The Definitive Minneapolis Thread

The Definitive Minneapolis Thread

I’ll be moving to Minneapolis soon, so I’m looking for all the information I can find. For anyone that lives there, has lived there, or simply visited, please share your thoughts. My hope is that this can be one of those threads that can get archived for future Dopers to enjoy. To get you started:[list=number]
[li]I’ll be living on 7th Street South, any thoughts on the neighbourhood? [/li][li]I need highspeed internet (obviously), what are the typical providers (ATT, Roadrunner, Vorizon)? What about cell phone, cable, and landlines. [/li][li]Where are the best/worst places to eat. Is there food that you would consider associated with Minneapolis? Any local dishes to be aware of?[/li][li]Any good websites you use regularly? I know I love Toronto.com and Toronto.ca, do Minneites use Craig’s List much? [/li][li]Are there any weird local customs that I should be aware of. I remember after moving to Toronto I saw a local morning show go through a list of stuff that blew my mind—escalator courtesy usually tops the list (walk left stand right). [/li][li]Are there any activities you’d recommend, tourist attractions, local hangouts? [/li][li]Is there a farmers market, or any sort of market?[/li][li]What about pubs, clubs, discos, or things to do at night?[/li][li]Can you name and auto insurance providers?[/li][li]What are the main grocery stores called? [/list][/li]
Thanks in advance for all your help,

Here’s some info on some of the questions. I’ll try to get back with some of the others.

[ul]
**[li]I need highspeed internet (obviously), what are the typical providers (ATT, Roadrunner, Vorizon)? What about cell phone, cable, and landlines? **[/li]AOL-Time Warner is the only cable provider in Minneapolis. I think you can chose between RoadRunner and Earthlink for internet. I use ATT/Cingular for cell phone and know of people that use both Sprint and Verizon. The Verizon people seem to have a bit more trouble but that might just be random.

**
[li]Any good websites you use regularly? I know I love Toronto.com and Toronto.ca, do Minneites use Craig’s List much? **[/li]City Pages Their yearly ‘best of’ lists have never let me down. I know of people that have used Craig’s list for housing. It’s definitely not as active as other cities.

**
[li]Is there a farmers market, or any sort of market?**[/li]YES! Minneapolis has a wonderful farmer’s market and St Paul’s is nice, too. They both have large main markets and then various smaller neighborhood markets. I like to hit the Minneapolis one on Sunday mornings - it can be a mob scene on Saturdays. There are also a bunch of co-ops around.

**
[li]What are the main grocery stores called?**[/li]Cub Foods and Rainbow are the two large chain stores. There are a few ‘upscale’ chains as well - Lund’s, Byerly’s and Kowalski’s. Then there are the organic co-ops. If you’re living where I think you are, either Seward or North Country are likely the closest. [/ul]

I’ll take a stab at a few of those. Bear in mind I haven’t had my morning coffee yet.

Where on 7th St? Generally I wouldn’t worry about that side of town, though.

The cable providers seem to have divided the city roughly equally. In the southwest suburbs, my choice is Time Warner, or … Time Warner. Roadrunner’s out there as well, and if you’re looking for DSL, your choices are a little broader. Basically, you won’t have any problem getting online with high speed internet.

Not having a cell phone, I couldn’t answer questions about local coverage, but my cable and landline are fine. Never had a problem with them.

Lutefisk. Nah, not really.

There are a lot of good places to eat, much like any town. Are you looking for the upscale restaurants? The cheap gems in the rough? Are you okay with places out in the suburbs, or do they have to be in Minneapolis proper?

Oh — you may need to become familiar with hotdish.

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ sees a decent amount of traffic, yeah. There aren’t other local websites I check regularly, other than the Star Tribune, the Mpls newspaper. St Paul has the Pioneer Press. Oh, and City Pages.

I wouldn’t know what local customs are weird. They’re all normal to me. :slight_smile: I’d be interested to hear what other locals (or non-locals) would consider a weird local custom.

We’re coming up on the Minnesota Fringe Festival, so if you’re moving here really soon, you can catch some good theater. Supposedly, Mpls has more theater seats per capita than any other city except New York.

Yes. The Minneapolis Farmers Market is quite large and extensive and open from April 23 to Dec 24. During roughly May to September, there is a Farmers Market on Thursdays on Nicollet Mall downtown.

I’ll leave the clubs and discos for those who attend those, but three of my favorite pubs in Mpls/St Paul are Brits Pub, Kieran’s Irish Pub, and The Dubliner.

All of the major ones are present, according to my junk mail. State Farm, Farmers, Progressive, et cetera.

The warehouse-style grocery stores are Cub and Rainbow, while the more upscale groceries are Byerly’s and Lunds.

3 words. House of Balls. It is my biggest regret that I didn’t buy anything there before I moved away.

As an Iowan with relatives and friends in Da Cities, I have a few impressions of the Land of 10,000 Lakes that may perhaps prove useful to you.

