Great Escapes 2008: Duluth-Superior

No Minnesotan needs an introduction to Duluth, only a reminder. And it is this: There are, of course, two Duluths.

There’s Duluth when the wind is not blowing east to west off Lake Superior, when strong adults can walk upright, when small children, pets, and the elderly are in no danger of being swept up and flattened against a light pole or a brick wall by gales howling unimpeded from Ontario to Canal Park. This is the Duluth of fine days for exploring one of America’s genuine cities, a place that looks like nowhere else in the lower forty-eight. A place that proudly eschews most of the bland Sunbelt–chic aesthetic that has turned the rest of the country into mile after monotonous mile of charmless, Anywhere USA strip malls and franchise restaurants.

The other Duluth, when the big lake actually is howling, is, well, let’s just call it an adventure you can brag about to your cousins in Florida, and leave it at that.

As someone who owns a place twenty miles south of Superior, Wisconsin, and spends every other weekend in the Twin Ports come sun or sleet, I’m protective of the two towns’ reputations. My fur gets ruffled when I hear some overpampered metropolitan making snide jokes about whether mukluks and sled dogs are allowed in Duluth’s best restaurants or if “better restaurants” means the 3.2 beer joints down by the Superior docks. Cute.

If you feel better making cheap jokes, knock yourself out. But as a weekend émigré, I’ve grown fond of Duluth and its, uh, not quite as chic and glamorous sister city, Superior. But then I don’t go there looking for some slushy Nordic version of Palm Springs. Take the two towns for what they are, I say. Savor the distinctive characters you stumble across. They are their own reward, which is to say a change of pace from the Twin Cities.

SUPERIOR

My niece and her husband once counted the bars from the docks of Superior south down Tower Avenue and out Wisconsin 35 to our place. They lost track somewhere past forty-three. Point being: It’ll be years after the asteroid hits before Wisconsin runs out of beer.

The classic Superior gold standard for beer and burgers is, of course, The Anchor. Everyone in Bloomington seems to know about The Anchor; it’s that kind of iconic joint, a cluttered womb of dusty nautica overwhelmed by the sizzle and scent of frying burgers. And we’re not talking wretched frozen patties, we’re talking big, shamelessly greasy burgers that no human can resist or eat without profound aftershocks of sweet, sweet guilt. (My wife, a Rachael Ray/Nigella foodie, still recalls her first Anchor burger with the misty-eyed wistfulness usually reserved for a long-lost lover—I really should fly into a jealous rage over the things.)

Eddie's in Superior

Several years back, we were tipped to Eddie’s, a steak-and-ribs place so far out on the east side of Superior you think you’re in danger of falling off Highway 2 into the Upper Peninsula. The building is some kind of wood-frame storefront relic of a long bygone era. Although it’s adjacent to a railroad line, its décor is built around automobile Americana. Old oil cans. Models of classic Edsels. Elegiac paintings of fifties cruisers and the Flying Red Horse. Somebody’s kitsch collection put to decorative use, basically. Eddie’s garlic-infused steak has never let us down, and the ribs, with their thick, gooey brown sugar– and–vinegar sauce fall apart in your fingers, which means lots and lots of licking. (It’s a great date place.)

But as at The Anchor, it’s the clientele that is the real sauce on a night out. While The Anchor gets its share of UMD frat and sorority kids and “in the know” Twin Citians, few if any Cities folk know about Eddie’s and even fewer consider driving more than a block off Tower Avenue. Most are in such a desperate hurry to flee Superior’s swank-deprived, working-class vibe all they can think of is getting back over the Blatnik Bridge ASAP and into some lakeside suite with foil-wrapped mints on the pillows.

Not so long ago, a night at Eddie’s put us in the company of a three-generational family dinner, with the eldest of the clan well informed on current events and very hard of hearing. Grandpa was some kind of Bob LaFollette–style populist with no great affection for certain high members of the current national government. Somehow his ninety-decibel opinions of candidates and programs meshed nicely with the steak, ribs, and imagery of big-finned, cheap-gas, V-8 fecklessness.

Since you’ll see it as you’re pulling up to Eddie’s and wonder what the story is, I also recommend the Choo-Choo Bar & Grill. It’s a large old railroad car well-settled on its frame, offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But the $8 all-you-can-drink tap beer (6 p.m. to close, Wednesdays) appeals to a, shall we say, special kind of up-north crowd.

