Demise of Palmer’s Bar reflects broader changes in Cedar-Riverside

To grasp the changing identity of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, pop into the former home of Triple Rock Social Club.

The space once known for celebrating up-and-coming punk bands is now Soma Grill & Deli, where customers last Thursday were ordering fish wraps, mango-flavored drinks and heaping plates of goat meat. Most spoke Somali as they nibbled on bananas that come with every meal. One used a rug for the early evening prayer.

The closest thing to a rock-and-roll moment was when a customer rolled his motorcycle inside for a few quick adjustments.

Triple Rock’s closing — as well as the departures of the Viking Bar, Nomad World Pub and the 400 Bar in the past 13 years — is a loss for those who savored the area’s embrace of hip music and easy access to ice-cold beer.

“The whole strip is so different now,” said Jacqueline deVries,a professor at West Bank’s Augsburg University who teaches about cultural history. She misses International Video, which specialized in martial-arts films, and Depth of Field, a yarn/weaving/futon store that furnished most of the decor in her basement. “There’s been so many different small restaurants, it’s hard to keep track.”

But the end of one chapter has led to the beginning of another, one that better reflects the neighborhood’s growing population of Africans and Muslims.

Palmer’s Bar, which recently announced that it’ll be shutting its doors in September after 119 years in business, has been purchased by Dar Al-Hijrah mosque. Abdisalam Adam,a mosque board member, said the space will be used for educational purposes, youth services and interfaith dialogue.

Afghan Cultural Society, which moved into its current home in 2022, is expanding into the space that formerly housed Midwest Mountaineering, which shuttered nearly two years ago.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” said executive director Nasreen Sajady as she provided a tour last week of the new acquisition, which she envisions as a place for global music, art shows and mental health workshops. The backyard, badly in need of a lawnmower, will eventually feature a playground and seating for parties. An open house is tentatively scheduled for October.

Despite her excitement about the future, Sajady remains nostalgic for the past.

She went to Triple Rock so often that she ended up marrying one of the bartenders. The first time she ever heard the Muslim call to prayer was from Palmer’s back patio during the pandemic.

“There I was connecting with my identity while my friends were on the other side of the wall drinking Hamm’s and waiting for me to come join them,” said Sajady, who grew up in Coon Rapids and attended Augsburg University, which she can now see from her office. “It was such a ‘me’ thing, a very Cedar-Riverside thing.”

The neighborhood still boasts an eclectic nightlife scene.

On Thursday, roots musicians Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves took the stage at the Cedar Cultural Center. “Pride & Prejudice” opens at Theatre in the Round Players in mid-September. The Red Sea Ethiopian Restaurant showcases lots of hip-hop artists.

But the West Bank’s need to cater more to its Muslim population may make it harder for certain businesses to survive.

Red Sea is one of the few places on that portion of Cedar Avenue with a liquor license. The old spot for Keefer Court Bakery, which reopened in Eden Prairie’s Asia Mall, is now an Ethiopian deli.

Steven Rolfson, who moved to Minneapolis from the Rochester area in the early ’90s to take advantage of the vibrant music scene, has come to love the African food in the neighborhood. He’s eager to try out the new Iranian restaurant next to Cedar Cultural Center.

But he worries about the future of the West Bank sound.

“My heart breaks every time I turn the corner where the 400 Bar used to be and remember that it’s gone,” Rolfson said while nursing a Corona at Palmer’s on Thursday.

While the Humphrey Bogart classic “The Big Sleep” played on the TV screen and patrons played darts, Rolfson, a former construction worker, and bartender Bob Samuelson swapped memories of how the bar’s most famous regular, the late Spider John Koerner, used to sit on a nearby stool downing his blackberry brandy shot and doing crossword puzzles.

“This has always been a place for misfits,” Samuelson said, after slicing up some lemons and stopping a couple customers at the door who had inadvertently forgotten to pay for their last round. “It’s like a salon in the French sense. We get a lot of intellectuals that don’t look like intellectuals.”

On Facebook last week, Palmer’s owners Pat and Sarah Dwyer explained some of the reasons for their decision to close.

“Due to the current economic environment, people’s changing drinking habits, and the challenges of losing so many other bars and businesses in our neighborhood, Palmer’s has been losing $10,000 - $30,000 a month,” they wrote. “The situation was no longer sustainable. We cut expenses as much as possible and adjusted prices where we could and it just wasn’t enough to climb out of the hole we were falling into.”

The bar can still count on brisk business during Cornbread Harris’ free weekly gigs. The 98-year-old father of Jimmy Jam will be packing people in from 5-7 p.m. Sundays until the Sept. 14 closing. You can also expect a packed room when the dive bar’s second-most famous act, the Front Porch Swingin’ Liquor Pigs, do a free show on Aug. 14.

Sajady hopes that kind of music will continue to thrive, even as she works hard to satisfy the needs of her fellow Muslims.

“The Palmer’s situation is very heartbreaking to me,” said Sajady, who had stopped by the legendary dive bar the previous night. “I don’t know the future and that really scares me.”