Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Longtime Lyn-Lake Sports Bar Iron Door Pub to Close
Can Minneapolis's Lyn-Lake neighborhood support two sports bars? Doesn't seem like it since, eight months after Racket-loved Beckett’s moved across the street, the owners of Iron Door Pub announced their bar's impending closure.
"Despite our best efforts, we weren't able to overcome the collective challenges that small businesses face at the moment," reads an Iron Door social media post from Thursday morning. "We want to thank all of the wonderful people we’ve met over the years for your support and friendship. The best part of doing this work is the human connections you make, and you all have been great to us."
Iron Door Pub opened in mid-2015 and built what appeared to be a loyal following. "What?? This place is busy all the time," reads the top-voted Reddit comment on a thread about the closure. Elsewhere in that thread: Someone claims their friend was impregnated inside the bar? Racket couldn't, and does not want to, confirm the veracity of that story.
In any event, Iron Door's final day in business will be March 23.
Old townies such as myself remember when Cause Spirits & Soundbar (previously Sauce Spirits & Soundbar) operated an honest-to-god rock club at same address for five years. And, before that, who could forget Liola at La Bodega? (We did, had to look it up.) Venturing back even deeper into the past, my colleague Keith swears a cyber cafe called Cyber X once existed at 3001 Lyndale Ave. We love remembering some guys!
MN GOP: Waaaa, We Miss Old Flag, Waaaaaaaa!
Look, from an artistic standpoint, I'm on record as a shit-talker of the new Minnesota state flag design. But, as an opponent of cartoonish depictions of genocide, I fully supported replacing the unfortunate old flag, which was decommissioned last spring; I just think, to quote myself, the reimagined flag is "achingly boring… a dismal, graphic-design intern-level display of vexillological mundanity. Woof. Bring back maximalism! Bad job, everyone involved." That said, I've since moved on (I swear). I'm an adult with a mortgage. The new flag is fine.
Some folks haven't moved on, however. The whining, baby-brained, reactionary culture warriors of the Minnesota GOP are gearing up for a renewed flag fight, having just introduced legislation that would grant the old flag "historic" designation. Here's bill author Rep. Joe McDonald (R-Delano), whose constituents surely have bigger—or, really, any other—problems...
My bill… just states that the Minnesota will acknowledge the great old flag of the state of Minnesota as a historic flag, and allow our civic leaders, our states, our counties, our cities, the ability to fly it below the current flag if they wish, or just fly it as well, in addition to and to just make sure that it's historic. Our Minnesota flag, although some may think it's controversial, has a lot of great history.
Get a life! Stop relitigating this! You can fly whatever flag you want at home! Do something to improve the material conditions of everyday Minnesotans, considering your morally bankrupt party couldn't shut up about "populism" throughout 2024! It's petty online grievance politics all the way down with these absolute frauds...
At press time, the House State Government Finance and Policy Committee is still mulling McDonald's pointless and confusing bill.
Hockey Hair, Revisited
Each year Minnesotans gather 'round the ol' YouTube to enjoy the “All Hockey Hair Team," a video cavalcade of the mullets, mustaches, and manes topping high school hockey players in the boys' state tournament. (Click here to see this year's clip.)
Until today, nobody had published the memories of current pros who've been featured in creator John King's 20-year tradition, and, sadly, it took a New Yorker, the Athletic's Peter Baugh, to cook up that killer idea. Baugh writes that 49 Minnesota-born players have appeared in NHL games this season, so tracking four down for mini profiles on their hair journeys, compete with before-and-after pics, wasn't a challenge.
“There’s a vibe around Minnesota when the state tournament comes,” says Chicago Blackhawk Wyatt Kaiser of Andover, who appeared in the 2020 compilation. “You’re doing something to your hair… It just kind of feels right.”
The Athletic also caught up with Hermantown's Dylan Samberg (Winnipeg Jets), Eden Prairie's Casey Mittelstadt (Boston Bruins), and Lakeville North's Jake Oettinger (Dallas Stars). The throughline of their hairlines? They've all gravitated toward more boring flows as pros. “It looks like he went from RinkedIn to LinkedIn,” King says of Kaiser's team headshot.
Local Eyeglasses Featured on the TV
Nice little scoop from Twin Cities Business: The eyewear featured in SNL's very funny "Little Red Glasses" sketch this past Saturday came from Minneapolis shop Eyebobs, who rushed an order of six—you guessed it—little red glasses to 30 Rock ahead of the show. "We love that SNL featured our ‘little red glasses,’" Eyebobs’ VP of marketing, Katie Mack, tells TCB. “As usual, they nailed the cultural zeitgeist and had a little fun on behalf of all of the women who love their red glasses."
Today, those specs are available under an “As Seen On SNL” banner at a sale price of $49, with ad copy lifted from the sketch: "Spunky and a little bit funky.” (Personally, I would have pulled from the A+ Leonard Cohen fellatio joke, but perhaps that's why I'm not in the retail game.) You can watch "Little Red Glasses," which features host/musical guest Lady Gaga, Comedy Bang! Bang! fave Ego Nwodim, and onetime Racket interview subject Sarah Sherman, below.
