The worst waiter in Seattle
December 8, 2024 2:14 PM Subscribe
Cafe Minnie's [was] widely considered to have the worst service in Seattle, even winning that category one year in a Seattle Weekly readers' poll. When I worked there for a six month period in 1995, I was the target of more customer complaints than any other server. Thus my claim to have been the worst waiter in Seattle.
Yelp reviews of Cafe Minnie's.
Yelp reviews of Cafe Minnie's.
We have bric-a-bracs at home.
posted by procrastination at 2:44 PM on December 8, 2024 [13 favorites]
posted by procrastination at 2:44 PM on December 8, 2024 [13 favorites]
minnies was indeed terrible, only redeemed by being cheap and open 24hr (13 coins was pricey). its block was redeveloped many years ago, and there is still nothing in its former space. part of me blames this on residual bad vibes.
posted by bruceo at 2:54 PM on December 8, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by bruceo at 2:54 PM on December 8, 2024 [2 favorites]
Oh lord, I think this is where a friend and I ended up a thousand years ago! We ordered something like two cups of coffee and a scone, and none of it showed up for at least an hour.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 3:00 PM on December 8, 2024
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 3:00 PM on December 8, 2024
Some friends & I visited Minnie's once back when it was supposedly in its heyday. Their shall we say less-than-stellar Yelp reviews say it all. We walked right back out without ordering, which said a lot at 2am when our dining options were... limited.
The Hurricane, a few blocks away, was a divey little dump with a trail of grease emanating from the kitchen, mostly populated by 15-year-old runaways, but it felt like fine dining in comparison to Minnie's.
posted by abraxasaxarba at 3:14 PM on December 8, 2024 [3 favorites]
The Hurricane, a few blocks away, was a divey little dump with a trail of grease emanating from the kitchen, mostly populated by 15-year-old runaways, but it felt like fine dining in comparison to Minnie's.
posted by abraxasaxarba at 3:14 PM on December 8, 2024 [3 favorites]
Loved reading this and loved the blog, which was new to me and reminded me of the good old days of suck.com, when the internet was still small enough that you had to skewer each other cleverly and anonymously.
Like this
posted by salishsea at 3:21 PM on December 8, 2024 [6 favorites]
Like this
posted by salishsea at 3:21 PM on December 8, 2024 [6 favorites]
Cities were absolutely better when they were like this, and the internet was absolutely better when it was like this, and for that matter the world was mostly better then too. (Which is not to say that things can't be better again; this is more of an ebb than a teleological thing.)
This reminds me of so many places, but perhaps the most of Palmer's. Palmer's is a....legendary local venue. For music, for drunks, for people who are high, for hot dogs, for vegan hot dogs. Everyone who has been anyone on Minneapolis's West Bank has spent time at Palmer's. It's not my scene, I don't really drink - but I've been there.
I'd been there, outdoors. Then I went indoors. It was a hot and rather dank evening, and the building had that particular quality of damp that old buildings get - the plaster has been there since the turn of the previous century, the tin ceiling is loose in places, everything wooden has absorbed so much dirt and damp that the surface is soft and slightly sticky. Anyway, I was there for a friend's show, I think. And bugs! Bugs fell on me from the ceiling! Not especially gross bugs, not centipedes or roaches or anything, just tiny little beetle-ant things, but bugs! They fell on me! From the ceiling! In an establishment to which I had paid a cover!
That was the last time I went to Palmer's, at least indoors. Although honestly since the pandemic and Trump etc even a few bugs falling from the ceiling sound reasonable and nostalgic if I could get everything else back.
posted by Frowner at 5:06 PM on December 8, 2024 [20 favorites]
This reminds me of so many places, but perhaps the most of Palmer's. Palmer's is a....legendary local venue. For music, for drunks, for people who are high, for hot dogs, for vegan hot dogs. Everyone who has been anyone on Minneapolis's West Bank has spent time at Palmer's. It's not my scene, I don't really drink - but I've been there.
I'd been there, outdoors. Then I went indoors. It was a hot and rather dank evening, and the building had that particular quality of damp that old buildings get - the plaster has been there since the turn of the previous century, the tin ceiling is loose in places, everything wooden has absorbed so much dirt and damp that the surface is soft and slightly sticky. Anyway, I was there for a friend's show, I think. And bugs! Bugs fell on me from the ceiling! Not especially gross bugs, not centipedes or roaches or anything, just tiny little beetle-ant things, but bugs! They fell on me! From the ceiling! In an establishment to which I had paid a cover!
That was the last time I went to Palmer's, at least indoors. Although honestly since the pandemic and Trump etc even a few bugs falling from the ceiling sound reasonable and nostalgic if I could get everything else back.
posted by Frowner at 5:06 PM on December 8, 2024 [20 favorites]
I took a friend to Minnie's once, right after they'd arrived on a red-eye flight. He'd been before, so he knew what he wanted, the cinnamon French toast. Our food arrives, and we dig in. My friend goes to pour the syrup on his food, and I remark "huh, they didn't put the syrup in a pitcher, just a coffee cup?"
