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A close-up photo of a jukebox.
The jukebox at Bull’s Horn.
Bull’s Horn

15 Essential Minneapolis Bars

From dives to speakeasies to vaunted cocktail bars

by Eater Staff Updated
View as Map
The jukebox at Bull’s Horn.
| Bull’s Horn
by Eater Staff Updated

It’s hard to imagine another bar scene quite like Minneapolis’s, with its assortment of legendary dives, speakeasies, funky music bars, and scene-shaping cocktail programs. From rail drinks to pet-nats; Irish whiskeys to cans of Hamm’s, belly up to these 15 essential Minneapolis bars.

Note that these bars are listed geographically.

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Eater maps are curated by editors and aim to reflect a diversity of neighborhoods, cuisines, and prices. Learn more about our editorial process. If you buy something or book a reservation from an Eater link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics policy.

Grumpy's Bar

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Grumpy’s, open since 1906, is the cream of the crop among Northeast’s time-worn, unpretentious neighborhood bars. Pat Dwyer and Tom Hazelmyer have been at Grumpy’s helm since ‘98 — they’ve kept the bar true to its divey roots, stocked with great beer and Heggie’s pizza. Anyone and everyone is welcome at Grumpy’s.

2200 4th St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418
(612) 789-7429
(612) 789-7429

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Hai Hai

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For a tropical cocktail, look no further. In 2017, chef Christina Nguyen and Birk Grudem expertly transformed a divey neighborhood strip club into a lush Southeast Asian restaurant and bar, Hai Hai. The drinks here (think lychee slushies and Thai-tea steeped whiskey) are juicy and balanced, an antidote to a long Minnesota winter night. The full food menu is available at the bar, too — the shrimp toast and water fern cakes are musts.

2121 University Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418
(612) 223-8640
(612) 223-8640
Four tropical cocktails garnished with fruit and flowers on a wooden bar with floral wallpaper in the background.
Hai Hai’s unbeatable tropical cocktails.
Hai Hai

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Young Joni Back Bar

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If Minneapolis is a speakeasy city, we owe that in part to chef Ann Kim, who helped catalyze the restaurant-and-semi-secret-cocktail-bar combo when she opened Young Joni and Back Bar in 2016. Sneak down the alley and look for the red neon light — a limited number of people are allowed at a time, but the wait is worth. This intimate room, cloaked in dark florals and velvet, feels like your chic grandma’s basement setup. (That is, if your grandma had a 70s-era reel-to-reel playing in the background.) Cocktails range from ginger-infused Long Island Iced Teas to clarified milk punch.

165 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
(612) 345-5719
(612) 345-5719
Dark floral wallpaper covered with small wooden-frames, old tables, and even older loveseats.
Young Joni’s cozy back bar.
Katie Cannon/Eater Twin Cities

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Dusty's Bar

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Whiskey drinks like water inside this Northeast fixture, a stalwart of the neighborhood’s dive bar scene. Note the old phone booth, which gives Dusty’s a bit of a time traveler’s vibe. Buy a couple of pull tabs to while away the minutes while waiting for one of the famous sandwiches, made with Italian pork sausage, caramelized onions, mozzarella, and sweet peppers.

1319 Marshall St NE, Minneapolis, MN
(612) 378-2118
(612) 378-2118
A person in a black shirt pouring a drink behind a bar, with a neon Miller Lite sign above it.
Dusty’s is famous for its sandwiches.
Katie Cannon/Eater Twin Cities

Also featured in:

Meteor

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A long-time dream by local industry vets Robb Jones and Elliot Manthey, Meteor Bar almost didn’t come into fruition because of the pandemic — but it rose again, and three years later is standing strong. Unassuming and comfortable, it’s a popular industry hangout. The drinks are imaginative and complex, changing week to week with the bartenders’ latest obsessions: Recent inventions include a Granny Smith Manhattan and creamy nutmeg, vodka, and oat milk cocktail. Keep an eye on Instagram for fun weekly events.

