I wrote an article exploring the mystery of the $15 side salad, now commonplace at local mid-priced full-service restaurants. Beforehand, I was fortunate to spend a week this summer in both Paris and London, and I returned to the Twin Cities full of envy. Over there, I saw restaurants and bars crowded with locals from happy hour to closing time, even when it was oppressively hot inside because they have no air-conditioning. I saw prices that were not head-scratching, and I mostly did not see tricks like truffle flavoring on fries, ground wagyu in burgers, and burrata cheese on everything to jack up prices. The story is not an attempt to pass judgment on the American restaurant industry, which is in bad shape by and large, but to explain modern menu madness.

In early July, I met an old friend at 7 p.m. on a Saturday at a Downtown East restaurant. It was a beautiful night, and the place was basically full when we walked in, despite no event at nearby U.S. Bank Stadium. I like to see that (though if you can’t fill primetime Saturday evening, hopefully you’re a breakfast spot).

Anyway, I was surprised to see the staff hovering 90 minutes later, seemingly wanting to close our tab; I learned that the restaurant had locked its doors at 8:30. Over the next hour I watched at least 15 people try to enter the restaurant. I’ve been seeing more and more restaurants imposing early closing times on weekdays—but Saturday?

I’m sure the owners would say that after 8:30, it’s too expensive to staff for 15 arrivals and a couple of old friends who want to kibitz for a few hours. But we can’t have a thriving downtown if people can’t enjoy a drink after a show or dine late on a night where the sun doesn’t even set until 9 o’clock. Just like we can’t have a thriving downtown if Hennepin County never calls its workers back to the office, we lack welcoming public transit, or we don’t have enough cops on the beat so people feel they’ll be safe if they encounter a problem.

It’s OK to dislike the Minneapolis City Council, but it’s not OK to take it out on the small businesses that are already victims of the Council’s disinterest. We have to do better.

These are old issues, but we aren’t making enough progress. So let’s push a bit harder: We need to end the draconian taxes on downtown Minneapolis food and entertainment venues. They are relics of another era, when downtown prosperity lifted all boats. We need restaurants that have ideas beyond cutting hours, raising prices, and burrata. And we need customers who can accept a little grit to experience the best the Twin Cities has to offer: First Avenue, the Hennepin Theater District, Target Field, Berlin jazz club, to name a few. It’s OK to dislike the Minneapolis City Council, but it’s not OK to take it out on the small businesses  that are already victims of the Council’s disinterest. We have to do better.

Speaking of better, my colleagues continue to top themselves issue after issue. This issue’s focus is entrepreneurism and startups, and every story has tentacles in it.

Associate editor Erik Tormoen takes a deep dive into the state’s new cannabis/hemp industries, looking at whether this hyperregulated ecosystem can birth a viable industry. Our annual StartMN package returns, with a look at where Minnesota is and isn’t hitting the bar in funding startups. We’ve got 10 remarkable family businesses to tell you about in our annual Minnesota Family Business Awards (join us Sept. 15 at the Nicollet Island Pavilion to celebrate them!). There’s our annual feature on EY’s regional Entrepreneurs of the Year competition, and finally I talk to University of Minnesota president Rebecca Cunningham, whose strategic plan is deeply focused on how the U seeds the business community, especially startups.

I’d also like to spotlight this small but mighty team’s 10 editorial and design awards from the Association of Area Business Publishers and Minnesota’s Society of Professional Journalists this spring, for work we did in 2025.

As always, thanks for reading, and if there’s something in the business realm you want to know more about, we’re all ears. Drop me an email.