At which point we realize in his sleep deprived state, he had indeed poured his coffee onto his plate, instead of using the silver syrup pitcher. The toast is not edible in this state, but he is still hungry, so we wave over the waitress, and he very politely asks "this is so good, I want a second one, and go ahead and make it now, don't wait for me to finish this one".
I meanwhile am dying laughing, which probably confused the waitress.
posted by funkaspuck at 5:13 PM on December 8, 2024 [13 favorites]
At which point we realize in his sleep deprived state, he had indeed poured his coffee onto his plate, instead of using the silver syrup pitcher. The toast is not edible in this state, but he is still hungry, so we wave over the waitress, and he very politely asks "this is so good, I want a second one, and go ahead and make it now, don't wait for me to finish this one".
I meanwhile am dying laughing, which probably confused the waitress.
posted by funkaspuck at 5:13 PM on December 8, 2024 [13 favorites]
The Hurricane, a few blocks away, was a divey little dump with a trail of grease emanating from the kitchen, mostly populated by 15-year-old runaways, but it felt like fine dining in comparison to Minnie's.
As a regular there, the staff insisted I take my chicken fried steak knife home with me on the last day.
posted by funkaspuck at 5:14 PM on December 8, 2024 [12 favorites]
As a regular there, the staff insisted I take my chicken fried steak knife home with me on the last day.
posted by funkaspuck at 5:14 PM on December 8, 2024 [12 favorites]
I visited with a group after a late night working on a project for our college class, the spicy service was extra spicy that night and someone in the group decided to draw a dollar on a napkin for a tip.
The turnabout was not well recieved.
posted by vincentmeanie at 5:46 PM on December 8, 2024 [4 favorites]
The turnabout was not well recieved.
posted by vincentmeanie at 5:46 PM on December 8, 2024 [4 favorites]
Hmmmmm. I’m going to have to try coffee soaked French toast. That actually doesn’t sound inedible.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:49 PM on December 8, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:49 PM on December 8, 2024 [3 favorites]
In the late 90's I was in college at UW and fell in with a bad crowd. Swing dancers. After a dance, they would often migrate to a late-night restaurant. I don't think Seattle has many places like this left, but maybe I'm just an old now. Minnie's, The Hurricane, Stella's. At least Beth's is still around. I don't recall ever going to 13 Coins with them, but maybe it was too pricey.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 11:16 PM on December 8, 2024
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 11:16 PM on December 8, 2024
The Hurricane used to be the Doghouse for about 50 years before it was closed. It was open 24/7 and has the most amazing photomurals -- one being an aerial shot of downtown Seattle in the 1930s or 1940s. It was the place to go after the bars closed -- I pity you kids who have no idea how cool it was.
Also when I was there one night when the organist in the cocktail lounge -- back in the day, grocery stores and bars sold beer and wine only and you got hard liquor from cocktail lounges and state liquor stores -- played this singalong song.
You know that bom bom, bomb bom that stadium organists play at baseball games? It's from an old Irish ballad whose chorus went bom bom, bomb bom -- 'It was the luck of the O'Reilly!... or some similar Hibernian patronym. I never knew until that night that bom bom, bomb bom came from an old Irish song.
Ah, The Dog House... It was one of three bars in Seattle along with the Mecca on lowr Queen Anne Avenue and a place on the square on 5th Ave and Denny whose name I can't recall at the moment, the Highlife or something like that, which had union waitresses. Who took no shit whatsoever. They would run out rowdies lickety split just like that. I still miss the Doghouse.
posted by y2karl at 12:47 AM on December 9, 2024 [7 favorites]
Also when I was there one night when the organist in the cocktail lounge -- back in the day, grocery stores and bars sold beer and wine only and you got hard liquor from cocktail lounges and state liquor stores -- played this singalong song.
You know that bom bom, bomb bom that stadium organists play at baseball games? It's from an old Irish ballad whose chorus went bom bom, bomb bom -- 'It was the luck of the O'Reilly!... or some similar Hibernian patronym. I never knew until that night that bom bom, bomb bom came from an old Irish song.
Ah, The Dog House... It was one of three bars in Seattle along with the Mecca on lowr Queen Anne Avenue and a place on the square on 5th Ave and Denny whose name I can't recall at the moment, the Highlife or something like that, which had union waitresses. Who took no shit whatsoever. They would run out rowdies lickety split just like that. I still miss the Doghouse.
posted by y2karl at 12:47 AM on December 9, 2024 [7 favorites]
The story about the person who went ahead and wrote the essay! And the response!
posted by brainwane at 1:40 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 1:40 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]
Cities were absolutely better when they were like this, and the internet was absolutely better when it was like this, and for that matter the world was mostly better then too.
