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 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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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Boludo El 38 Spring has come to East 38th Street! East 38th Street stretches from Nicollet Avenue to Mississippi River Boulevard, but we’re going to start just a tiny bit west of there with Boludo, the Argentinian restaurant taking the local food scene by storm. Boludo…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Spring is coming on for real now; my allergies tell me so. Despite allergies and other struggles, spring is very beautiful along Minnehaha Avenue this year. It’s culturally blooming, lush with arts, community-building, and the fusion of the two. In addition to our old favorites like…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Spring thoughts A project a lot of people are undertaking this spring is to make their home as close to zero waste as possible. It makes a lot of sense. News from the ever-growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch is troubling, Minneapolis environmentalists are pressuring Hennepin County…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings • A restaurant known as Juniper in its development stage was previously announced for the former Common Roots site at Lyndale and 26th Street. At the last minute, they changed the name to Hi Flora! due to an older place in Lanesboro called…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE The ongoing fight against fracking, pipelines and all extractive industries We lost the battle if not the war on Line 3. It’s done, it’s dusted and it’s leaking into groundwater even as you read this. (See tinyurl.com/55mjebse for reporting on the 153 cases of pollution control…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Lake Street rebuilding and revival Spring is a good time to talk about Lake Street. Lake Street started rebuilding in the midst of the pandemic from the destruction wrought by the anger unleashed in the George Floyd uprising. But it was slow at first. It’s stronger…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Spring 2023 dawns on a reinvigorated Chicago Avenue at 48th Street and the southward stretch. There are a couple of new incoming businesses, there are some longtime stalwarts thriving once again, there is a lively sidewalk culture, and there’s even a new transit option from Metro…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Is Uptown … political? There are several different takes on what’s going on with Uptown and Hennepin Avenue south of downtown. Psychically, Hennepin seems to lie upon a political fault line in Minneapolis. Or that’s what you might think if you read Minneapolis “Left” Twitter (which,…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Openings and closings All things old shall be made new again! Leading the Openings and Closings is a Return. The Seward Cafe held an event to announce their relaunch on Tuesday, March 14. I had to go to a caucus that night, but I managed to…
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BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE We published each of 2022’s Education supplements on a sort of a cliffhanger. In early March we were in the pre-strike cooling-off period for a historic strike that took place the next week. In October, it was a month until an election that would bring five…
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