It seems a trend, lately, for the property developers in Minneapolis to put up Scandinavian cubist condominium buildings in unlikely corners of the city and stuff the first floor with some gaudy commercial venture. Consider the glass monstrosity (sleek futuristic design from Delta City) at 14th & LaSalle (the unlikeliest location) and the microbrewery on the first floor that Kafe Nasty occasionally Instagrams from but hasn’t ever since I called him a cunt.
No.
Wait.
I called him a cunt for that special bottled water he bought. See, he spent money on this bottle of water that looks like a lava lamp from the Sharper Image that’s broken and he can’t return it because the thirty day warranty is up.
But, yeah, occasionally, Kafe Nasty goes to the microbrewery in the ground floor of the condo complex catty corner from his building. Sometimes, he Instagrams. I think he does, anyway.†
The latest addition to this trend is Tilt, a pinball / hotdog joint in the first floor of a Scandinavian cubist condo building at the unlikely corner of 26th & Stevens that Kafe Nasty has been hassling me about because he knows that if he tells me enough about their eight dollar hot dogs, I’ll go off on a tirade. You know, the kind of tirade where I say that, for eight dollars, one could purchase two packs of hotdogs, two packs of buns, and have enough left over for two two liters of Shasta or Faygo, depending on your location.
Last Sunday, not this past one, the one before, I decided that I wanted to see what the hubbub was about. So Kafe Nasty lead the way and Soft Kathryn came along because why not?
Walking inside, I could immediately draw a comparison to the Minneapolis’s other adult arcade (a term that means a completely different thing* back where I’m from), UpDown, over on LynLake. It’s loud, it’s crowded, the drinks are expensive, and the games are a quarter a play. But there are several subtle differences, and not just that one has pizza (that I haven’t tried) and the other has hot dogs (that I refuse to pay for on principle).
First, rather than boasting about the number of tap beers they have, Tilt sports a limited selection of beers that I’m sure will impress somebody but I’m not drinking because I’ll just have a Grain Belt. I’m on a budget. In place of an extensive beer selection, they sport a respectable hard liquor selection that includes oddities like oak-aged absinthe but my eye was drawn to the selection of midrange single malt scotch and the absence of Jameson, so, you know, a whiskey selection for people who enjoy their alcohol.
Next, and this part I really appreciated as someone who abhors manufactured nostalgia, the TVs in Tilt weren’t playing 80s Wrestlemania or Ninja Turtles. They were leaderboards for the pinball tournament that was occurring around us. Also, the decor was sparse with IKEA lamps hanging from the ceiling rather than looking like some barfed-up Nintendo commercial nightmare. The bar top itself was made of repurposed (and lit) pinball table playfields.
Nestled away from the upscale boutique nightmare of Uptown and the suburbanite-tourist staycation destination of Lyn-Lake in particular, Tilt is in a residential neighborhood location and thus (hopefully) understands that, because of that, it has to act as a neighborhood bar. It’s not a flashy business on the strip that attracts douches and chodes, it’s going to have regulars that walk home after a few too many. The staff are going to know customers’ names, meaning that if you took away the pinball, you’d just have a dive bar with more contemporary decor.
And speaking of pinball, that’s all it’s got, not the Simpsons or Mortal Kombat or Afterburner. Video games and pinball, both staples of arcades, are not the same. Children are drawn to video games, pinball requires a different mentality. We can go into the psychology of that some other time or, even better, somebody else can unwrap that statement. What I’m getting at is that, walking into Tilt, I was not beaten on occularly. I wasn’t enticed inward with pictures of the Lost Boys or Baywatch screen printed on the wall. I wasn’t lured (luridly) in by some cloying nostalgia factor representing my childhood.
That, really, is fucking gross.
When I walk into a bar, I do so because my bills are paid, not because I finished my homework. I would like a drink, maybe a scotch that I can appreciate or just a beer I can chill out with and I don’t need twenty year old reruns of Animaniacs in my fucking face.** In fact, I’d prefer if there were no TV at all, which is why I usually don’t frequent bars with them.***
Tilt is run by the folks behind Nightingale, a nice little place where I’ve been on a few dates and the music selection is amazingly always on point. You’re sitting there thinking, “Did these motherfuckers just follow 80s David Bowie with the Cure then a deep cut off of Surfer Rosa then 70s David Bowie? Holy shit!” The drink prices are reasonable for being 26th & Lyndale (thus dangerously close to Lyn-Lake), the bathroom lines are short, and the bar staff either look like Coffy-era Pam Grier or never-been-in-an-airplane-era Buddy Holly. That same aesthetic carries over to Tilt where our bartender looked like Cary Elwes if Cary Elwes was playing his own cousin, Cary Elwes’ cousin the math tudor, and the other bartender looked like she was totally just like doing this until her Etsy shop like takes off or whatever.
Right now, the place is bumping. It just opened near an art school so you know the young’uns are going to be going apeshit. Give it a little while and the place is sure to calm down. I might even be able to go back there sometime.
I’m just not paying eight dollars for a fucking hot dog. Let’s not forget that part. That part is important. I’m not paying eight dollars for a fucking hot dog.
No.