I have always sheltered a special hatred for nostalgia. It is useless and retrograde and full of a kind of assumed and impregnable snobbery that overlooks both the joys of the present and the flaws of the past. I hate it even more keenly now that I suffer from it, too -- because the above comment is 100%, objectively true.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 5:04 AM on December 9, 2024 [13 favorites]
I have always sheltered a special hatred for nostalgia. It is useless and retrograde and full of a kind of assumed and impregnable snobbery that overlooks both the joys of the present and the flaws of the past. I hate it even more keenly now that I suffer from it, too -- because the above comment is 100%, objectively true.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 5:04 AM on December 9, 2024 [13 favorites]
and a place on the square on 5th Ave and Denny whose name I can't recall at the moment,
Woe betide the drunk who confuses the 5 Point with the 5 Spot. Only one of them has(had?) a periscope view of the space needle from the men’s urinal…. 😇
posted by funkaspuck at 5:14 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
Woe betide the drunk who confuses the 5 Point with the 5 Spot. Only one of them has(had?) a periscope view of the space needle from the men’s urinal…. 😇
posted by funkaspuck at 5:14 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
I have always sheltered a special hatred for nostalgia. It is useless and retrograde and full of a kind of assumed and impregnable snobbery that overlooks both the joys of the present and the flaws of the past.
I think we can use "nostalgia" to identify good things about the present and to move forward (to get all serious about it). Nostalgia is only reactionary if it goes to "the past was better because things always get worse, things would only be good if they were identical to the past". The 90s city was good in part because of real estate crashes in the early eighties, which meant lots of little cafes and businesses (this was especially true in MPLS). And we all know things like "having a cheap place to go to meet friends and hang out is good" and "a cheap place to hang out that is relaxed and has some individual character rather than being a big chain is nicest" - that's not some tragic truth of a lost utopia, it's just truths about living, like "having nice parks is good" or "cheap and widely available public transit is good".
The city life of the eighties through early 2000s wasn't good for some ineluctable cultural reason; it was good because financialization hadn't yet gutted everything and there's no law things have to be like they are now forever. Indeed, if the climate doesn't kill us, I guarantee you that the American empire will collapse and be replaced, possibly by something better. Probably too late for us, unfortunately, but at least it's a hope.
posted by Frowner at 5:47 AM on December 9, 2024 [7 favorites]
I think we can use "nostalgia" to identify good things about the present and to move forward (to get all serious about it). Nostalgia is only reactionary if it goes to "the past was better because things always get worse, things would only be good if they were identical to the past". The 90s city was good in part because of real estate crashes in the early eighties, which meant lots of little cafes and businesses (this was especially true in MPLS). And we all know things like "having a cheap place to go to meet friends and hang out is good" and "a cheap place to hang out that is relaxed and has some individual character rather than being a big chain is nicest" - that's not some tragic truth of a lost utopia, it's just truths about living, like "having nice parks is good" or "cheap and widely available public transit is good".
The city life of the eighties through early 2000s wasn't good for some ineluctable cultural reason; it was good because financialization hadn't yet gutted everything and there's no law things have to be like they are now forever. Indeed, if the climate doesn't kill us, I guarantee you that the American empire will collapse and be replaced, possibly by something better. Probably too late for us, unfortunately, but at least it's a hope.
posted by Frowner at 5:47 AM on December 9, 2024 [7 favorites]
I used to go to Minnie's when volunteering overnight. I don't remember terrible service, but it had big tables and was quiet enough to to be able to spread out our paperwork, etc
My last memory was a night, like 2a, and I saw some movement outside, an my partner and I looked over, and it was a guy dressed *only* in shors running down the block, stopped at the window out table was at, and he syqrted doing jumping jacks while facing us. So much juggling!
My partner said "someone lost a bet'
Everytime I pass that intersection, I think of naked jumping jacks guy.
posted by Gorgik at 7:15 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
My last memory was a night, like 2a, and I saw some movement outside, an my partner and I looked over, and it was a guy dressed *only* in shors running down the block, stopped at the window out table was at, and he syqrted doing jumping jacks while facing us. So much juggling!
My partner said "someone lost a bet'
Everytime I pass that intersection, I think of naked jumping jacks guy.
posted by Gorgik at 7:15 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
Woe betide the drunk who confuses the 5 Point with the 5 Spot.
OMFG!.The 5 Point it was! Oddly enough, Zeek's Pizza on 500 Cedar, which is where 5th Ave N becomes Cedar, was formerly where The Puppy Club was. And The Puppy Club was owned by the family or the son of the family that owned The Dog House. And may have contained some of the decor from the Dog House. I used to catch a bus back up Denny to Capitol Hill from the Metro bus shelter stop on its North side. I don't recall ever going in The Puppy Club there, though, because like in the article linked, it just wasn't the Dog House...
