Minnesota Music Café

Remember almost 30 years ago when you used to go to bars and listen to live music and when you got home your hair was all smoky? This bar will seem very familiar! The floor has had 1 million beers spilled on it, the tables don’t match, the bathrooms are meant for drunk people who are not paying attention (although everything was clean.) But still a fun place to come for live music! If you are at all in need of vegetables or non greasy food, don’t plan on eating there (although our food was served fast!)

This place has gone down hill badly. Went there with a bunch of family for dinner and a few drinks. I know, they are not known for their food. Mostly bar food, burgers, etc. Let me tell you. It was a terrible food experience. All our food was basically inedible. I had a cheeseburger and fries. The burger was flat frozen grey meat but that’s the kindest thing I could say. My cousin actually had a bug fall on him while he was eating his sandwich. We dont know if it came from the sandwich or fell from the ceiling. The bathrooms were unbelievable. Dead bugs on the floor. One stall was plugged and full. The other stall had a broken seat and broken stall walls. The place was dirty, buggy, and sadly there was a good band there but no one else except for a few local drunks trying to hit on the only 2 girls in there. Really bad. I would give it a 0 stars if I could.

OK, so I have only been here once but what an awesome venue! I didn’t even know this place exist until the lady and I were invited to celebrate a friends birthday. The Good The Bad and The Funky were headlining that night and they really put on an awesome show! When we first walked in I was a little unsure of the crowd and if this was the right place for me, but it doesn’t take long to soak on the diverse audience and get comfortable. Fun mixture of people in attendance and lots of free spirit dancing taking place, regardless of your dance skills you won’t feel uncomfortable on this dance floor. The servers do a great job keeping your beverage filled and there really isn’t a bad seat in the house, but I would suggest getting there a little early as the seating area gets full.
I can’t wait to come back again and watch another band play, now that this place is on my radar I’ll definitely make the trip over to Saint Paul for a quality show!

The venue itself is awesome but the bartenders are not observant and a bit rude. Floor staff is great.

Went out for a little pre-​holiday fun. The music was awesome! The Good the Bad the Funky played. The wait and bar staff did a nice job. Check out their event calendar, they have live music 7 days.

«A live Band Lover’s Dream»
By: Nate S.
On the edge of downtown off of 7^th and Payne,
Your ears hear the sound of a music café,
As the suns last ray hides away for the day,
A band takes stage and gets ready to play,
It would be no fib… if I were to say,
That if you stepped in… here you will stay.
For middle aged singles to mingle it’s great,
But it’s also the place to go out on a date,
For smokers the Patio’s where to integrate,
With a capitol view of our beautiful state.
There’s chairs galore if you fancy a seat,
Or get on the floor and dance with your feet,
If your stomachs a growling to the sound of the beat,
Do not fret… it’s cheap to eat.
Pour another one… bartender please,
I’m smothered in fun as I stand at the scene,
Of what my eyes appear to see,
Nothing short of… a live band lover’s dream.

When my roommate warned me before leaving the house that MMC was mostly an older crowd I didn’t think much of it. However I was probably the youngest person in there by a few decades the first couple hours I was there. I think all the old, rocker, hippie dudes at the bar were as surprised to see me as I was to see them when I walked in.
But I had a blast, and it’s hard to beat a pitcher of beer and a pizza for $ 10. Open mic night was interesting in that there’s a band already there and individuals can come up and be frontman for a song or two. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Open mic starts at 7p and goes to 11p on Monday night, but it seemed pretty empty in the bar until 10p.
There’s a lot of seating of various configurations, tables, bar, high tops, booths, and various combinations of all of them. And a dance floor down in front of stage, which is much smaller then I anticipated since I kept hearing about what a great place this is for dancing. However it was plenty of space for the one woman doing her thing with a light up hulu hoop.
It’s actually a block further south than the map shows, it’s at Woodward and Payne, not a block past Woodward.

Downtown Saint Paul really needs this place. That being said, this place is just outside of downtown but within walking distance if you are cruising the downtown area. The whole live music scene in DTSP is really limited. You have Wild Thymes bringing in a variety of great local talent in the form of 5 different bands 4 nights weeks, then you have the Artist Quarter filling in the jazz niche with a cool vibe and then round it out with Station 4 keeping the young Goth crowd head banging into the wee hours of the night. That leaves The Minnesota Music Café to cater the 35+ crowd that’s looking for everything from Blues and Classic Rock to acts like Boogie Wonderland and national acts like Jonny Lang. I’m a little disappointed that this place doesn’t bring in as many national acts as the pictures on their walls suggest, but I’m still a big fan of what they bring to the Saint Paul area.
As for the layout, this place is a great place to see a show. With an elevated stage and a sunken dance floor the whole place has great site lines from both the main seating area as well as from the bar. As for the food, I haven’t tried it yet, but the portions look huge and they serve the full menu right up until closing.

MMC is one of the best music venues in the metro. It’s big enough that it has live music every night of the week, but it is also small enough that you can sit at the bar to watch the show.
Depending on the night, there may not be a cover, but on most weekend nights it is $ 8. They serve cheap food prior to the shows. A burger and fries is $ 3 or $ 4 bucks.
There is a nice heated outdoor patio, with a view of Downtown St. Paul and floor to ceiling windows, so you can watch the show while out on a smoke break.
The music is mostly rock and blues.

My friends Jonnie Bolin, Diane, Amber & I went to see «GYPSY» who was still awesome !!! at this place last night. What a treat !!! This place is Much Bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside !!! This place offers Live Music 7 nights a week !!! There is a incredible Shrine to ALL Minnesota Music Artists Especially Local !!! Hardly a bad seat in the house !!! A great place to visit especially for out of towners !!!
MrZero

I’ve seen some great bands here and Sunday night was no different. It was the funk before Christmas with the flatfoot rollers. The stage is way up on a platform. It’s kind of drafty in here so bring in the heavy sweaters in the winter. They serve food which certainly smelled good. A good location and plenty of parking. Minnesota has so much talent musically, you don’t have to go far. It was free to see this band, others it’s an $ 8 cover, which always pisses me off. I know people drink enough. This band appears monthly, and the 30^th will have a Motown review band, the one for new years eve looks good too.

A gal pal and I need to release some steam one night, and with no cover and two-​for-​one, I was hoping this would be just the ticket. Hadn’t been here since mid 1990s and it’s still a solid venue to hear jazz, R&B, blues, rock and such fusion. Not sure what the food is like anymore, but back then it had good grill grub, sandwiches and such as the hub and I used to come here to dance.
Troy, door greeter, who was on late cook and sometime server duty, brought our second gimlets in fancy glasses and was a friendly, welcoming sort. I don’t know why there weren’t more people here given the smooth sounds of local Soul Surreal that were mightly fine with female vocal, sax, keyboards, guitar and a strong bass-​drums backbone. I guess because it was a weeknight.
As a couple of middle-​agers whose last time on the scene was more than a decade ago, we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.
There were some fantastic dancers on the floor and as two married broads we felt fine dancing by ourselves. We chatted up a cute couple whose male half played for Prince in one of his back-​up bands, and we pointed out a gentleman who floated across the dance floor and made each of his female dance partners look like she was on Dancing with the Stars. They said, «Oh that’s so and so, he’s a dance instructor.»
We did feel like we were dancing with the stars. Definitely will come back here with the hub to try the nosh and get our rusty moves loosened up.