The Twin Cities slow-food crowd has been hip to The Boathouse on Barker’s Island for a while now. On pleasant nights, it is arguably the best al fresco venue in the area, with quiet, lapping water, gulls, and long, lingering sunsets. We’re hitting 75 percent on food and service. Three times were flat-out terrific. One, with an unexpected party of seventeen overwhelming the staff, was comically bad. But that happens to the best of them.

Likewise in terms of rave reviews from true gourmets, Le Bistro is currently the best in show, maybe for all Twin Ports restaurants. Across the street from the courthouse and a straight shot over the Blatnik, Le Bistro is new within the past year. If a couple of nightcaps with the regulars at the eighty-six-year-old Belgian Club back out by Eddie’s pushes your comfort envelope a bit too far, Le Bistro is an oasis of big-city elegance in a proudly blue-collar town.

The Red Mug coffeehouse, Superior

The best (relatively) new coffeehouse in Superior is The Red Mug, a cozy basement space in a fortresslike building full of arts organizations. Wi-fi. Frequent live music. Comfortable.

One of two staples of every pass I make through Superior is Globe News on the main corner of Tower and Belknap. It’s a well-stocked newsstand/goofball tsotchke/used CD-DVD operation: The Atlantic cheek by jowl with Guns and Ammo and genuine foam Cheeseheads. Perfect, in a very Superior sort of way. And if you get there by noon, there’s still a chance of scoring one of a half-dozen copies of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The other must-stop is Superior Meats, one of those word-of-mouth diamonds in the rough for the kind of locally processed, marinated steaks, chops, ribs, smoked bacon, and the like that never fails to impress your friends. (And what else is entertaining all about, really?) It may not look like much, and if Superior is Duluth’s homely sister, Superior Township, home of Superior Meats, is . . . well, let’s resist that sort of analysis, shall we? The place is just an old IGA supermarket, but trust me, it is well worth the half-hour it’ll take you to swoop over from Duluth and score a couple of rib eyes to cook over an open fire (oh, baby!) or back home the next day. Did I mention the bacon?

DULUTH

Grandma's Ice Cream Boxcar, Canal Park

The reasons to stop in Canal Park are obvious enough. To paraphrase Willie Sutton, you go there because that’s where the bridge and the water and the ships are. Canal Park is where the food and stuff are—I’ve never made it through without a stop at Duluth Pack, the outdoor gear emporium. But from the tony east end to the more industrial west (at the bottom of the hill on I–35), Duluth has a remarkable assortment of character-rich venues, most with that uniquely Duluthian amalgamation of aging, lefty hipsters, iconoclastic college kids, deep-woods- and deep-water– inspired artistes, hard-drinking working stiffs, and various refugees from “the insanity” of congested hellholes like . . . well, like the Twin Cities, if you ask them.

Being cold and dark as Duluth is for long chunks of the year, independent coffeehouses have become a fundamental force coalescing all the Duluthy factions listed above. But Beaner’s Central, three blocks off the Central exit at the bottom of the I–35 hill, may be the premier neighborhood caffeine depot/music venue of the moment. As an espresso junkie, I regard Beaner’s lattes as third only to those at Five Brothers Deli in Key West and Broadway Coffee in Kansas City in terms of perfect thick froth, topping exquisite, roasted flavor. (This is very high praise. Broadway made NBC Nightly News not so long ago.) Even better, Beaner’s deli and panini sandwiches are crisp, light, and flavorful—several quantum steps up from “bar food.” Music at Beaner’s tends to be of the sensitive singer-songwriter acoustic school, which may not be to everyone’s taste. But the upside is that it isn’t too loud, so you can sip and exchange sotto voce conversation.

Most passing Twin Citians are vaguely aware of the Amazing Grace Coffee House in the basement of the DeWitt-Seitz Building in Canal Park. Walk in anytime of the year and it’s like warping back somewhere before the Summer of Love. Maybe even before Jack Kerouac. You never knew so many pounds of dreadlocks could fit under so many UMD Bulldog stocking caps. I swear there’s a combo-platter side altar down there somewhere, with a hundred flickering votive candles for saints Bob Marley and Woody Guthrie.

