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Racket

@racket_mn

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Your writer-owned, reader-funded source for news, arts, and culture. Keeping alternative journalism alive in the Twin Cities since 2021.
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Founded in 2012 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Vinegar Syndrome is your favorite movie nerd’s favorite movie label. From the outset, the founders of “VinSyn” focused on restoring and releasing mouldering, out-of-circulation exploitation films, whether they be titles from the “Golden Age of Porn,” ultra-low budget horror films, or blaxploitation features long left on the shelf by mainstream audiences. Some of their releases were previously considered lost films, or at least consigned to aging VHS releases traded at conventions or film reels sold for exorbitant sums on eBay. Applying an archivist’s mindset and critical curiosity to important but out-of-fashion parts of film history, Vinegar Syndrome built a well-earned reputation for expert and loving treatment of obscure films. Today, VinSyn’s catalog has reached over 230 titles, whether under the Vinegar Syndrome name or their sub-labels dedicated to specific film niches. Releases run the gamut from schlock classics like Mac and Me or Troll 2 to cult comedies like I’m Gonna Git You Sucka or Cannibal! The Musical to out-there horror like Reptilicus, Ticks, or Mountaintop Motel Massacre. As befitting a company committed to restoration of films, Vinegar Syndrome seems to be interested in rebuilding the culture of film through place. At a time when brick and mortar feels like it’s in perpetual decline, Vinegar Syndrome has four retail locations in addition to the new Dinkytown store. Four of the five have opened since 2022. And in addition to selling their own titles, VinSyn’s stores sell new and used movies and music of all kinds. The email announcing the Dinkytown store’s soft opening offered to buy patrons’ “Blu-rays, DVDs, VHS tapes, LaserDiscs, vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, and posters.” In the run-up to the opening of Vinegar Syndrome Minneapolis, VinSyn co-founder Ryan Emerson answered questions about his personal and professional connections to Minnesota, VinSyn’s work broadly, the specific decision to open a store here, and what the future might hold for Vinegar Syndrome in the Twin Cities. Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️: @dansuitor 📸: @vinegarsyndromeminneapolis by @racket_mn
4
2 days ago
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It was November 2025. I was a 26-year-old woman, single for nearly two years, and I had run out of ways to meet other single people in the metro. At bars everyone is preoccupied with the pals they came with, and who wants to bother them? Hinge? Bleak! And it’s exhausting to flatten the experience of meeting you into an online ad. But a post about Dave and Buster’s Singles Arcade Night intrigued me. I love the arcade and I love appetizers. I bought a ticket. What could go wrong? And for the next 10 months I found myself in a grueling on-again/off-again, will-they/won’t-they situation—not with a new lover, but with Dave and Buster’s Singles Arcade Night. Organized through a national company, Jigsaw Dating, the event cost $24.99 with a $1.99 shipping fee (curious, since the tickets are accessed through a phone app). Tickets for men had already sold out; the age range was 25-45. A week after I purchased my ticket, Dave and Buster’s Singles Arcade Night was postponed indefinitely. A private company had rented out the Southdale Dave and Buster’s for an end-of-fiscal-quarter celebration; management wouldn’t give me any more details. I would just have to sit in my apartment, single and alone, waiting for Jigsaw to schedule another Dave and Buster’s Singles Arcade Night. The company offered me two free tickets to other Jigsaw happenings, and I humbly accepted. I used one ticket to attend a round of coffee-shop speed-dating at Duck Duck Coffee that same November, where one man and I discussed equitable disability access for Minneapolis transit and another man described to me his favorite dish in Bhutanese cuisine. Speed dating was fine, but it didn’t satisfy my impulse to meet other singles while playing Frogger and drinking a beer. The next scheduled Dave and Buster’s Singles Arcade Night was January 23, 2026, which was also the Day of Truth and Freedom economic blackout and protest. I was not at Dave and Buster’s that day; there were bigger fish to fry. Not until June did I finally receive an email with the subject line: “IT’S BACK: Singles Arcade Night.” But… Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! by @racket_mn
0
3 days ago
