What a fantastic community space and outdoor recreation center! Totally makes winter in Minnesota…read moreeven better. I'm new to discovering The Trailhead at Theodore Wirth Regional Park, but believe me when I say I'll be back many more time. In the winter, they offer cross-country skiing and lessons. (You can rent a full set of gear for about $30- no need to have your own to experience skiing! They also have à la carte options for cheaper if you only need poles or boots, etc.) Besides skiing, outdoor winter activities also include snow tubing, snowboarding, snowshoeing.... You name it. (I haven't been in fall or summer yet, but I also hear great things about their mountain biking and trail running options.) Inside The Trailhead, there's food and drink concessions, ample seating, lockers, bathrooms, and even rooms for rent. The last time I was there, a family was hosting a young child's birthday party in the multi-purpose room. Altogether, there is an amazing assortment of services here to come and check out. Can't wait for next ski season!

We have made a tradition of coming here the day after Thanksgiving. I am from out of town, visiting…read morefamily and friends. The building is a perfect space for bringing a large group together for games, chatting, eating, and sledding on the snowy hills just outside the doors. They used to serve hot food, but they no longer have that option. The food was not consistent or anything all that special, but it was a nice option. This time we brought Thanksgiving leftovers and some breakfast bagel sandwiches. The space is well maintained and clean. It is spacious and has lots of room for young kids to run around and not be a disturbance. Always look forward to coming here.

This is historic Grain Belt Brewery complex in Northeast Minneapolis, designed by Boehme and…read moreCordella who are renowned for designing the American Swedish Institute's mansion. It's beautiful! I visited here today for the first time to attend Craft'za...Craft'za is a free one‑day art market for handmade goods! Whoo! It is is a heated and the the art was wonderful and a free public parking lot attached. Had a wonderful and enjoyable time. What a wonderful use of space!

Grain Belt Bottling House is a diverse venue, used for everything from the Autumn Brew Review to…read morevarious other gatherings and shows throughout the year. Depending on the size of the crowd, parking and entry can be a breeze or really tough. It is a venue that has a lot of potential, with both the inside of the building and the outdoor field where ABR is held available as potential space. I guess I would say that I feel the ABR is too big for this venue and there are parking issues (not to mention the wrap-around-the-block hour-long wait to get through the gate). Other things I've been to at this facility seemed better suited. For the record, I do think that reusing an old building period is awesome. It's way better than just letting it sit there. :-)

My family wanted to do a tour so we did- I was surprised at how many people were on this tour-…read moreplace was packed. Really interesting to learn the history of the site, kind of a whole twist and turn of story that is unexpected. There are actors who provide the tour. If you are someone who likes history, this would be great for you!

Very awesome tour, Led by Mary/Rosie the Riveted. What a fun night! Loved the outside views and old…read morecars. They decorated the entire place. The tour was an hour long and very story focused which was so fun. Hot tip: Very dark so watch your step or bring small flashlight. I tripped a few times. So be careful! Hot tip: beautiful view of St. Paul capitol nearby! Hot tip: go to Cosettas for dinner after!

What a great "first time" experience; I cohosted my vehicle with Brit and Kyle who were gracious…read morehosts. They explained the process and walked me through the cohosting arrangement making me feel I was with a trusted colleague. I left my vehicle with The Slow Club for eight weeks and was very impressed with communication and results, earning hard cash to augment our income while I did not need the vehicle! Kyle and Brit me and the vehicle better than when we began.

From the owner: Premium vehicle storage, full service auto repair and maintenance, social clubhouse, and event…read morespace for the discerning automotive enthusiast.

Great wedding venue (from a guests perspective!) with a cocktail / holding space and Ceremony space…read morethat turns into dinner! Bar was nice, and the outdoor "patio" is appreciated! Was well temperature controlled and lots of natural lighting! And a brewery attached, score!

This place should reported to the Better Biznas Bureau. If there is any need for them to be…read moreflexible with your event they will not accommodate. Legit, like if your whole family died they would still charge you. They have no compassion, empathy, or ethics. 10/10 do not recommend. Many other venues in the area to go with. Be better Paikka.

The Reading Room is an excellent space for an intimate wedding. There were about 150 guests and the…read moreceremony took place in the front of the room, with elegant tables behind for the plated dinner reception. Waitstaff circulated with hors d'oeuvres as we waited in the receiving line, keeping everyone engaged. I loved the library theme, from the Save The Date library book cards to the tables identified by famous authors. We were seated at Dickens, our dinner preferences printed out on beautiful bookmarks. The three-story ceilings are reached by massive bookshelves with upstairs hallways for reaching those high books. The flowers were gorgeous and organic and the catered food was delicious from salad to dessert. It's not an inexpensive venue, but it is warm and intimate once you get here. We ran into detours, slow trains, and closed roads so we had our Uber let us out about a 1/4 mile away because we were about to be late. We literally made it in as the ceremony started. Road construction, closed roads, detours, and slow freight trains don't show up on your travel map!

