We’ve been getting requests from various citizens to feature their respective cities in our new Geek Weekend feature here on CrunchGear, so when a request came in for the Twin Cities, John asked me to write it up and I thought, “Oh, great. More work.” “Perfect! I grew up there! I know where geeky stuff is located!”
Background Info: The Twin Cities denotes the capital city of St. Paul, MN and the larger, more cosmopolitan city of Minneapolis, MN. Together the two cities are home to roughly 2.5 million people.
There’s always been a friendly little rivalry going on between the two cities, with some people from Minneapolis viewing people from St. Paul as more blue-collar and rough-around-the-edges, while some from St. Paul think people from Minneapolis are yuppies. I’ve lived in both cities and they’re both nice places. Overall, the rivalry is pretty silly, but it’s there. Look hard enough in any city, though, and you’ll find both a-holes and nice people. No different in the Twin Cities. Everyone’s pretty nice, overall, though.
Minneapolis features a relatively large downtown commercial district. It’s home to the Target Corporation, the Target Center (home of the Timberwolves, concerts, etc.), the Metrodome (home of the Twins, the Vikings, and monster truck rallies) — soon to be replaced by the new outdoor Target Field, and First Avenue, a little music club that’s seen a fair amount of pretty big acts.
St. Paul has the Xcel Energy Center (home of the Wild, concerts, etc.), the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team (owned by Bill Murray), the Science Museum, and the capital building.
The gigantic University of Minnesota (50,000+ students) sprawls across both Minneapolis and St. Paul. The two cities’ downtown areas are about ten miles apart.
Where to Buy Gadgets: When you realize that you’ve forgotten something important at home, I can recommend the following places based on firsthand experience.
Micro Center: Where I spent most of the past five years of my life before I moved to Boston. This place is located a few blocks from the home I used to own. It’s a great place for cheap cables and the staff is relatively helpful without being pushy. You can walk around in here for an hour or so before anybody bothers you. They have some name brands at decent prices and a fair amount of gray market-type stuff that you’d find on the internet.
General NanoSystems: Very knowledgeable and helpful staff, excellent prices, kind of like a mom and pop computer store that’s able to compete with other retailers. Similar to Micro Center but more local. Very cheap cables — probably the cheapest you’ll find.
FirstTech: All Apple, all the time. These guys are the kings and queens of Apple sales, training, and tech support in Minneapolis. Located right on Hennepin Avenue in the middle of trendy Uptown Minneapolis, it’s not a huge store by any means but they’ve got it all and they know their stuff.
Best Buy — Store #5: Of the trillions of Best Buy super stores, Store #5 is still standing. One of the original Best Buy stores (back when it was called Sound of Music), legend has it that Store #5 was a present from original Best Buy CEO and founder Dick Schulze to his wife. She’d forever get all the revenue generated by the little store that could.
It’s seriously a sight to behold, especially if you’ve only been in the gigantic Best Buy stores before. Store #5 can’t be more than a couple thousand square feet, everything’s packed to the rafters, and the aisles are uncomfortably tight.
Little known fact: Store #5 is where I worked in high school — it was my first job ever. I sold computers, earning $5.38 an hour. I spent my entire first paycheck on a Super Nintendo.
Where to Eat and Drink: First thing in the morning, you’ll want to pick up a coffee at local legend turned #2 coffee company behind Starbucks, Caribou Coffee. They’re everywhere, even moreso than Starbucks.
If #2 is still too big for you, try local legend turned… um, still local legend, Dunn Bros. They’ve got some strong coffee there and many locations have morning coffee on the honor system — pour your own and pay a buck. And don’t leave without trying the gigantic Rice Krispie square. It’s big as your head.
For breakfast, head over to Linden Hills and eat at Zumbro. Nothing geeky about this place, but it has the best, most consistently-delicious breakfast in the history of eating. Get the “Eggs Etc.” over hard with bacon and sourdough, plus a single pancake. You’ll never have a better breakfast. Tell them Doug from Boston sent you. I eat there every time I’m in town.
You can also try Cafe Twenty-Eight, which is right down the street and very delicious as well. Get the farmer’s breakfast. If it’s lunch or dinner time, get the bacon cheeseburger and a local beer — Surly Furious is my favorite. Surly is relatively popular in the Twin Cities and the guy who owns it also owns Cafe Twenty-Eight.
