Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Stanley’s Celebrates 15 Years By Not Getting Torn Down
This past February, the team at Stanley’s Northeast Bar Room posted on Facebook that the tavern's fate was uncertain, writing "SAVE Stanley's Northeast Bar Room!" with a blaring siren emoji. Not because of finances or owner retirement; rather, the state of Minnesota was looking to acquire the building, located at 2500 University Ave. in Minneapolis, as part of its 2027 University Avenue Construction Project. Tearing down the 130-year-old building, which Stanley's moved into 15 years ago, was on the table.
But things are looking up, as Stanley’s announced today that all 25th Avenue businesses are safe.
“Thanks to your support and voices, we’re thrilled to share that Stanley’s Northeast Bar Room will not be impacted by the current plans,” the owners write in a statement. “After speaking directly with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, they confirmed that Stanley’s is no longer under consideration for acquisition.”
Sweet! That means the dog-friendly paw-tio, historic urinals, and big ol’ bar will live to see another day. And it also means that its 15th anniversary party, scheduled for October 11, will be a celebration instead of a farewell.
And the folks at Stanley's are hopeful that MnDOT’s project will yield some positive traffic results; co-owner Luke Derheim tells the Strib their building has been hit by vehicles more than 25 times over the years.
More Like Less-iarty: Hennepin County Attorney Will Not Seek Second Term
In a surprising turn of events, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has announced that she will not seek reelection in 2026.
“When I thought about how I wanted to spend my last year-and-a-half in office and my choices were campaigning—which would be a lot of being away from the office—and actually doing the work … I decided that doing the work was what I would rather do," she tells the Star Tribune's Jeff Day.
Earlier this year, we sat down for a lengthy conversation with Moriarty about the work her office is doing and the challenges it faces, as well as the perception and reality of violent crime in Hennepin County (particularly Minneapolis).
"One of the things that I hear still, frequently, is, 'You are not sending people to prison,' and actually we are—unfortunately, we send a lot of people to prison, simply because they're not safe in the community," she told us back in March. But the perception that Moriarty, a progressive, reform-minded prosecutor, is soft on crime, has colored her tenure, as have controversies like her decision to charge Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan with murder in the 2023 shooting death of Ricky Cobb II. Moriarty told RacketCast that her relationships with Gov. Tim Walz and MPD Chief Brian O'Hara had grown icy.
"She said that work has been overshadowed by coverage of individual charging decisions her office has made, and that efforts to convey how her office is working to keep the community safer will be more effective if she steps aside," Day writes.
This is really the crux of it:
When she was asked about her decision to divert charges against a state employee who keyed a number of Teslas earlier this year—a fairly marginal crime that drew national headlines to her office—Moriarty said it served as a reminder that media focus is not the same thing as meaningful work.
“The people in north Minneapolis don’t care about a keyed Tesla,” she said. “They care about gun violence. They care about their kids being shot. ... What does the media choose to write about it and from what point of view do you choose to write about it?”
Columbia Heights Pizza Man Makes National Headlines
To Chris Kolstad, owner of the Columbia Heights Pizza Man location, we echo the Washington Post in saying: bravo.
As first reported by WCCO, Kolstad recently went viral for a post he authored after observing an uptick of folks eating scraps from the dumpster outside of his shop.
“Leave me a note,” Kolstad wrote via Facebook, “and we will find a way to leave any extras or mistakes out back so you have something to eat without going through the trash... If you are too embarrassed to ask, find a way to call us and ask if there is a way to leave a small cheese pizza outside the back door or something."
That level of humanity isn't exactly the norm for small-biz owners, with WaPo noting many try their damndest to deter hungry neighbors from their waste with fencing, music, and lawsuits. Kolstad, who has run that Pizza Man since 2020, has instead given away dozens of pizzas and teamed with the community to raise $3,000+ for local food shelves; the subsequent publicity has been a boon to his "once struggling" business.
“Nobody is going to be eating out of a dumpster because it’s what they want to do,” Kolstad, 39, tells WaPo. “Usually if somebody’s going to that length, they’re trying to survive. And I have a hard time sitting in a building full of food knowing that.”
Here's our killjoy coda: These types of heartwarming stories (this one is published under the Washington Post's "Optimist" tag) mask the deeply sick realities we've been conditioned to accept inside one of history's wealthiest nations. Whether it's the story of the single mom receiving a free car so she can get to work, the story about the GoFundMe paying for someone's surgery or, yes, the story about a generous pizza peddler feeding his destitute neighbors, we celebrate the would-be victims of wealth inequality for skirting total misery rather than blame the systems that continue to punish them.
The culprit cited by WaPo, which, sure, is probably a big factor? Increasing food prices means more digging through garbage for sustenance. Yet this entire genre of news coverage could cite the unconscionable (and growing!) concentration of wealth hoarded by the richest 10% of Americans, the very same demo that just scored massive tax breaks. It's enough to make you rip your hair out, but I'm uncertain if HealthPartners covers that, so, yes, the internal optimism route, to summon Jeff Bezos's newspaper.
Anywho... the Pizza Man's gesture is very kind.
A Good TikTok
@ohhyoubetcha Clitherall knows how to party
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