Talk:Minneapolis/Archive

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Hey, folks! We need to figure out the relationship between Minneapolis, St. Paul (or should it be Saint Paul?), and the Twin Cities] page. Otherwise, we're going to continue having the situation we have now -- duplicate information on all the pages. I have a couple of ideas:

1. We treat Twin Cities like a region and the two cities as two different cities in that region.
2. We treat Twin Cities like a single big city, and kinda ignore that technically one side is M and the other is St. P.
3. Something else.

Any ideas? I don't know the Twin Cities at all, so I'm kinda working on hearsay, here. But my understanding is that the Twin Cities are much more interwined than, two big cities in the same metro region like, say, Dallas-Fort Worth, or Hong Kong and Macau or San Francisco and Oakland. Ideas? --(WT-en) Evan 01:06, 31 Jan 2004 (EST)

I'd say make it one article, like we talked about doing for Tahoe-- if it's conceptually one place that is. How often does someone visit one without setting foot in the other? (WT-en) Majnoona 01:32, 31 Jan 2004 (EST)

As a resident of Minneapolis I say that we should combine the two articles, redirecting minneapolis to the twin cities -- invis.

Hmm... the two cities are very different. I'd keep them separate, and use the "Twin Cities" as a direction page. St. Paul NEEDS its own page, most people around here in Minneapolis rarely visit it, but it has worthwhile destinations aside from theater shows and concerts. I'd use Twin Cities and branch the user off to St. Paul or Minneapolis.

By the way, added a HUGE amount of dining info after taking monthly "food adventures" for the past half a year. This is a great area for food. -- Westifer 3/5/2005

I think they should be one article. Visitors to either city would be better served being provided information about travel/dining/events in both cities, because if you are visiting one you are essentially visiting both. Residents from both Minneapolis and St. Paul (as well as each of their suburbs) inevitably end up attending cultural events in both cities, and the cities share sports teams, media outlets, educational institutions, etc.

(Also see http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Geographical_hierarchy) -(WV-en) spydust 3/18/06

Dining, Etc.,

I reorganized some of the restaurants. Someone stopped in and recommended a few that are obviously part of the same ownership. They're good restaurants, but they don't go in front of everything else with no justification.

To explain how I organized it, "Areas to Eat" are places where several restaurants are clumped together. If the article expands more to explain what Dinkytown, Stadium Village, and Eat Street are, the restaurants could be ripped from these paragraphs. For now though it should make it far easier for travelers to find the grub stops.

Otherwise, I also added in "Get Out" (which seems redundant with "Go"), Drinking info, and a little vague hotel info. I also added several links on the bottom. Others are welcome to help clean this up a bit more, especially mods, as I am still a somewhat novice editor with only a few hours of computer time after work to go over all of this. But thanks! --(WT-en) Westifer 06:36, 08 Apr 2005 (CST)

I understand how Chino Latino's advertising can be offensive to people, but racist? I fail to see the racism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "belief in the superiority of a particular race leading to prejudice and antagonism towards people of other races, especially those in close proximity who may be felt as a threat to one's cultural and racial integrity or economic well-being." Bangkok has brothels. Cheap ones. Just because the citizens of Bangkok are of a "race" (i.e. not white, because this wouldn't be an issue otherwise) does not make references to unsavory aspects of the country racist. I will reword the reference to express the possibility of offense and suggest it remain that way until true racism is shown.24.223.253.204 20:40, 18 May 2005 (EDT) (created account): (WT-en) Mikepjones 20:42, 18 May 2005 (EDT)

Removed Perkins from the eats section. They're in 3/4 of the states in the US and every populated Canadian province; including them here is like including McDonald's, or Denny's. They are most certainly NOT a local chain, as was stated.--(WT-en) Climbing vine 21:24, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

Editing and restructuring

Hi all,

I did some pretty big edits today. I consolidated the "Do" and "Get Out" sections and edited the content of the two to match the rest of the page structurally. I hope I didn't hack away at anyone else's contributions too much. I tried to keep the gist and only change the structure, generally speaking.

The new structure will hopefully allow folks (myself included) to expand on the parts of the entries. (For instance, there's plenty of room to expand on lake activities and tips, music venues, etc.)

I plan to continue working on this over the summer.

Hi! Thanks for your contributions so far, and we'll be looking forward to more. Just FYI, the "Get out" section in our article templates is supposed to be for nearby destinations for a day trip, as in "Get out of town", rather than "Going out on the town". Maybe we need to change the template though, because this isn't the first time somebody has thought the latter. Like everything else it's open for discussion.