And any geek worth his or her salt will do a fair amount of eating and drinking at the Chatterbox (two locations in Minneapolis, one in St. Paul). Great food, excellent beer selection and — wait for it — old school video game consoles and vintage board games at every table. Snag the NES table and rent just about every Nintendo game all night for $1 apiece. There is NO better way to hang out for hours on end, as far as I’m concerned.
After you’ve had your fill of retro gaming and beer, head over to Northeast Minneapolis and go low-tech at Nye’s Polonaise Room. Home of the self-proclaimed “World’s Most Dangerous Polka Band” and live piano karaoke, Nye’s was voted the Best Bar in America by Esquire Magazine. The look and feel of the place hasn’t changed in… well, ever, and the drinks are cheap and strong.
Once you’ve stumbled back home, make sure to call in for late-night food from Galactic Pizza — which I could have sworn used to be open until 3AM, but it now seems that they’re only open until 1AM on the weekends. Oh well, do it anyway. Know why? Because they deliver in three-wheeled electric pods while dressed as superheros. It’s outstanding.
Daytime Activities: Aside from eating your way through the Twin Cities, there’s plenty of other fun stuff to do throughout the day.
Here’s a curveball to get things started; head over to the St. Paul Curling Club. Remember Curling? From the Olympics? Like bowling on ice, kinda? The St. Paul Curling Club is the largest curling club in the country and makes for a great way to kill a few hours on a hot day. Bring some friends and have a few beers afterwards. It’s fun, I promise.
While you’re over in St. Paul, check out the Science Museum of Minnesota — especially if you have kids with you. There’s a lot of fun stuff for them to do there and almost everything is interactive in some way. Let them run around and play while you relax and take in a show (or nap) in the Omnitheater.
Round out the afternoon with a visit to St. Paul’s Fort Snelling. You’ll see old-timey reenactors blasting cannons and muskets at each other. Sure, it’s a bunch of stuff from the early 1800’s, but there’s still some cool old war technology and weaponry there.
For some straightforward Chuck-E-Cheese-style gaming, but for adults, head to downtown Minneapolis’ Block E and visit Gameworks. There’s a pretty decent bowling alley inside, too. Try to go during the daytime, if possible. That whole area gets a little dicey at night (unless they’ve cleaned it up by now).
Just outside of the Twin Cities sits Valleyfair, Minnesota’s answer to Six Flags, Disneyland, and various kid-friendly waterparks. Admission costs almost $40 per person but you can get a four-pack of tickets for $25 apiece. Use the money you save to buy half of a small drink once you’re inside the park.
Also just outside of the city, Grand Slam is a pretty fun place for the kids. There are batting cages, an 18-hole miniature golf course (pirate themed!), laser tag, go karts, and video games.
And, of course, I have to mention the Mall of America. Don’t go to the Mall of America. Walk around your local mall 60 times in a row to get the same effect. If you’re dead set on going, there’s an amusement park in the middle of the mall with overpriced, non-thrilling rides for the kids and an underwater aquarium, which is actually kind of cool. Go in the middle of the week if you can. Weekends there are an absolute madhouse.
If you’re looking for some exercise, there are plenty of lakes with excellent walking, running, and bike paths. In the city, you can scoot around Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun, and Lake of the Isles — they’re situated within blocks of each other. Lake Harriet is a nice walking lake with a big bandstand and ice cream for the kids, Lake Calhoun features some very beautiful Scandanavian eye candy (both men and women), and Lake of the Isles is a little quieter but has some pretty enormous houses for architecture buffs.
Finally, make sure to check out the Brave New Workshop on Hennepin Avenue in Uptown Minneapolis. Founded by Dudley Riggs in 1958, it’s the longest running satirical theatre in the country specializing in political and social satire. I spent the better part of my twenties there honing my improv skills and acting in various shows. Now I fumble my way through video reviews of gadgets. Same basic difference.
Other Good Geeky Shopping:
Other Geek-Friendly Bars and Restaurants:
- Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge
- Bryant-Lake Bowl
- Half Time Rec (indoor Bocce Ball pit)
- Town Talk Diner
- Pizza Luce
- Jimmy John’s
- Uptown Bar (get the skillet)
- Keys
- Highland Grill
- The Happy Gnome (huge beer selection)
Local Tech Businesses:
- Best Buy
- Geek Squad (now owned by Best Buy)
- Target
- 3M
- Medtronic
- Ecolab
- Seagate
- Cray
- Hormel Foods (they make SPAM!)