The range of Canal Park action is best exemplified by the renowned Club Saratoga, which is one part jazz club (3 to 7 p.m., Saturdays), one part blues club (6 to 10 p.m., Sundays), and seven parts strip club (at some point every day). While the Paulucci empire has refurbished the rest of Canal Park in the name of good taste and family-friendly propriety, “The Toga” has endured, untouched by the hand of intrusive rectitude.

The dining options around Canal Park are plentiful, including mainstays Grandma’s, Little Angie’s, and Bellisio’s. Recently, Twin Cities favorites Mitch Omer and Steve Meyer opened a Hell’s Kitchen.

While the city swells every June for the big Grandma’s Marathon weekend (June 19–21 this year), and again for the Bayfront Blues Festival (August 7–10), I have acquired a strange affinity for the annual Park Point Garage Sale (June 13–14), Park Point being the long spit of land on the other side of the Lift Bridge. The two-day sale is full-on Duluth. Which is to say if you’re thinking “Wayzata estate sale,” forget it. If you’re on the dawn patrol, you may pick off something one of a kind and truly valuable, but otherwise the chances of scoring some of Aunt Beulah’s Swarovski crystal at five cents on the dollar are nil to worse. On the other hand, if you’re in the mood to stroll a couple of miles out and back, dipping into garages, across front lawns, and then paw around in the back of pickups and sift through more nicked propellers, mismatched cutlery sets, Anchor Bar cozies, and BOB DYLAN AT BUDOKAN T-shirts than you ever thought possible, it’s a good time.

The characters out on the Point are a distinctive bunch. They are of Duluth, but a breed apart, by virtue of being separated by the Lift Bridge. They are proudly sturdy in the face of constant wind and waves off the big lake and mildly eccentric due to a much higher than usual quotient of gnarly boatheads and shade-tree mechanics, all of whom are happy to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about how they got that ’83 Mercury outboard running. There’s a good-natured ambience.

In between Grandma’s Marathon, the Park Point Garage, and the Blues Festival, the big event this year is the August 1–3 visit by three majestic, tall sailing ships, the Niagara (which came through in ’02), the Madeline, and the Pride of Baltimore II. They’re coming to mark both Duluth’s Maritime Festival and Minnesota’s Sesquicentennial. And, yes, you will be able to go onboard.

Not forgetting Bob Dylan, the city is slowly getting around to celebrating its most famous native son. Bob Dylan Way, a walking tour pretty much from the Depot through downtown to the old armory two miles east, is being fixed up with Bob–related signage. It’s a work in progress. Stop in at Electric Fetus and get a BOB DYLAN WAY pin for a $5 contribution. Also, if you’re a true Bob–head and you’re in town at 6 p.m. on a Saturday, you must tune in KUMD 103.3 FM’s Highway 61 Revisited, an hour of Dylan bootlegs and classic performances.

Downtown itself is coming back from years of being pretty much wall-to-wall curio shops interrupted only by the Original Coney Island and Fond-du-Luth Casino. A block-long restoration is rapidly transforming handsome old storefronts just east of the Fetus, and, good news for film buffs, a small two-screen art-film theater is under construction and is expected to open sometime this summer.

Across Superior Street from the new Sheraton Hotel is a new favorite of mine, Carmody Irish Pub. Although a wee bit upscale, it’s not quite lace curtain and has an excellent assortment of beers, single-malt scotches, and whiskeys. It’s a civilized place and quite often there’s live music.

Back across Superior is Hacienda del Sol, the place that nine out of ten Duluthites claim has the best Mexican food in the world. The other one out of ten says it can be hit or miss. Whatever, it is very popular. The back garden is a pleasant spot on warm nights. (It’s out of the wind. But find a seat with your back to the parking ramp.)

More first-rate beer and live music are, of course, available at Fitger’s Brewhouse, at Fitger’s on the Lake, as they have been for years. I like the place, but too often feel like I’m on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Better for the colloquial vibe and view is the Lakeview Coffee House just down the hall. When I have to go online, there’s no better place in either city to set up temporary shop than at one of the tall tables overlooking the lake. And the soups are excellent.