2027 N 2nd St #2202, Minneapolis, MN 55411
(612) 886-2483
(612) 886-2483

Bar Brava

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Bar Brava’s natural wine offerings infused the Minneapolis wine scene with a bit of delightful funk when it opened in 2019. With a dedication to organically farmed, unfiltered, wild-yeasted, and unfined wine, this space the Cities’ only dedicated natural wine bar. Pours range from Santa Barbara Chenin blancs to French pet-nats — they’re paired with modern Vietnamese bites from resident Khue’s Kitchen. Keep an eye out for weekend pop-ups on Instagram.

1914 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55411
(612) 208-1270
(612) 208-1270
An assortment of white plates with blue trim on a counter in front of two bottles of natural wine and two glasses of wine.
Bar Brava has the Cities’ best natural wine selection.
Bar Brava

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Bunker's Music Bar & Grill

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Bunker’s is one of the Cities’ finest music bars, a placed with a truly varied — and reliably fun — lineup. This spot offers beer, cocktails, and bar bites like burgers and tots, but the focus is on the dance floor. Drop by on a Sunday night for an unparalleled funk experience from house band Dr. Mambo’s Combo.

761 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 338-8188
(612) 338-8188

Also featured in:

Spoon and Stable

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Spoon and Stable bar manager Jessi Pollak was named America’s best bartender of 2022 by the U.S. Bartender’s Guild — she won crafting cocktails with produce grown by the University of Minnesota, like Honeycrisp apples, strawberries, and corn varietals. Her cocktail list, much like Spoon’s menu, has a warm sophistication, from the yuzu-infused French 75 to the flame-lit Oaxacan. Bar bites include oysters, meatloaf sliders, and black truffle arancini.

211 N 1st St, Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 224-9850
(612) 224-9850
Jessi Pollak dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt, lighting a flame over a cocktail in a couple glass.
Pollak crafting the Oaxacan cocktail.
Spoon and Stable

Also featured in:

Palmer's Bar

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Palmer’s has been a beloved West Bank bar since 1906 — and owner Tony Zaccardi has been at the helm since 2018. This a salt-of-the-earth kind of place, perhaps Minneapolis’s most quintessential dive. As Zaccardi told Growler Magazine: “One of my favorite mantras about Palmer’s, is that it’s very much Black, white, rich, poor, gay, straight, trans, left, right, it kind of doesn’t matter. Everyone’s welcome here until you’re an asshole.” There’s a nightly live music calendar, so come catch a show on Palmer’s famously tiny, triangular stage — or swing by for the legendary Cornbread Harris’s weekly performances.

500 Cedar Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55454
(612) 333-7625
(612) 333-7625
The exterior of a bar, with a blue awning that says 500 Cedar, and a painting of a man in a tuxedo next to the word “Palmers.”
Palmer’s in the West Bank.
Google Street View

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Little Tijuana Neighborhood Lounge

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Recently revived by a team of Petite León alums, Little Tijuana is the funkiest bar on Eat Street. The cocktails are heavy hitters, leaning into mezcal and bitters, and the menu features snacky cauliflower bites and papri chaat, near-flawless waffle fries, and a fried chicken sandwich that’s among the best in the city. The pina colada slushy machine never quits kicking, nor does the record player, where vinyls are kept on rotation.

17 E 26th St, Minneapolis, MN 55408
(612) 315-3245
(612) 315-3245
An assortment of dishes and a cocktail spread on a table.
Little T’s, on Eat Street.
Little Tijuana

Also featured in:

Nightingale

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Nightingale has been an Uptown Minneapolis classic since Jasha Johnston and Carrie McCabe-Johnston opened it in 2012. Casual and neighborhoody — but with enough shine that it feels like a night out — it’s a reliable stop for oysters, French fries, and cocktails. More than 10 years in, Nightingale still has a buzzy vibe, and is always packed on weekends.

2551 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55405
(612) 354-7060
(612) 354-7060
Nightingale
A black and white photo of a curved bar where two people are sitting with their backs to the camera, and a bartender in the background looking toward it.

Also featured in:

CC Club

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The CC Club is (arguably) south Minneapolis’s most beloved dive. An old haunt of bands like the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Soul Asylum (the ‘Mats “Here Comes a Regular” is believed to be about the bar), CC is packed night in and night out with anyone — and everyone — who loves Minneapolis’s determinedly unpretentious dive culture. Put a quarter down on the pool tables in the back.