- Map of area tech startups (from CrunchBase)
- Minneapolis citywide Wi-Fi
Anything Else?
I’m bound to have forgotten more than a few great places. Drop your recommendations in the comments — there’s plenty to see and do in the Twin Cities.
Micro Center in Boston is the place to be… much better than a local Best Buy
I gotta say Microcenter in Beantown IS the best Microcenter… I never knew about the MSP one until I returned back to my hometown years later… Disappointing.
That said, kinda peeved as well that you don’t give better props to the aquarium in the MOA. It’s the largest underground aquarium IN THE WORLD, YO!
Lastly, I love articles like this, even when the main post is lacking, the comments become a total goldmine of insider tips and new things to explore on my next visit back. ;)
Thanks for sharing it.
YES! It’s about time our fair Cities have garnered some attention. As a proud Minnesotan, I support this article. :D
Here here! Minnesotan here as well!
It’d be cool if you guys added a mention of small local start-ups from each area too. You’ve already got the data:
http://www.crunchbase.com/maps/search?range=10&geo=minneapolis
I agree…thats a good idea.
Psycho Suzie’s Motor Lounge in NE Minneapolis has great food (deep fried cheesecurds, pizza, et al), tattooed waitresses, and drinks served out of tiki cups. This is the kind of place to drink away an evening while your cron job is running back at the coal mine.
Sioux Yeah Yeah!!!
Ya, but where do I find non-medical VCs?
Minneapolis has a great restaurant scene; no trip is complete without at least one dining experience at one of Parasole’s spots… Manny’s, Chino Latino, Figlio, Burger Jones, etc. Ok, now I am hungry.
How can you talk about St. Paul and not mention Alary’s Bar for the best looking waitresses in town or making the pilgrimage to Cossetta’s to enjoy the best slice of pizza in the country?
and today on http://bing.com is a picture of the downtown Minneapolis skyline. Great timing Doug!
Small (nitpick) typo. You wrote:
“The gigantic University of Minnesota (50,000+ students) sprawls across both Minneapolis and St. Paul. The two cities are about ten miles apart.”
Not sure what you mean here. There is a St. Paul (Agricultural College) Campus that is a few miles away from the main U of M campus. But the entire main campus is in Minneapolis. The cities are not ten miles apart they are contiguous.
Great article about my frosty, frigid, but nonetheless fun, home! Good to see it in Tech Crunch.
The two “cities” are about 10 miles.. but the city limits are not… so the campus spreads pretty far, but not 10 miles.
This is a great post! I love the shout out to Minneapolis, laying out the hot spots to shop for tech gear, where to eat, etc. Minneapolis-resident approved!
-Brad
Great writeup Doug! When I lived in the Twin Cities I never really appreciated all there was to see/do/eat…now that I’m not there I love to visit.
I am a software geek, currently living in Minneapolis (5 years). I also happen to be a Silicon Valley ex-pat (8 years), and a Boston ex-pat (5 years), for perspective. Here’s my take on this article:
1. Awesome, awesome that you guys features the Twin Cities. Thank you!
2. Best Buy #5 is indeed a funny place to visit.
3. Altcaa — THANK YOU for posting that link to Twin Cities startups. I had no idea there were so many in the area, and didn’t even know that Crunchbase had a view-by-map feature.
4. Agree with earthworm — there’s a great restaurant scene here. Zumbro is a great reccomendation. Otherwise, I think this article sort of misses the mark on the food stuff. Chatterbox is fun because of the videogames, but the food is sub-par. The beer list is average. For a world-class beer list (that would stand up to any major metropolitan city), visit the Happy Gnome, the Muddy Pig, the Bulldog NE, or Buster’s. And coffee? Glad that you mentioned the local chains, but if you want an amazing coffee experience, head to Kopplin’s in St. Paul. It is better than the famous Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco. Read the guy’s blog… he knows when the cows that make the latte milk eat different grass. Now THAT is a geek!
5. One of the geekiest things to do is to go to the Minnesota Fringe Festival, which happens to be going on right now (for the next week). A few years ago at the Fringe, I saw “Google: The Musical” and “Calculus: The Musical,” almost back-to-back.
6. The Electric Fetus, one of the best record stores in the country, is a haven for music geeks.
7. There’s a great vintage scene in St. Paul along University Ave, for the 50s/60s sci-fi retro geek.
8. One more for the music geeks: 89.3 The Current, possibly the best radio station in the country, is run by the geekiest music geeks around. Your dial should be locked into it on your whole trip.
