Rookery
Gather 'round, folks! Travail co-owner Mike Brown let slip another new detail about the coming mega-Travail and Pig Ate My Pizza expansion, reconsolidation, and brewery. There will be a 40-seat speakeasy in the basement!
This is where the Travail team will carry forth the cocktail shenanigans they started when the Travail bar was called the Rookery, and made cocktails both breathtaking and dazzling.
"It's not going to be labeled as a bar from the front," Brown told me. "When you get down there it'll be dimly lit, and a lot less finished. We're just trying to make it comfortable, fun, and experimental."
There will also be a menu of small plates down there, menus for Pig Ate My Pizza in case you want take-out, and other food experiences—say, a chef cooking something on the roof that will be available in the speakeasy, or a chef serving a special menu in the speakeasy. As a drinker, this feels like great news. Hooray!
However, as a quibbler of definitions, I have now also reached my breaking point: Did party kids of 1927 publish Most Anticipated Speakeasy lists?
What are speakeasies? Obviously in the years of our great-grandparents, during Prohibition, from 1920 t0 1933, speakeasies were secret bars, where Americans could consume alcohol, which unpleasant Minnesotan Andrew Volstead had made illegal. Yet today, drinking alcohol is legal, even, some days after you've read the news, quite nearly mandatory. So what to make of the speakeasy scene, quite robust here in the Twin Cities? Let's try.
Top Five Speakeasies in the Twin Cities:
1. Volstead's Emporium: It's so cute and old-timey, you'll want to put on a feather hat and take sepia-toned pictures. Also has killer cutting-edge mixology type cocktails. How to find it? Go back into the netherworld behind Bills Imported Foods and the Up Down arcade and bar, look for the red light, and often, the crowd waiting for some people to leave. 711 W. Lake St., Mpls., 612-259-7891, volsteads.com
2. Volstead House: Somewhere the ghost of the original Andrew Volstead is like, "I'm still famous, baybeee!" Maybe he says this when he goes to his Eagan speakeasy. How to find it? To quote Steph March when she originally previewed it, find the bar called "Burgers and Bottles", then "enter through the red door to find a pretty swank speak-easy with lots of barrel decor, highback black leather booths, and a wall of whiskies." If you go, get the milk punch, a noble drink that doesn't get enough love. 1278 Lone Oak Rd, Eagan, 651-340-7175, volsteadhouse.com
3. Velveteen Speakeasy: Did you cry when you read the Velveteen Rabbit? I didn't when I was a little kid, and then when I was reading it to my own toddler, the tears would not stop, every time. Why? Discuss at the leading Stillwater speakeasy Velveteen, which also serves jalapeño poppers with pomegranate, another tremendous surprise. History buffs, you might want to stop on your journey at Phil's Tara Hideaway, current occupant of a historic spot where actual Depression-era gangsters like the Barker-Karpis Gang and Baby Face Nelson are said to have drank. 123 N. 2nd St,, Stillwater, 651-340-7175, thevelveteenspeakeasy.com
4. Al's Place: Up above Stanley's Barroom in Nordeast, famed for their dog-friendly patio and dog-menu, Al's has a good flapper-era sense of style and fun, and is the foodies' speakeasy—they even participate in Restaurant Week! 2500 University Ave., Mpls., 612-788-2529, alsplacempls.com
5. Travail's Speakeasy, see above. Coming spring 2019.
Now, some astute readers may say: Dara, you have not created a list of the top-five speakeasies in the Twin Cities, you have created a list of every single speakeasy in the Twin Cities! To which I respond: Good catch.
But here's my point: What is a speakeasy, in a world where alcohol is legal, and addresses are published?
Is a speakeasy merely a category of bar, like a wine bar, an izakaya (a Japanese bar with snacks), or a brasserie (a French casual beer bar.) If so, then is it merely a bar that's historically rooted in the time of flappers and bad gin? If so, I'm going to shovel other bars into the category—Eat Street Social, for instance, has a complex intellectual relationship to the founding cocktails of the 1930s. Or, is a speakeasy merely anywhere that's got a weird entrance? Then we'd count the back bar at Ann Kim's Young Joni, though she doesn't call that place you find down the alley a speakeasy, so should we? If we call anything with an awkward entrance a speakeasy, then bad news Marvel Bar: you're it.
I really don't know the answer, so I'm throwing this one out to you, brainy quibblers of cocktail-land. Tap your linguist friends on the shoulder, text your philosophy buddies, convene a panel. What's a speakeasy? Then let us know your thoughts! The need for a working definition of speakeasies is getting urgent—and if we're going to need a Ouija board and the ghost of Andrew Volstead to get it, I'm fine with that.