  1. Minnesota is not just the coldest spot in the 48 states. It’s also one of the hottest. 140° temperature variance from midwinter to high summer is not uncommon.
  2. I dunno where you’re coming from, but familiarity with tornadoes and hail could come in handy.
  3. The five chief cultural groups are Lutherans, Catholics, mosquitoes, Garrison Keillor, and Native Americans, pretty much in order of influence.
  4. Minneapolis has, I think, three whole alphabetic series of named avenues, which you’ll need to memorize to impress your friends from out of town. Here’s one to get you started: ALDRICH BRYANT COLFAX DUPONT EMERSON FREMONT GIRARD HUMBOLDT IRVING JAMES KNOX LOGAN MORGAN NEWTON OLIVER PENN QUEEN RUSSELL SHERIDAN THOMAS UPTON VINCENT WASHBURN XERXES YORK ZENITH.
  5. Compare this to St. Paul, which has an actual street named “Cretin Avenue.”
  6. “Taystee” baked goods are, in fact, anything but.
  7. “Minnesota Nice.” Basically, this is the old adage about “even your best friends won’t tell you” elevated to an all-encompassing life credo. (Lutherans and Catholics are by now largely secularist cultural groups, but Minnesota Nice is truly a religion.)
  8. Get used to the “Great Lakes Vowel Shift.” Since about 1960 or so, Minnesotans (along with Chicagoans, Wisconsinites, Michiganders, Clevelanders and Buffalonians) have abandoned their former dialect of Standard Broadcast English for a strange bleating method of communication that simplifies all vowels into four basic sounds:
    •The Very Long “O” (about halfway between “oh” and “ooooooh,” pronounced through perfectly rounded lips, tongue, and oral cavity, eg: “Minnesohhhta,” “ohhh gally.”)
    • The Very Flat “O” (about 2/3 short “A” sound, eg: “ohhh gally,” “hat dags,” “take a wack around the black.”)
    • The Very Round “U” (“ooooo”, eg: “stooooopid,” “we’re going tooooobing ann the river.”)
    • The Very Long “A” (almost an “eeee”, eg: “let’s gohhh da Twins geeeem.”)

7th street - more information is required. Otherwise, seems okay.

I live in Robbinsdale, a suburb just to the NW of Minneapolis itself (mebbe 3ish/4ish miles from Downtown) and I get Comcast, myself. It’s expensive. But I doubt any of the others have a better deal, really. Prices are probably pretty much the same. When I checked into DSL, it piggybacked on Quest, but that was when I lived in St. Paul.

A current fave of mine to eat at is Solera, in downtown Mpls, on the theater row that is Hennepin Ave. It’s a tapas place, and it’s outstanding. Avoid Cafe Havana - not worth the price. Palamino is good. Some other excellent places to eat are a beer and wine bar that I forgot the name of and Sapor, both in the Warehouse District on the west end of downtown Mpls. All of these are closer to the higher-end, but good for a special night out.

I go to www.Citypages.com lots for movie listings. I don’t generally visit any others regularly, but I did find the newspaper websites good for job hunting.

There’s a good number of festivals, one being the Taste of Minnesota. It’s a fun distraction, but was really more expensive than it was worth the one time I went - it’s got a ticket set up (meaning you buy tickets, then trade them for food and drink), but was generally spendy. I wasn’t really encouraged to do much tasting - it was more like “get an entree, eat it” type of thing. State Fair’s coming up, which is a huge to-do, lots of bands and activities. That said, I haven’t been to it in years. Later on this fall, there’s a RenFaire in Shakopee, a SW suburb, if’n you’re in to that sort of thing - it’s fun, and the food’s good, but I try to avoid going too often because to do so turns it into a “people either selling food or stuff” sort of thing that’ll just bore me. If I skip two or three years, I do better.

I’ve got auto insurance through an outfit called Allied Insurance, but there’s all the popular ones (State Farm, American Family, Progressive, probably Geico too). Keep in mind that MN is a no-fault state, which means that if you get in an accident, your insurance pays yours and his insurance pays his, which can make the whole sorting out thing easier. I’ve heard it also keeps rates lower, but I don’t really know anything about that (if pressed, I’d say rates are about average for a metro area). Unlike some other states, MN does require that you have auto insurance - you’ll be ticketed if you get pulled over and cannot prove that you have insurance.

I’m a sports fan, and Mpls is good for that - there’s the Wild in St. Paul for hockey (haven’t been yet), my beloved Vikings for football (go every season - yay for season tickets), the Wolves for bball (also fun to attend), Twins for baseball (snore, but the if company’s good I’ll go), the Lynx for women’s bball (haven’t been). There’s also a new lacrosse team, I believe (is it the Swarm?), some minor league baseball (yay Saints!), and the Golden Gophers for all sorts of college games (the hockey is lots of fun; haven’t been to any others). If you’re a sports fan, you’ll find something you like.

