A Minnesota Nice Guide To The Twin Cities
by Katie Heaney
If there’s one thing that Minnesotans love talking about, it’s how great Minnesota is. People from Minnesota are, in real life, what people from New York are like on television — there isn’t anywhere else that matters, unless it’s to serve as our mortal enemy (I’m looking at you, Wisconsin). We’re like the world’s friendliest braggarts. I grew up here and, in my role as a state proselytizer, I’ve so far managed to convert two Chicago-born college friends into Minnesotans, and it’s only a matter of time before I get to the rest of you.
Should you get a chance to visit the Twin Cities, here are some things you might enjoy doing. But first, a few notes about this guide. I don’t talk much about the nightlife here, because then I’d have to tell you that I can’t tell the difference between any two bars in Uptown. I won’t tell you about music venues, except to mention the legendary First Avenue (any Minnesotan who writes about Minneapolis without mentioning “the legendary First Avenue” is immediately exiled to Wisconsin), because I’m just not cool enough. What I can tell you about is the weird stuff, the super Minnesotan stuff, the stuff that makes me happiest to stick around.
The Minnesota State Fair, number one on the list, is for those of you who visit around Labor Day. The rest of the stops are in order of daytime to nighttime so you can start at one place, then keep moving forward until you’ve had yourself the best day of your life. At the end you’ll find some bonus recommendations from sometime-Twin Cities resident and Awl pal Abe Sauer.
1. Minnesota State Fair, Falcon Heights
The State Fair is halfway between the Twin Cities, so it gets to be on here even though it technically takes place in a suburb. Our State Fair is the country’s largest in terms of average daily attendance, and, one would imagine, in number of fried cheese curds and chocolate chip cookies consumed. I have been to the Fair at least a dozen times and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about what to do there other than eat cheese curds and cookies and pet goats. Those are really the main highlights, and I can’t see why you’d need more. If you do, there are many, many more things you can eat, some of which are even good.
2. The Science Museum of Minnesota, Saint Paul
Every perfect imaginary date I’ve ever had has taken place in the Science Museum. What could be more perfect than learning about the Coriolis effect with a cute person and then making out after? The Science Museum has everything I like. I like exhibits oriented more towards children than they are toward 25-year-old adults. I like dinosaur bones, and cell labs where you can wear a very tiny lab coat and examine your swabbed cheek cells under a microscope. The museum is generally great, but the traveling exhibits make it worth visiting a few times a year. One time they had a “CSI” exhibit in which I got to take notes on a staged murder scene, gather clues, and test “DNA” in the lab. Honestly, I think that’s probably the happiest I’ve ever been.
3. James J. Hill House, Saint Paul
I loved this old mansion the first time I visited, and I imagine I’d love it even more going today, when I’d undoubtedly pretend that it was Downton Abbey. Everyone likes a big, historic, insanely ostentatious mansion, right? James J. Hill is famous for building the Great Northern Railway, but his house is famous for hosting a kindergarten field trip in which my female classmates and I were made to reenact a ball by strolling down the grand main stairwell, one by one, in front of a bunch of clapping 5-year-old boys wearing foam collars. I haven’t had a roomful of boys applaud my entrance even once since then.
4. 35W Bridge, Minneapolis
Everyone here knows somebody who was on, or was almost on, the 35W bridge when it collapsed into the Mississippi. As for me, I crossed over it on my way to a Twins game three days earlier. I knew I had a reason to distrust bridges, and the collapse was extremely unsettling proof. Our new bridge, while perhaps not the grandest architecture I’ve ever seen, has its perks. One is that it can be lit up in rainbows for Gay Pride weekend. Another is that when you’re driving on it and looking at Minneapolis over the river, it will be the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.
5. Mall of America, Bloomington & Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis
It’s a more obvious choice, but I still think you should go to the Mall of America if you want to understand some serious Minnesota weirdness. Where else will you buy your souvenir loon call whistle? It’s also a really great place to take advantage of Minnesota’s no-clothing-tax policy (!!!).
The outdoor Nicollet Mall is where you shop and eat if you’re fancy. This is a lovely part of downtown Minneapolis, and one that makes me feel like I live in a bigger city than I really do. On Thursdays there is a great farmer’s market here, and when I worked downtown last summer I’d go over on my lunch break to just wander around and look at the beautiful food and flowers and people. Seriously, everyone walking around Nicollet Mall on weekdays is a hot young finance worker in a suit.
