Paul Lundgren
Best Coffee Shop in the Duluth Area Poll (Elimination Round)
Through our usual highly scientific means, a list of nominees for best Duluth-area coffee shop has been developed. Now it’s time to narrow down the choices with a round of voting.
[poll id=”67″]
This poll is now closed. The top three, advancing to the final ballot are:
Beaner’s Central Concert Coffeehouse
Duluth Coffee Co.
Jefferson People’s House
Nominees for Best Coffee Shop in the Duluth area
It’s been a few months since we’ve done a poll on PDD, but we trust that with all the “Vote Duluth the best outdoor city in the galaxy or whatever” hype that most of you thought a break was for the better. Now it’s time to return to our quest to decide what the best city’s best things are.
Before we launch our poll to name the best coffee shop, we have to establish a list of nominees by asking you to rant in the comments. The ground rules are fairly simple:
- As usual, the territory we are covering encompasses Duluth and anywhere within 10 miles of Duluth’s border – so coffee shops in Superior, Hermantown, Proctor and the various bordering townships all qualify; Two Harbors and Cloquet are out of bounds.
- The criteria for what defines a coffee shop or what makes one “the best” is pretty open. Certain bakeries and restaurants kind of double as coffee shops, and that’s fine. Some places have a focus on live music or a kick-ass record collection, others sink a fortune into furniture or double as a place of worship. Feel free to consider those things along with the coffee itself, or don’t. In the end, voters will decide what’s important to the masses.
- It’s fine to nominate a corporate giant like Starbucks, Caribou or Dunn Bros., but be specific if you do. Pick a particular location; don’t nominate the franchise as a whole.
- Keep in mind that we are not issuing a challenge here to name every coffee shop that exists in the area. We’re just asking you to tell us which ones you think have a reasonable chance of winning a poll.
That’s about it. Make your thoughts known and we’ll launch the poll on Friday.
Duluth school principals defend short skirts
For your back-to-school reading pleasure, from the Oct. 2, 1921 Duluth News Tribune:
Duluth Mystery Photo: Denfeld football players from 1951
Help name these Denfeld Hunters. The image above is one of three dated Nov. 29, 1951 that were listed for sale on eBay. The description read: “These three photos were of the football players from Denfeld High School in Duluth, Minnesota. The sign in the background says Public Schools Stadium. The photos are from 1951. Two of the boys are identified: Eli Miletich and Richard Wilson. Eli Miletich gained some local celebrity later in life on the Duluth Police force.”
So, who can name the other two gridiron greats from West Duluth?
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Beating it under the Ninth Street Bridge
Above is a photo from the old Ripsaw magazine showing the famous “Beat it” tag underneath the Ninth Street Bridge over Chester Creek. The tag is dated Oct. 1, 1992, and was reportedly painted over when the bridge was renovated in 2003.
Below is the updated tag, as photographed in 2014.
The age-old question is: How did you do that? You are the one who did it, right? Why is the new tag backward?
Redstone damaged by fire
From the assistant fire chief’s office:
At 00:52 this morning, the Duluth Fire Department responded to a structure fire at 1511 E. Superior St. The first vehicle on scene reported a working fire, with heavy fire showing from a first-floor window of a three-story building. The fire had extended to the second floor via a pipe chase.
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2014 Duluth General Election Primer
There are less than three months to study up; the General Election will be held on Nov. 4. Below are the races that will appear on ballots in Duluth, with links to the websites of candidates who have them.
FEDERAL OFFICES
United States Senator
Steve Carlson (Independence)
Mike McFadden (Republican)
Al Franken (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Heather Johnson (Libertarian)
United States Representative, Minnesota District 8
Ray “Skip” Sandman (Green)
Stewart Mills (Republican)
Rick Nolan (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
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Mystery Photo: BlueBird Landing on Lake Superior’s North Shore
This photo from the mid-1940s raises a few questions, and the Internet provides fast answers to many of them. (more…)
Iron Mug Coffee House in Morgan Park
There is a new coffee shop, deli and pizza place in Duluth’s Morgan Park neighborhood — and it also happens to be the only coffee shop or restaurant of any kind in that neighborhood.
