Support Local Twin Cities Businesses!

Hi, my partner and I moved to the Twin Cities in October 2025 and we've loved every second of living here. I figured I would start sharing local businesses that we visit.

I'm going to try to start taking photos of places we go to, and will probably update older posts with them.

These are our honest options, I'm just a random person who wants to give some traffic to local businesses.

Posting schedule so far is going to be 1 post every Thursday. We can't go out very often, but once we get some more disposable income I'll see about posting more often.

Things on the list:

Restaurants, cafes, ect.

Grocers, farmers markets, ect.

Retail business: thrift stores, antique shops, dispensaries

Medical offices: dentists and clinics

Community: libraries, parks, community centers, public services

The first time we went was before we had event gotten our Minnesota driver's licenses. As soon as we entered we got a taste of the personality of the staff. At the entrance they have two buttons for people to vote for this or that, the options change monthly and are usually funny little things, I think at one point it was vampire vs werewolf.

The staff was extremely helpful setting up our cards and even welcomed us to Minnesota, the branch manager offered us some resources for us to check out and gave us contact info for an art class program director.

I have two favorite things at this location:

The art prints on the walls, they're hand printed and I love them so much as a printmaker myself.

The collection of transcription of interviews from local Rondo residents sharing the oral history of the neighborhood. This is super important because Rondo is a historically black neighborhood that was largely demolished with the building of the I-94 highway in the '50-'60s.

After our friends helped us move in, we treated them to pizza as is tradition. Since then we've been slowly trying different options from the locally loved restaurant chain.

Since then we've tried the artichoke dip, vegetarian spaghetti, vegetarian gouda mac and cheese, jerk chicken bowl, one of the deli style hoagies (my partner got it months ago I think it was a seasonal one), the elote, margherita and Hulapeño pizzas.

We understand the hype, so far there hasn't been a single flop.

Tired after 2 days of driving across the country, we were famished, luckily there was a Hmong restaurant right across the street from our hotel.

Xueng Khouang had just opened a few months prior, with a large infographic on Hmong culture on one wall, and a karaoke setup in the back where the bar was located the restaurant reminded me of the some of the best asian restaurants I've been to. The family owned ones where there's one table with an aunty or cousin rolling the silverware when it's slow and delicious food.

They boated their $5 special menu, which features smaller meal options for some of the more popular dishes along with their weekly karaoke nights and occasional live music.

My partner still dreams about the pork belly pad thai, which he'd only ever seen the usual beef, chicken, shrimp and tofu options. So to find pork belly? Amazing. He doesn't know if it was because we were so tired and hungry or if it was just that good, but according to him it was the best pad thai he'd ever eaten. I got shrimp curry which was so good, the right mix of creamy coconut and spice.