Dinkytown has been dead or dying since 1970. That’s when the creeping grasp of corporate restaurant culture first threatened, spurring an activist occupation that lasted over a month.
Or maybe the University of Minnesota-adjacent Minneapolis neighborhood has been dead since 1989. That’s when the Star Tribune published a front page Metro story—"Is flavorful Dinkytown becoming just another bland marketplace?"—that featured sources bemoaning the encroaching "plastic" and “corporate" culture.
Actually, time of death may have been around 2015. That’s when ex-Sen. Walter Mondale authored an Op-Ed warning that the “pell-mell” building boom of luxury student housing might destroy Dinkytown’s “remarkable history and culture.”
It’s not surprising that Dinkytown is prone to overanalysis. Perhaps more than any other place in Minnesota, the four-square-block grid maintains a deep emotional hold on those who’ve lived in or around it. You can come from Kenosha, Wisconsin, or Rapid City, South Dakota, or Nimrod, Minnesota—wherever. For a few special years, it’s your cultural hub and then you move on. That’s enough to turn anyone into a hopeless nostalgic or romantic, and given the seismic change Dinkytown has undergone since the ’10s, the current corporatized state can inspire pangs of longing for what once was.
Chris Lautenschlager is immune to such pangs.
"There's no good or bad version of Dinkytown—there's your version of Dinkytown. My version of Dinkytown is the mid '90s, and it was the best time ever,” says the executive director of the East Bank Neighborhoods Partnership, adding that his group is chiefly concerned with safety and affordability for students. “The people who look back to the '60s or '70s, they want to keep something alive that doesn't exist anymore. There's no going back to a music store and four clothing stores—you just go online for that stuff now. Bob Dylan has moved on, and I don't want to be in the Kitty Cat Klub in 2005 anymore. My kids would hate me."
Then you’ve got folks like Kristen Eide-Tollefson.
“Dinkytown didn’t change dramatically until this invasion of student housing from around 2012 on. We’ve been fighting the developers ever since,” says the owner of the Book House and co-founder of Preserve Historic Dinkytown, who has moved her shop within the famously dinky neighborhood three times since opening almost 50 years ago. “I don't believe that rent is getting cheaper, and we're very sensitive to students being exploited. We hate it. I've been an activist for nearly 30 years, and one of my tendencies is not wanting things to change. Rebuilding the sense of community that Dinkytown has always had is essential for its future.”
And in between you’ve got other business owners new and old, politicians, longtime area observers, instructors, and, crucially, students, all of whom we spoke to for this exploration of the past, present, and future of Dinkytown. Mama D’s, the Dinkytowner, and, yes, even the architecturally significant Drunk Donald’s might all be dead, but the remarkable little neighborhood they all called home is still alive—whether it holds up to your memories or not.
Dinky History
Nobody is quite sure how Dinkytown got its goofy-sounding name, which dates back to the 1940s. In his 2016 book, Dinkytown: Four Blocks of History, retired journalism professor Bill Huntzicker details at least 10 theories, with explanations that pull from railroading lingo, the Russian term for “diminutive town,” and ’40s Gopher footballer Frank "Dinky" Rog.
The neighborhood's population boom coincided with G.I. Bill-juiced enrollment at the U of M in the ’50s, according to Preserve Historic Dinkytown. The area became a counterculture hub for folkies, beatniks, and, by September of 1959, a freshman from Hibbing, Minnesota, with whom you might be familiar. Bob Dylan, who was a teenage sponge for music and literature, famously lived above Gray’s Campus Drugstore at Fourth Street & 14th Avenue. He frequented coffeehouse/venue the Ten O'Clock Scholar, where he’d mimic the sounds of folk records he’d swiped from friends, as recounted in Martin Scorsese's 2005 doc No Direction Home. According to Howard Sounes’s 2001 bio Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan:
“Bob was enchanted by the bohemian atmosphere of the neighborhood, and especially by its denizens. He thought of these people—most of whom were slightly older than he was—as being truly extraordinary, likening them to saints. To Bob, Dinkytown seemed a magical place; as he once said, every day there was like Sunday.”
Come January of 1961, the Gopher dropout hauled ass for New York City and never looked back, save for a 2008 Northrop show that coincided with the election of President Barack Obama.
