Debra Keefer Ramage
Debra Keefer Ramage began writing freelance for Southside Pride in 2012, shortly after returning from a 13-year sojourn in England. She covers progressive politics, education, co-ops and neighborhoods. In 2017 she started doing Southside Pride’s restaurant review column, The Dish.
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE I’ve known Sam for almost three years now. Even though electoral organizing is not my favorite thing or my highest priority, I thought his (and others) idea to start a Democratic Socialist Caucus (DSC) within the DFL was a good one, and I’ve been involved with…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Art, movies, games and Korean fried chicken Grand Avenue in St. Paul is known for trendy bars, popular restaurants and upscale retail, as well as dignified old apartment buildings mixed in with the single-family homes and duplexes that predominate. But there are other, less-apparent gems, some…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE When is a park not a park? The other day I noticed, not for the first time, a little one-square-block park at 42nd and Bloomington called Bancroft Meadows. But when I looked it up on the Park Board site, it wasn’t listed. This puzzled me and…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Flowers, edibles, coffee shops and fun events, some free! The big news on Lyndale Avenue has been the gradual opening of Hi Flora!, a unique market and eatery that is vegan, alcohol-free, and optionally enhanced with THC. Before it was fully open, Hi Flora! was open…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We only have one closing to note – Foxy Falafel in St. Anthony Park. D’s Banh Mi really is open now, if by open you mean it’s possible to get food from them in some way. See the review below for more detail on the long,…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Stuffed full of culture – Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside (the West Bank) With numerous theaters, music venues and more, Cedar Avenue’s northern stretch from Washington Avenue to Franklin Avenue is a cultural corridor like no other. There’s Minneapolis’s oldest community theater, Theatre in the Round, at 245 Cedar…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Summer is for parks and nature Summer in Richfield is a time to get out and about in your city. Richfield has a lot of options for outdoor activities. The two largest city parks, Veterans Memorial Park, at 6335 Portland Ave., and Wood Lake Nature Center,…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Highland Bridge development I made a couple of reconnaissance trips to Highland Bridge, the development in Highland Park headed by Ryan Companies. There are people living there and the parks are mostly finished, but overall it still has an “under construction” feeling of raw newness. Here’s…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings Most of the interesting new openings right now are in St. Paul. There are three that catch my eye, although some have been in the news for a couple of months already. The first one is Juche, a newish Korean restaurant and bar…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE I am a member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and I have been since 1986. In DSA, we like to debate something called the Dirty Break. This is premised on the decades of tension between the Democratic Party and the left outsiders, with the leftists…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Seward Cafe is back! After a launch event in April, the Seward Cafe officially reopened, albeit with some changes, on May 16. Since the pandemic and the George Floyd uprising, the cafe has been closed although the collective owners and the building were not idle, at…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Yes, Nicollet Avenue was originally a main north-south corridor that went from downtown to Bloomington. Very few people remember those days today, but we live in hope that it will soon be so again. Nowadays, Nicollet Avenue is essentially two unconnected streets. One is the funky,…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings Several local favorite restaurants have changed hours recently. In April, Tiny Diner reopened for all-day service, including dinner. They’re now open from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. every day and the patio is rocking. Modern Times recently shortened their hours a bit and…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Walker Community United Methodist Church has always done things differently. For much of the last 50 years, Walker Church has incubated dozens of radical, secular projects. And some of the renter organizations were not what you would expect in a small-to-medium neighborhood church. In the Heart…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE South 34th Avenue functions as a sort of Main Street for the tight-knit but diverse community around Lake Nokomis. The pandemic and economic disruption caused some closings but storefronts at the 34th Avenue and 50th Street hub and surrounding areas don’t stay vacant for long. Five…
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