16. Acme Comedy Company
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 338-6393
Address: 708 North First St.
Description: Acme hosts local and national comedians in its Warehouse District space inside the Itasca Building. The club has shows nightly except Sunday, with free open mic on Monday. The on-site restaurant serves pasta, steaks, and ribs, and you have the choice of buying a ticket for the comedy show alone, for $15, or a dinner and show special for $27.
17. Comedysportz
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 870-1230
Address: 3001 Hennepin Ave. South (Calhoun Square
Description: Part of the national ComedySportz chain, this club sets up refereed comedy teams that compete for the biggest laughs and the most points for their unscripted, improvisational performances. Audience members are encouraged to heckle the teams as well as throw out suggestions for comedy themes. But make sure your suggestions are clean, or the referee could call the “Brown Bag Foul” on you and you’ll end up wearing a paper bag over your head. Shows are every Thursday at 8 p.m. and every Friday and Saturday at 8 and 10:30 p.m.
18. Bar Fly
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 333-6100
Address: 711 Hennepin Ave.
Description: BarFly (tagline: “More quaint than a club. More liberal than a lounge.”) sits in the old Skyway Theater on busy Hennepin Avenue downtown. DJs spin for the beautiful people dancing and bellying up to moodily lit bars. This club is open Wednesday through Sunday.
19. Cowboy Slim’S
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 353-5156
Address: 1320 West Lake St.
Description: You can imagine the founders of Cowboy Slim’s looking east down Lake Street and seeing the Country Bar and Grill, then looking west and seeing Bar Abilene, and nodding their heads knowingly, thinking, “Yes…yes! Combine the two! Brilliant!” Thus, Uptown has a new haven for urban cowboys looking to get their drink on and watch cowgirls ride a mechanical bull—and, of course, for cowgirls seeking a bull to ride. No more need be said.
20. The Drink
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 659-9000
Address: 26 Fifth St. North
Description: First-time Minneapolis visitors probably think it’s some kind of performance-art piece when they see a guy standing on the corner of Lake and Hennepin handing out tokens and yelling, “Free drink at the Drink!” Nope, there’s actually a venue called Drink—in fact, there are three. One’s in downtown Minneapolis, one’s in Uptown, and the third is in Iowa. The Drink advertises itself as “the original fun bar,” and once you’ve visited a Drink, you’ll appreciate how no one really had any fun at a bar until Drink came along with its novel combination of loud music and beer. If you’re looking for a place to shake your tailfeathers and have them appreciatively ogled, tell the cabbie to take you to the Drink—any Drink.
21. El Nuevo Rodeo
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 728-0101
Address: 2709 East Lake St.
Description: Boasting three hardwood dance floors, two bars, and highly danceable Latin music, El Nuevo Rodeo is one of the biggest dance clubs in the Cities. The club features live Latin music several nights a week, especially on weekends, and a DJ playing very sexy Latin tunes the rest of the time. At 20,000 square feet, El Nuevo Rodeo is large, but it rarely feels empty when the music is playing. The club is on East Lake Street a couple of blocks west of the Lake Street/Midtown Station of the Hiawatha Light-Rail Transit line.
22. Epic Nightclub
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 332-3742
Address: 110 North Fifth St.
Description: Since the implosion (financially, not physically) of Myth, Epic is left as the Twin Cities’ last club standing for those seeking big-name DJs in cavernous rooms with VIPs sitting in balconies throwing sushi down into the general-admission crowd just because they can. Hip-hop and, rarely, rock/pop acts also play Epic sometimes, but by and large it’s a place to pop your pill, drink your drink, and get good ‘n’ sweaty. Theme parties are a specialty; subscribe to the venue’s e-mail newsletter for updates.
23. Escape Ultra Lounge
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 333-8855
Address: 600 Hennepin Ave. South
Description: This 12,000-square-foot 18-plus club is right above the Hard Rock Cafe in the heart of Minneapolis’s entertainment district on Hennepin Avenue (there is also a club entrance on First Avenue). A “fashionable” dress code is enforced here, where plasma screens, leather couches, and serious uplighting make for a hip, high-tech mood. Two VIP rooms up the swank factor. Escape is open from 5 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. seven days a week and features drink specials and a range of music including hip-hop, latin, R&B, rock, and dance hall.
24. The Imperial Room
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 376-7676
Address: 417 North First Ave.
Description: You could call the Imperial Room a bar—you could even call it a restaurant. But at its best (such as it is), it’s a dance club. On Friday nights the floor fills with people who have escaped their cubicles and really, really don’t want to think about work…unless “thinking about work” means thinking about that cute guy who just started in marketing.
25. Spin
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 333-5055
Address: 10 South Fifth St.
Description: In Minneapolis’s hip Warehouse District, this place is designed for people to see and be seen—and to dance. The sound and the lighting are state-of-the-art amazing, and the ambience can’t be beat. There are 40-foot ceilings, a 20-foot water wall, blasts of fog, and the bathrooms—you must visit the bathrooms, where plasma screens perch above the urinals and the stall doors are clear glass that turn opaque when they are closed. Spin’s annual November Studio 54 party is totally hot and totally 1970s. The club is open Thursday through Sunday from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Watch for nightly specials, and be aware that the dress code is enforced.
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Address: 416 Cedar Ave. South
27. Kieran’S Irish Pub & Restaurant
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 339-4499
Address: 600 Hennepin Ave. (Block E)
Description: One of the few Irish bars in Minneapolis, Kieran’s has a full bar and an excellent menu that includes traditional Irish foods like lamb stew and pot roast with Guinness gravy. The bar usually has live Irish and folk music playing on two different stages Friday and Saturday nights and infrequently during the week, with the occasional open-mic night and scheduled poetry readings on the smaller stage. During the summer, Kieran’s sets up an outside bar and lots of tables for clients, with the occasional live band set up outside to serenade both patrons and random passersby. (Note: Kieran’s was moving into its new location, above, just as this guide went to press.)
28. O’Donovan’S Irish Pub
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 317-8896
Address: 700 First Ave. North
Description: O’Donovan’s is a nice addition to the small Twin Cities Irish pub scene. Unlike the Dubliner Pub or Kieran’s Irish Pub, O’Donovan’s authenticity to all that is Irish is mostly left to the beautiful decor. The pub was actually built in Ireland and shipped to the Twin Cities in pieces. O’Donovan’s draws a young, collegiate crowd, who enjoy the pub’s live music selection, which often includes top-40 hits. Location is a prime asset for O’Donovan’s—the Target Center and First Avenue/Seventh Street Entry are directly across the street.
29. The Minneapolis Eagle
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 338-4214
Address: 515 Washington Ave. South
Description: If there’s such a thing as an “authentic” gay bar, the Eagle is it. No bachelorettes with suckers, no bored straights looking for something off the beaten path, just gay men and women (mostly the former) looking to party. The attached Bolt is a straight-up (so to speak) hookup spot, especially on underwear nights and leather nights.
30. Gay Nineties Theatre Cafe & Bar
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Nightlife
Telephone: (612) 333-7755
Address: 408 Hennepin Ave.
Description: The state’s largest gay club, the Gay Nineties features a six-night-a-week (none on Monday) drag show at the La Femme Show Lounge on the second floor. The club has a dedicated straight following as well, who come for the strong mixed drinks and the excellent dance music with no cover charge—Friday and Saturday nights are packed, and there’s nearly always a line to get inside. The club has nine different bars on the premises, two discos, a supper club, male strippers, and a game room.