And if I recall correctly, the one thing the Dog House, The Mecca and The Five Point had in common back in the day was each place was known for-- and got in trouble with Liquor Control Board on occasion -- was they mix their drinks much stronger than anywhere else in town. All before the liquor laws were changed so one could buy liquor by the bottle in grocery stores like QFC.
posted by y2karl at 7:51 AM on December 9, 2024
OMFG!.The 5 Point it was! Oddly enough, Zeek's Pizza on 500 Cedar, which is where 5th Ave N becomes Cedar, was formerly where The Puppy Club was. And The Puppy Club was owned by the family or the son of the family that owned The Dog House. And may have contained some of the decor from the Dog House. I used to catch a bus back up Denny to Capitol Hill from the Metro bus shelter stop on its North side. I don't recall ever going in The Puppy Club there, though, because like in the article linked, it just wasn't the Dog House...
And if I recall correctly, the one thing the Dog House, The Mecca and The Five Point had in common back in the day was each place was known for-- and got in trouble with Liquor Control Board on occasion -- was they mix their drinks much stronger than anywhere else in town. All before the liquor laws were changed so one could buy liquor by the bottle in grocery stores like QFC.
posted by y2karl at 7:51 AM on December 9, 2024
To speak of worse things: the yelp link just reminds me of how annoying yelp restaurant reviews were in 2007. (They were even more terrible in the bay area! IIRC, there was a common understanding that you should have a history of yelp reviews to show off in case you got an interview with the company. But that "millennial yelp style" -- ugh.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:52 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:52 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
That was the last time I went to Palmer's, at least indoors. Although honestly since the pandemic and Trump etc even a few bugs falling from the ceiling sound reasonable and nostalgic if I could get everything else back.
The best part of Palmer’s is when the bouncer welcomes new people with “welcome home”. Also the wall notes about customers who have been banned and what horrible faux-pas the committed. It’s usually for being an ass or homophobic.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:50 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
The best part of Palmer’s is when the bouncer welcomes new people with “welcome home”. Also the wall notes about customers who have been banned and what horrible faux-pas the committed. It’s usually for being an ass or homophobic.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:50 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
Reminds me of the old Durgin-Park restaurant in Boston, where "the waitstaff were encouraged to adopt a 'surly' attitude and 'backtalk' the clientele."
posted by beagle at 9:14 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by beagle at 9:14 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
One of my best friends was a cook at Minnies in the late 90s. I think I knew several of the wait staff, though it was a coworker of a friend type deal. They all knew about the reputation, but a lot of it was just... a late night restaurant at the north end of Broadway was always going to have a kind of vibe that required some grouchiness.
posted by surlyben at 9:16 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by surlyben at 9:16 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
Oh man.
I ended up at this place once a bit over ten years ago with a friend after a night of going out to a club/bar just because we wanted a cup of coffee and a light snack to warm up before walking the rest of the way home.
And it was inexplicably bad. Like really bad even by the standards of "Ok it's after 2 AM and nothing else is open" kind of bad.
I remember I ordered something super basic like a grilled cheese and fries and a coffee and it took like 20 minutes before we ordered, and then 45 minutes for the food to come out, and the place was empty, like we were the only people in there kind of empty.
And, well, the food was NOT great. They somehow managed to screw up a grilled cheese so bad that the bread was remarkably burnt, yet the bread inside was soggy and the cheese was barely melted, and it even came out lukewarm and coldish, and the fries were an odd, improbable mix of soggy/chewy AND overcooked.
Like you actually have to make an effort to mess up an order that basic like the line cook took multiple doobie breaks and safety meetings over the span of trying to make a grilled cheese and throw some fries into the fryer kind of bad.
The only good things I remember were that the booth was really big and comfy and relatively clean, it was warm inside, and the coffee was plentiful.
I distinctly remember talking to my friend after we left and being really confused about everything and discussing the possibility it was a money laundering front kind of bad.
In hindsight we should have probably kept walking to Five Points but that place is often a total zoo and hot mess right after closing time and witching hour, so I think we were reckoning to have faster service at Minnie's since it was empty.
posted by loquacious at 11:08 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
I ended up at this place once a bit over ten years ago with a friend after a night of going out to a club/bar just because we wanted a cup of coffee and a light snack to warm up before walking the rest of the way home.
And it was inexplicably bad. Like really bad even by the standards of "Ok it's after 2 AM and nothing else is open" kind of bad.
I remember I ordered something super basic like a grilled cheese and fries and a coffee and it took like 20 minutes before we ordered, and then 45 minutes for the food to come out, and the place was empty, like we were the only people in there kind of empty.
And, well, the food was NOT great. They somehow managed to screw up a grilled cheese so bad that the bread was remarkably burnt, yet the bread inside was soggy and the cheese was barely melted, and it even came out lukewarm and coldish, and the fries were an odd, improbable mix of soggy/chewy AND overcooked.
