Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Exonerated! Local Journalists Do Not Own Bad Parody Site.
Minneapolis Park Board Commissioner Becka Thompson is hoping to win a Ward 12 City Council seat. But judging by her antics over the past few months, the campaign trail is stressing her out, whether she’s getting upset over people outside of her district visiting her campaign site, giving the most bad-faith interpretation possible to “All Are Welcome Here” signs, or wondering if her whiteness will hurt her chances of winning against incumbent Aurin Chowdhury.
When a parody site called VoteforBecka.com popped up, she connected the dots in the wrongest order possible and concluded that John Edwards of Wedge LIVE! and independent journalist Taylor Dahlin were somehow involved. She reported them to the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board, alleging that they were "an unregistered campaign committee" that improperly "failed to file financial reports."
Yesterday both Edwards and Dahlin, who were represented pro bono by (occasional Racket writer) Dan Suitor, announced that the MCFB has concluded that “there is not probable cause to believe that a violation occurred.” A report from the domain registrar also determined that neither were owners of the (rather disorienting) Vote for Becka website.
“In the end, I was forced to purchase $27 Amazon-brand black dress pants for my appearance in campaign finance court,” writes Edwards from his (actual) website. “I wish I’d had Dan ask the court to award me the cost of those pants.”
Food News: Awards, Closings, and Misc. Flooding
There's a lot going on in the food world today, and there's no real common thread so we’re going to jump around a bit.
Let’s start with the good: Last night Minnesota won big at the James Beard Awards—aka the Oscars of the food world. Bûcheron, a French/American spot in south Minneapolis, took top honors in the Best New Restaurant category, while Karyn Tomlinson won Best Chef: Midwest for St. Paul’s Myriel.
“It was insane,” Bûcheron chef Adam Ritter tells the Strib. “I looked over at Cory [Western], our chef de cuisine, and he’s crying. And that guy doesn’t cry.”
Relish, TPT’s cultural comfort food cooking show hosted by chef Yia Vang, took the Lifestyle Visual Media Award.
In closure news: Former James Beard Best Chef: Midwest winner Ann Kim announced via press release (and employee email) Monday that her northeast Minneapolis pizzeria, Young Joni, will be closing on September 14. According to Kim's landlord, talks stalled during lease negotiations in 2024, and now YJ is facing a lawsuit alleging it's on the hook for $143,169 in unpaid rent.
In grocery news: Cub Foods in Uptown is currently closed until further notice for “needed repairs and other proactive measures.” According to this account of a recent visit from Axios reporter Audrey Kennedy, the busy Minneapolis grocery store has, uh, been going through some stuff recently.
And in wet restaurant news: Wrecktangle’s Lyn-Lake outpost is currently closed until further notice because its “kitchen is raining.” Hopefully Wrecktangle can recover as quickly as Utepils Brewing did; after closing yesterday due to a very flooded taproom, the north Minneapolis brewery announced this afternoon that it is open again.
Sen. Mike Lee Deletes Boelter Comments
Ya love to see it: After a tense confrontation with U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has been deleting the (factually incorrect) tweets he made over the weekend about alleged Hortman/Hoffman gunman Vance Boelter. “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,” he wrote, referring to unfounded rumors that Boelter is a liberal. “Nightmare on Waltz Street” he joked in another tweet, misspelling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s name.
Smith is not the only local politician who has directly criticized Lee’s tweets. “This isn’t helping… This was not a legitimate angle,” Minnesota Rep. Walter Hudson (R-Albertville) wrote in response to Lee’s Walz comment. Coming from Hudson, who spends much of his time attempting to own libs online, that's really saying something.
Minneapolis’s All Square Gains Attention Across the Pond
Civil rights attorney Emily Hunt Turner founded All Square in 2018 with the hopes of giving formerly incarcerated folks something they need: a job. The south Minneapolis diner boasts a grilled cheese-themed menu, pays up to $23 an hour plus tips, and offers free workshops, therapy, and career counseling to help employees make a better life.
“I needed to reshape my friend group after I got out,” Taqee Abdul-Hakim tells U.K. news source The Guardian. “At All Square, it was nice to have those types of friends who are in the same position as me, who have been through it but trying to better our lives at the same time.”
Of course, The Guardian is just catching up—you can read Racket co-owner Em Cassel's 2019 cover story about All Square for City Pages here.
