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Here Comes a Re... al Estate Listing!?
When the CC Club last changed hands, in 2013, fear gripped the local drinking and music communities about whether something—anything—would change at the cherished Minneapolis booze institution. Aside from some minor cosmetic updates and the controversial introduction of a TouchTunes jukebox, things mostly stayed the same.
Well, regulars, it's time to get worked up all over again.
On Tuesday, the prohibition-era bar the Replacements made famous and/or infamous hit the market for an undisclosed price. Actually, it's a package deal that includes three addresses/businesses: the CC Club, French Meadow Bakery & Cafe, and the event space double-billed as Blue Stem Bar/Nord Social Hall. Michael Palm of Palm Commercial Brokerage didn't respond to Racket's inquiry into the price; the combined value of the properties is $4.1 million, according to Hennepin County estimates.
This news isn't surprising. Co-owners Randy Segal and Steve Shapiro, both in their mid-70s, signaled to the Star Tribune in 2024 that the bar could soon hit the market. “With all the stress of running businesses, you get older, and reality hits,” said Segal, whose ownership group purchased the CC in 2013. (Lynn Gordon, who founded French Meadow in 1985, sold her CC stake five years ago.)
While we're on the subject, you should revisit our pal Andy Mannix's 2013 City Pages oral history on the CC. Tommy Stinson (Mats), David Carr (Twin Cities Reader), David Pirner (Soul Asylum), Tom Arnold (Hollywood, cocaine), and many others wax poetic about the bar that started slingin' suds the day Prohibition ended—"and probably before that, too," its website admits.
"Kind of the beauty of the CC is, on certain levels, it really hasn't changed in terms of visually and the vibe since I started going there in '78," local musician Paul Metsa told CP. "The beauty of the CC, and any great bar, is you walk in and you're a little bit suspended in time."
ProPublica Exposes Federal Government's Massively Bungled Illegal Voting Investigation
After a trove of documents released Thursday revealed the troubling extent of the Department of Homeland Security’s surveillance on Minnesotans during Operation Metro Serge, an unrelated DHS privacy violation became news Friday. A ProPublica investigation reveals new information about how Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) wildly mishandled unfounded investigations into noncitizen voting, using a new, legally questionable database of voters’ sensitive information.
DHS subpoenaed 130 Minnesotans as part of its push to find illegal voters to prosecute, and apparently, the investigations were a mess. Joe Teirab, the second-in-command at Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, says HSI agents demonstrated “a complete lack of understanding” about how illegal voting investigations are supposed to be carried out.
Only one of those subpoenas led to a prosecution referral, probably because noncitizen voting just isn’t very common, according to every reputable source. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said that the rate of intentional election crime is “microscopic.”
The Trump administration, however, keeps saying that noncitizens hold massive sway over U.S. elections. In what sounds scarily like soft-launching the end of democracy itself, Trump recently said that the election system is “so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it.” That’s the federal government's excuse for pooling data on voters’ personal identifiers, party affiliation, and voting histories, creating what Nikhel Sus, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, describes as a “1984-style database.”
Per ProPublica...
Career staffers at the Justice Department warned that transferring voter rolls to HSI to enable it to search for noncitizen voters could violate federal privacy laws. Similarly, longtime HSI insiders cautioned that using the agency’s databases and tools to search these lists would yield mismatches and wildly inflated results.
Predictably, this database wrongly flagged a ton of illegal voting activity. In Stearns County, Minnesota, for example, HSI agents subpoenaed 13 people, but only six of them actually lived there. Still, its existence raises concerns about how the Trump administration is increasingly surveilling voters while floating concerns about the legitimacy of the U.S. electoral process.
How Sea Salt Does It
There's been a bit of a media blitz this summer around Sea Salt's new cookbook, and Racket has not been immune. Deborah Copperud reviewed Sea Salt Eatery: Recipes to Enjoy Year-Round for us, and Em Cassel sat down with co-owner Kait Ziemer-Davis and her mother-in-law Gail Rosenblum, with whom she co-wrote the book, on an episode of City Cast Twin Cities.
But while it's been fun to see a local institution get some much-deserved love for its do-it-yourself guide to seafood and sandwiches, we also really enjoyed this more in-depth Sea Salt profile from the MSP Business Journal's Abby Bulger. What other restaurant in town has been able to keep essentially the same menu for 20 years while continuing to draw huge crowds? Bulger sat down with Ziemer-Davis and co-owners Jon and Bill Blood to talk about the Minnehaha Falls restaurant's history and learn how simplicity, efficiency, and optimism have made this seasonal seafood shack a place that keeps people coming back.
“We've gone through recessions. We've gone through ICE. We've gone through Covid. We've gone through George Floyd,” Bill tells the Biz Journal. “Those really don't affect us. If anything, I think they bring more people who want to be outside, not inside a closed restaurant. … It seems like people just want to be outside in the summers.”
St. Paul Institution Goes Reverse Brick-and-Mortar
For the past 29 years, Swede Hollow Cafe has been serving up pastries, sammies, and drinks at its location at 725 E. Seventh Street in St. Paul. Yesterday, the Dayton's Bluff-area diner announced that it will close on August 31. Customer appreciation days will be August 29–30.
"As for the last few years specifically, the adversities we’ve all faced has shown true grit, strength, survival and resilience and we are eternally honored to have been able to share in your light during this time," Swede Hollow announced on FB and Instagram.
But the closing doesn't mean the team behind Swede Hollow is fully riding off into the sunset just yet. It sounds more like they're headed for semi-retirement.
"It is our hope to pursue more mobile ventures bringing our signature coffee, drinks, breakfast, and lunch favorites directly to you through pop-ups, community events, and caterings," they write.