Like you actually have to make an effort to mess up an order that basic like the line cook took multiple doobie breaks and safety meetings over the span of trying to make a grilled cheese and throw some fries into the fryer kind of bad.
The only good things I remember were that the booth was really big and comfy and relatively clean, it was warm inside, and the coffee was plentiful.
I distinctly remember talking to my friend after we left and being really confused about everything and discussing the possibility it was a money laundering front kind of bad.
In hindsight we should have probably kept walking to Five Points but that place is often a total zoo and hot mess right after closing time and witching hour, so I think we were reckoning to have faster service at Minnie's since it was empty.
posted by loquacious at 11:08 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
This reminded me of a cafe in Helena, Montana, where 90% of the TripAdvisor reviews mention the long wait for service and then food. The young staff weren't rude, but it was more like they ended up hanging out with each other and talking in a place that just happened to also be a restaurant. And it's been that way for years and years.
I refused to go there unless I could pick up the Sunday New York Times first, because it was that kind of wait.
posted by ITravelMontana at 11:13 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
I refused to go there unless I could pick up the Sunday New York Times first, because it was that kind of wait.
posted by ITravelMontana at 11:13 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
And if I recall correctly, the one thing the Dog House, The Mecca and The Five Point had in common back in the day was each place was known for-- and got in trouble with Liquor Control Board on occasion -- was they mix their drinks much stronger than anywhere else in town. All before the liquor laws were changed so one could buy liquor by the bottle in grocery stores like QFC.
Yeah, I can vouch for this for the 5 Point, even after the changes in private liquor sales.
I lived just a block or two over for a while, used to sit and smoke in the Tillikum Plaza park where the Chief Sealth statue was and hang out and play chess or backgammon with other neighborhood locals.
And I had even taken to hanging out with a remarkably inadvisable character who was a regular there who regularly ran up some ludicrous tabs, and I was there often enough that the surly bartenders knew my super basic and easy order of choice, which was simply as much well vodka as they wanted to pour in the largest glass they had, with as little ice as possible if any at all.
So for a while there I was getting a pint glass of cheap vodka with a few token cubes of ice in it and they were just charging it as a single or double shot or something. They knew they were going to get tipped well because my inadvisable associate was buying, and bartenders love easy orders like that when they know the patron can handle their liquor and not be a liability or a hassle.
I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have taken some of those pint glasses of vodka into the grody bathroom and decanted them into my steel water bottles (filtering out the token ice) and then gone back for more to stock up for the after-after party at my inadvisable associate's place.
posted by loquacious at 11:35 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I can vouch for this for the 5 Point, even after the changes in private liquor sales.
I lived just a block or two over for a while, used to sit and smoke in the Tillikum Plaza park where the Chief Sealth statue was and hang out and play chess or backgammon with other neighborhood locals.
And I had even taken to hanging out with a remarkably inadvisable character who was a regular there who regularly ran up some ludicrous tabs, and I was there often enough that the surly bartenders knew my super basic and easy order of choice, which was simply as much well vodka as they wanted to pour in the largest glass they had, with as little ice as possible if any at all.
So for a while there I was getting a pint glass of cheap vodka with a few token cubes of ice in it and they were just charging it as a single or double shot or something. They knew they were going to get tipped well because my inadvisable associate was buying, and bartenders love easy orders like that when they know the patron can handle their liquor and not be a liability or a hassle.
I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have taken some of those pint glasses of vodka into the grody bathroom and decanted them into my steel water bottles (filtering out the token ice) and then gone back for more to stock up for the after-after party at my inadvisable associate's place.
posted by loquacious at 11:35 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]
The best part of Palmer’s is when the bouncer welcomes new people with “welcome home”. Also the wall notes about customers who have been banned and what horrible faux-pas the committed. It’s usually for being an ass or homophobic.
That is certainly true. It's not that I wouldn't recommend Palmer's, it's just that you have to be ready to appreciate that certain West Bank charm. And I mean, I do, but I'm a bit more of a Hard Times person. I'd probably be more into Palmer's if I drank.
Every once in a while I think about how eventually the owners are going to sell up over there and it will be nothing but condos for wealthy students and two Starbucks and a mini Target like Dinkytown. I remember when Dinkytown was cool, man, and I grant you that I welcome international students with all my heart and there are definitely several really excellent home-style restaurants there now, but there has got to have been a way to not kill all the bookstores and that grotty basement bar and everything. I feel bad for the students because they sure aren't getting the ideal American university town experience, and Minneapolis used to be great for that.
posted by Frowner at 11:44 AM on December 9, 2024
That is certainly true. It's not that I wouldn't recommend Palmer's, it's just that you have to be ready to appreciate that certain West Bank charm. And I mean, I do, but I'm a bit more of a Hard Times person. I'd probably be more into Palmer's if I drank.