"Dinkytown was a regular small-town Main Street. It had a drug store, bakery, coupla grocery stores, a few bars—the kinda thing you'd see in Clontarf, Minnesota,” remembers former Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association President Vic Thorstenson, who has lived in or around Dinkytown since 1975. “The only thing it had differently was coffee shops and magazine stands that sold dirty books, the kind of things that would capture the interest of young college students."
In 1970 that quaintness was threatened by the arrival of Red Barn, a regional burger chain that became famous for its riff on the Big Mac, the Barn Buster. Outraged student activists occupied Dinkytown buildings for 40 days, as documented in Al Milgrom’s 2015 film The Dinkytown Uprising. The kids eventually won: Red Barn Dinkytown was thwarted, though McDonald’s and Burger King had already established locations nearby. (Thorstenson chuckles today at the whole ordeal, calling the Barn Buster “the best frickin’ burger” he’d ever had.)
“This was corporate America to these younger activists coming to take over their neighborhood," Milgrom told MPR News. "And it was the same analogy with corporate America in their view, going to Vietnam and taking over this little country."
When Chris Lautenschlager matriculated to the University of Minnesota in 1993, off-campus life was defined by two coffee shops: The Purple Onion, where students chain smoked and chugged lattes, and the more laidback Espresso Royale. For a small-town Wisconsinite seeking big-city culture, he considered the smoke-choked Purple Onion was a revelation. “You look back on it like... did we really live like this? We really did,” he says with a laugh. In the ’90s, Dinkytown was still a “self-sustaining” constellation of mom ‘n’ pop shops, though entertainment options were reportedly lacking.
“It wasn't like there was a nightlife in Dinkytown. You'd hang out there by day, but at night it wasn't a destination for the cool kids who liked to smoke at the Purple Onion. They went to the Red Dragon, Foxfire, CC Club, the old Uptown Bar,” Lautenschlager remembers. “That really changed when Jason McLean gutted the old Gray's Campus Drug, roughly 2001, and people were like, 'What the hell is he doing here?' Then you have the Dinkytowner, and then you have the Kitty Cat Klub, where I spent three nights a week for 15 years. It became a really interesting place."
The Book House’s Kristen Eide-Tollefson co-founded the nonprofit Preserve Historic Dinkytown in 2013, and two years later the Minneapolis City Council voted to protect parts of the neighborhood under the banner of the Dinkytown Commercial Historic District. Eide-Tollefson says initially proposed protections were scaled back to appease developers.
"The city and the state wouldn't acknowledge the heyday of Dinkytown from the '60s and '70s as the basis of the historic district; they limited the timeline, which is why we have all the housing in the four-square-blocks,” she says. “Our council member, [current Mayor Jacob] Frey, supported the designation, which was a big deal, but he wanted development so he cut it up."
Thorstenson likens Dinkytown to a living, breathing hotel. Instead of staying two or three nights, its residents spend two or three years. "It always changed over, just because someone would graduate with a business administration degree and have a bright idea like, 'Let's sell baked potatoes!' There's no permanence to it," says the vocal non-nostalgic who, at the same time, might be the only owner of a keepsake brick from the demolished Dinkytown McDonald’s.
However, Thorstenson acknowledges at least one level of permeance.
"I testified in front of a legislative committee a couple years back,” he recalls, “And I said: ‘Either you or somebody you know has thrown up on our sidewalks.’"
Eating, Drinking, Entertaining
Today, those historically pukey sidewalks line streets that more and more resemble the suburbs. A 2023 Minnesota Daily report found that over half of all businesses in Dinkytown are “either chain stores or owned by an out-of-state corporation,” including 63% of all food/drink establishments.
Boba tea shops are reportedly popping, which student Anna Martinson can get behind, though she's not thrilled about the proliferation of chains. Martinson says there's really just a trio of drinking destinations these days: Blarney’s Pub & Grill, Burrito Loco, and Kollege Klub, the latter of which is reportedly strictest about fake IDs. Grad student Kelly Rogers says her social circle gravitates toward basement parties and shows in the nearby Como neighborhood. "People are partying and hosting events and going out and stuff, just not in Dinkytown," says the current grad student. Recent grad (and even more recent Racket contributor) Maddie Roth says Dinkytown's bars are often packed, but "Blarns and KK" aren't as appealing for older students.
