Palmer’s, legendary 119-year-old Minneapolis dive bar, will close in September

Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | July 3, 2025 | Jon Bream

[MinorityRepublican]

The nationally heralded Palmer’s Bar, one of Minneapolis’ oldest dive bars where the music is loud and the drinks are cheap, will close in September after 119 years, according to a surprise Facebook post late Wednesday night.

“It is with heavy hearts that we must finally announce that Palmer’s Bar last day of business will be this Sept. 14, 2025,” read the post from the West Bank institution, which opened in 1906. “This has been an incredibly difficult but necessary decision and we are devastated to do so.”

Once touted by Esquire magazine as one of the best bars in America, the funky joint at 500 Cedar Av. S., decorated with beer and music memorabilia, has been a hub in recent years for rootsy and local punk bands as well as the home base for indomitable Minneapolis blues/jazz piano man Cornbread Harris, 98, on Sunday evenings.

“OMG. There is no place like Palmer’s, it’s irreplaceable,” Jason McGrath said on Facebook. “Such a great mix of people in a great location. Nothing else like it.”

Talking to the Minnesota Star Tribune in May about how the nationwide trend of declining alcohol sales is hurting music venues, Palmer’s co-owner Pat Dwyer said attendance for live shows was holding strong, but bar sales were down almost 20%.

[jjotto]

https://digitours.augsburg.edu/tours/show/1

...Today, Cedar-Riverside is sometimes described as “Little Somalia” because of the many Somalis who live here and who built the mosques, malls and restaurants that now line Cedar Avenue. Some residents prefer “Little United Nations” as a more accurate representation of global connections in the neighborhood represented by the Oromo, Ethiopians, Turks, Iraqis, Vietnamese, Koreans, Ecuadorians, Eritreans and other newcomers from Africa, Asia and Latin America who have moved into and through the neighborhood since the 1970s...

...To commemorate these communities, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Streets west of Cedar Avenue were recently renamed Oromo Street, Somali Street and Taleex Avenue...

[MinorityRepublican]

I hope today’s young adults are not substituting other drugs in its place.

They are.

Unless we are talking about the Muslims. And that may be the case in Minneapolis.