2600 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN
(612) 874-7226
(612) 874-7226
A curved wooden bar with a large assortment of liquor bottles stacked on shelves behind it, and small lamps glowing above it.
Inside the historic CC Club.
Katie Cannon/Eater Twin Cities

Merlins Rest Pub

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Merlins Rest in Minneapolis’s Longfellow neighborhood is beloved for extensive list of single malt scotch and Irish whiskeys, its live Irish music (plus jazz and blues), and its total lack of pretense. It’s not strictly an Irish bar — as a “British Isles” pub, it embraces the cultures and cuisines of England and Scotland, too. Menu highlights include the classic bangers and mash, cottage pie, and English toffee pudding.

3601 E Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 216-2419
(612) 216-2419

Also featured in:

Martina

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Marco Zappia rocked the Twin Cities cocktail scene when he debuted the bar program at Martina, chef Danny del Prado’s Argentinian-Italian stunner, in 2018. The vermouths — laced with chamomile and coriander; hibiscus and raspberry; pineapple and birch bark — are the calling card here; the cocktail list is built around them. A stone’s throw from Lake Harriet, this is an ideal place to while an evening with a lemongrass-infused G&T and a slice of caramel flan. (Note that Martina serves a handful of nonalcoholic cocktails, too.)

1555, 4312 S Upton Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55410
(612) 922-9913
(612) 922-9913
A white brick bar with a green marble top, wooden stools in front of it, standing in the middle of a dining room.
Martina, in Linden Hills.
Kevin Kramer/Eater Twin Cities

Also featured in:

Bull's Horn Food and Drink

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Doug Flicker was a longtime fine-dining chef who influenced a generation of Minneapolis chefs, but he walked away from the world of white linen to open a neighborhood bar alongside his wife, Amy Greeley. The result, Bull’s Horn, has everything you could ask of a great corner bar: a jukebox, burgers and beers, and pull tabs, true to Minnesota dive form. Grab a bucket of the famous pickle-brined fried chicken.

4563 S 34th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 208-1378
(612) 208-1378
A half-drunk pint of beer among opened pull tabs on a wooden table.
Pull tabs at Bull’s Horn.
Bull’s Horn

Also featured in:

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Grumpy's Bar

2200 4th St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418

Grumpy’s, open since 1906, is the cream of the crop among Northeast’s time-worn, unpretentious neighborhood bars. Pat Dwyer and Tom Hazelmyer have been at Grumpy’s helm since ‘98 — they’ve kept the bar true to its divey roots, stocked with great beer and Heggie’s pizza. Anyone and everyone is welcome at Grumpy’s.

2200 4th St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418
(612) 789-7429
(612) 789-7429

Hai Hai

2121 University Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418

For a tropical cocktail, look no further. In 2017, chef Christina Nguyen and Birk Grudem expertly transformed a divey neighborhood strip club into a lush Southeast Asian restaurant and bar, Hai Hai. The drinks here (think lychee slushies and Thai-tea steeped whiskey) are juicy and balanced, an antidote to a long Minnesota winter night. The full food menu is available at the bar, too — the shrimp toast and water fern cakes are musts.

2121 University Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418
(612) 223-8640
(612) 223-8640
Four tropical cocktails garnished with fruit and flowers on a wooden bar with floral wallpaper in the background.
Hai Hai’s unbeatable tropical cocktails.
Hai Hai

Young Joni Back Bar

165 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

If Minneapolis is a speakeasy city, we owe that in part to chef Ann Kim, who helped catalyze the restaurant-and-semi-secret-cocktail-bar combo when she opened Young Joni and Back Bar in 2016. Sneak down the alley and look for the red neon light — a limited number of people are allowed at a time, but the wait is worth. This intimate room, cloaked in dark florals and velvet, feels like your chic grandma’s basement setup. (That is, if your grandma had a 70s-era reel-to-reel playing in the background.) Cocktails range from ginger-infused Long Island Iced Teas to clarified milk punch.