"What's sad is my friends and I have this rule that if we go to Dinkytown bars, we have to leave no later than 1 a.m. because we get nervous about being hurt," Roth says. "Crime on 13th Avenue is awful, and Dinky can get really scary at night. I used to live in the apartments across from KK, and I cannot tell you the amount of times I heard gunshots and police sirens."
From last fall through December, reported crime fell by 49% in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood, which includes Dinkytown, according to MPD. That follows a tumultuous early 2024, when year-over-year theft reports spiked by 68.7%; over 30 people were arrested during an especially chaotic—yet mercifully injury-free—Fourth of July. "[Crime concerns] vary person-to-person; it's not as big of a concern for me, but I grew up in Uptown and know how to take care of myself,” Martinson says.
"Every resident should feel safe in their city, and that's inclusive of students,” says Ward 2 Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley, who points to recent safety improvements like street lighting, pedestrian lighting, non-armed violence disrupters, and working with the U to open the new safety center below Annie’s Parlour. (She offered an emphatic “RIP!” when Racket whined about the corresponding loss of Kitty Cat Klub.)
“Working with students on that has been a big priority of mine and, you know, investing in armed or traditional policing proposals rises to the top of these conversations,” Wonsley adds. “I think that often overlooks other safety needs, which we've used my time in office identifying.”
Wonsley’s office has partnered with Carlson School of Management students, including boba fan Martinson, to formulate plans that could help invigorate Dinkytown. With instruction from Morgan Kerfeld, a ’21 grad, Martinson founded Students 4 Dinkytown, a team that has been researching the underlying factors behind neighborhood vacancy rates and negative PR perceptions. The city is the client; S4D is the pro-bono consultancy firm. Stakeholders tell them that a lack of pride and commitment within the business community, no doubt factors exacerbated by the chain invasion, is plaguing the neighborhood, in addition to inescapable slumps like decreased summertime foot traffic.
"We provide free services—advertising, consulting—to local independent businesses," says Martinson, who lives in Dinkytown. "We also work to reverse negative media cycles, because it isn't all bad; there are a lot of really cool things happening here."
Adds Kerfeld, whose undergrad experience was mostly online due to COVID, “I think there are huge opportunities for Dinkytown… there’s definitely this emotional, community element that never goes away. You’re always connected to it.”
Countless ex-Gophers feel connected to two old-school cool standbys that have resumed regular Dinkytown operations in recent years: Annie’s Parlour and the Varsity Theater.
“The story goes,” Kristen Eide-Tollefson tells us, “that one of the last things [late Annie’s owner] John [Rimarcik] said to his sons was: Get Annie's open!” And that’s exactly what the brothers Rimarcik did last year with the family restaurant that opened in 1974, to the approval of Racket. Those burgers, fries, and malts won’t betray your nostalgia, even if the 2025 prices do. Sadly, the Kitty Cat Klub downstairs did not awake from its slumber as a swanky, 400-capacity club/venue. Instead, the Rimarcik family leased the space out to UMPD, and it debuted last fall as a safety center we’re calling Koppy Cat Klub. (Its preferred name is Off-Campus Safety Center.) Everyone we spoke to about it for this story expressed mild appreciation.
The Varsity, a historic 750-capacity concert venue, would sit dormant for much of 2017 as child sex abuse lawsuits swirled around its then-owner, Jason McLean, the former Children's Theatre Co. teacher who’d later flee to Mexico. That same year Hong Kong-based private equity firm GAW Capital Partners purchased the Varsity from for $2.5 million, according to county records, and handed the management reins to concert giant Live Nation.
Josh Lacey worked as a Varsity booker from 2009 through 2012 and, under his current job as Minnesota market president with Live Nation, was reunited with the 110-year-old venue in ’17. Post-pandemic, he reports the Varsity is thriving once again. Current students we spoke with are lured by at least one of the venue’s offerings. “The Varsity bathrooms remain one of my favorite oddities in Minneapolis,” Rogers says.