6. Bars & Eating: Northeast Minneapolis
Northeast Minneapolis is just cool. It’s too cool for me, actually. I’ve been there a handful of times and embarrassed myself in various ways every one of them. I see this as an aspirational part of the city: someday I’ll belong there. When you’re here, you should get dinner and drinks at one of these restaurants, like Brasa or The Bulldog, and then tell me about it so I can live vicariously through you.
7. The Guthrie
Real talk: I haven’t been here in an embarrassingly long time, not since before it was remade in bright blue. You should be better than me, and artier, and go there. The theater is highly regarded and strange-looking, which is a good combination. There’s a wonderful lookout of the city inside it, too.
8. Real Ghost Tours, Minneapolis
This is easily the best Groupon I’ve ever purchased. For $12 I got to spend two-and-a-half hours on a Friday night wandering around St. Anthony Main with an EMF detector around my neck. At first it wasn’t scary, and then, when we went into a pitch-black room where one of the guides said he could “see” a woman hanging from the rafters, it was terrifying. At the end of the tour one of the guides “read” me, predicting: “In your near future you’ll be in some sort of majestic castle, researching ghosts and demons and elementals. And you’re gonna see some freaky shit.” I married him right then and there.
9. Sex World, Minneapolis
What if my two favorite places were the Science Museum and Sex World?? Gloriously neon and located on the edge of downtown, Sex World has three floors (three floors) full of sex toys, porn, plastic stilettos, and penis straws. Something for everyone! Now, I don’t love Sex World, but it’s important that you go there, if you’re ever here. I’ve been there just twice: both times it was for a friend’s 18th birthday. It is an important and disgusting rite of passage. Both times, we went in just after midnight. Both times, we didn’t touch a single thing. We pretended like we weren’t scandalized, but how does one remain un-scandalized in the face (?) of a ten-foot gilded mechanical penis?
10. The Lookout, Minneapolis
In Ridgway Parkway Park, off the Industrial Blvd/St Anthony Blvd exit on 35W, there’s a little spot where you can look out over the valley and see the Minneapolis skyline, which is small but beautiful. It’s best to go there at night, because it’s equal parts spooky (there’s a cemetery nearby) and sparkly. Be warned that this place might be love cursed. The site’s only Yelp review notes that this is where the author and his now-ex first said they loved each other. It was there, too, that I received a shitty, crush-ending text message back from a boy I had made an ill-advised mixed CD for. It is probably best to go there as a happily single person, all on your own, having not done anything embarrassing too recently.
Abe Sauer’s Favorites
• “I love Minnehaha Falls Park and, when the weather’s nice, grabbing some food at Sea Salt and then hiking down the Falls Trail. The dual-pedal bikes would make a great second date … not that I know about that, having been married so long.”
• “El Nuevo Rodeo on Lake Street has great Mexican food. Good happy hour too.”
• “Riverview Theater in Longfellow shows movies that have been out for a month or so for $2 — can’t be beat. Riverview and the Mann Highland Theatre (in St. Paul) are both WONDERFUL old theaters with spring seats and grandeur.”
Everything Else Here…
… is also perfect. There are, however, a few things that I would skip, if I were coming here as a visitor. I wouldn’t go to the Walker Art Museum (oh God, I can feel the glares) because I went there when it opened and one time watching a silent video installation of people walking by in slow-motion is more than enough times for me. I wouldn’t go to the popular bar Uptown Tavern & Rooftop (formerly Drink), even though that’s where Kim Kardashian deigned to go when she was here, because Uptown bars are equivalent in their snooty terribleness. If I came here in the summer, I wouldn’t go to the Taste of Minnesota, which is gross and hot. I’m also told (by those Chicago converts) that our stoplight and one-way-street situation is out of control. But if you should end up getting pulled over for any reason, I can virtually guarantee that your police officer will be the nicest you’ve ever met. Unless you have Wisconsin plates.
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Katie Heaney adores the Twin Cities and would like it if you wouldn’t say “Minnesooooota” at her when she tells you that. Nobody says it like that. Photo credits: City photo by PIctureGuy, via Shutterstock; Minnesota State Fair by John Ore; Science Museum by July Flower, via Shutterstock; James J. Hill House by Chris Yunker, via Flickr; 35W bridge by fotokik_dot_com, via Shutterstock; Nicollet Mall MeetMinneapolis, via Flickr; Guthrie Theater by Chris Yunker, via Flickr; One Way by iofoto, via Shutterstock.