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Football’s biggest game of the year is fast approaching and that means the megabucks commercials that will air are slowly being released. One for the website builder Squarespace features Gen X actress Winona Ryder on a meta-journey to the actual town of Winona, Minnesota. However, she spends her time building the website inside Mickey’s by Willy, a diner on West 7th in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
The game day commercial opens inside the diner with a voiceover of the famous actress as she muses, “A person.... wanders the earth...” From there, she muses on about searching for “true self,” and has her traipsing through Winona, snapping pictures of landmarks and town folk.
When it comes time to actually build the website, she’s sitting inside the diner and chatting with a waitress about picture placement and photo book sales.
The diner is the second, and perhaps lesser known Mickey’s diner. There is one, a historic railway car in downtown St. Paul. The second was opened in the 1950s and operates with a similar menu to the railcar, but in a quieter, easier-to-access setting.
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Mickey’s by Willy is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The interior has barely changed since opening, and sports all the chrome accents of the era it was built. With it’s large windows overlooking the woods across the busy street, it makes for a fantastic location as a standard bearer for what a diner should be.
- Mickey’s Diner [Official]
- Welcome to Winona (Big Game Day 2020 film) [YT]
- Squarespace [Official]