165 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
(612) 345-5719
(612) 345-5719
Dark floral wallpaper covered with small wooden-frames, old tables, and even older loveseats.
Young Joni’s cozy back bar.
Katie Cannon/Eater Twin Cities

Dusty's Bar

1319 Marshall St NE, Minneapolis, MN

Whiskey drinks like water inside this Northeast fixture, a stalwart of the neighborhood’s dive bar scene. Note the old phone booth, which gives Dusty’s a bit of a time traveler’s vibe. Buy a couple of pull tabs to while away the minutes while waiting for one of the famous sandwiches, made with Italian pork sausage, caramelized onions, mozzarella, and sweet peppers.

1319 Marshall St NE, Minneapolis, MN
(612) 378-2118
(612) 378-2118
A person in a black shirt pouring a drink behind a bar, with a neon Miller Lite sign above it.
Dusty’s is famous for its sandwiches.
Katie Cannon/Eater Twin Cities

Meteor

2027 N 2nd St #2202, Minneapolis, MN 55411

A long-time dream by local industry vets Robb Jones and Elliot Manthey, Meteor Bar almost didn’t come into fruition because of the pandemic — but it rose again, and three years later is standing strong. Unassuming and comfortable, it’s a popular industry hangout. The drinks are imaginative and complex, changing week to week with the bartenders’ latest obsessions: Recent inventions include a Granny Smith Manhattan and creamy nutmeg, vodka, and oat milk cocktail. Keep an eye on Instagram for fun weekly events.

2027 N 2nd St #2202, Minneapolis, MN 55411
(612) 886-2483
(612) 886-2483

Bar Brava

1914 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55411

Bar Brava’s natural wine offerings infused the Minneapolis wine scene with a bit of delightful funk when it opened in 2019. With a dedication to organically farmed, unfiltered, wild-yeasted, and unfined wine, this space the Cities’ only dedicated natural wine bar. Pours range from Santa Barbara Chenin blancs to French pet-nats — they’re paired with modern Vietnamese bites from resident Khue’s Kitchen. Keep an eye out for weekend pop-ups on Instagram.

1914 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55411
(612) 208-1270
(612) 208-1270
An assortment of white plates with blue trim on a counter in front of two bottles of natural wine and two glasses of wine.
Bar Brava has the Cities’ best natural wine selection.
Bar Brava

Bunker's Music Bar & Grill

761 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401

Bunker’s is one of the Cities’ finest music bars, a placed with a truly varied — and reliably fun — lineup. This spot offers beer, cocktails, and bar bites like burgers and tots, but the focus is on the dance floor. Drop by on a Sunday night for an unparalleled funk experience from house band Dr. Mambo’s Combo.

761 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 338-8188
(612) 338-8188

Spoon and Stable

211 N 1st St, Minneapolis, MN 55401

Spoon and Stable bar manager Jessi Pollak was named America’s best bartender of 2022 by the U.S. Bartender’s Guild — she won crafting cocktails with produce grown by the University of Minnesota, like Honeycrisp apples, strawberries, and corn varietals. Her cocktail list, much like Spoon’s menu, has a warm sophistication, from the yuzu-infused French 75 to the flame-lit Oaxacan. Bar bites include oysters, meatloaf sliders, and black truffle arancini.

211 N 1st St, Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 224-9850
(612) 224-9850
Jessi Pollak dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt, lighting a flame over a cocktail in a couple glass.
Pollak crafting the Oaxacan cocktail.
Spoon and Stable

Palmer's Bar

500 Cedar Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55454

Palmer’s has been a beloved West Bank bar since 1906 — and owner Tony Zaccardi has been at the helm since 2018. This a salt-of-the-earth kind of place, perhaps Minneapolis’s most quintessential dive. As Zaccardi told Growler Magazine: “One of my favorite mantras about Palmer’s, is that it’s very much Black, white, rich, poor, gay, straight, trans, left, right, it kind of doesn’t matter. Everyone’s welcome here until you’re an asshole.” There’s a nightly live music calendar, so come catch a show on Palmer’s famously tiny, triangular stage — or swing by for the legendary Cornbread Harris’s weekly performances.