Every once in a while I think about how eventually the owners are going to sell up over there and it will be nothing but condos for wealthy students and two Starbucks and a mini Target like Dinkytown. I remember when Dinkytown was cool, man, and I grant you that I welcome international students with all my heart and there are definitely several really excellent home-style restaurants there now, but there has got to have been a way to not kill all the bookstores and that grotty basement bar and everything. I feel bad for the students because they sure aren't getting the ideal American university town experience, and Minneapolis used to be great for that.
posted by Frowner at 11:44 AM on December 9, 2024
... fell in with a bad crowd. Swing dancers.
*general gasps, cries of dismay, fainting*
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:04 PM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
*general gasps, cries of dismay, fainting*
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:04 PM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]
I dunno, I'm on the side of hating nostalgia too. I mean, the places were cheap because there were no decent jobs and that's why people had to risk fights and fake smiles to do wait staff jobs at all-night diners. Go to some place were the economy still kinda sucks, like Albuquerque NM, and you'll still see places like that. But not anywhere successful because the pay for tips sucks and you don't have to risk a punch at an Amazon Warehouse, if you are a desperate for a job night owl.
Now, most late night places are gone, even in major cities because people can't get paid enough to put up with that nonsense.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:48 PM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
Now, most late night places are gone, even in major cities because people can't get paid enough to put up with that nonsense.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:48 PM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
We had Edsel Ford Fong and Bruno Mooshei in San Francisco.
posted by mike3k at 3:17 PM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by mike3k at 3:17 PM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
Now, most late night places are gone, even in major cities because people can't get paid enough to put up with that nonsense.
Correction, because businesses won't (or can't, but I'm goin' won't) pay them enough. And because defunded transit means you can't get around the city late at night anymore. And because nobody working a service gig can afford to live anywhere near where they work anymore.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:27 PM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
Correction, because businesses won't (or can't, but I'm goin' won't) pay them enough. And because defunded transit means you can't get around the city late at night anymore. And because nobody working a service gig can afford to live anywhere near where they work anymore.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:27 PM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]
No, the real reason those places are gone is because the rents rose. You think there aren't crappy jobs anymore? What in god's name is, eg, being a taskrabbit?
You can't run a cheap, independent bar or restaurant because the margins were always thin and when the rents went up, it was unsustainable. I knew several places from the inside that closed due to chains of events that were basically "rent too high". Of those, at least one building has sat empty since about six years before the pandemic, presumably so the owner can take the loss on their taxes - the successful and popular place that used to be there is long gone.
Crappy jobs at slightly bohemian restaurants were not a way to make a lot of money, but they were a way to make enough to rent a room for people who had artistic or political ambitions or who were just not doing so great and who could swing a few shifts a week but nothing that required punching in.
I mean, Minneapolis is restaurant paradise, if you have plenty of money. There's some great food here. But unless you're working in a few high end places and make bank on tips, you are not in fact making enough to live any kind of life in the city, because, again rents went up.
The cheapest, crummiest studios in Minneapolis cost about $150/month more than inflation would suggest, and anything other than the cheapest and crummiest has gone up much more than that. (I happen to know this because I can compare the cheap, crummy studios I was looking at in the late nineties with those exact same, largely unimproved buildings right now.)
And rents didn't even go up that much compared to a lot of places!
When I consider the absolutely bog-standard life of my kind of person in the nineties - you get a little job, maybe you temp, you do art, you do activism, you hang out at the cheap coffee shop and the dive bar and the radical bookstore, you rent a room in a group house that is maybe not a palace but then again if you have responsible housemates it can be pretty nice in a SMPLS way...that life is gone. I know kids of my general type, and none of them live like that, because you can't afford to live like that. If you're working a little job and renting a room, your life is a precarious nightmare, not a bohemian dream.
Like, I knew lots of people who waited tables and were very happy with it, because they made money to support a simple life and did the stuff they cared about on the side. Society should accommodate that - you should be able to get a little job and live simply and still have enough money that your life isn't just one crisis after another. You shouldn't have to be chasing money every waking hour just in order to stay off the street. And it was not that long ago that you could live that kind of bohemian life.
posted by Frowner at 4:22 PM on December 9, 2024 [9 favorites]
You can't run a cheap, independent bar or restaurant because the margins were always thin and when the rents went up, it was unsustainable. I knew several places from the inside that closed due to chains of events that were basically "rent too high". Of those, at least one building has sat empty since about six years before the pandemic, presumably so the owner can take the loss on their taxes - the successful and popular place that used to be there is long gone.
Crappy jobs at slightly bohemian restaurants were not a way to make a lot of money, but they were a way to make enough to rent a room for people who had artistic or political ambitions or who were just not doing so great and who could swing a few shifts a week but nothing that required punching in.
I mean, Minneapolis is restaurant paradise, if you have plenty of money. There's some great food here. But unless you're working in a few high end places and make bank on tips, you are not in fact making enough to live any kind of life in the city, because, again rents went up.
