I just moved to Minneapolis. What are the essential places/bars/restaurants/festivals that I should know about?

grandeandy

Welcome to the Twin Cities! You'll love it here. Below are some things that came to mind:

The lakes (Calhoun, Isles, Harriet, and Cedar) are a big draw with their walking/biking paths, grills, volleyball, beaches, etc. Calhoun is the most popular. You can also rent a kayak or canoe there, and since the lakes are connected, you can paddle over to Isles and Cedar. Note that Harriet's band-shell has free concerts throughout the summer.
Visit Hidden Beach early on this summer. Chances are you'll fall in love with the place and want to go back as much as possible. Everyone is very friendly.
If you have a road bike, check out the Greenway. If you have a mountain bike, check out the trails on MORCMTB. Hint: the best off-road trail for spring is the Minnesota River Valley in Bloomington (you even have to pull yourself across a river on a raft at one point!)
Frisbee golf is a must, and the best course hands down is Bryant Lake in Eden Prairie. Plymouth Creek is also a crowd-pleaser.
If you've never been, check out Minnehaha Falls and walk along the creek until it hits the Mississippi.
Valleyfair is our big amusement park. It contains a water park within it too.
Downtown Farmer's Market is a happening place on the weekends. Plus the Lonesome Dove Ranch, which has a stand there, sells the best burger patties you'll ever grill... organic black angus jalapeno cheddar.
Listen to The Current (89.3 on FM) for music, MPR (91.1 on FM) for news.
Check out City Pages and Vita.MN for event listings.
Pizza Luce throws a block party in Uptown every year that you shouldn't miss. Usually mid to late July or August.
Galactic Pizza not only has awesome pizza, but their delivery drivers dress up in spandex and capes while driving around in electric cars. Fun place.
Apple River! It's actually in WI, but it's 40 minutes from the Cities and a great time during the hottest days of summer. 3.5 hours of drifting down the river in a tube with a cooler of beer, friends, and lots of other drunks in tubes. Have rapids towards the end that are always fun.
May Day Parade is mandatory!
Plan a trip to the Boundary Waters.
You can find weekly indoor/outdoor pickup games of practically anything if you search for a specific sport.
Maynard's on Lake Minnetonka is a great place for an afternoon drink. I find the lake mostly inaccessible if you lack a boat or funds to rent one, however Noerenberg Gardens is on the lake, free, beautiful, and world famous.
Speaking of gardens, you HAVE to check out the Landscape Arboretum. It's countless acres of pristine beauty. They have everything. Seriously, it's awesome.

And as someone else said, if you don't have a bike, buy one. Seriously. All the trails interconnect, so you can start anywhere and quickly get to Uptown/Downtown, the lakes, hidden beach, anywhere really. Plus there are lots of fun rides throughout the summer (Midnight-to-dawn, Urban Assault, Jesse James, etc.)

gorm123

One more thing. Surly. It's a local brewery that is fan-fucking-tastic. Try all their beers (you can currently get the limited release Four at Cafe Twenty Eight. Go to the brewery and get a tour. Mark on your calendar D-Day.

jdiddy275

Here is some other random info.

Downtown: The largest concentration of nightclubs and bars. Predominantly the younger crowd 18-23. Good place to go if you want to party. Also in Downtown is First Avenue, a well-known music venue. You've also got the theater district downtown if you want to see shows, headliner comedians or music acts. Downtown is also a good place for restaurants. There are a lot of great options spanning from moderately cheap to way-to-much.

Uptown: Coincidentally just south and a little west of Downtown. This area on Hennepin is a little more hipster-ish, and more trendy than Downtown. There are still nightclubs here, but moreso restaurants with designated bar/club areas. There are two movie theaters in Uptown where you can find limited-release films and other rare classics.

Northeast Minneapolis: Area north of Downtown across the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. This area has become more hipsterish and less divebar-ish since Uptown has become more trendy. There are a lot of good bars in this area.

U of M/Dinkytown: There are some good college bars near campus, but as you'd expect, they're going to be filled with college kids. There are also some good music/event venues. This is also where your UW/UofM rivalries will play out.

Over in St. Paul, there are couple major areas as well.

Midway/University: This area is West of Downtown St. Paul. It can be seedy at night, but this is where you'll find O'Gara's (Irish pub), The Blue Door Cafe, etc. Good food in the area. Great Vietnamese, Korean, generic pan-Asian. The Saint Paul Saints (Semi-Pro League Baseball)play in the area. This is also where the Minnesota State Fair is located. Just go, it's amazing.

Downtown St. Paul: Nightlife in Downtown St. Paul has improved, but is still lacking compared to Minneapolis. The Xcel Energy Center is downtown if you like hockey. I like Downtown St. Paul for the Science Museum, the Minnesota History Museum, the Capital building, and other such places. There are also some great restaurants in St. Paul. If you like Greek food, I recommend Christos. If you like breakfast food, I highly recommend Key's Cafe. They also have one in Downtown Mpls, and off of University on Raymond Ave.

My absolute favorite breakfast food place is the Uptown Diner. They're open over night on weekends, and the portion sizes will astound you. Try the Tex Mex.

I'm familiar with the Western and Southern Suburbs. I like Southdale and Edina for places to eat and shop. You can find just about everything there. Also, Eden Prairie too has just about everything.

For anything north of Minneapolis or East of St. Paul, you'll have to ask someone else. I don't know anything about those places.

