Bockley Gallery
A small Kenwood gallery known nationally for its program of Indigenous artists and longtime Minnesota painters. Quiet, careful, and consistently the place where local serious art collectors are paying attention.
The Chain of Lakes neighborhoods. Bde Maka Ska, Lake of the Isles, Lake Harriet. Beach, bike paths, the Como-Harriet Streetcar, and one of the best Saturday-afternoon walks in any American city.
A small Kenwood gallery known nationally for its program of Indigenous artists and longtime Minnesota painters. Quiet, careful, and consistently the place where local serious art collectors are paying attention.
Louise Erdrich's bookstore specializes in Indigenous authors, art, and gifts, and hosts readings and conversations in its Birchbark Bizhew event space. Events here are special, often with Erdrich herself in conversation with a visiting writer. The store and its programming make it one of the most distinctive literary places in the country, not just the metro.
The neighborhood restaurant just up from Lake of the Isles, where chef-owner Joel DeBilzan cooks locally sourced seasonal plates and homemade pasta. A recent remodel added a proper bar open all business hours, which makes it an easy walk-in as well as a reservation. The kind of quietly excellent corner room every neighborhood wishes it had.
A small jewel of a bookstore owned by Louise Erdrich, with a deep selection of Indigenous literature, a confessional booth used as a kid’s reading nook, and the kind of carefully curated shelves you want to read your way through.
The packed antique store anchoring the 50th and Xerxes shopping pocket. Aisles overflow with furniture, signage, taxidermy, and the kind of strange object you did not know you needed. Go with time to dig and no fixed shopping list.
Owned by Pulitzer winner Louise Erdrich, with the deepest selection of Indigenous literature in the metro and a hand-built canoe hanging overhead. There is an old confessional booth repurposed as a forgiveness nook, and the Native arts and jewelry cases are worth the trip on their own. Small, warm, and singular.
Four interconnected lakes inside the city of Minneapolis, ringed by paved paths, public beaches, and the kind of small-town green-space access that makes other American cities jealous. Walk, run, or bike the loops. A summer afternoon on Lake Harriet is one of the great unposed Minneapolis experiences.
Seasonal rental concessions at Lake Harriet, Bde Maka Ska, and Como Park renting paddle boats, kayaks, paddleboards, and bikes by the hour. The simplest way for a visitor to get on the water in the metro. Memorial Day through early October.
The unofficial swimming beach on the north shore of Cedar Lake, accessible only by foot through a wooded path. No lifeguards, no concessions, just a clothing-optional sandy stretch beloved by the kind of locals who have been going for years. A real Twin Cities open secret.
A lifeguarded public swimming beach on the south end of Bde Maka Ska, with sand, picnic tables, paddleboard rentals, and a steady summer crowd. The most accessible city-lake swim in Minneapolis.
A swimming beach on Lake Harriet paired with the historic 1986 bandshell that runs free concerts almost every summer night. Bring a blanket, swim, eat ice cream, listen to the show. As Minneapolis-summer as it gets.
A working historic electric streetcar that runs between Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun on a stretch of restored 1920s-era track. Two dollars, a fifteen-minute ride, and a piece of the Twin Cities’ pre-automobile history that almost nobody under 60 thinks to look for.