The cheapest, crummiest studios in Minneapolis cost about $150/month more than inflation would suggest, and anything other than the cheapest and crummiest has gone up much more than that. (I happen to know this because I can compare the cheap, crummy studios I was looking at in the late nineties with those exact same, largely unimproved buildings right now.)
And rents didn't even go up that much compared to a lot of places!
When I consider the absolutely bog-standard life of my kind of person in the nineties - you get a little job, maybe you temp, you do art, you do activism, you hang out at the cheap coffee shop and the dive bar and the radical bookstore, you rent a room in a group house that is maybe not a palace but then again if you have responsible housemates it can be pretty nice in a SMPLS way...that life is gone. I know kids of my general type, and none of them live like that, because you can't afford to live like that. If you're working a little job and renting a room, your life is a precarious nightmare, not a bohemian dream.
Like, I knew lots of people who waited tables and were very happy with it, because they made money to support a simple life and did the stuff they cared about on the side. Society should accommodate that - you should be able to get a little job and live simply and still have enough money that your life isn't just one crisis after another. You shouldn't have to be chasing money every waking hour just in order to stay off the street. And it was not that long ago that you could live that kind of bohemian life.
posted by Frowner at 4:22 PM on December 9, 2024 [9 favorites]
All this discussion has tripped a breaker in my brain which has me remembering a woman I went on a couple of dates with, whose last name I never knew--wish I did because I would love to know if she's doing OK lo these (does math) nearly 30 years (!) later. One of the dates was catching Lost Highway at the Egytian and afterwards ending up at the 13 coins for a late snack (though those two spots aren't really near each other). Speaking of Zeeks, she worked at one, near the zoo. T, hope you done good and your dreams came true.
posted by maxwelton at 7:15 PM on December 9, 2024
posted by maxwelton at 7:15 PM on December 9, 2024
Mod note: [Oh, garçon!! We did not fail to add a tip to this post in "It Could Happen To You" collection on the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:51 AM on December 10, 2024
posted by taz (staff) at 1:51 AM on December 10, 2024
So much Minneapolis is cool actually nostalgia… kind of sad to read. At least the Vikings are good.
posted by thedaniel at 2:38 AM on December 10, 2024
posted by thedaniel at 2:38 AM on December 10, 2024
So much Minneapolis is cool actually nostalgia… kind of sad to read. At least the Vikings are good.
Now I grant you that re Minneapolis, some of this is age - I don't go out like I did, so I don't keep up with places to go. There are several cool new record stores and bookstores, and there's a couple of interesting new independent shops, and Caravelle/Pho 79 are still serving affordable and tasty lunches in a space where you can linger. The Trylon is showing movies. Uncle Hugo's was able to reopen. Caffetto is still there, and of course the Hard Times, although I pray each day (or really just randomly) that it will hold on. The Seward is going okay. There are shows. It's not like there is literally nothing fun.
But when I think about my going-out days I really am struck by how much is gone and has not been replaced. Virtually all the used bookstores by the university, I think all the independent comic book shops but certainly the central ones, several cheap independent movie venues, big used record/CD/tape stores, most of the independent secondhand and vintage shops, a slew of little used bookstores, lots of sort of "where everybody knows your name" coffee shops and restaurants, little art galleries, bike shops. We've even lost specialty luxury retail like kitchen goods stores.
It often feels like the only thing you can make money on is an expensive restaurant, and even there it helps to be a concealed chain, like really run by a big investment group, and to be focus-grouped to death. It feels like a LOT of the places to go have been replaced by places to eat, and they're much more expensive than just browsing records was.
It's not like you can't have a good time here. But back in the dim days of my now-unimaginable youth, it was possible to, eg, get a sweet deal on rent and run an anarchist center/showspace/bookstore in near south, or save up for a couple of years and open a wee little coffee house/gallery/showspace in St. Paul (Motor Oil Industrial Coffees, a cult spot that no one remembers) and so what if it took a little bit of sleeping on a cot behind the counter? There was a short-lived showspace for punk and small bands downtown (Foxfire).
Now, my point is not that only these are any good. My point is that life is a lot more fun when someone can afford to open a little space like that. Any space - I am not a youth, so I have no idea what the youths would like, but I think that probably if they had the chance to go hang out somewhere fun and cheap for the price of a small coffee and do whatever stuff is fun to them, or a space to affordably enjoy whatever entertainment they preferred in company with peers, they would probably like that. Or if they could say, "I have a vision for a coffee shop/art gallery/showspace, and my friend and I are going to work really hard for a couple of years and do it ourselves and open one, and we can find an space we can afford".
People do seem to like the Trylon and the record shops, so probably they would like a city with at least a couple more places to see a wider variety of movies and browse more records.
Things just feel so bland a lot of the time here - there's variety, and god knows there's some tasty food, but it's all expensive, focus-grouped and focused around buying - not even browsing, buying. And it has to be, because of rents and financialization.
