Enjoy Variety on Lyndale Avenue South

BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE

The theater scene on Lyndale Avenue

Bryant Lake Bowl has a monthly feature called “Improv Zodiac,” which in August will feature performers whose birthdates fall under the sign of Leo. They also offer “Uproar Comedy Open Mic,” as well as featured performances. A complete listing is available on their website.
A few blocks away, Jungle Theater is currently selling season passes for the 2025-26 season, which starts in October with “The Cherry Orchard,” and also includes “Dinner for One,” “Wolf Play,” and “Letters from Max.”
HUGE Improv, which was a dominating institution in the vigorous improv world of the Twin Cities, closed due to financial struggles in 2024. This came just one year after they purchased their building. Racket.com had a piece about the impact on the theater scene and which institutions are taking up the slack, including near neighbor Bryant Lake Bowl. Jungle Theater was also mentioned. These two are now the main and almost only venues for live performance in the Lyn-Lake and surrounding areas apart from a couple of places on Hennepin Avenue in Uptown. See tinyurl.com/DKRatSSP-HUGE for the whole story

The cafe and restaurant scene on Lyndale Avenue

A couple of other promising new ventures on Lyndale Ave. closed in 2024. Third Space Cafe was at 2930 Lyndale and closed last fall. We also noted the closing of Hi Flora!, an innovative restaurant which was partly undone by its innovation. Hi Flora!, at 2558 Lyndale, served vegan food and non-alcohol (NA) drinks. They also had a market selling NA spirits and wines and brews, THC extracts, fair trade chocolates, and “functional” beverages and snacks to take home. So far so good. Their innovation was to also sell small doses of optional THC to put in your food or drink at the table. Once the regulators of cannabis got up and running, they decided that was a step too far. They fined the restaurant $7500 and forced them to stop. This on top of the normal strains of a new startup led to the closure.
So where can you get good vegan food now on Lyndale? Well, fortunately, we have some options. A tried and trusty restaurant less than a block away: French Meadow and Bluestem Bar. While not a vegan restaurant, they do have many vegan menu items and vegan options.
Pizza Luce Uptown, 3200 Lyndale Ave. S., is another old stalwart with reliable quality, and both vegan-friendly and gluten-free options. I recommend the vegan Elote Pizza, the Jerk Tofu Bowl, the Mock Chicken Hoagie, or the Spinach Salad as vegan choices.
Baba’s Hummus House and Mana’eesh Bakery also has many vegan choices. It’s kind of new in town but it’s been there a couple of years and is still going strong, which is a good sign. Try the hummus bowls, three out of five of which are vegan. And a vegan Caesar salad made with tahini is something you won’t find elsewhere. Menu items are marked VN for your convenience. If you’re not vegan… labneh! Wagyu beef! Chicken shawarma!

Retail shops in the Lyndale neighborhoods

Once Upon A Crime, 604 West 26th St., is a specialist bookstore for lovers of mystery, crime, and a good English murder. Their stock is mostly new books but they do have a used book section as well. They’re also known for their longstanding newsletter and their very full program of bookish events. This month, there is a seated book discussion on Wednesday the 27th at
6:30 p.m. with Sulari Gentill and her latest book “Five Found Dead,” a sort of modern pastiche of Murder on the Orient Express.

There is also a book club on the first Thursday of every month.
Old School Thrifty (by Steeple People) has recently moved from its old home on Nicollet Avenue to 2728 Lyndale Ave. S., which happens to be the space vacated by HUGE. Old School is a thrift store nonprofit, where earnings are donated to causes chosen by the directors and much of the work is done by volunteers. It began as a project of Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, and was in a building at Lyndale and Franklin from 1979 to 2017, when its building was sold and razed. They then moved to Stevens Square for eight years. They have a very large loyal base of customers and volunteers and have won awards for best thrift store.
Twin Town Guitars was founded in 1997 by Andrew and Carrie Bell. They define themselves as a store by and for musicians. They have a lot more than guitars. They also repair guitars and amps and offer lessons in a wide variety of instruments and other aspects of music. And this delightful tidbit: “In 2011, we became Minnesota’s first home to Solar Powered Rock! We added 100 Minnesota-made solar panels to our roof, and Twin Town Guitars became solarized.”

Grocery shopping on Lyndale Avenue

The Wedge Co-op, founded in 1974, is one of the oldest and most successful food co-ops in the Twin Cities. It currently shares a board of directors and merged member base with the former Linden Hills Co-op, and both stores’ workforce is represented by UFCW, but otherwise the two stores are quite separate. Membership is not required to shop, but carries benefits like a vote at the annual meeting, patronage rebates, and member discounts and specials.
The Wedge includes many community initiatives in their operational model, such as round-up donations, sponsorship of charity events, support for regenerative agriculture, and in-store classes on food-related and other topics. They are proudly celebrating their 50th Anniversary this year!
Kowalski’s is a local family business with eleven “markets” in the Twin

Cities. The Lyndale Market is located at 5327 Lyndale Ave. All Kowalski’s markets are unionized, have a private parking lot, and provide delivery services through Shipt. In terms of layout and product selection, the markets look to European groceries as an inspiration, and they are Twin Cities favorites for their rotisserie chicken, their deli offerings, their in-store butchers, and their huge selection of own-brand bakery products.

Services on Lyndale Avenue

Grandma’s House Children’s Center is a small and innovative child care center located in the Redeemer Health Care Center at 625 West 31st Street. Grandma’s House works hard to be family-style in its care of children. They care for a maximum of ten

under-school-aged children in a family-centered, multi-age style of child care, and can have an additional four school-age children who attend on school breaks, before and after school and during the summer months. This allows the children to receive a lot of positive individual attention. As the name suggests, there are also planned and moderated interactive activities with the elderly residents at Redeemer.
Hagen’s Auto Body, 2800 Lyndale Ave., has been family-owned and operated in Minneapolis since 1950. Unsurprisingly for a business going that long, they have garnered much recognition for the quality of their work. They do collision repair on automobiles and light trucks, use factory replacement parts, and employ certified technicians. They also have a partnership with a towing service, and accept all insurance claims.