavilion for lobster rolls in summer. The waterfall freezes in spectacular ice formations in February if you want to see something genuinely strange.
A community-supported insight-meditation center in Seward, sliding-scale and donation-based, with regular sits, retreats, and Buddhist study. Unflashy in the best way. The closest thing the metro has to a real practicing community for people who want to sit without joining anything.
Powderhorn Park has a maintained ice rink in winter, but the real experience is bringing your own skates to the cleared lake itself, with the city skyline framed at the end of every glide. Free, public, perfect.
The Guinness record holder for the quietest place on the planet, absorbing 99.99 percent of sound. Visitors in the chamber report hearing their own blood moving and joints clicking. The longest anyone has lasted alone in the dark inside it is around 45 minutes.
Twenty-seven acres of headstones holding around 27,000 burials, including freed slaves, Civil War veterans, and the Layman family who founded it by accident when they buried a son on their farm. Closed to new burials since 1919.
A South Minneapolis dive operating since 1932 with Diamond tables and a room that has not been renovated once, which is a compliment. Two pool tables, a dance floor, live music, pull tabs, and very affordable drinks. The go-to for pool in South Minneapolis among people who know.
A 38th Street neighborhood bar with a dedicated game room and four Diamond bar-box tables, plus darts and bingo. Full bar, sports on the screens, open for breakfast through late. The pool tables are the reason to come specifically, but the room is worth staying in.