With its creaky floors, exposed brick, and multiple fireplaces, the Victorian manse at 579 Selby has always welcomed diners with casual elegance. When it housed The Vintage Restaurant, the food reviews were mixed, but with the opening of Il Vesco Vino (The Bishop’s Wine), the cuisine finally matches its surroundings in terms of both quality … Read more
The first time I smoked pot, I was in eighth grade. I smoked it. I inhaled. And I enjoyed it. The inaugural inhalation wasn’t planned or anything. My best buddy and I happened to be snooping around her older sister’s bedroom, and we happened upon her hookah. Holla! Just having that opium den artifact in … Read more
“Hey,” I was told, “there’s a great new bar in town—ya gotta go check it out.” The source, a well-known political player whose observations always come heavily seasoned with interlocking, multisyllabic profanities, chuckled perversely. “It’s the Red, White and Fucking Blue Bar.” “The Red White and Blue Bar?” I queried. “What is it? Some kind … Read more
The heat rose into the clearest dawn I’d ever seen. A corridor of one hundred men extended a quarter mile, their yellow hardhats bobbing against the gray terrain, the ring of their spike malls, the clang of their shovels quickly swallowed up by an endless flatland of dust, sagebrush, and rattlesnakes. I’d been given an … Read more
Made-in-Minnesota fashion has been getting a lot of attention lately, but it’s local jewelry designs that have impressed us most with their beauty and breadth. (Note: We’re thinking beyond the surfeit of reindeer-shaped pendants and other novelties peddled on the craft-fair and church-bazaar circuits.) While area boutiques like Bluebird, Karma, and Ivy have imported clothing … Read more
Any foray into local Scandinavian style—as purveyed by a number of area emporiums, boutiques, and gift shops—rightly begins at Ingebretsen’s. This stalwart Lake Street retailer offers Scandinavian wares in their most basic forms: wool cardigans with pewter clasps, traditional Norwegian hardanger doily cloths and embroidery, and countless varieties of the painted wooden Dala horse. For … Read more
When Phil Harder has a hankering to check out a band at 7th Street Entry, he doesn’t have to hop in his car and drive downtown from his home on Marshall Street, just north of Broadway. In Harder’s neighborhood—a lovely admixture of industrial scrap yards, hip galleries, and such hangouts as the Sample Room and … Read more
Sarah Lemanczyk, photo by Karl Herber / karlherber.com Looking up at the St. Paul Central Library’s four stories of pink Tennessee marble makes you feel small. The Italian Renaissance building, its façade decorated in classical columns and pilasters, looks as though it belongs in a city of grander scale. And indeed, it’s a remnant of … Read more
I’m standing at the Dairy Queen on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, waiting to order a chocolate cone. Ahead of me is the new American nuclear family: two boys, a father, and a mother cooing to a Chihuahua clutched to her chest in a front-loading doggy knapsack. A few weeks later, Us Weekly runs a … Read more
While Sudan and Qatar might be tougher bets, most Americans could spin a globe and pinpoint Saudi Arabia’s deserts with relative ease. Even if your geography fails you, you’ve no doubt at least heard of Saudi and perhaps recall Peter O’Toole shouting across the desert sands in Lawrence of Arabia. The average American might know … Read more