Midwest's First Water-Only Bar Set to Open in Northeast Minneapolis

Forget your single-malt, barrel-aged, extra-fermented beverages. The newest bar in Minneapolis will be entirely stocked with water. The concept is part educational effort, part art installation, part thirst quencher. Water Bar began in 2014 as a pop up and has now identified a permanent location in the artist-friendly neighborhood of Northeast Minneapolis.

Once open, the bar will serve unlimited glasses of water sourced from various cities around the state and nation with the proclaimed objective of starting "conversations and connections around the life-sustaining, precarious, communal activity of drinking tap water." (For those wondering, Minneapolis and St. Paul tap water is drawn from the Mississippi River.) Staffed by artists, activists and actual bartenders, the clear stuff poured will be served for free. Although, a tip jar will be located on site with the proceeds donated to various local charities.

A past installation of Water Bar. Photo courtesy Upstream Matters

This won't be the Twin Cities first opportunity to taste the works at Water Bar. Previous pop ups have been held at the Little Mekong Night Market, Northern Spark and inside classrooms at the University of Minnesota.

Minnpost reports that a permanent location is set to open on Central Avenue, just off 25th Street in Minneapolis. A Go Fund Me "SIP" (studio-in-progress) campaign has thus far raised over $2,000 of a $25,000 goal. While the Minnpost article headline suggest this is the "world's first" water bar, a cursory Google search did turn up bars that had served water-only in the 80's in France, in 2014 in London and who could forget Molecule of New York City? (Answer: just about everyone.) Still, what appears to Minneapolis' first foray into the watery world of non-everything taps is edging towards opening sometime soon.

• The world’s first full-fledged 'water bar' is about to open in Minneapolis [MINNPOST]
• Molecule bottled water is "pure" nonsense [NYPost]
• H20nly Bar in Shoreditch, East London Set to Open [DailyMail]