McLean also unloaded the old Loring Pasta Bar/Gray's Campus Drug property, which has since been acquired by the U of M, for $1.86 million in ’17; multiple folks we spoke to for this story expressed mild annoyance that the university hasn’t yet announced a new restaurant tenant for Dinkytown’s marquee address—the one that major motion picture subject Bob Dylan slept above. "They're just sitting on that property... it's unclear what the vision is for that site,” Council Member Wonsley says.
Does reading books count as entertainment? Sure does, and Book House owner Kristen Eide-Tollefson tells us that youngsters are still keen on Johannes Gutenberg’s timeless invention.
"We have colleagues all over the country bewailing that nobody reads anymore. That's not our experience,” she says. “We find that younger people are, in some ways, even more interested in the physical book. We're still surviving."
Later this year, to mark Book House’s 50th anniversary, there’ll be an ownership transfer to veteran managers Matt Hawbaker and Ryan Hinderaker. Eide-Tollefson is ready to retire after a half-century in the neighborhood she’s still fighting to preserve.
Nam and Lucinda Tran have deep family connections to the greater U of M area. Decades ago Nam's parents ran Campus Wok (not to be confused with the late, great Village Wok) in Stadium Village. In 2009, after the family sold that restaurant to the folks who'd launch Hong Kong Noodles (also a well-loved, shuttered spot), they bought the Dinkytown address that now houses Bober Tea & Mochi Dough. Nam and Lucinda fell in love with Japanese-style mochi donuts while vacationing in California. So, three years ago, they reimagined their fast-casual Vietnamese concept Num-Mi as Bober Tea & Mochi Dough, which they believe was Minnesota's first such donut shop.
“Once people have dinner at Shuang Cheng, they'll swing over here for dessert,” Nam says with a smile. “I'm sure Dinkytown is different from when Bob Dylan was here, but it's still the same in some ways; the culture has remained the same since we've been here, there's a lot of energy. There are the big corporate places like McDonald's, but with places like CrunCheese and us, we're independent franchisees—it's almost like a hands-on mom 'n' pop, that personal touch. How do you keep the charm? It's a balancing act."
The Trans are part of an influx of newish Asian-themed Dinkytown restaurants. There's Bonchon, Tasty Pot, CrunCheese (Racket taste tested the Korean corndogs following a 75-minute wait), Banh Appetite (get The Dirty Bird), Rollicious (try the Gopher Roll), Pho Mai, and KBop Korean Bistro. “The new wave of Asian restaurants really is a fascinating development, especially because there are so many Asian students. That's being reflected, and I think it's really cool,” Kristen Eide-Tollefson observes.
And, god willing, there’ll always be Al’s Breakfast.
Al Bergstrom opened Al's in 1950, back when railroad workers swarmed Dinkytown for lunch. Since then, the 14-seat, 790-square-foot, cash-only greasy spoon diner has come to resemble the rickety house from Pixar’s Up—an improbable throwback holdout amid a sea of glitzy development. Doug Grina and Jim Brandes purchased Al’s when Bergstrom retired in 1973, and in 2016 they sold it to veteran server Alison Kirwin.
"Al's Breakfast itself hasn't changed very much, but Dinkytown since the '90s has changed a lot,” says Kirwin, who covered a shift for a friend in 1996 and never looked back. “When I first started going to school there, it was a very useful area—hardware store, music store, grocery store. Now it's kind of one big food court... plus a Target. It used to be kind of a cute, quaint place and now it has these monstrosities. But I recognize the benefits of that too.”
Kirwin says that increased student density around Al’s hasn’t necessarily translated into a rotating crop of new customers.
“We have a lot of regulars who maybe were students at one time, but have been coming in since the '70s, '80s, or '90s,” she says. “Our main, regular customer base is older than student age, usually. I hear lots of stories everyday about the old days."
Kirwin is hyper aware of the pressures and privileges that come with stewarding a beloved blueberry pancake institution. Al’s, perhaps the least socially distanced restaurant in town, survived a pandemic and is currently muscling through an egg pricing surge. Its owner reports that, despite those challenges, business is good.
As Al’s 75th anniversary approaches, this reporter broke from his typical Cronkite-ian composure and, practically begging, asked Kirwin if Al’s will remain open and changeless forever.
“That’s the plan,” she responded with a patient chuckle.
