The Beat: Hot coffee and high decibels

by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet • July 3, 2008 • The Daily Planet’s offices are located on Franklin Avenue, in the Seward neighborhood. We take calls there, we have meetings there, and sometimes we even work there. The majority of the work that goes into the Daily Planet, though, is actually done in the Capital City’s Merriam Park neighborhood—where Mary Turck and I both live—at in the cozy confines of The Beat Coffeehouse at 28th and Hennepin. For the past several months I’ve made The Beat a second home between Minneapolis meetings, and it’s proved the perfect spot for getting work done, chugging coffee (made exclusively by French press), and watching Uptown go by.

The space that is now The Beat has gone through many lives—for a time, it was a comedy venue known as the Ha-Ha Club, which hosted acts including Steve Martin, Jay Leno, and Joel Hodgson. It opened as The Beat in April 2007, and it’s steadily gained a neighborhood following for its good joe, copious seating, and amiable staff. It also hosts an adventurous and varied music and performance lineup. The Twin Cities have dozens of coffeehouses featuring live music, but how many of them need to sell earplugs?

Arts Orbit is a multisource blog about the local arts scene, featuring both original contributions by Daily Planet writers and entries reprinted from partner blogs and online publications.

Also worth mentioning is the funky, accomplished, and affordable art on rotating display in The Beat’s back room. An exhibit of very lovely (and slightly disturbing) pieces by Rachel Koniar just ended; now showing work in the space are Gabriel Combs and Hoodies, who also serves as The Beat’s muralist. Describing “amazing technicolor dream hoodie,” one of The Beat’s exterior murals (pictured), Hoodies writes that “I wanted to create a piece that used enough color to effectively burn one’s eyes out.”