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In a video posted in late September across his social media channels, @sotafoodtour’s Matt Kaskavitch addresses the camera, his face more serious than is typical for a discussion of burgers or breakfast burritos. “Twin Cities food content creators, we have got to do better,” he begins. “If you are getting a free meal in exchange for making a video, that is a sponsored post, and by U.S. law, you have to disclose that.” Kaskavitch, who has more than 93,000 followers across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, tells Racket there was no single inciting incident that made him want to record the video calling out his peers. It was more of a cumulative reaction to the posts he sees from area influencers. “Improper disclosure is so prevalent across the Twin Cities social media scene, and not just [with] restaurants,” he says. “It’s pervasive.” Kaskavitch is, of course, correct: The Federal Trade Commission is very clear that social media influencers who work with brands (including restaurants) need to disclose any “material connection” to the brand if they recommend or endorse their products (including the receipt of free food). But if you’re active on Instagram and TikTok, maybe you’ve seen posts about local restaurants that make you wonder: Who’s paying for these meals? Who’s getting paid to post? Who’s being upfront with their audience, and who isn’t? Judging from the response to the Sota Food Tours video, other local content creators (and the people who follow them) share those concerns. And with people increasingly turning to influencers rather than critics to learn about restaurants, the matter of who’s being paid, and for what, is an important one. Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️: @biketrouble 📸: Spencer Davis by @racket_mn
16
4 days ago
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At Minneapolis’s North Star Deli, the menu and the decor are guided by a love of old-school Minnesota hockey. You’ve got your Herb Brooks Focaccia, your Gump’s Green Wrap, your Dino Italian Sub. Every surface is covered in memorabilia—Slap Shot figurines and Jesse Ventura action figures accompany vintage North Stars gear, a nod to the stuff chef Pedro Wolcott fell in love with, improbably, when he was introduced to Minnesota and hockey while watching The Mighty Ducks as a kid growing up in Panama. But one thing about old-time hockey? Not a lot of women in the mix. And Wolcott, looking around his Kingfield sandwich shop, thought it might be fun to do something with more of a femme focus. He has a daughter, after all—shouldn’t she see herself represented in sports and in her dad’s restaurant? “The women do so great, I don’t know why we never give them their due,” Wolcott says. This was the inspiration behind Granny G’s, Wolcott’s new hot dog trailer, where the dogs have names like The Lynx Glizzy (bacon bits, sauerkraut, caramelized onion) and Granny’s Kimchi Kick (gochujang spicy mayo, kimchi slaw, fried jalapeños, and wontons). Portraits of Olivia Miles by local artist Adam Johnson (of Naz Reid yard sign fame) greet you as you walk up to the truck, and the inside of the space, though tiny, is packed with more stuff: hockey sticks, pennants, grinning StudBudz. “This is like a typical food trailer in New Orleans,” Wolcott says, likening the decorations to those in over-the-top Big Easy spots like Turkey and the Wolf. “If I could have a TV in here with VHS playing, I would.” Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️+📸: @biketrouble by @racket_mn
0
6 days ago
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Our Best Budget Bites series almost never enters the realm of specials, mostly due to their ephemeral nature—we want these posts to form an evergreen-ish encyclopedia of available cheap eats. (RIP to past entrants Sun Street Breads, Mi Mexico Querido, and Fast Eddie’s Pizza; may we never speak of a BBB curse.) With that throat-clearing outta the way, some LTOs are enduring and, thus, deserve the BBB treatment. Consider Blue Door Pub’s taterito, which as the name suggests is a grilled burrito with tater tots replacing the rice. Our crack research team found that they’ve been on special since at least early 2025. The marquee item at Blue Door, of course, is the Jucy Lucy that Guy Fieri himself once crammed into his outrageous food dude maw. We’re not here to talk about that delicious burger. Instead, on Thursday, we dug into the $7.50 El Guapo-Rito, a medium-sized grilled burrito stuffed with (not-quite-enough) queso, generous deposits of nicely seasoned ground beef, pico de gallo, lettuce, (coulda-used-more) “guapo sauce,” and (ditto) avocado sour cream. Those parenthetical quibbles setting off alarm bells? Don’t sweat it—the El Guapo-Rito is rock-solid, though mine was a dry guy that coulda used a tub o’ dippin’ sauce. User error, as the kids say: I’ll request a such a tub in the future. In a sick, twisted world where a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme runs ya $5.69, Blue Door does ya right for $2 more with this filling, expertly tortilla-charred meal where even the tots maintain their crispiness. The taterito special, paired with a happy hour where you’re scoring $2 off beers and wines? Keep the damn Strait of Hormuz closed, you’re sitting pretty! (Editor’s note: Please don’t keep that strategic aquatic choke point closed—the global economy’s on the brink and Best Budget Bites carries too much geopolitical influence for flip statements.) Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️+📸: @jaymboller by @racket_mn
6
9 days ago
