Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
A Bermuda Triangle, But for Booze. And Also Located Here.
Jack Riely over at Streets.mn just wrote a story I've been wondering about for years: Where the hell are all the liquor stores in south Minneapolis?
Riely gives it the more professional title "South Minneapolis Cold Case: Kingfield’s Missing Beer Stores," but the point stands. "Neither Kingfield nor any surrounding neighborhoods contain a beer store," he writes. "East Harriet? Beerless. East Bde Maka Ska? South Uptown? Go jump in the lake. Lyndale? Central? Not in this neighborhood, buddy. Bancroft? Bryant? Regina? Forget it. Tangletown? Lynnhurst? Teetotalers all."
As you might expect from a Streets.mn story, they're not content to just say "Isn't this weird? Oh well." Instead, we get a few fun rounds of creative urbanist speculation (including the The Lowbrow Neighborhood Association Conspiracy), followed by the real reason: zoning. Kingfield and its surrounding neighborhoods are zoned CM2, which explicitly bans alcohol shops. Unless zoning regulations are updated, you'll never see a bottle shop (except for an NA bottle shop, like Marigold) in these sections of the city.
"Some will dismiss this, saying, 'It’s just a beer store, you don’t need that,'" Riely concludes. "But the map of pharmacies looks nearly identical, again with none in Kingfield and the nearest one being a 30-minute walk from 38th and Nicollet. The current zoning laws are standing in the way of building a walkable city with complete neighborhoods."
Hear! Hear! We want walkable beer!
Maximum Mini Golf in the North Loop
What's the opposite of a desert? A... bog? In that case, the North Loop is, for some reason, becoming something of an indoor mini golf bog. And judging by the comments on this Instagram post from the North Loop Neighborhood Association, not everyone is so keen on that development.
Puttshack, a new indoor mini golf course with a bar and restaurant, is set to open this fall at 700 Third St. N. Are you saying to yourself, "Now hang on a minute, doesn't the North Loop already have an indoor mini golf course with a bar and restaurant?" Well, you're very right—the Puttery, another national chain, has a location about a half mile away.
Does the buzzy Minneapolis neighborhood "need" two mini golf courses a short walk from each other? Judging from comments like, "I feel like I’m being pranked at this point," "Is there actual excitement for another one of these in the same 10-block radius?" and, simply, "Booooooooooooooooo," locals don't think so. It seems lots of people want practical things like, ya know, a pharmacy, or a (non-Whole Foods) grocery store, or just another bodega with grab-and-go meals. Sorry, best we can do is "tech-infused mini golf ... in a lively setting."
Remembering the Hortmans Through Song
On 89.3 the Current's Wednesday Morning Show, Colin and Sophie, the children of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, joined the station to honor their parents' memories via music. They played an eclectic mix of tunes—Cake, Yaz, Led Zeppelin, Soul Coughing, and of course some Prince—and even if you don't care for the artists, you should tune in here for the memories the Hortman children share about their parents.
"All the love and joy that they brought into the world—and in how my mom listened to music and how my dad listened to music—it would always put a smile on their faces," Colin says. "We're trying to do things that put a smile on other people's faces and remember them by the things that brought smiles to people's faces."
Adds Sophie: "I think they were also very intentional. We were really lucky and really happy. They were really careful about making sure that they did, you know, magic with what they could offer the world."
"Mmm. Smell That?"
You already know Racket's staffers are huge Chin-heads—that is, fans of the off-the-wall work Richard Chin does for the Star Tribune. His latest, with a headline that literally begins "Mmm. Smell that?" is a guide to the best-smelling places in Minnesota, from food to flowers to... amusement park rides?
Hey, don't knock the Chin. He's certainly right about St. Paul's Candyland and Penzeys Spices, and I can practically smell the fresh-cut wood at North House Folk School now. As for the Mall of America? Well, I do still involuntarily salivate every time I walk past Auntie Anne's. I might have added Eat Street (even biking past its exit on the Greenway, you get a whiff of delicious food being prepared), but I can't argue with the spots he did include, which you can read about here (gift link).