I just want to mention it though because we do like to keep the same format for all of the articles because it's easier for travellers if they don't have to spend time to figure out where stuff is on the page. So, somebody (not me) is likely to come around and put the template structures back, and I don't want you to think because of that that we don't value your input or your contribution. We do! -- (WT-en) Mark 00:39, 13 Jun 2005 (EDT)

OK. I wasn't aware of that. That's good to know. I've rearranged things to fit this template. (I think the "Get Out" category is a good one. I can think of plenty of ideas for that.) I'll have to do some more reading on the preferred structure. :) Thanks for the tip.

This is Huge City - lets treat it like one!

Okay... so I glanced at this article today and was overwhelmed with the information available. It fantastic to see so much work going into it! However, it seems to be a little wild and on occasions, a little repeatative. I've added a Districts section and made guesses as to the districts based on the article as a whole.

I know nothing about the city, so hopefully those more knowledgable can build it in the right direction.

-- (WT-en) Ilkirk 17:07, 8 Oct 2005 (EDT)

A message by the Department of Redundancy Department which has brought you this message: please avoid names like "X/South X", because the 2nd X provides no additional information and is a pain to type in. I've taken the liberty of moving all the new districts accordingly. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:06, 9 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Hmmmm... that was a pain to type over and over again. You're such a nice guy. :) -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 11:27, 10 Nov 2005 (EST)

Hotels

The following hotels were removed because they have addresses that aren't in Minneapolis. Unless someone can say that they really, more or less ARE in Minneapolis and in fact don't belong to some other article, then they are here, more or less ready to be dropped back in. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 11:27, 10 Nov 2005 (EST)

• Microtel Minneapolis / St. Paul Hotel, 5681 Bishop Ave. Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076 Tel: (651) 552-0555 Amenities complimentary with Microtel's other standard amenities include remote TV with ESPN, CNN and one movie channel and complimentary continental breakfast. Experience for yourself the value and price for quality accommodations.

• Microtel Minneapolis / Bloomington Hotel, 801 East 78th Street Bloomington, MN 55420 Tel: (952) 854-6600 Microtel is the first economy/budget hotel brand to offer guests free local and free long distance calls in the continental United States, and free wireless high-speed Internet access in every room of their hotels, as well as advance online check-in and check-out with unlimited access to online folio information.

• Microtel Minneapolis Eagan Hotel, 3000 Denmark Avenue Eagan, MN 55121 Tel: (651) 405-0988 Enjoy consistency, quality, reasonable prices and great service each time you stay with Microtel Inns & Suites. Microtel is one of the fastest-growing hotel chains in the US and the recipient of many awards and accolades over the years.

The name "Minneapolis"

Minneapolis doesn't just call itself the city of lakes. Its name actually means the city of water, or the city of lakes.

Minne = Dakota word meaning "water" polis = Greek word meaning "city"

OK... i've changed the article to reflect this. You could too! -- (WT-en) Mark 08:03, 29 Dec 2005 (EST)

Stay Safe

The section on safety needs a workover. To advise people to avoid all of Franklin east of Lyndale is overkill as it eliminates Franklin and Nicollet and its surrounding eateries.

Also, if you're going to paint all of North Minneapolis with such a broad stroke, some mention needs to be made of equally dangerous areas of South Minneapolis.

Perhaps it might be easier to advise people as to what areas they should stick to?

Extensive updates

I've made extensive, extensive updates, mostly regarding "local color" (history and local attitudes, etc) and eating. Article was a very good start, though had a few small errors which have been corrected (for example, Minnehaha Creek does not connect the Chain of Lakes together).

It's fine that MPLS/St. Paul are treated separately, but that being the case it might be wise to emphasize this more at the start of the entry, ie more prominent reference to more information on the area in the "Twin Cities" and "St. Paul" entries. Right now those references are sort of buried in individual sections, so it's not obvious to a person that they could easily treat all of these as a whole on their journey.

--(WT-en) Climbing vine 02:39, 25 October 2006 (EDT)

Muslim Cabbies

Some Muslim cabbies have been causing a controversy and inconvenience to travelers that may be carrying alcohol. Should we explain this in the article and what's the best approach? In the "Get in" section, "get around" or somewhere else? See this CNN article. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 19:04, 1 February 2007 (EST)

It's worse than that. "We've had complaints of people being asked if they had any alcoholic beverages in their luggage" [1] -- in other words, this goes beyond merely what you are carrying by wandering into the zone of the taxi drive interrogating the customer about his private belongings. I'd leave it a bit though and see if the government (with the ACLU's prodding) makes the problem go away. -- (WT-en) Colin 19:32, 1 February 2007 (EST)

Areas to avoid?