The Housing Paradox
A frenzy of development enveloped Dinkytown around 2010, ushering in a surge of luxury high-rises with names like Yugo Minneapolis Sydney Hall, The Marshall, The Knoll, Venue, Fieldhouse, The Doyle, and UNCOMMON.
A project from Twin Cities-based Doran Group, Sydney Hall overtook the Dinkydome beginning in 2009. "I didn't come away from [the meeting] with a warm, fuzzy feeling," Charlie Ward, owner of the Dinkydome’s Student Bookstore, told the Strib that year. Today, studio apartments inside the six-story, 125-unit building start at $1,349.
Built in 1902, the Marshall-University High School building later became the University Technology Enterprise Center, home to around 100 small businesses, until it was razed in 2013 by Memphis-based Education Realty. Now, inside the 316-unit Marshall, one-bedroom apartments are available for $1,470.
Identity Dinkytown, a gargantuan 308-apartment complex that swallowed the storied Drunk Donald’s and liquor store next door, was completed in 2023 by Chicago-based CA Ventures. A 403-square-foot studio runs $1,499 per month—prices tick slowly down for bigger units with more roommates. That's just market rate for a place featuring a golf simulator, rock-climbing wall, breakfast bar, sauna, tanning beds, rooftop pool, and an architecturally less significant replacement McDonald's at ground floor.
"I live in an old, little rundown house. I can't afford [newer luxury apartments]... Honestly, I don’t really understand who can,” says Anna Martinson, the Carlson student who founded Students 4 Dinkytown. “A lot of students—many of them who work 20-25 hours per week—are upset with housing options; there's really no way to afford the high-rise, luxury, brand-new amenities."
Freshly graduated Maddie Roth agrees. She "got lucky" with her housing situation: paying a $720/month share to live with two roommates just outside of Dinkytown.
“I do have friends, though, that pay way more than I do for worse living situations,” Roth reports. “I do think what's a bit sad is that so many college students need to have at least two or three jobs to pay their rent, while also being a full-time college student. It's just so draining.”
A Minnesota Daily report from last year found that just a “handful” of the management companies running these new Dinkytown buildings are based in Minnesota. Over the past decade, Student Legal Services has been flooded with students struggling not with their own legal woes, but rather with issues related to unscrupulous out-of-state landlords.
For a profound and astute analysis of the housing situation in Dinkytown, we simply must cede the floor to Kelly Rogers, a grad student who works for the U's Mapping Prejudice project:
I wrote my capstone research paper on the proliferation of purpose-built student housing, and it’s fascinating and infuriating. Urban geographers and sociologists call it “studentification” which is a form of gentrification specific to university-adjacent neighborhoods. Private equity firms, especially after the 2008 financial crisis, have totally commodified student life and universities have basically rolled over. We are the coveted “sub-market”—aka cash cows for the über wealthy. I thank god every day that she did not make me an economist, but my very basic understanding of supply and demand suggests that these mega developments should make housing more affordable. The opposite is true. Why? Because the availability of student loans and parental support allow hedge funds to inflate prices without pushback—or that's how I understand it when they market the investment as "bulletproof." It’s a deliberately exploitative system, and the rapid tenant turnover makes it harder to study the problem. Real talk: If profit seeking is the only thing driving us to make decisions about civic life then we are cooked. Dinkytown is a microcosm of so much of what is wrong with our world right now. But we can't football/business school/medical campus our way out of fascism.
Several people we spoke to for this story expressed frustration that the U of M—which has benefited greatly from the exploding housing stock across the street from campus—hasn’t been a more active partner in holding developers accountable.
Council Member Wonsley loudly advocated for over 500 students who Identity Dinkytown developers stranded when the unfinished mega-compex sorta, kinda opened in 2023.
“With these new behemoth developments, students are being charged $2,000, $3,000 for rent and having to include that in their own financial aid through loans to cover their cost of shelter. It's ridiculous. They know they can prey upon students, they see them as a very vulnerable demographic,” Wonsley says. “We get so many complaints in my office about how students are being mistreated by landlords. Identity was a really good case of showing how far we've gone with this model of corporate takeover of the Dinkytown area. They completely displaced 500 students before the school year, and basically were like, 'Welp, don't know what to tell you... here's a gift card.'"