In the Chester Park neighborhood of east Duluth is another hero to the local/slow-food movement, the little place with a lot of names—At Sara’s Table Chester Creek Café. Don’t get further confused by the bigger sign that reads, TARAN’S MARKETPLACE. That’s the name of the old neighborhood minimarket that ASTCCC replaced. The owners may not understand marketing and branding, but the food is first-rate. It’s also an all-day operation, at least in terms of serving breakfast (and coffee), lunch, and dinner.

For what it’s worth, my wife took her corporate exec/expense-account-sated older sister to only two Twin Ports restaurants when she made one of her commissar-like visits, The Boathouse and Sara’s Table. Big sister was delighted with both. (Again, very high praise.)

There’s a literary quality to Duluth’s east side you don’t get down on Central in West Duluth. It may have a lot to do with the east side’s proximity to UMD, St. Scholastica, and pricier real estate. But I’d never label the west end folks less than literate. In fact, in my experience, the Duluthians are generally a well-read bunch, at least judging by the heaps of used paperbacks and newspapers piling up in just about every coffee joint and bar I walk into.

And that’s a lot of them.

LODGING

Right on the Lakewalk at the entrance to Canal Park is Canal Park Lodge. It contains 116 rooms, and some of those on the Lake Superior side have small balconies for enjoying the sun and balmy lake breezes or testing your tolerance for gales. (Two-room suites have in-room hot tubs). There’s free wi-fi and hard-line Internet, plus refrigerators and microwaves in all the rooms.

For lakeside, or we should say “bayside,” ambience, it is tough to beat the South Pier Inn, a cottagelike white building just on the other side of the Aerial Lift Bridge looking into St. Louis Bay. The view of giant freighters passing close enough to chat with the deck hands is pretty special, and at rates from $127 to $347 during the summer, the price is within everyone’s range.

Downtown, the new kid is the Sheraton Duluth, across from the venerable Hotel Duluth. It has 147 rooms and skyway access to nearby hospitals (in case you party a little too hearty at the Blues Festival). If you look closely, there’s an architectural echo in the Sheraton and the hulking grande dame of Duluth lodgings, but the similarities end there.

RESOURCES Food & Drink– Superior The Anchor, 413 Tower Ave., 715-394-9747 Belgian Club, 3931 E. 2nd St., 715-398-6334 Le Bistro, 1409 Hammond Ave., 715-399-3220 The Boathouse, 300 Marina Dr., 715-399-0076 Choo-Choo Bar & Grill, 5002 E. 3rd St., 715-398-3788 Eddie’s, 5221 E. 4th St., 715-398-0191 The Red Mug, 916 Hammond Ave., 715-392-2662 Shops–Superior Globe News, Tower and Belknap Superior Meats, 6301 Tower Ave., 715-394-4431 Food & Drink– Duluth Amazing Grace Coffee House, 394 Lake Ave. S., 218-723-0075 At Sara’s Table Chester Creek Café, 1902 E. 8th St., 218-724-6811 Beaner’s Central, 324 Central Ave. N., 218-624-5957 Bellisio’s, 425 Lake Ave. S., 218-727-4921 Carmody Irish Pub, 308 E. Superior St., 218-740-4747 Club Saratoga, 331 Canal Park Dr., 218-722-5577 Fitger’s Brewhouse, Fitger’s on the Lake, 600 E. Superior St., 218-726-1392 Fond-du-Luth Casino, 129 E. Superior St., 218-722-0280 Grandma’s, 522 Lake Ave. S., 218-727-2250 Hacienda del Sol, 319 E. Superior St., 218-722-7296 Hell’s Kitchen, 310 Lake Ave. S., 218-727-1620 Lakeview Coffee House, 600 E. Superior St., 218-720-4464 Little Angie’s, 11 E. Buchannan, 218-727-6117 Original Coney Island, 107 E. Duluth St., 218-727-1077 Shops–Duluth Duluth Pack, 365 Canal Park Dr., 218-722-1707 Electric Fetus, 12 E. Superior St., 218-722-9970 Events Bayfront Blues Festival, August 7–10 Duluth Maritime Festival, August 1–3 Grandma’s Marathon, June 19–21 Park Point Garage Sale, June 13–14 Lodging Canal Park Lodge 250 Canal Park Dr., Duluth, 218-279-6000 Sheraton Duluth Hotel, 301 E. Superior St., Duluth, 888-627-8122 South Pier Inn, 701 Lake Ave. S., Duluth, 800-430-7437