Overall, great article!
The Current! I’m from Silicon Valley, but working temporarily in Minneapolis during the summer. I was languishing in mediocre music until I found the Current. Seriously the best. I don’t know any other radio stations that would have Sonic Youth take over for an hour in the morning. (Not the music of Sonic Youth – the actual band – talking & playing music.)
It’s a fun town. Lots going on. Progressive & smart.
Gunnar Peterson put together a geek map of the twin cities via google maps.
http://1raindrop.typepad.com/1_raindrop/2009/07/geek-map-of-twin-cities.html
I am a 5 year Twin Cities resident and a lifelong Minnesotan. It’s pretty cool to see both Bing and TechCrunch feature my great state.
We’ve got a thriving geek community in the Twin Cities. I had considered moving out to San Francisco for awhile until I came to realize I have it pretty good right where I’m at. I’m part of a local group of Ruby developers known as Ruby Users of Minnesota or RUM.
http://ruby.mn
Something worth checking out if you are in town is the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and Walker Art Center. It’s got the giant cherry/spoon as well as a lot of other interesting art.
Just read the title and thought you were confused about the geek week in Austin, Texas next week.
Great article. As a relative newcomer to MSP (in the year 2000) I can say for atmosphere that the Chatterbox IS all it’s cracked up to be! Another cool restaurant, not quite as geeky but a sight to see is http://loringpastabar.com
Doug, there’s a new Chatterbox location at 44th and France where the old Green Mill once was and is still home to the Great Wall… Its not as authentic as the others, but you cant beat 8 blocks from my house
Galactic Pizza is great and has a gluten free pizza. But how did dear old Pizza Luce (http://www.pizzaluce.com/) get left out. Try the garlic mashed potato.
And you can’t leave Mpls without a stop at Isles Bun and Coffee in UpTown (http://www.islesbun.com/). Killer!
As I sit outside Coffee & Tea Ltd in Linden Hills…
Dudes – you rock! Thanks for following up on my suggestion. This is a well-done piece. Just re-tweeted it.
Regardless of your OPSYS preference, it’s also notable that Microsoft chose the TC as its location to open its new R&D office this summer (led by the famous Douglas Olson).
As for the restaurant scene, don’t forget Zelo, 112 Eatery, Solera, Sanctuary, Hell’s Kitchen, etc.
RE Microsoft in the Twin Cities:
We are moving the Expression office across to St. Paul after next week. Just when I was getting to know where all the best food was in the Minneapolis sky way system (arguably the world’s largest indoor inter-connected food court).
My food recommendations in downtown Minneapolis:
Torby’s Pizza
The Burger Place
Greek gyro shop in the Lumber Exchange Building near 5th & Hennepin (cannot remember the name).
I passed by Best Buy store on my last visit and thought, nice knock off especially since it said Best Buy superstores. I didn’t know its history and missed checking out a landmark. I was wondering why Best Buy hasn’t sued them out of existance..anyways nice town indeed. I vote for Donatelli’s in whitebearlake…kinda far but good food.
You nailed it with Galatic Pizza, the science museum and the original-ish Best Buy, but you missed a couple of things.
Near that Best Buy is Hub Hobby… they have some good robot kits for little kids and the experienced! If you buy multiple things at once, you can negotiate with them about pricing. Very friendly staffing.
Dinky Town has PC-Mat.com. A small computer services company that makes computer repair/tech support personal. They also do custom builds and installs… for CRAZY cheap rates!
The Soup Nazi restaurant, though not as fun as on Seinfeld, is in downtown Minneapolis. If you ask them if they can yell at you, they’ll tell you, “I’ll get fired.” Ha!
Minneapolis’ City’s Wi-Fi system… It covers the WHOLE city!
Kevin is right.. the Loring pasta bar is a good one!
That’s all I can think of for now…
Oh yeah.. I forgot one:
mycablemart.com
Totally cheap cables… located in the metro. You can’t go to the “store” to buy anything, but you can order your cables online and pick it up there, or they’ll ship it for you.
Don’t buy their installation services; those are so over priced. So buy your parts at Micro Center (as Doug mentioned), buy your cables at mycablemart.com and use PC-Mat.com for your installation needs!
Totally geek!
I live a couple hours out of the twin cities and only make it down there for the occasional Vikings or Twins game but this makes me want to take a trip down there for the weekend. Nice article, I enjoyed reading it.
