We spent eight hours in Uptown: Is there anything to do?

Many say Uptown is dead. We hit the construction-clogged streets of this one-time hot spot hoping to find the truth.

Star Tribune

August 16, 2024 at 12:01am

ptown, you often hear, is a languishing, crime-ridden wasteland. There is nothing to do there, and nowhere to park, either. You have to walk a country mile to get anywhere, and once you get there, your destination is probably closed.

As someone who lives and plays in the area, with many friends who do the same, I’m not convinced that Uptown is beyond visiting — or saving. So I headed out with a small crew on a balmy summer Friday night to see if we could spend eight hours in Uptown without dying of boredom.

Prince famously sang that “everybody’s going” to Uptown, in his song of the same name, and that the “good times were rolling all night.” Most years, the Friday of our outing would’ve been the first night of the Uptown Art Fair, which for decades brought huge crowds to the neighborhood. This year the event was called off due to construction before it was rescheduled and moved out of the neighborhood altogether.

I came up with a few targets for me and my team of three. But we were set on keeping it loose and allowing for spontaneity and whimsy.

4 p.m. We kicked off the night with happy hour at the classic Uptown restaurant Barbette. I drove in order to test the parking situation, and was surprised how easily I found a parking space steps from Lake Street. Walking across the construction-clogged intersection was the most arduous part.

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Colleagues Alex Kormann and Casey Darnell beat me to the patio, having respectively scored another free parking spot and taken an Uber. A bit later, our friend and co-worker Madalyne Bird joined us after dodging some heavy machinery. I often take visitors to Minneapolis to Barbette, our little taste of European summer. The happy hour prices are great, but the construction noise and clutter that hindered our conversation and views were a bit of a vibe killer.

“The ambiance is incredible,” Bird said, with no small hint of sarcasm.

I was impressed that a man across from us was reading peacefully. Asked how he felt about the state of Uptown, he said it was doing far better than his home in Minneapolis’ East Phillips neighborhood. Perspective.

5:30 p.m. It was time for some window shopping, as we peered into shops like Legacy and Bevel, the ear piercer. Most were closed or about to. Bummer — what if I wanted a poorly-thought-out ear piercing?

There were people hanging out on the roof of Pinoli, with its cheery green umbrellas sheltering them from the heat.

Sly Schifsky, left, and Liz Janssen shop at Ragstock, a longtime fixture in Uptown and one of the few stores that stays open past 6 p.m. (Alex Kormann, Star Tribune)

6:15 p.m. We moseyed over to Ragstock, about the only open shop in sight. “Ragstock is open during construction,” read a brightly colored sign. It worked: The basement-level clothing store was the most populated place we’d been so far.

Though open for years, Ragstock still hears from customers who had no idea they are there, store manager Kenya Holman said. They have to happen upon the store, Holman said, and the construction is making that more difficult. But she was quick to add she has hope for the neighborhood’s future.

6:48 p.m. The lights were on at the Seven Points building, known for decades as Calhoun Square and once a kind of Uptown headquarters. But the door was locked. They’d closed about 45 minutes earlier. We headed down Hennepin Avenue, the sidewalks narrowed by metal barricades. This stretch was full of walking hazards that made the sidewalk — and the night overall — start to feel pretty bleak.

7:15 p.m. Morale was low. We took the liberty of traversing the construction zone on foot. I tried to get Casey to do a TikTok dance to “Apple” by Charli XCX while Alex took advantage of the good light. It was silly and depressing. We headed to Lunds & Byerlys for a pit stop.

8:00 p.m. Walking toward the pavilion at Bde Maka Ska, the vibe suddenly shifted. The smell of jerk chicken wafted over from Pimento on the Lake, lines queuing up at its tap beer wall. Families with young children and dogs mobbed the tables and outdoor furniture. Paddleboats, sailboats and bicycles passed on land and water.

This was the instant mood booster that our group sorely needed. There was life everywhere you looked.

Adam Tenasaputra, above left, and Rachel Wahl, cozying up near Pimento on the Lake, are two of the many people out enjoying an early August evening on the shores of Bde Maka Ska. (Alex Kormann, Star Tribune)

8:15 p.m. We sat on a dock and watched the sunset glitter across the water. The lake felt like bathwater.

8:30 p.m. Anna Koenning sat at the lake, basking in the last of the daylight. She recently moved to the area and said she is enjoying the neighborhood’s density and the ability to walk to restaurants and grocery stores. She said the construction situation seems to have improved a bit recently.

“Obviously I don’t think Uptown is a hellhole,” Koenning said. “I moved here. I’m very much enjoying this.”

9:30 p.m. At Mesa Pizza, the pre-bar crowd was grabbing slices. If we wanted to chat about business, employees told us, we’d need to come back later.

9:45 p.m. We took our pizza to go and rushed over to Magers & Quinn Booksellers before closing time. It’s a place I am grateful to have, and to have open late. During the walk over we had an encounter with someone who was not in good shape. But a K-pop show was ending at the Granada Theater, and some security guards chased him off.

After weathering the pandemic and the riots, construction has hit Uptown hard, said Mat Pfeifer, center, an employee at Mesa Pizza. (Alex Kormann, Star Tribune)

10 p.m. This was our most tricky hour in Uptown. It was slightly too early for bars, but apparently too late for much of anything else.

Meanwhile, I was getting hangry. I had high hopes for late apps at Kim’s, but was stunned to find that the restaurant closes at 10 p.m.

We weren’t quite up for skating, but we did peer into the new roller rink, which looked very cool.

10:15 p.m. At this point, there was no choice but to go to the bar. We went to Daisys Uptown, which boasts a “double rooftop” and where security was as tight as at an airport. My ID was scrutinized as if it weren’t real, and we had to go through a metal detector. Maybe I don’t get out enough, but I’ve never seen more than a wand wave at a bar.

The bartender said he’s a fan of the security measures because he doesn’t want to get shot at work.

It was sobering. Still, the downstairs bar was completely deserted.

The roof showed signs of human life, a DJ spinning “Murder on the Dancefloor.” We were offered hookah and additional drinks, but a food menu never materialized.

Twin Cities Skaters Studio, above left, is a boutique roller skating rink that opened this summer in Uptown. Waiting for a crowd to show up at the rooftop bar at Daisys Uptown proves fruitless. (Alex Kormann, Star Tribune)

11:15 p.m. The security-to-patrons ratio at Daisys began to feel felt pretty drastic. We gave up waiting for it to get crowded and left to walk around.

A show was wrapping up at the relatively new venue the Green Room. Origami Sushi was apparently out of sushi. The McDonald’s parking lot looked pretty lit.

Midnight We called it a night back at Mesa Pizza, one of the only places serving the drunk and/or hungry late-night crowd.

But after weathering the pandemic and riots, this year’s construction hit hard, employee Mat Pfeifer said.

“It feels like this is just like one more nail in the coffin that is Uptown, which is not what I want by any means,” he said.

Our night brought highs and lows. In the end, I think if you are with your friends, you can have fun anywhere. But why would you want to spend time in Uptown if having fun feels more like a scavenger hunt, when the bustling Lyn-Lake neighborhood is literally half a mile away?

about the writer

Jamie Hutt