Forbes calls North Loop shop 'hottest retailer in America's hottest retailing city'

Now that's a headline, Forbes.

Minneapolis lifestyle boutique MartinPatrick3 is used to getting accolades. But last week, Forbes Magazine published an article online that threw down the gauntlet:

"Meet the hottest retailer in America's hottest retailing city: Minneapolis' MartinPatrick3."

In Minnesota, we love being loved. And this made local fashionistas swoon.

It's well deserved for MP3, as the predominantly menswear-focused shop has grown from a small storefront to today's mini department store, spanning 17,000 square feet in the North Loop.

Maybe even better than the MP3 love was Forbes' assertion that our fair little Midwestern city is the hottest of the hot. The writer, Pamela N. Danziger, drew that conclusion based on a recent Fast Company article that named five cutting-edge retail establishments "bringing shoppers back to the store." Three of them are based here (Target, the Mall of America and MP3).

MP3 co-founder Greg Walsh explained the shop's success like this: "Minneapolis has been undersold. It's dismissed as a flyover Midwest city where everybody goes out of town to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles to shop. But we've found a huge appetite here of people who can afford it and want the kind of retail experience that they haven't been able to get here until recently."

More good news: The shop is planning another expansion that will add 4,000 square feet.