I’m sorry, but it’s just too damn cold in Minneapolis in the winter. Despite what these people above say, it is not that great at all. The area lacks the energy of California and Silicon Valley. This is probably because people are forced to use probably 80% of their energy just to stay warm. This summer, the average temperature is under 70 degrees. This past winter we had forty or fifty days straight of below zero temperatures. It’s a frozen tundra for about 8 months out of the year. We get about 3 weeks of spring and 3 weeks of fall. We get about 10 weeks of so called “summer.” I’ve lived here and in Wisconsin for my entire life and I can’t wait to leave. It’s not a nice place to visit and it’s not that much fun. I do enjoy the summers in the city when it gets up to 80 degrees or so, but that’s about it and it’s on a rare occassion these days.
@Julius Hahahaha. Nice one.
For shame! How come no one has mentioned Axman Surplus yet? It’s pretty much mandatory for any geek to hit one of their locations at least once!
Also, I’d HIGHLY recommend Midtown Global Market for anyone interested in good ethnic cuisine or import shopping. It’s basically an indoor bazaar that hosts shops from just about every continent. Make sure to hit the Holy Land while you’re there and stock up on their AMAZING hummus.
Finally, I want to note how awesome the local Maker’s scene is here. For instance, the local public television station, TPT, is responsible for Make:TV. Additionally, we’ve got several small but ambitious groups like Studio Bricolage and TCMakers who are both in the process of trying to get shops up and running.
Good call on Ax-man Surplus! Doh!
Winter is one of Minnesota’s benefits. Keeps sourpuss wienerheads like Julius out!
Which brings to mind another Geeky delight of the Twin Cities… The St. Paul Winter Carnival! Ice sculptures! Car Races on frozen lakes! Giant Ice Slides built by the Army Corps of Engineers! The occasional Ice Castle! Citywide Medalion/Treasure Hunt! What’s not to like?
amen to that!
sure its cold but you actually appreciate the change that is life/seasons and it keeps the wusses out too.
plus, how many other people can say they woke up to -25F and then went snowboarding for 5 hours in it.
:P
Concur with everyone else on a great writeup…though beg-to-differ with Julius. It *is* damn cold in the winter which is why my bride and I will bail when we retire (at least in the winter), but until then the quality of the community, the best K12 education system and the fact that there are tons o’ geeks makes this a great place to be.
For geek connections, check out http://centralstandardtech.com which has calendars and links to just about every tech group here. Three other geeks and I do a site showcasing startups and innovations in ‘net and web at http://minnov8.com
BTW, I used to call on Sound of Music when I was a manufacturer’s rep right out of college. Where Best Buy #5 is used to be a Perkins restaurant, and not a Sound of Music. If I recall correctly, the company absolutely wanted a store near Southdale (the first enclosed mall in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southdale_Center) since the demographics were just right and I’ll bet that story about Dick buying the real estate and giving the dough to his bride was accurate.
Portland next!
Great article on many points, been to several of these places a few times.
I’m hoping to move to the twin cities in the next few months, pretty excitied about it.
Great article! I personally think the entrepreneurial techie community is a bit lacking mainly because it seems that most get a 9-5, married, and then have kids. Which then makes starting a business difficult to impossible.
There have been some great food suggestions but I’ll throw out a few of my own. For ribs, Ted Cook’s 19th Hole…it’s a hole but they have incredible ribs. For sea food, Sea Salt near Minnehaha Falls. For juicy lucy (our version of a cheeseburger), The Nook in St. Paul. And for a great meal and a good beer in a nice little shopping area, The Edina Grill.
Keep up the good work, looking forward to reading about another city!
Minneapolis sucks–too cold!
Al’s Breakfast? Good food and a trip is an experience in itself.
Doug, great article!
Lived here all my life and you did a great job touching all the bases!
Great article. I work on the Minneapolis side and live on the Saint Paul side. Both cities have a lot to offer. Some more food stops:
Abu Nader – St. Anthony Park – Falafel
The Holy Land – North Minneapolis – Great Hummus
Swede Hollow – Saint Paul – great coffee and morning goodies
Nina’s – Saint Paul – great coffee, located above Garrison Keillor’s bookstore
Oh, and it’s worth mentioning Minneapolis Medical/Tech company – National Marrow Donor Program (http://www.marrow.org or http://bethematch.org)
What an awesome article! It always is nice to see the area where I am from featured as a top tech location, perhaps I will have to move back there! Awesome!