A stunning interior historic space and building. If I were doing research here, I think I'd find it…read morevery enjoyable. Using it as a meeting space wasn't the greatest, since the speakers had power point presentations with lots of writing, and because the seating had to be deep and narrow, it was hard for those in the back. Sound also was splotchy, and the bathrooms are small and at the front, so you have to walk in front of everyone to reach them. As a stop to see something beautiful--it's a must if you're in this city.

Great spot ,Food was delicious and the view was amazing ! Staff tended to every need . Could not…read morehave been a better spot for a gala !

Our experience with A'BULAE was deeply disappointing and marked by a pattern of unprofessionalism,…read morepoor communication, and last-minute chaos that no couple should have to endure on their wedding day. When we initially booked A'BULAE, we were impressed by the concept of an all-inclusive venue with dedicated vendors and day-of support. Unfortunately, what followed was a series of issues that culminated in a wedding day that felt disorganized and unsupported, despite all our planning efforts. 1. Cocktail hour bar service was severely understaffed, with only two bartenders for nearly 200 guests. Long lines led many guests to skip drinks entirely, despite this being a prominently featured and premium service. 2. Event coordination was lacking across the board. Our final updates were never reflected in the event documents. Tables and centerpieces weren't set when we arrived. Our monogram was never displayed. The rehearsal was completely unstructured, and our multiple attempts to hire a day-of coordinator were ignored. 3. Dinner was delayed by over an hour, with numerous guests receiving cold entrées. This disrupted the timeline and detracted from the guest experience. 4. The early access suite was not ready when we arrived, and no staff were present (at least not any that had any idea what was going on) during the hours we paid premium price for. Beverages ordered in advance for the morning were delivered far too late to be enjoyed. 5. Three uninvited individuals gained access to our wedding, ate and drank, and were caught smoking marijuana on the patio. No staff intervened; a family member had to address it. When we raised this afterward, management acknowledged that their security staff had no way to identify or remove uninvited individuals -- raising serious concerns about the purpose and effectiveness of security. In response to our feedback, the General Manager stated that they would use our wedding as a "learning experience" for future events. While perhaps well-intended, this reaction felt dismissive and insufficient given the seriousness of the issues. Even after the wedding, itemized receipts have not been provided, despite repeated requests. After discussing what steps were needed to rectify these grievances, there was yet another administrative error and significant delay, that has put us in a position today - nearly two months later, where we are still waiting on A'BULAE to follow through on promises made in writing. For a venue that promises high-end, all-inclusive coordination, A'BULAE failed to deliver on the most basic expectations. Communication was unreliable throughout the planning process, and the burden of managing key details ultimately fell on us and our families. We would not recommend A'BULAE to other couples.

Although I've been inside this beautiful edifice many times, I've only just used it as an actual…read moretrain station for the first time. Such a grand building looks like it could do with a lot more passenger train traffic than it actually gets. But I love coming here, no matter what the reason! There are two busy multi-state Amtrak lines that pass through here. It is also served by local bus routes (Metro Transit, etc.) and national ones like Megabus and Greyhound. The bus platforms are close to the train platforms and are easy to negotiate, and the light rail station is out on 4th Street directly in front. There is a pickup-dropoff area on Kellogg, one floor down from the main hall, where it's easy to get taxis and rideshares, and there is a Hertz rental car place down there as well. There are some shops and a restaurant! Check out my review of 1881 Eating House on their separate Yelp page, but there is a bike shop, a book shop, a toy train shop, and a travel store to check out. And there are often very lively events going on, especially during the holidays. Even if you just show up to stroll through the building I think you will enjoy your visit. It's such a beautiful building that I'm proud of how well it represents Saint Paul to travelers.

Went to the Union Depot for the Boonion Depot Halloween event. Free event! 10am-2pm…read more Activities: *Inside: trick or treating, coloring, drawing, face painting, balloon making, exploring the stores in the depot, DJ dance party/games, game area: connect 4, jenga, chess, checkers, pictures with princesses, spider man and other characters. *Outside: riding a small train, looking at construction equipment, playground across the street Concessions available- coffee, chips, pastries, hot dogs, drinks and more- plus they are affordable! Parking: $ ramps available, paid metered street parking Stores: book store, train store, 1881 restaurant is inside the Union Depot. It's so cute and a cool vibe!