I don't think that kids today should have the kind of youth I had just because I had a good time, but I do feel like the options for a good time are very, very much reduced in the interest of making some rich people richer and I do think that the kids today would have more fun if this were not the case.
posted by Frowner at 6:03 AM on December 10, 2024 [5 favorites]
Now I grant you that re Minneapolis, some of this is age - I don't go out like I did, so I don't keep up with places to go. There are several cool new record stores and bookstores, and there's a couple of interesting new independent shops, and Caravelle/Pho 79 are still serving affordable and tasty lunches in a space where you can linger. The Trylon is showing movies. Uncle Hugo's was able to reopen. Caffetto is still there, and of course the Hard Times, although I pray each day (or really just randomly) that it will hold on. The Seward is going okay. There are shows. It's not like there is literally nothing fun.
But when I think about my going-out days I really am struck by how much is gone and has not been replaced. Virtually all the used bookstores by the university, I think all the independent comic book shops but certainly the central ones, several cheap independent movie venues, big used record/CD/tape stores, most of the independent secondhand and vintage shops, a slew of little used bookstores, lots of sort of "where everybody knows your name" coffee shops and restaurants, little art galleries, bike shops. We've even lost specialty luxury retail like kitchen goods stores.
It often feels like the only thing you can make money on is an expensive restaurant, and even there it helps to be a concealed chain, like really run by a big investment group, and to be focus-grouped to death. It feels like a LOT of the places to go have been replaced by places to eat, and they're much more expensive than just browsing records was.
It's not like you can't have a good time here. But back in the dim days of my now-unimaginable youth, it was possible to, eg, get a sweet deal on rent and run an anarchist center/showspace/bookstore in near south, or save up for a couple of years and open a wee little coffee house/gallery/showspace in St. Paul (Motor Oil Industrial Coffees, a cult spot that no one remembers) and so what if it took a little bit of sleeping on a cot behind the counter? There was a short-lived showspace for punk and small bands downtown (Foxfire).
Now, my point is not that only these are any good. My point is that life is a lot more fun when someone can afford to open a little space like that. Any space - I am not a youth, so I have no idea what the youths would like, but I think that probably if they had the chance to go hang out somewhere fun and cheap for the price of a small coffee and do whatever stuff is fun to them, or a space to affordably enjoy whatever entertainment they preferred in company with peers, they would probably like that. Or if they could say, "I have a vision for a coffee shop/art gallery/showspace, and my friend and I are going to work really hard for a couple of years and do it ourselves and open one, and we can find an space we can afford".
People do seem to like the Trylon and the record shops, so probably they would like a city with at least a couple more places to see a wider variety of movies and browse more records.
Things just feel so bland a lot of the time here - there's variety, and god knows there's some tasty food, but it's all expensive, focus-grouped and focused around buying - not even browsing, buying. And it has to be, because of rents and financialization.
I don't think that kids today should have the kind of youth I had just because I had a good time, but I do feel like the options for a good time are very, very much reduced in the interest of making some rich people richer and I do think that the kids today would have more fun if this were not the case.
posted by Frowner at 6:03 AM on December 10, 2024 [5 favorites]
I think probably the driving factors behind the demise of late-night places or all-night places specifically may vary widely across urban areas. In my part of the city these businesses remain open, just never after 10 pm anymore -- I am sure rent is a factor, but if it was the overriding factor they'd close altogether. There are other factors at work in Chicago that make it so your diner can survive as long as it doesn't try to be 24 hours anymore.
Actually in the neighborhoods where I've lived it is more so that the housing itself became so expensive that the only people who can live there are established professionals who usually have kids; not exactly a late-night bar and diner crew. A lot of places closed around me simply because a pair of lawyers with twins and a 14,000/mo mortgage simply aren't going to a 2am cocktail bar.
Honestly apart from not knowing what the young folks DO now, I don't know where young folks live now, either. I sure never see them. Everyone in my neighborhood is either under 10 or over 40, and we live in a kind of down-at-heel enclave where rents are not quite as stratospheric.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:49 AM on December 10, 2024
Actually in the neighborhoods where I've lived it is more so that the housing itself became so expensive that the only people who can live there are established professionals who usually have kids; not exactly a late-night bar and diner crew. A lot of places closed around me simply because a pair of lawyers with twins and a 14,000/mo mortgage simply aren't going to a 2am cocktail bar.
Honestly apart from not knowing what the young folks DO now, I don't know where young folks live now, either. I sure never see them. Everyone in my neighborhood is either under 10 or over 40, and we live in a kind of down-at-heel enclave where rents are not quite as stratospheric.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:49 AM on December 10, 2024
*Pours out a 40 of syrup for The 5 Spot*
posted by kirkaracha at 9:45 AM on December 10, 2024
posted by kirkaracha at 9:45 AM on December 10, 2024
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only $36!!
posted by HearHere at 2:33 PM on December 8, 2024 [1 favorite]