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- “Police Unbound: Corruption, Abuse, and Heroism by the Boys in Blue” - “Expert Witness: Breaking the Policemen’s Blue Code of Silence” - “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire: Corruption, Decadence, and the American Dream” You might assume a bibliography like that belonged to a humanities scholar or racial justice organizer. Certainly not a Minneapolis police chief. But from 1980–1988, the MPD was led by Anthony Bouza, probably the most progressive, most outspoken and, well, quirkiest, person to head a major city’s police department in American history. Bouza came to the U.S. in 1937 with his family, refugees from the Spanish Civil War. Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship left a meaningful imprint on 9-year-old Bouza, whose views could be most aptly described as the antithesis of Francoism. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where a young Tony was surprised to learn that, contrary to American mythos, the streets were not literally paved with gold. Bouza lost his father at 16 and embodied the common youthful conundrum of having rich intellectual interests without knowing where to apply them. In his early 20s, Bouza followed his mother’s wishes and became an NYPD patrolman, one of many civil-service careers on easy offer for white ethnics at the time. Tony Bouza’s quiet ambition accelerated him from patrolman to detective, then inspector to Bronx commander, all in a relatively short period. Luckily for Bouza, who had noted problems with the NYPD’s racism and low morale for years, his promotional progress coincided with the appointment of reformer Patrick Murphy to lead the department in 1970. Murphy assigned Bouza to investigate the department’s compliance with official regulation; along with criminologist Lawrence Sherman, Bouza uncovered a bevy of misconduct, including a culture of outright hostility toward residents merely inquiring about filing complaints against police. Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️: @andersleehere 📸: Minneapolis Police Department Facebook by @racket_mn
1
10 days ago
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Architecturally and spiritually, Lonely’s, the new bar on St. Anthony Main located right next to the Main Cinema, fits in perfectly on its cobblestoned stretch of Minneapolis along the Mississippi. Out front, bench seating and a series of tiny tables create an effortless transition from bar to sidewalk, and Lonely’s wide windows open onto the street. The bar isn’t just located on St. Anthony Main but a fundamental part of it. The door is simple, bordering on hard to find, with classic gold-leaf lettering above it that subtly spells out “Lonely’s.” While this bar is new, its building isn’t; the space at 117 SE Main St. dates back to the late 1800s. Lonely’s most recent predecessor, Pracna on Main, billed itself as the “oldest continuously running restaurant on the oldest street in Minneapolis.” But then Pracna closed in 2015 after 41 years, and the historic space sat empty for more than a decade, until this June. Lonely’s is the obvious place to go before or after seeing a movie next door. Moviegoers are always standing around under the Main’s marquee to discuss what they just watched after their movie gets out—now, Lonely’s snug booths and barstools beckon you to pop in and debate the movie’s merits over a $5 pint of Lonely’s Lager or bottle of High Life. Hell, a hallway connects the two venues. But while you’ll definitely overhear other patrons discussing films, you’ll also overhear first dates, friend group drama, arguments about the Timberwolves—Lonely’s is an anytime, any occasion bar. The lighting is perfectly dim. I love the glass fixtures: milk glass sconces, fluted glass windows, cut glass chandeliers, stained glass above the front door. In a separate rear room, where the historic brick flooring and stone walls are exposed, there’s a pool table; they’re opening early on Sundays to show Vikings games. It’s classy, divey, cozy, chic. As a fellow south Minneapolitan pal said to me recently: “If I lived in Northeast, Lonely’s would be my bar.” Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️+📸: @biketrouble by @racket_mn
20
11 days ago
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In the opening scene of They’re Here, the viewer travels alongside an unseen observer who identifies herself as “Liz Lemon” while she tails an ICE vehicle through northeast Minneapolis. The sequence culminates in a heart-stopping moment when an agent pulls up outside of the resident’s own home and silently, ominously points at her house. Displaying the steely calm so many ordinary Twin Citians showed in standoffs with ICE this winter, she tells a volunteer dispatcher, “I’m not afraid of them.” Nine months after federal agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis, a new documentary about the terror wrought by Operation Metro Surge is making the rounds of the fall festival circuit. Directed by Oscar nominee Laura Poitras and journalist Rachel Lauren Mueller, the 25-minute filmThey’re Here collates on-the-ground footage from the rhizomatic, non-hierarchical networks of citizens counter-surveilling ICE. Minneapolis resident Adam Mellion (who would become a researcher and co-producer on the film) had been working with Poitras for several years. During the ICE occupation, she asked him if he knew anyone shooting footage in Minneapolis, and he introduced her to Mueller. “I was out filming every day,” Mueller says. “I would send Laura footage and she would edit. And over time, I developed what became the cinematic language for [the film].” The filmmakers agreed to employ a distinct visual signature to immerse their audience in a harrowing, sometimes uncanny space. Features like Children of Men and Nickel Boys served as signposts for sequences like the film’s opening. “Cinema has the potential to communicate a situation like this uniquely,” Poitras says. “We were interested in how cinema could denormalize the violence that was unfolding in Minneapolis… not to add aesthetics to reality, but to actually get us closer to reality.” Find the full story at the 🔗 up top. ✒️: @nickkouhi 📸: Courtesy of Jack Califano by @racket_mn