We hosted our cocktail style Wedding Reception here in June and felt it was woefully mismanaged…read morefrom start to finish. We booked all three rooms back in Fall of '23 and paid our deposit and were excited to get planning come May this year. We got to a month before the event and hadn't heard anything from the Event Coordinator regarding current menu, bar, timing, anything. Three weeks prior to the event we reached out and heard nothing for a week. Two weeks out we followed up and found out the Event Coordinator had changed from the one we booked with and the new one was out for an indeterminate period of time with a family emergency. We worked as best we could with the Event Captain but ended up with incorrect menus and pricing and were finally told the Event Coordinator would be back the Monday of our event week and it would be handled then. We got finalized menus and pricing 36 hours before our event. This was extremely stressful, however, we empathized with the Event Coordinator and were assured the event itself would be great. On the day, we arrived and the staff setting up was unsure how many chairs we wanted. They didn't know which equipment we had paid for to use that needed to be set up. They didn't know what the event was for. They were all very nice and let us know they had extremely limited information about our event which was very concerning for us. The Event Coordinator was present for about 5 mins to ask us about a backup wine if ours ran out and that was it (it did run out because there was only one bottle). There was no Event Captain, and the Coordinator was not on hand and (according to staff) unreachable during the event. We had agreed upon several things including a finite amount to pay for "open bar" and then switching to card after that point and we found out only AFTER we met our minimum that they were never told/weren't prepared to take cards. At that point, our options were no drinks (N/A or otherwise) for the last 3 hours or so of our event or we could just keep paying. So we ended up paying much more than was quoted/agreed upon due to lack of communication/oversight. We were told that guests could visit the attached Blue Stem bar, but it closed two hours before our event ended. We also had guests with dietary preferences/restrictions and had ordered vegan options and gluten free cake. We had asked if these could be explicitly labeled to avoid confusion and were told "yes" and on the day it did not happen so many of our guests were unaware there was anything they could eat at our reception. We were also told we could take our leftovers home and we only got cake when there was a lot of food left when they took it away. The sternos were out for some period of time and we couldn't find someone to help with that. The bar was left unattended. The bartenders were serving and refilling alcohol table to table (which we did not want or ask for), and did not pass appetizers as agreed upon. We reached out to the owner, twice, following our event to discuss our concerns to no avail. We LOVE French Meadow and are just heartbroken to have had this experience with them. Posting this (very lengthy) review in hopes no one else goes through this expensive disappointment.

We were married and hosted a reception for twenty two guests in the Nord Room/French Meadow Bakery…read more& Cafe. It was so fabulous and we cannot say enough positive things about our experience! All of French Meadow's staff were so lovely to work with. Briana and the entire catering group were so helpful from Day 1. As most wedding couples do, we had a lot of questions about logistics and planning. They answered every one of our questions in a timely manner and were thorough in coordinating all of the details of our special day. The day of our wedding, everyone there was immensely helpful and went out of their way to make us feel comfortable. We truly owe them the world for making our wedding day so special! The room is perfect. We added floral centerpieces, but the room itself was setup exactly how we wanted, the chairs outside were moved once for our ceremony and then again for our first dance. The lighting both inside and out was more than we could have imagined. We were able to play our own music (a friend just had to manage the playlist), which was super easy! The FOOD, OH MY GOSH THE FOOD! So superb, we got so many compliments from our friends and family about how wonderful the food was. We got to choose 4 food options for our guests and only heard wonderful things about each entree. The cake was also super wonderful and delicious. We would recommend the Nord Room to anyone looking for an intimate wedding location. It was such an easy day (seriously, nothing went wrong!) and we couldn't have asked for a better staff or location. We had a beautiful day and we owe much of that to the wonderful folks at French Meadow!

We hosted Thanksgiving here with 30 people and it was FANTASTIC! All my guests said how beautiful…read morethe space was....how spacious yet cozy. We watched the game....no problem. Setting up the food was easy...plenty of space for people to sit and eat but room for the kids to play and chill. Def will rent the space again. For sure a community gem!

We attend an event at the Meeting Point and then used them for our event. This is an amazing space,…read moreand everyone loved it. It is warm and inviting. The owner is amazing to work with and made us feel like our event was her event. I would recommend Meeting Point to anyone who may need a place for an event. Our event was small baby shower but didn't feel lost. Everything about this space is amazing. You can feel the love and details that went into making this a great space for anything you need.