Iron Mug opened on July 30 in the old Lakeview Store building, which was constructed in 1916 to serve as one of the first indoor shopping malls in the United States. The building once housed a grocery store and post office, among other things. The largest major tenant in recent years was Advantage Emblem & Screen Printing, which was located in the building from about 1991 to 2008, before moving to the corner of Haines and Arrowhead roads, near the airport.
Some Iron Mug facts:
- Owned by: Felisha and Brandon Johnson
- Address: 1096 88th Ave. W.
- Phone: 218-464-5408
- Coffee served: Backroads brand from Hayward
- Hours: Open seven days a week — Mondays through Saturdays 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sundays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.:
R.I.P. West Duluth Fire and Police Station / Twin Ports Amusement Building
The building at 531 Central Avenue in West Duluth was torn down on July 28, 2014. In its early years it served as the West Duluth Fire and Police Station, West Duluth Village Hall, Duluth Fire Department Engine House #8 and Duluth Police Department Station #3, among other things. (more…)
The Swamp Sisters of Saginaw
About a half-hour drive northwest of Duluth, in the unincorporated community of Saginaw, Swamp Sisters summer restaurant kicks out breakfast and lunch grub to fleets of mostly white-haired patrons who fill the gravel driveway with their cars and assisted-living-community shuttle vans. It’s open for about two months each year, on Fridays and Saturdays only, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., on the swampy old Armstrong farmstead. And all of that, of course, makes this place awesome.
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This week: Festival season in full force
Pretty much everything happening this time of year is part of a festival or concert series, so as we highlight items this week from the PDD Calendar, we’ll just pretend everything is part of a festival, even if it isn’t.
The Bayside Sounds concert series continues on Wednesday with
North Shore Sounds and Superior Singers performing at Billings Park in Superior. Earlier in the day, the Brothers Burn Mountain play a lunchtime gig as part of Lake Place Summer Sounds in Duluth. The Wednesday Night at the Races events for the kiddos begin on Wednesday as well.
On Friday there’s the Free Range Film Festival, Movies in the Park, the Current broadcasting live from the opening of Endion Station Public House and hosting a concert featuring Low at the Red Herring Lounge as part of CurrentFest, and the bars on North Tower Avenue host a Grand Reopening Celebration as part of the Superior’s Downtown Strip Isn’t Under Construction Anymore Festival.
Saturday events include the All Pints North Summer Brew Fest, the Board Across the Bay Race and Festival, Carlton Daze and the Mudman Race as part of Extreme Obstacle Course Daze.
And calendar editor Lawrence Lee should be back on the job at any moment, beginning PDD’s Back to Normal Fest.
Remembering duluthtourism.com
It’s probably not worth remembering this, but an image from it resides in PDD’s archives and the controversy surrounding it occurred ten years ago this month, so we’ll give it passing mention.
There once was a satirical website at duluthtourism.com that was far more sophomoric than funny, but famously raised the ire of Duluth’s then-mayor Herb Bergson, who asked the city attorney to look into the legal means to have the site shut down.
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A Dozen Excuses Donuts on Tower Avenue
A Dozen Excuses opened on Wednesday, serving donuts, coffee, sandwiches, coney dogs, etc. at 1112 Tower Ave., in the Still-point Building next to the Palace Bar in Superior. It’s the former location of Northwoods Guitar.
- Open 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Saturday;
8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday - Phone: 218-409-2525
- Owners: Melissa Hyatt and Cliff Lindberg
- Baker: Joe Dougherty
Dave on Dave: TBT’s Carroll comments on band’s previous Letterman appearance
On the occasion of Duluth band Trampled by Turtles making a second appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman — tonight at 10:35 p.m. on KDLH-TV channel 3.1 — I looked back at notes from an interview with Banjo Dave Carroll from spring 2013. He told stories about being on the Letterman and Craig Ferguson shows that didn’t make it into the story I was working on at the time.