500 Cedar Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55454
(612) 333-7625
(612) 333-7625
The exterior of a bar, with a blue awning that says 500 Cedar, and a painting of a man in a tuxedo next to the word “Palmers.”
Palmer’s in the West Bank.
Google Street View

Little Tijuana Neighborhood Lounge

17 E 26th St, Minneapolis, MN 55408

Recently revived by a team of Petite León alums, Little Tijuana is the funkiest bar on Eat Street. The cocktails are heavy hitters, leaning into mezcal and bitters, and the menu features snacky cauliflower bites and papri chaat, near-flawless waffle fries, and a fried chicken sandwich that’s among the best in the city. The pina colada slushy machine never quits kicking, nor does the record player, where vinyls are kept on rotation.

17 E 26th St, Minneapolis, MN 55408
(612) 315-3245
(612) 315-3245
An assortment of dishes and a cocktail spread on a table.
Little T’s, on Eat Street.
Little Tijuana

Nightingale

2551 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55405

Nightingale has been an Uptown Minneapolis classic since Jasha Johnston and Carrie McCabe-Johnston opened it in 2012. Casual and neighborhoody — but with enough shine that it feels like a night out — it’s a reliable stop for oysters, French fries, and cocktails. More than 10 years in, Nightingale still has a buzzy vibe, and is always packed on weekends.

2551 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55405
(612) 354-7060
(612) 354-7060
Nightingale
A black and white photo of a curved bar where two people are sitting with their backs to the camera, and a bartender in the background looking toward it.

CC Club

2600 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN

The CC Club is (arguably) south Minneapolis’s most beloved dive. An old haunt of bands like the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Soul Asylum (the ‘Mats “Here Comes a Regular” is believed to be about the bar), CC is packed night in and night out with anyone — and everyone — who loves Minneapolis’s determinedly unpretentious dive culture. Put a quarter down on the pool tables in the back.

2600 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN
(612) 874-7226
(612) 874-7226
A curved wooden bar with a large assortment of liquor bottles stacked on shelves behind it, and small lamps glowing above it.
Inside the historic CC Club.
Katie Cannon/Eater Twin Cities

Merlins Rest Pub

3601 E Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55406

Merlins Rest in Minneapolis’s Longfellow neighborhood is beloved for extensive list of single malt scotch and Irish whiskeys, its live Irish music (plus jazz and blues), and its total lack of pretense. It’s not strictly an Irish bar — as a “British Isles” pub, it embraces the cultures and cuisines of England and Scotland, too. Menu highlights include the classic bangers and mash, cottage pie, and English toffee pudding.

3601 E Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 216-2419
(612) 216-2419

Martina

1555, 4312 S Upton Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55410

Marco Zappia rocked the Twin Cities cocktail scene when he debuted the bar program at Martina, chef Danny del Prado’s Argentinian-Italian stunner, in 2018. The vermouths — laced with chamomile and coriander; hibiscus and raspberry; pineapple and birch bark — are the calling card here; the cocktail list is built around them. A stone’s throw from Lake Harriet, this is an ideal place to while an evening with a lemongrass-infused G&T and a slice of caramel flan. (Note that Martina serves a handful of nonalcoholic cocktails, too.)

1555, 4312 S Upton Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55410
(612) 922-9913
(612) 922-9913
A white brick bar with a green marble top, wooden stools in front of it, standing in the middle of a dining room.
Martina, in Linden Hills.
Kevin Kramer/Eater Twin Cities

Bull's Horn Food and Drink

4563 S 34th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406

Doug Flicker was a longtime fine-dining chef who influenced a generation of Minneapolis chefs, but he walked away from the world of white linen to open a neighborhood bar alongside his wife, Amy Greeley. The result, Bull’s Horn, has everything you could ask of a great corner bar: a jukebox, burgers and beers, and pull tabs, true to Minnesota dive form. Grab a bucket of the famous pickle-brined fried chicken.

4563 S 34th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 208-1378
(612) 208-1378
A half-drunk pint of beer among opened pull tabs on a wooden table.
Pull tabs at Bull’s Horn.
Bull’s Horn

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