It looks like some additional information has been added to the Stay Safe section, and it looks somewhat questionable. 45th and Chicago is considered "ghetto" now? Really? I'll admit I don't know as much about North Minneapolis, but I had always been under the assumption that most of the "problem" areas were on the Near North Side (roughly speaking, south of and including Lowry Avenue). Telling people to be cautious anywhere north of Broadway would include the upper north side (e.g. Camden area), which last I heard wasn't considered a hotbed of crime. Anyway, I have removed the information. If anyone objects, we can discuss it here. (WT-en) Eco84 12:15, 20 June 2007 (EDT)

Also, even in the rough areas, it should probably be noted that they're generally safe during daylight hours. (WT-en) Eco84 12:17, 20 June 2007 (EDT)

Found an old district lying around...

I have suggested St. Anthony be merged into Minneapolis/North. Please comment there -- (WT-en) Tim (writeme!) 14:39, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Where's the larry craig restroom?

This is a tourist site I want to go to.

photos for here and st paul

i'm sorry to be posting here with raw negativity but those borders on the photos look awful. the photos themselves look great but those border things are weird, tacky, and totally incongruous to what wikivoyage normally has on display. is there any way to ask the photographer to upload the files again, this time without the frames? 66.214.32.64 12:59, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Two things:

1) We encourage everyone here, when they see room for improvement, to simply make the changes themselves! You can download the photos, crop out the borders with any program of your choice (Google's Picasa is really simple to use), and then re-upload them.

2) Some of the pictures should be removed. While I'm not sure if they run afoul of our privacy policy, they definitely cross our policy regarding having people in photos—pictures of tourists look kind of amateurish in a travel guide, IMO. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 16:58, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

i wouldn't mind doing that at all but i'm afraid it might look too cropped and close up, since the border is so inconsistent. are we sure there's no way to contact the guy who uploaded these? does he have a talk page? i'd shoot new photos myself but i'm in california.

i'll be watching this space, let me know if there's anything i can do! 66.214.32.64 19:01, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

He gave a public email address on this site, you can try to reach him at Special:Emailuser/Richfield. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:19, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Closed or removed listings

I believe this one closed late last year:

• Taco Morelos, 14 W 26th St, 612 870-0053. Near the corner of Nicollet Avenue and 26th St in the "Eat Street" area. What was once a cheap, authentic, storefront restaurant, has become a mid-price, authentic restaurant/bar with at least three locations in the Twin Cities area. The original location on on 26th St. is now called a "Tex Mex Grill", but don't let that fool you. For around $10 you can still get a fantastic burrito or one of the best plates of huevos rancheros in town. (WT-en) Eco84 20:21, 11 September 2009 (EDT)

This closed in June:

• D'Amico's Cucina, 100 N 6th St, +1 612 338-2401. One of the area's most expensive restaurants, serves amazing Italian cuisine with international and fusion touches. Expect to spend over $60 for two people. Absolutely gastronomical. Call for sure for reservations and directions. It is a little hidden. (WT-en) Eco84 11:14, 13 September 2009 (EDT)

This one closed last May:

• The Dinkytowner [2] (412 1/2 14th Avenue Southeast) is a feature, with great breakfast and diner-ish food and free pool in the evenings. There are local music acts (mostly hip-hop) almost every night of the week, with the cover usually around $5. (WT-en) Eco84 12:42, 13 September 2009 (EDT)

Yelp says it's closed:

• Pane Vino Dolce, 819 W 50th St, +1 612 825-3201. Considered one of the best and authentic Italian restaurants in town. There's no sign, but you'll find a hand written menu taped in the window each day. There are only about 15 tables - small, romantic, and plenty of charm. (WT-en) Eco84 17:53, 14 September 2009 (EDT)

Closed?:

• The Guest House Hostel, 3619 Snelling Ave, ☏ +1 612 242-0928. Calls itself a "safe, Christian-based hostel," according to some hostel websites. The hostel is located a few blocks away from the 38th Street light-rail station, providing quick access to Downtown, the University area, the airport, and the Mall of America. There isn't much to do in the hostel's surrounding neighborhood, although it isn't too far away from the Mississippi River or Minnehaha Park. Beds start at $40 per night/$45 weekend rate..  (WT-en) Eco84 23:30, 14 September 2009 (EDT)

The city had closed this hostel some time ago due to zoning issues. The owner had "plans" to apply for proper zoning in order to reopen, but I can't find any evidence online that the place reopened. I'll just leave it here for now:

• Minneapolis EcoHostel, 2409 Lyndale Ave S, ☏ +1 612 584-4350. In the Ecopolitan building. Building houses the Ecopolitan Restaurant, which only serves organic raw vegan fare. Hostel patrons are instructed to abide by certain principles (e.g. don't bring any non-vegan food into the hostel). Quick and easy access to Uptown and Downtown by bus, bike, or even foot. Rates unknown, call for details. 