Here is Carroll sharing an anecdote about taking a break outside the Ed Sullivan Theater before the Letterman gig:
They have these barriers on the sidewalks that are kind of gated off for photographers to hang out and allow them to get a picture of celebrities — whoever’s coming in. … It happened to be Amy Phoeler. We were hanging out there, and there were all these photographers. Her black town car or whatever pulls up, the photographer looks at us and says, ‘hey are you guys in the band?’ We kind of looked at each other and said ‘yeah, yeah we’re in the band.’ And they just said, ‘hey, get out of the way!'” Amy Poehler was coming across the street and they didn’t want us to be in the background with her.
Guy Fieri in West Duluth and Superior
Guy Fieri is back in town shooting for future episodes of the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. So far he’s been to Gannucci’s Italian Market and Pak’s Green Corner in West Duluth, and Shorty’s Pizza & Smoked Meats and the Kounty Quarthouse in Superior.
This week: TBT on TV, Fractals on a soccer field and Todd Eckart in a parking lot
A system of unseasonably cool air is expected to roll in today, but the various summer festivals will be every bit as fun while you are wearing jackets and long pants. Here come the highlights from the PDD Calendar.
The week starts as every week should — with a hardcore heavy metal concert at a Christian indoor skate park. Colossus, Conveyer, Strengthen What Remains, Lessons and Heart’s Bane all perform at the Encounter on Monday. You can choose instead to hang out in a wood shop and make beds for the needy, so there are at least two places to wear a sleeveless shirt this week.
Tuesday night the Chester Creek Concert Series continues with a performance by the Formal Age. Later in the evening, at Tycoons Alehouse, the Adam Booker Group will be playing jazz versions of Trampled by Turtles songs. Why? For fun, that’s why. But also because the hometown heroes are releasing a new album and appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman again.
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Mystery Photo #17: Residence of Luther Mendenhall
Did those asbestos shingles last a century? Is the Luther Mendenhall residence still standing? Where is it, or where was it?
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The Way North: Duluth
In a series for the New York Times, Damien Cave and Todd Heisler travel up Interstate 35, from Laredo, Tex., to Duluth, chronicling how the middle of America is being changed by immigration. They spend day 37 in Duluth.
DECC Casino?
On the agenda for next week’s Duluth City Council meeting is a resolution requesting the state legislature “amend state gambling laws to provide for the operation of a for-profit casino at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center or other location within Duluth.” (Update: Councilor Howie Hanson has told the Duluth News Tribune his proposal will likely be tabled and later taken up at a committee-of-the-whole meeting.)
Here’s the document text:
Purchasing and Licensing Committee
14-0365RResolution requesting the state legislature amend state gambling laws to provide for the operation of a for-profit casino at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.
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The End of Streetcars in Duluth
Streetcars ran in Duluth for the last time on July 9, 1939. Streetcar service had been gradually phased out by trolley buses for nearly 20 years before meeting its total demise.
Yoerg’s Brewery
On this date 165 years ago — July 6, 1849 — Bavarian immigrant Anthony Yoerg opened Minnesota’s first brewery in St. Paul.
Interesting side note on Yoerg’s Brewery: In 1871 the operation moved to a spot adjacent to the Lilydale caves. Yoerg used the natural caves to store his product, and added the phrase “cave-aged” to the label. There are a number of places online to read about Yoerg’s Brewery, but of particular interest is the Substreet underground history site, which profiles Yoerg’s lost cellars.
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Justin Berke’s Year in Duluth
Justin Berke recently celebrated his one-year anniversary of living in Duluth by creating an infographic website at ayearinduluth.tk.
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