3
12 days ago
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Rats can be excellent pets. They can be smart, affectionate, and curious. This story is not about those rats. I’m talking about Rattus in their wild state. In Minnesota, that means brown rats. Their classification as “Old World” rats, taxonomic family Muridae, is a useful reminder that European colonization is the entire reason rats exist in the Americas. And they’re thriving here. In 2025, pest control company Orkin ranked Minneapolis ninth on its list of 10 rattiest cities in the nation, up two spots from 2024. When Europeans began settling in eastern North America, they brought plants and animals along with them. Unintentionally, other things came along as well, like dandelion seeds and non-native weeds that were within the grain brought to plant crops. Although much bigger than seeds, rats were easily able to stow away and stay hidden and fed in the oceangoing vessels. (House mice also took the trip and made their way to Minnesota.) A range of native rodents were already in Minnesota at the time, but these were not commensal pests. Muskrats, Minnesota’s best known native “rats,” are actually supersized voles. Geographic names like the Rat Root River in Voyageurs National Park originate in fur trade history and refer to muskrats. But when did rats get to Minnesota? The answer became unexpectedly and exceptionally clear while I investigated remnants from a previous archaeological dig at Fort Snelling. I’m a professional archaeologist with an interest in historical environments. In this case, I wanted to learn about the pre-urban ecology of Bdote—the Dakota name for the vicinity of the Minnesota and Mississippi River confluence—and what life was like at the 19th century frontier fort. Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️: David Mather 📸: New York Public Library by @racket_mn
6
15 days ago
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Fifteen minutes before a ratio matcha pop-up opens, I sit in my car and scroll on Instagram. I sit there, lurking in my car—it’s become my pre-ratio ritual—while watching owner Meen Eversoll set-up her tiny tent. I wait until I just can’t anymore. I get antsy and in a world of viral pop-ups. Sometimes you have to be brave and brazen to be the first in line, and I want to be the first in line at ratio matcha (which Eversoll stylizes with lowercase lettering). And for three pop-ups in a row, I have been—slipping out of my car, lingering far back enough not to be “in the way” but close enough to definitely be “first in line.” I arrive early, because once I’m through getting my matcha, the line has already grown 10, 15, or 20 people deep. Every week, as word gets out, it grows longer. Last weekend, the line wound around the entire Northeast Saturday Dumpling Co. location, snaking out the door. The length of that line is in part due to the sheer volume of people who want great matcha; part of the line is that ratio matcha serves slow, intentional matcha. There are no battery-powered whisks, just Eversoll’s hands wielding a chasen (a traditional matcha whisk) to make each drink, one at a time. There’s no rushing. There’s no batching. It’s matcha as matcha is meant to be. When Eversoll founded ratio matcha, she wasn’t trying to go viral. She was trying to recreate an experience she had in 2018, when she visited a specialty matcha shop in Thailand and had the bright-green tea drink for the first time. Find the full story at the 🔗 up top! ✒️+📸: @beyondbeurreblanc by @racket_mn
9
16 days ago
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The coaches didn’t quite understand the game. The players, desperately seeking another shot at football livelihoods, arrived from obscure colleges and the Canadian Football League. The owner made his fortune running the Ice Follies, and the logo he chose didn’t depict his team’s namesake fish species. Yet for one hard-luck season the Minnesota Fighting Pike managed to play pro football in downtown Minneapolis. In foreboding fashion, that 1996 campaign was delayed when an aerial performer entangled himself in Target Center’s rafters ahead of the home opener. It would end a few months later with checks bouncing like balls off of arena football netting. “It was special, I just wish the financial part would have lasted longer than a year,” says Alvin Ashley, a two-way player who would compete for 11 years in the Arena Football League. “We were excited to come back, then bam: no longer a franchise.” Here, 30 years later, is the story of Minnesota’s fleeting AFL franchise, as told by the Pike players and coaches who fought the good fight. Find it all at the 🔗 up top! ✒️: @jaymboller 📸: AFL, YouTube by @racket_mn
20
18 days ago
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Saturday, September 26 was gray and rainy, but one bright spot was the Red Bull Flugtag. Around 6,000 spectators showed up to Bohemian Flats Park in Minneapolis to watch 35 teams send homemade gliders off a platform in hopes of flying the furthest before plunging in into the Mississippi River. The homemade, 400-pound contraptions included tributes to Spam (the meat, not the email), OSHA, Lord of the Rings, and the Edmund Fitzgerald. Team Dunwoody Daredevils, from Dunwoody College, built the winning glider, which soared over 50 feet. Enjoy these photos of the flying/falling action, and find even more at the 🔗 up top! 📸: @casey_marble_media by @racket_mn
0
20 days ago
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