Midwest_Product

Matt's Bar (on Cedar Ave. at 35th) is home to the Jucy Lucy, which everyone should have at least once while they're here.

Izzo

Pepitos on 46th and Nicollet or 48th and Chicago. Damn good food if you like Mexican. Been away from the bar scene too long to be any help there.

edit: I almost forgot about Cosettas (In St. Paul, actually)the pizza/food is awesome

Minnestoa

I know this is a while out yet, but summer is not complete without a trip to both the Taste of Minnesota and the State Fair.

The Taste is the first week of July and the State Fair runs late August through early September.

gorm123

Come football season, The Herkimer (Lyndale and Lake in Uptown) is my favorite Packer bar in town. If you don't get there at least 1.5 hours early, you won't get a seat. A sea of green and gold in Viking country, it brings a tear to my eye. They also make their own beer and have a decent, albeit easy, trivia on Sunday nights (I've won 4 of the last 5 weeks with my friends, we placed second the only time we didn't win).

bruzo

Check out Thriftyhipster for good happy hours and popular bars/events. I would also recommend finding a cheap road bike on CL or one of the many bike shops here in the cities. Makes bar hopping easier and you don't have to worry too much about parking. Sunrise Cyclery is the cheapest and least pretentious that i've found for used bikes. I could just go on about the benefits of biking in mpls.... also Minneapolis Institute of Art is a FREE art museum! it's pretty rad.

Edit: link

yumyan

I just want to say- swellcm, you are being well taken care with all the advice i've read on this page. Every *tip given in these comments are well worth a visit.
My tips?

Record shops- Treehouse and electric fetus

bike shops- behind bars, the hub, and one on one

Get a bike.

Make friends with someone who owns a boat.

There is a bridge in uptown between lake of the Isle and Calhoun that serves as a really fun diving spot. Just make sure you dont' go late in the summer (it starts to stink).

Keep your eyes open for the dates of the Square Lake Film Festival in Stillwater. Great times with outdoor films. http://www.solsticefestival.org/

Check out Rock the Garden http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/features/specials/rock_the_garden/

The Minneapolis Parks and Rec board does weekly "movies in the park" events at various parks in late summer. My favorite park to do this at is loring park. http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=608

BabylonDrifter

I'd have to recommend Psycho Suzi's roadhouse, The Front, and Nie's Polonaise in Northeast Minneapolis. Interesting stuff goes on at the nightclub Ground Zero. The Bulldog Northeast is up there too; nice beer list and good food. In St. Paul I like the Happy Gnome and the Muddy Pig, or for a dive bar with hot dogs there's the Gopher Bar downtown. There's a lowertown bulldog in St. Paul as well. Pick up a City Pages magazine for more stuff to do.

macabee

Gasthof's is pretty fun during Oktoberfest.

mugen612

caffrey's sandwiches till 3 am all over the uptown downtown minneapolis area order a #12 blue cow or #11 Ranch gobbler... oh yeah and tip me well when I bring it to your door. thanks

lettuce

Remember these come next winter:

US Pond Hockey Championships

Art Shanty Projects on Medicine Lake

imakevoicesformycats

If you like brewpubs, hit up Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery and order yourself a cask Masala Mama.

Vithar

I just moved away :(, the place two places I miss most are probably, "Spy House", and "The Bad waitress". Good food and interesting atmosphere at "the bad waitress" and at "spy house" I would spend almost all of the open hours of the day there doing my course work and it was never a problem.

rkcr

The Convention Grill is absolutely killer for malts and burgers.

The Bulldog is a pretty good bar with good food.

jdiddy275

As far as Jucy Lucy's go, there are several places to get them.

For the traditional Juicy Lucy, go to The Nook in St. Paul

For many variations on the JL go to The Blue Door Cafe. Place is small, but you can write on the walls in the booths (chalkboard), and they have a great beer selection (a bit heavy Surly-centric)

My favorite place is The 5*8 Club in Minneapolis. This is the biggest of the places, and they also have The Garlic Cheeseburger or "GCB"

imakevoicesformycats

If you're suddenly finding yourself in a swanky, money-blowing mood, get a room in the W Hotel in the Foshay Tower and treat yourself to any number of great restaurants nearby.

The Foshay has some interesting history to it and the bar at the top of the building (Prohibition) oozes swank.

Rooms in the W at the Foshay exude eroticism. If there is someone in your life that you like to have sex with, go to this place and do fun/nasty things with them. Bring your iPod and make sure it's filled with classy lovemaking music.

My wife and I have gone there a couple times on the cheap and it's always been a nice "vacation" from suburban living. Last time we were feeling so swanky that we took photographs that we could not post on Facebook. So...my own fantastic experiences there might leave me a bit biased...but hit up the Foshay if you get a chance.

It's not cheap but it's worth saving a couple bucks for.

dkinmn

Happy Gnome. Bulldog Northeast. Blue Door. Maverick's.

madelinecn

Duluth :)

grandeandy

You HAVE to go to the May Day parade (first week in May). It's pretty amazing. The entire thing is like an artistic political statement with a designated theme, lots of paper machete, and tons of culture.

DustD

Harvest Fest at Harmony Park, Lake Geneva Minnestoa

TMills

There are good "hamburger sandwiches" (made of cow's meat) at a restaurant named "McDonald's" and delicious submarine sandwiches at a quaint little place called "Sub Way".

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