At Otter’s Saloon, rail drinks are $3, happy hour starts at 8 a.m., and every night is karaoke night.
But every second Saturday at the bar, it’s time to push the tables together, lay out the cribbage boards and hope Aunt Tiny brings her homemade caramels to the tournament this week.
If dive bar cribbage is your thing, there is no better place to be than a 126-year-old saloon in southeast Minneapolis.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said 92-year-old Kathy Ratican, also known as Aunt Tiny. She did, in fact, bring both caramels and pecan brittle to the bar her niece, Lynn Vashro, owns.
But Otter’s Saloon is struggling after a challenging year of road construction that choked off access to the neighborhood and the constellation of small businesses that make this southeast Minneapolis neighborhood distinct.

The saloon’s walls are covered in photos. Regulars belting out karaoke and skunking their opponents at cribbage. Aunt Tiny, dressed like an elf and tending bar. Everyone who shows up for a small business in a town that doesn’t always make it easy to stay in business.
Ratican’s photo hangs on the wall behind her, beaming and holding up a hand of cards — a 29 hand, the highest possible cribbage hand. Another photo of her hangs behind the bar, where she did a volunteer shift as a bartender last Christmas Eve so other workers could spend time with their families.
That shift, she said, earned her $205 in tips and a marriage proposal. She plans to be back for Christmas and Christmas Eve this year, welcoming those who may have no place else to go on a holiday — or nowhere else they’d rather be.