Moby Dick's (Legendary Minneapolis Dive Bar/Replica Souvenir Tee)

Moby Dick’s — Minneapolis Vintage Bar Tee

Moby Dick’s was one of those bars that could probably only have existed in the old downtown Minneapolis.

Opened in 1971 at 620 Hennepin Avenue, Moby’s took over the former 620 Club on the notorious Block E stretch of downtown. The original idea was apparently to create a youthful, “San Francisco-type” atmosphere. What it became was considerably more interesting.

Moby’s developed a reputation for attracting everybody—Black and white, gay and straight, rich and broke, musicians, hustlers, office workers, Vietnam vets, tourists, pool players, and assorted people who had absolutely nowhere else they needed to be. Former patrons have remembered it as one of the most genuinely integrated bars in the Twin Cities.

By the mid-’70s, Moby’s had even added a disco in the back, bringing dancing into an already wonderfully chaotic mix. It sat along a stretch of Hennepin where gay bars, adult theaters, punk spaces, dive bars, and late-night street life all existed within a few blocks of one another.

By the 1980s, its reputation had gotten considerably rougher. Moby’s became practically synonymous with the seedier side of Block E—cheap drinks, fights, hustlers, drugs, and enough legendary stories that separating fact from mythology is part of the fun.

The city eventually decided Block E needed to be cleaned up and redeveloped. Moby Dick’s closed for good in October 1988, and the buildings along that side of Hennepin were demolished. One of downtown Minneapolis’s strangest gathering places disappeared with them.