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.”
Part of a speakeasy’s appeal has been trying to find it. The entrance to the Farmer’s Cellar is hidden behind a faux beverage cooler at a convenience store in Lakeville. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
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.
Her husband, Aaron Vang, basks in the Prohibition aesthetic. You can almost imagine being a baron who struck it rich in the Roaring ’20s, he said.