Wait.
I called him a cunt for that special bottled water he bought. See, he spent money on this bottle of water that looks like a lava lamp from the Sharper Image that’s broken and he can’t return it because the thirty day warranty is up.
But, yeah, occasionally, Kafe Nasty goes to the microbrewery in the ground floor of the condo complex catty corner from his building. Sometimes, he Instagrams. I think he does, anyway.†
The latest addition to this trend is Tilt, a pinball / hotdog joint in the first floor of a Scandinavian cubist condo building at the unlikely corner of 26th & Stevens that Kafe Nasty has been hassling me about because he knows that if he tells me enough about their eight dollar hot dogs, I’ll go off on a tirade. You know, the kind of tirade where I say that, for eight dollars, one could purchase two packs of hotdogs, two packs of buns, and have enough left over for two two liters of Shasta or Faygo, depending on your location.
Last Sunday, not this past one, the one before, I decided that I wanted to see what the hubbub was about. So Kafe Nasty lead the way and Soft Kathryn came along because why not?
Walking inside, I could immediately draw a comparison to the Minneapolis’s other adult arcade (a term that means a completely different thing* back where I’m from), UpDown, over on LynLake. It’s loud, it’s crowded, the drinks are expensive, and the games are a quarter a play. But there are several subtle differences, and not just that one has pizza (that I haven’t tried) and the other has hot dogs (that I refuse to pay for on principle).
First, rather than boasting about the number of tap beers they have, Tilt sports a limited selection of beers that I’m sure will impress somebody but I’m not drinking because I’ll just have a Grain Belt. I’m on a budget. In place of an extensive beer selection, they sport a respectable hard liquor selection that includes oddities like oak-aged absinthe but my eye was drawn to the selection of midrange single malt scotch and the absence of Jameson, so, you know, a whiskey selection for people who enjoy their alcohol.
Next, and this part I really appreciated as someone who abhors manufactured nostalgia, the TVs in Tilt weren’t playing 80s Wrestlemania or Ninja Turtles. They were leaderboards for the pinball tournament that was occurring around us. Also, the decor was sparse with IKEA lamps hanging from the ceiling rather than looking like some barfed-up Nintendo commercial nightmare. The bar top itself was made of repurposed (and lit) pinball table playfields.
Nestled away from the upscale boutique nightmare of Uptown and the suburbanite-tourist staycation destination of Lyn-Lake in particular, Tilt is in a residential neighborhood location and thus (hopefully) understands that, because of that, it has to act as a neighborhood bar. It’s not a flashy business on the strip that attracts douches and chodes, it’s going to have regulars that walk home after a few too many. The staff are going to know customers’ names, meaning that if you took away the pinball, you’d just have a dive bar with more contemporary decor.
And speaking of pinball, that’s all it’s got, not the Simpsons or Mortal Kombat or Afterburner. Video games and pinball, both staples of arcades, are not the same. Children are drawn to video games, pinball requires a different mentality. We can go into the psychology of that some other time or, even better, somebody else can unwrap that statement. What I’m getting at is that, walking into Tilt, I was not beaten on occularly. I wasn’t enticed inward with pictures of the Lost Boys or Baywatch screen printed on the wall. I wasn’t lured (luridly) in by some cloying nostalgia factor representing my childhood.
That, really, is fucking gross.
When I walk into a bar, I do so because my bills are paid, not because I finished my homework. I would like a drink, maybe a scotch that I can appreciate or just a beer I can chill out with and I don’t need twenty year old reruns of Animaniacs in my fucking face.** In fact, I’d prefer if there were no TV at all, which is why I usually don’t frequent bars with them.***
Tilt is run by the folks behind Nightingale, a nice little place where I’ve been on a few dates and the music selection is amazingly always on point. You’re sitting there thinking, “Did these motherfuckers just follow 80s David Bowie with the Cure then a deep cut off of Surfer Rosa then 70s David Bowie? Holy shit!” The drink prices are reasonable for being 26th & Lyndale (thus dangerously close to Lyn-Lake), the bathroom lines are short, and the bar staff either look like Coffy-era Pam Grier or never-been-in-an-airplane-era Buddy Holly. That same aesthetic carries over to Tilt where our bartender looked like Cary Elwes if Cary Elwes was playing his own cousin, Cary Elwes’ cousin the math tudor, and the other bartender looked like she was totally just like doing this until her Etsy shop like takes off or whatever.
Right now, the place is bumping. It just opened near an art school so you know the young’uns are going to be going apeshit. Give it a little while and the place is sure to calm down. I might even be able to go back there sometime.
I’m just not paying eight dollars for a fucking hot dog. Let’s not forget that part. That part is important. I’m not paying eight dollars for a fucking hot dog.
* Peep shows. It means peep shows. With glory holes.
** However, I will, to this day, watch Count Duckula.
*** I made the exception for the Market because Sue was cool.
† Correction: I think Kafe Nasty might have Instagrammed from there once and Carter Instagrammed from there a couple times. Makes sense. They both live in the same hood. I don’t know. It’s not like I’m in a hurry to ask them about it. I’m sure I’ll hear about it from Kafe Nasty soon enough, though.
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