Business thrives on Franklin Avenue

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE

The Avenue is great for coffee or breakfast

If you want to go out for breakfast or a coffee and snacks, Franklin Avenue will spoil you with choices. Norway House, 913 E. Franklin Ave., now has a full-service cafe with Scandinavian type coffee drinks, bakery items, and small plates. It’s called the Kaffebar, and it serves things like a Norwegian charcuterie plate, cheese plate, hot dogs in lefse, and skoleboller. On Thursdays there is a “hygge hour” with BOGO wine and beer and live music.
Maria’s Cafe, 1113 E. Franklin, is a local favorite for breakfast and lunch. Find American style diner food, and also a Colombian breakfast featuring arepas in owner Maria Hoyos’s Colombian style. See mariascafe.com for the interesting history of Maria’s. Pow Wow Grounds at 1414 E. Franklin is a Native American run and themed coffee shop adjacent to All My Relations Art Gallery. It features a chill vibe, art on the walls, and reasonable prices.
Gatherings Cafe has been the “food hall” of the Minneapolis American Indian Center since the beginning, but if you have not been there since their recent renovation, you’re in

for a pleasant surprise. Gatherings is in a whole new space with big windows open to the Avenue and a new menu, decolonized even more than before, but still very affordable. (See a mini-review in The Dish here tinyurl.com/yck4f7h7.)

Get a proper meal on the Avenue

Pizza Luce (Seward) is my home turf Luce and therefore my favorite. Menu-wise, Pizza Luces are much the same, but the staff at Seward is great, whether you’re getting a delivery or dining in the restaurant. Pizza Luce has more than pizza, especially since they branched into a weekend brunch, which is also very good. You can even get brunch delivered (weekends only.)

If you’re dining in the restaurant, you can get beer or wine or other drinks. They have lots of local brews on tap, including Indeed, Fulton, Fair State and others. Don’t pass over the seasonal specials; some of their best items are only available seasonally. I have dreams about their limited edition lemon-pistachio cheesecake.
Curry In A Hurry, 3025 E. Franklin – last food before the river – is another favorite, but one I don’t have often enough. They are the post-George-Floyd iteration of Gandhi Mahal (of loving memory). Whatever you get for your main, you must get the mango lassi. It’s the very best.

Services on the Avenue

Easily overlooked at the busy corner of Nicollet and Franklin, (but don’t pass it by!) is one of the best veterinary practices in town, Pet Doctors. Dr. Bobbi Soule and her terrific staff have hundreds of glowing Google reviews. They also have an online store for pet health products.
Woodlands National Bank is owned by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and has branches across the state. The branch in the

“Ancient Trader” mall at 1113 E. Franklin is the only one in the Twin Cities. Their headquarters are in Onamia, MN. Woodlands offers all the services of a larger bank, but uses its small size and local roots to provide a very high level of service.
The Franklin Library, 1314 E. Franklin, is a historic place, being one of thirteen branch libraries established under the leadership of Gratia Countryman, the chief librarian of the Minneapolis Public Library from 1904 to 1936. Like many Hennepin County libraries, it hosts community events. On July 19 there will be live African drumming at 1 p.m., with dancing by performers wearing authentic costumes. The audience is invited to participate.

Art, books, and culture on the Avenue

All My Relations Arts (AMRA) is a project of the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI), an art gallery specializing in Native American art. Their current exhibit is Creation.story, a group touring show, co-curated by Keith Braveheart and David Meyer. The show features works by thirteen artists around the theme of Očhéthi Šakówiŋ creation stories, and runs through July 26. See allmyrelationsarts.org for more details.

Boneshaker Books is a collective-owned, volunteer-led, politically radical bookstore. Besides selling books, the store is a major repository for zines and has a consignment system. They also have a medium-sized meeting room available for free on a signup basis, and offer DIY printing services with a Riso printer (and instruction on using it.)
The Playwright Center was founded in 1971 by six writers seeking artistic and professional support. Today it serves more playwrights in more ways than any other organization in the country. The roster of playwrights and other theater professionals launched into fame by the Playwrights Center is too long to list. One of the nation’s most generous and well-respected theater organizations, the Playwrights’ Center focuses on both supporting playwrights and promoting new plays to production at theaters across the country, including the Guthrie, the Lincoln Center, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. See pwcenter.org for more information or to get involved.
Northern Clay Center has been at 2424 E. Franklin Avenue since 1990. It is now a highly respected and stable arts organization in this arty town. They offer group and private classes in ceramics and related areas to people of all ages over five, including “clay camp” in the summer. They have open studio for trained adults and also offer assistance with grants and scholarships.

Retail shopping on the Avenue

Bench Pressed is a relatively new business located just off of Franklin at 2010 26th Avenue. It presents itself as a gift shop and stationery store. That “gift shop” part can cover a lot of ground, but Bench Pressed is wild. You will see things there you won’t see most other places and you will want them. Their stationery and other printed products are made onsite, as it is also a letterpress print shop.
Electric Fetus, 2000 4th Avenue South, is one of the grand old Twin Cities shops for vinyl and other recorded music. They sell new and used records and CDs, and they pay top dollar for used vinyl, CDs and DVDs. Plus an extra 50% more than cash if you choose store credit. I don’t know for sure, but I think they may be the only record store that has a happy hour ($5 worth of used vinyl with every $20 of new vinyl purchased during the

HH.) They have a lot more, including a high-functioning website, a Prince section and, of course, merch.
We mentioned All My Relations and Pow Wow Grounds above. These two institutions on Franklin share an address with Four Sisters Farmers’ Market, which is held in the adjacent parking lot on Thursdays from June to the end of October, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Four Sisters is associated with both a small farm and an urban growers co-op of the same name, and with the youth food self-sufficiency program Dream of Wild Health. There are also many other vendors involved with information, crafts, herbal products, and other wares to sell.