Thanks for the great write-up on the Twin Cities. I grew up in the area but moved away as soon as I could. I really don’t miss it one bit, but it was a tremendous place to grow up and be from. And, it’s good to know that those quirky, good-natured, proud and clever Minnesotans still exist and thrive in those temperatures. Better you than me, but I’m glad so many of you like it back there. It was great to read about all the old places that are still around, and the new ones that have arisen. There are few places like this one. Thanks!
I’m a Twin Cities ex-pat (left in ‘03). General NanoSystems sold me the parts for my first Mini-ITX box that I bought with the proceeds of my first domain name sale. Great place with sharp people.
For breakfast, try the New Uptown Diner. The Cajun breakfast is awesome (but you might want to get a half-order… it’s *huge*).
Other Local Tech Businesses:
CotterWeb
Digital River
IBM (office in Rochester, MN)
W3i
Geeky Events to Visit:
MinneDemo (http://minnedemo.org/) The closest thing the Twin Cities has to compare to a TechCrunch event. TechCrunch should cover this event.
MIMA (http://www.mima.org/)- This event is more for the local interactive agency types than start-ups, still a pretty cool event.
Where to Eat and Drink:
5-8 Club- As recently seen on the Travel Channel’s Man vs Food, who can forget the Minneapolis born Jucy Lucy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jucy_Lucy)? I’m a big fan of the 5-8 Club version.
I’ll be at the Twins game tonight, sitting 5th behind home plate with my two buds.
Grew up in St. Paul and still travel back frequently.
Punch (brick oven pizza) and Cecil’s Deli on Cleveland Ave. in Highland Park area of St. Paul
If you like walking, running or biking, look for River Road and Summit Ave. in St. Paul. Great views and historic mansions.
So like there’s this pretty cool place right between Minneapolis and St. Paul where you can take a dump into the Mississippi river. It’s AWESOME but you need to do it at night.
Lat: 44°56′53.86″N
Long: 93°12′8.27″W
I shop frequently at Best Buy 5. My favorite store. You can spend thousands and only walk a few feet.
Great post. The Twin Cities tech scene is emerging, but it is continuing to get better and bigger every year. On campus, you can’t miss MESA pizza.
A Geek article on the Twin Cities would not be complete without mentioning Ax-man Surplus ( http://www.ax-man.com ). The St. Paul location is the best.
Also, it’s not a place that I’d necessarily recommend visiting, but bears mentioning… Film and Video Services in Minneapolis ( http://www.filmvideoservices.net ) is one of the very few places that you can still get Super 8 film developed.
Ex-governor Jessie Ventura, always the eloquent speaker (!), helped fuel that debate, with his infamous remark that the St. Paul streets looked like they were drawn by a drunken Irishman.
All the local geeks now hanging out at the Social Media Breakfast
Nice write up of MSP! Great picture too.
Micro Center rocks, Best Buy sucks. If we only had Fry’s here. Oh how I miss Fry’s Electronics – best in the country.
Go MN.
I live in the SW metro in a town called Chanhassen (voted #2 for best places to live by Money mag) and work in Plymouth (who has also been in the top places to live in the US). I must say the Twin Cities are one of the best places to live. Many people say it’s too cold, but it’s not. I was a “Navy Brat” when I was in school and my dad brought us to CA, FL, ND, MN, etc… We settled in MN and I wouldn’t go anywhere else. I will say it does vary more than most states. It can go from over 100 and humid in the summer to negative 20 in the winter, but the parks, lakes, etc are well worth it.
We have trails, parks, lakes all over. Just in this little town of 20,000, we have 8 lakes, great beaches, and just quality life.
Uncommon Grounds on Hennepin has got to be the most hard core cup of coffee in history. Dale (owner) has is own house blend. Go ahead, get a cup at 2pm and tell me when you fall asleep the next afternoon. 1 cup and I’m solid for at least 16 hours. Two: The Source comics and game shop is a must on Snelling. Phoenix Games is another great stop. Also the famous North Saint Paul Snow Man is a great photostop in a small town.
I also reccomend when visiting the Twin Cities the Walker Art Center and a visit to the Saint Paul Cathedral.
As a nod to my home parish, Saint Peter’s church in North Saint Paul has some astonishing stain glass world.
One last thing to also check out is the Renessance Festival in Mid August-Sept. One of the nation’s largest and a great venue for people watching.