Minnesota Music Café

"A live Band Lover's Dream"

By: Nate S.

On the edge of downtown off of 7th and Payne,
Your ears hear the sound of a music café,
As the suns last ray hides away for the day,
A band takes stage and gets ready to play,
It would be no fib... if I were to say,
That if you stepped in... here you will stay.

For middle aged singles to mingle it's great,
But it's also the place to go out on a date,
For smokers the Patio's where to integrate,
With a capitol view of our beautiful state.

There's chairs galore if you fancy a seat,
Or get on the floor and dance with your feet,
If your stomachs a growling to the sound of the beat,
Do not fret... it's cheap to eat.

Pour another one... bartender please,
I'm smothered in fun as I stand at the scene,
Of what my eyes appear to see,
Nothing short of... a live band lover's dream.

Sometimes a place just is what it is, and I'm super OK with that.

MMC is close to my work, so it's a frequent H(appy) H(our) location. 241s on Leinie's Honeyweiss and Heggie's Pizza are the main draw, but the late afternoon music trio (2 older men and a lady) are usually decent and do some interesting covers. It's always quiet, not crowded, and the bartenders are prompt and aren't chintzy with the comp tab.

When my roommate warned me before leaving the house that MMC was mostly an older crowd I didn't think much of it. However I was probably the youngest person in there by a few decades the first couple hours I was there. I think all the old, rocker, hippie dudes at the bar were as surprised to see me as I was to see them when I walked in.
But I had a blast, and it's hard to beat a pitcher of beer and a pizza for $10. Open mic night was interesting in that there's a band already there and individuals can come up and be frontman for a song or two. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Open mic starts at 7p and goes to 11p on Monday night, but it seemed pretty empty in the bar until 10p.
There's a lot of seating of various configurations, tables, bar, high tops, booths, and various combinations of all of them. And a dance floor down in front of stage, which is much smaller then I anticipated since I kept hearing about what a great place this is for dancing. However it was plenty of space for the one woman doing her thing with a light up hulu hoop.
It's actually a block further south than the map shows, it's at Woodward and Payne, not a block past Woodward.