Spitz - Minneapolis

East Hennepin and the Art of the Back Bar

Spitz - Minneapolis is a bar in Minneapolis at 518 E Hennepin Ave, with a casual dress code, walk-in-friendly service, a 4.6 Google rating, and a price tier of 2. The stretch of East Hennepin Avenue where Spitz sits belongs to the second category. Northeast Minneapolis, historically a working-class district that drew waves of Eastern European immigrants, has evolved into the city's most consistently interesting corridor for independent food and drink, and East Hennepin carries much of that weight. Walking toward 518, you're already in a neighborhood that rewards attention.

That neighborhood framing matters when you're reading the back bar at Spitz. In a city where craft beer remains the default serious-drinking mode, a spirits-forward program on East Hennepin signals a deliberate positioning decision. The bottles visible from the door are not a generic well-and-call setup. The curation leans toward depth over breadth, the kind of selection that implies someone has thought carefully about what deserves shelf space and what doesn't. For Minneapolis drinkers who track that sort of thing, it registers immediately.

The Spirits Collection and What It Says

The editorial question worth asking about any serious back bar is not how many bottles it has, but what the selection reveals about the program's priorities. At Spitz on East Hennepin, the pattern that emerges is one of selectivity rather than volume. American whiskey programs in Midwestern bars often default to the same recognizable roster of allocated bourbons that appear everywhere from hotel bars to airport lounges. A bar that moves past that default toward less-distributed American craft distilleries, aged agave spirits, or category-spanning selections in rum and brandy is making a different argument about what its guests should be drinking.

In the broader American craft cocktail context, the bars that have built the strongest reputations, places like Kumiko in Chicago, Jewel of the South in New Orleans, or Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu, have built their identities around spirits literacy as much as cocktail technique. The back bar is the argument; the cocktail list is the evidence. Spitz operates in that same tradition, with a selection that positions it well above the neighborhood-bar baseline that dominates much of the surrounding area.

It's worth noting how this compares to the Northeast Minneapolis peer set. Able Seedhouse + Brewery sits at the other end of the serious-drinking spectrum, committed to fermented grain rather than distilled. 112 Eatery runs a wine and cocktail program calibrated to a food-first experience. Spitz occupies a different niche: the bar where the spirits themselves are the primary draw and the cocktail list exists to show them off rather than obscure them.

What the Room Feels Like

East Hennepin bars tend toward exposed brick, reclaimed wood, and the general visual vocabulary of post-industrial neighborhood renovation. What distinguishes the better ones from the generic is whether the physical space creates any genuine atmosphere or simply checks the expected boxes. At Spitz, the address on East Hennepin carries enough neighborhood credibility that the room doesn't need to work hard to establish context. The location is the argument.

The drinking culture on this stretch of Hennepin Avenue is less performative than what you find in the North Loop or Warehouse District bars that target the after-work finance crowd. Regulars tend to be people who know what they want and order it directly. That suits a spirits-focused program: the back bar is most legible to guests who arrive with some knowledge, and the cocktail recommendations that circulate among regulars reflect a preference for drinks that let the base spirit read clearly rather than disappear into sweetness.

Placing Spitz in the Minneapolis Bar Circuit

Minneapolis's serious drinking scene is more geographically dispersed than Chicago's or New York's, which means that bar circuits here tend to span neighborhoods rather than cluster on a single block. A Northeast Minneapolis evening might start on Hennepin and move toward All Saints Restaurant for food, or extend south toward the Warehouse District. Nationally, bars with a comparable spirits emphasis, places like Julep in Houston, ABV in San Francisco, or Superbueno in New York City, demonstrate how a focused spirits program can anchor a neighborhood's drinking identity. The Parlour in Frankfurt shows the same dynamic operating internationally: a well-curated back bar becomes a reference point for the surrounding area.

Within Minneapolis, the 5-8 Club represents the city's comfort-food bar tradition, a deeply different proposition. The breadth of Minneapolis drinking options, detailed in our full Minneapolis restaurants guide, reflects a city that has moved well past the assumption that serious drinking belongs only in downtown hotel bars. East Hennepin is exhibit A for that argument.

Know Before You Go