Modern speakeasies in the Twin Cities are spilling their own secrets

Whatever light finds its way into the Farmer’s Cellar is softened by stained glass, just enough to give guests a sense of the gas station parking lot outside, and of the world oblivious to the hidden watering hole where they sit.

“It’s a place you don’t just find — you discover,” the not-so-hidden speakeasy boasts on its website.

The speakeasy revival is nearing a decade old in the Twin Cities — nationwide, it’s old enough to drink. But hidden bars are now shedding some of their secrecy, hoping to trade it for more foot traffic.

The Farmer’s Cellar in Lakeville promoted its April opening on Instagram, where it posts to more than 10,000 followers. Billy After Dark in the North Loop has an account, too. And Volstead’s Emporium, the famed Uptown speakeasy, plans to add signage to its signature alleyway that has deceived guests for a decade, according to new owner Bessie Snow.

It’s symptomatic of what some bar owners describe as a loss of spontaneity in nightlife, where guests — who drink less and are more judicious with their cash — look to vet bars online rather than show up and risk disappointment. As a result, hidden bars in the Twin Cities have turned themselves into a contradiction, their exteriors still couched by rusted doors or nondescript facades but the interiors flashing across social media.

“If people are trying to find us, I need them to be able to find us,” Snow said. “I want the experience to begin with a knock on the door. It’s not the experience beforehand of ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ anymore.”

The entrance to the Farmer’s Cellar is behind a soda fridge in a gas station, and the bar is made to make you feel like you’re in on a secret no one else can figure out. The stained glass must have come from some old church, Nicole Vang imagines, as she tries to make out its gothic lettering from her table.

“Metaphorically, you can walk away from the world through that pop machine,” Aaron Vang said, nodding toward the entrance.

Mystery drives the business model of the speakeasy, said John Braun, who founded Volstead’s before selling it to Snow this month. When Braun opened Volstead’s in 2016, he did it without a website or promotion — just a red light above a back-alley door.

But after the pandemic, Braun greenlighted comedy nights, and Snow ran burlesque shows, promoting them on the bar’s new Instagram.

Fewer people were ambling down Volstead’s dark alleyway; even fewer were satisfied with just a drink and a cozy spot to have it. Braun figured Instagram was a way to tempt them back.

“It didn’t take reading the tea leaves to know that the place needed to be a little more destination-oriented,” Braun said.

Those shifts have changed the way people look for a night out, said Allison Murn, a marketing lecturer at the University of Minnesota. Bars have had to become destinations for consumers, pairing drinking with other activities like shows or events.

“I think past generations may have said, it’s about getting a night out to relax or blow off steam,” Murn said. “Gen Z is really about that experience.”

In Lakeville, drinks at the Farmer’s Cellar come with a performance. A jet of chilled carbon dioxide plumes above the bar, freezing glasses before they receive their contents. You can watch a bartender spill an Aviation from pitcher to pitcher through a cloud of liquid nitrogen, morphing it into a glassy whip that resembles gelato. For $30, you can scoop it out of its glass.

Tom Spencer sat at the corner of the Farmer’s Cellar bar on a Thursday night, his eyes fixed on bartenders freezing mint leaves in liquid nitrogen for a mojito. He sipped his Manhattan. Spencer, 67, said he’d come across the bar on Facebook, and he’d been eyeing the gas station on 210th Street for a few weeks.

“You have to be on social media to find out what it was,” Spencer said.

Consumers, also facing hikes in housing and food costs, are planning to cut back on entertainment spending as those prices rise, according to surveys from business consultants McKinsey & Co. and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Simply put, people have less money — and tolerance — for a bad night out. The onus is now on bars to prove their merit, and Instagram lets potential patrons get a sense for a spot without having to commit cash to it, Murn said.

Paige Lenzi, a Farmer’s Cellar bartender, said she’s sensed nightlife move away from spontaneity since the pandemic. She rarely goes out anymore, and if she does, she’s either vetted the place in advance or ends up at the same Cajun spot in the next suburb over.

“It’s less of a ‘oh, let’s go out for a drink,’” Lenzi said. “I think it’s about making sure you’re spending your money on something you enjoy.”

Eight months ago, if you wanted a reservation at Billy After Dark — hidden underneath Billy Sushi in the North Loop — you needed to get past a website pretending to be a financial scam. For two years, it was fine, said owner Billy Tserenbat. But the website started scaring off enough people that he launched a “clean” version about seven months ago.

Snow, Volstead’s new owner, said her vision is for the bar to become a venue where people make a night out of coming there. That means promoting shows and putting up signs, directing patrons to Volstead’s back-alley door with its red light.

A security camera points out over Volstead’s entrances; you can watch guests crisscross the alleyway, sometimes giving up and heading to a different bar down Lake Street. Snow likes to think that Braun would chuckle as he watched confused customers not clever enough to find Volstead’s.

But to Snow, they look like revenue she can’t afford to walk away. Sacrificing mystery might just be the cost of doing business nowadays.