Their website, last updated October 2009, indicates they closed:

• Tam-Tam's African Restaurant (African), 605 Cedar Ave, ☏ +1 612 339-0854. Daily 11AM-10PM. Authentic African food, relatively inexpensive, and gigantic portions (like most other African restaurants in Minneapolis) for under $20. very friendly service. Worth trying for something new and unusual. $10-$15.  (WT-en) Eco84 07:35, 17 June 2010 (EDT)

Closed ahile back:

• India House, 1400 Nicollet Ave, ☏ +1 612 813-0000.  (WT-en) Eco84 07:40, 17 June 2010 (EDT)

Supposedly looking for a new location, and it wasn't actually located in Minneapolis to begin with. If they do re-open in the same part of town the listing can be moved to the Columbia Heights article:

• Nala Pak (formerly Udupi), 4920 Central Ave NE, Columbia Heights, ☏ +1 763 574-1113. Just barely across the border from NE Minneapolis is Nala Pak, the first strictly vegetarian Indian restaurant in the Twin Cities. They do things with beans and eggplant that should be illegal.  (WT-en) Eco84 14:13, 6 July 2010 (EDT)

International restaurant chain:

• Fogo De Chao, 7th and Hennepin, ☏ (612) 338-1344. Highly recommended. amzing variety of slow roasted meat. Flip your card to green and they will keep bringing all the food you want. Valet outside $10 $48/person.  (WT-en) Eco84 14:17, 6 July 2010 (EDT)

List of nonstop destinations from MSP

That list of cities with direct flights to MSP was way too long. It probably should've been deleted awhile ago, but I deleted it now. Here it is, in case anyone is interested: http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Minneapolis&oldid=2052013#List_of_nonstop_destinations_from_MSP

(WT-en) Eco84 19:39, 28 November 2009 (EST)

District boundaries

I've created a map showing the district boundaries for Minneapolis that I've been working with: Image:Minneapolis District Boundaries.png (you'll have to click on the full resolution to see it as it's too big for a thumbnail, sorry). Hopefully this will come in handy if anyone with better mapmaking skills than me wants to create a better district map than the amateur one I created last night. (WT-en) Eco84 13:37, 6 July 2010 (EDT)

Liquor stores

I've decided to be bold and purge that list of liquor stores from the guide. I'm not sure what use it would be to tourists unless we're suggesting that they should booze it up in their hotel rooms. Places like Philadelphia are famous for BYOB restaurants and even that guide doesn't have a list:

Most liquor stores in Minneapolis (and the metropolitan area as a whole) close at 10PM, although some will close at 8PM on weekdays. You can save more money by purchasing your own supply. Be sure to check out the yellow pages for liquor stores which specialize in wines or beers. Also, remember that liquor stores in Minneapolis and across Minnesota are closed on Sundays as mandated by state law.

• Surdyk's, 303 E Hennepin Ave (at University), ☏ +1 612 379-3232. M-Th 9AM-9PM, F-Sa 9AM-10PM. Just across the river from downtown, this liquor store has a large wine selection and a few international specialties like sake and plum wine. 
• France 44 Wines & Spirits, 4351 France Ave S (at 44th St), ☏ +1 612 925-3252. M-Th 9AM-9PM, F-Sa 9AM-10PM. This southwest Minneapolis shop used to be a converted gas station but went through a miraculous renovation a couple of years ago. Be sure to check out the walk-in beer cooler, as well as the accessories and fine spirits collection in the basement. A very competent deli [3] shares an entrance. 
• Sorella Wine & Spirits, 1010 Washington Ave S, ☏ +1 612 339-4040. M-Th 9AM-9PM, F-Sa 9AM-10PM. An amazing wine and top shelf liquor store run by the wine-shop folks from the now bull-dozed Liquor Depot. The selection here is fairly impressive and comprehensive, especially for such a new venture. If you're at all into wine, be prepared to spend a large amount of time with the laid back staff who have an encyclopedic knowledge of grapes and vineyards. 
• Zipp's Liquors, 2618 E Franklin Ave (at 27th Ave), ☏ +1 612 333-8686. M-Sa 9AM-10PM. This Seward neighborhood liquor store, close to Cedar-Riverside, often has good prices on kegs of beer and stocks a wide selection of wines. 
• Haskell's, 81 S 9th St (between Nicollet and Marquette), ☏ +1 612 333-2434. M-Th 9AM-8PM, F 9AM-10PM, Sa 9AM-8PM. A wine specialist (along with beer and liquor) with locations throughout the Twin Cities. Notably, the location listed here convenient to many downtown hotels. 
• Chicago-Lake Liquors, 825 E Lake St (at Chicago), ☏ +1 612 825-4401. Near the newly-remodeled Midtown Exchange Building, along with the Sheraton Hotel in that complex. Known to have a better-than-average selection of tequilas, owing to the large Mexican population in the surrounding area. 

(WT-en) Eco84 13:56, 27 August 2010 (EDT)