There’s a good amount of bike trails, so that’s available, and outdoor sports are big - camping, canoeing, hiking, and some rock climbing in summer; lots of winter sports, including skiing, tho’ no really big hills; fishing and hunting are also big. Our autumn’s are top notch.

Hmmm…that’s what I’ve got for now. Maybe I’ll check in later with more. Minnesota? Yeah, I likes it.

433 7th Street South, between 4th adn 5th, in the Centre Village building.

sigh. Toronto is such a great city, you’ll find us to be a podunk little town. We’re a blue state, and the cities are pretty liberal and open, but as soon as you go into the suburbs it’s pretty red. But even in the red areas of the state, I think you’ll find the folks to be nice and accepting. If you’re a freakish 8 foot tall tranvestite, your neighbors will welcome like your a nice old Lutheran couple. Then they will tell all of their close friends about the freak next door. That is Minnesota nice. 7th Street is a vague description, it’s a pretty long stretch. Hop over to my side of the river in Saint Paul, the sleepy twin of the twin cities. It’s a nice place because our roads are a tangled jumble that take a while to figure out. That keeps those Minneapolis folks out of our hair. :stuck_out_tongue:

I repeat City Pages as a good informative link.

Irish fest is coming this weekend. Flogging Molly is playing. Move down now.

More later.

Centre Village is a big ugly building with a hotel in part of it. It’s not in a very “neighborhoody” part of town, it’s just kinda right smack downtown. I suppose on the plus side, if you work downtown you could walk barefoot to work in the dead of winter through the skyway system. Do you have a job yet?

Next weekend. Flogging Molly is playing on Friday Aug 12 only.

I’m waving at your building right now. Well, there are a lot of other buildings in the way, but I’m over on 6th St. As NC just said, it’s located downtown. There’s a lot of office buildings around you. Come join us for lunch.

Interesting. I’ve never known anyone that lived downtown and, perhaps sadly, my guess is that that’s pretty normal. Downtown is for work, sporting events and … ummmm … bus connections.

I’ve gotten too used to living downtown. I’m just not quite ready to move out to the 'burbs and buy a minivan. Its supposed to be a pretty nice condo.

Irish festival sounds fun, any other big events like that?

It would help if you were more specific about the kind of things you were interested in (dive bars vs. glam nightclubs for instance).

You will find out real fast what skyways are.

High school hockey is more popular than the NHL.

Minnesota has a reputation for being completely white bread. The opposite of Toronto in that respect, but that image is pretty much bunk.

I have felt very at-home in Minneapolis. It’s a very Canadian American city.

Well, 89.4% for the state is pretty white-bread, but that does include the rural areas. The urban areas are more diverse (65.1% white per the same census), but obviously not on the scale of, say, New York. Minneapolis and St Paul have significant Hmong and Somali communities – the Twin Cities are home to the largest percentage of Hmong in the US, too.

Interestingly, a language other than English is spoken at almost 20% of Minneapolis homes.

I love these boards. I’m leaving Saturday for a conference in Minneapolis. I grew up in Michigan, but have never been to the Twin Cities. It’s nice to learn something about the place I’ll be visiting! Is Hell’s Kitchen as good as the reviews and menus make it sound?

Fair warning to the area residents … around 5,000 statisticians will be descending on downtown this weekend. A veritable Geekfest. Break out the cameras. :slight_smile:

I have a pretty good idea. Do they have “open hours?” I hate when you get addicted to a route like that, but then it closes at 7pm and you have to go outside in your barefeet. Used to happen to me all the time in university.

I REALLY like hockey. Is it possible to get tickets for the NHL games? I know with Toronto it was just about impossible.

I’m confused, which image is bunk?

[QUOTE=NurseCarmen]
Irish fest is coming this weekend. Flogging Molly is playing.QUOTE]

Look for me. I’m taking my seven year-old daughter. She has high hopes that Lucinda Williams will be performing with them.

A Canadian that likes hockey? Who’d a thought it?
:smiley:

Come a week early! Beat the crowds!

Be aware of lutefisk. Very aware. If you don’t already know what it is and what it looks like, definitely familiarize yourself with it. You don’t want to end up eating it by accident. Ignorance is no excuse.

For internet access, if you’re willing to do DSL, Visi is a great local ISP. They’re flexible and quite helpful if you need support. They’ll even let you run servers on your network.

If you’re interested in the local rock scene, you’ll have to check out First Avenue. So much history…so little cleaning. And it’s on your street (7th). A great place to see local acts is the Turf Club over in St. Paul.

As far a grocery stores go, think about checking out Byerly’s every once and a while. It’s the posh grocery, so the prices are a little higher. Your willingness to pay for a nicer shopping experience will dictate how often you go there.

I have to close by pimping my favorite eatin’ joint…King & I Thai.