Last month Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison joined a Department of Justice lawsuit against the nation’s six biggest corporate landlords, alleging that they use anti-competitive price-fixing algorithms to stiff tenants with higher rents. Four of those companies—Greystar, Cushman & Wakefield, Willow Bridge, and Cortland—operate 92 facilities within Minnesota, Fox 9 reports; South Carolina-based Greystar, which runs the hideous Target-topping Marshall and once reportedly hassled students with missing and late security deposits at Doyle Apartments, is active in Dinkytown. Wonsley has introduced a City Council ordinance that would ban the use of those algorithms.
“I can only think of two single-family homes with owner-occupants in that whole neighborhood now, and we're talking about, by far, the most densely populated neighborhood in the state," Vic Thorstenson says. He welcomes even more dense housing, but wishes the new towers were built with higher-quality materials than what you see with the “plaid” 5-over-1 style favored by today’s profit-hungry developers. "I actually wish the buildings were taller, made with poured concrete, and built to last more than 40 years,” he says.
What Does the Future Hold for Dinkytown?
Can Dinkytown shake itself free from the blitz of green-eyed apartment developers, somehow boosting housing stock while protecting students and creating lasting architecture?
Will mom ‘n’ pop shops reverse the trend of soulless Starbucks, Chipotles, and Targets, despite commercial rents soaring to prohibitive levels?
Will the University of Minnesota finally use its considerable might to course-correct any of these issues that plague a de facto campus community?
Beats this reporter, who once got fired from the former Hollywood Video across the street from the former House of Hanson, to hopelessly date myself. Rather, let’s hear from the panel experts we’ve assembled for this Dinkytown scene report.
Here’s Chris Lautenschlager, executive director of the East Bank Neighborhoods Partnership:
There are four of five businesses next to the Varsity that've been vacant for over five years. The landlord refuses to rent anything out; nobody knows what his motivation is. We're looking forward to helping Council Member Wonsley with her ordinance that would assign fees to landlords who don't rent out their properties. I would like the university to take a little bit of ownership of what's going on. Clearly, 95% of the people who live in the area are U of M students, but the U has been inconsistent at best at offering assistance. The city can't keep up, and my rinky-dink neighborhood organization can't fully address the safety and social needs of people who live there. And hey, by the way, we're still looking for the stairway to the Dinkytown Greenway that was promised to us 12 years ago!
Here’s Vic Thorstenson, former president of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association:
The important thing of Dinkytown isn't the architecture, for Christ's sake, it's the people! I would like to see it become more of a university community. That was the whole idea back in the '60s and '70s, more staff and faculty. I'm not romantic about it. There's a collection of business people—some are pretty good, some are dumb as hell. I've always liked the fact it isn't Mayberry… I don't even mind the kids firing fireworks at each other. Council Member Wonsley has been the first City Council member in my memory who actually talks to students; Council Member [Jay] Rainville would just tell people to talk to the cops.
Here’s Robin Wonsley, Ward 2 Minneapolis City Council member, who tells us Thorstenson’s compliment “made my week”:
I want to see a Dinkytown that centers the needs of students. Student voices have been overlooked in that conversation, which is why you have corporate landlords invited in who charge an arm and a leg. Same with grocery stores, I don't understand how we've overlooked that piece. Yes we have lots of healthcare facilities on campus, but what would it look like to have an outpost in Dinkytown? Everyone should feel welcome, safe, seen, and enjoy it. People who live here and work here should be part of the development journey.
And we’ll leave you with Kelly Rogers, current U of M graduate student:
I'd say not to be fooled by Dinkytown doomers: It’s a mistake to treat its transformation into a corporate wasteland as inevitable. Dinkytown still has good bones and great food/institutions—shoutout to the good people of Wally's, Shuang Cheng, Al's, and the Book House. We need art and affordability and nightclubs that aren't sports bars, and overreliance on private equity poses a huge threat to what's left of our integrity. A lot of the discourse is predicated on some unknowable evil force imposing itself on Dinkytown, but actually, the force is very knowable and requires active engagement from the university and those of us sticking around for a while if anything is going to change. Bring back the funk! Someone should start that campaign.
Get to work, Carlson students!
