Meet Minneapolis has rolled out a new fam campaign — Minneapolis in 24 Hours — that caps a planner’s time commitment to 24 hours and tailors an experience around his or her personality and interests. Last week, I was hosted by Meet Minneapolis’ Matt Laible and Alicia Schindle to experience the inventive trip (#mpls24) for myself. To get started, you take a fun, quick quiz to determine which of four fam tracks best suits you: Parks to Prada, Muskie to Monet, Four-Star to Stargazing, and Big Games to Household Names.
While I didn’t take the quiz before my arrival, Matt and Alicia showed remarkable insight into my personality by taking me on the Parks to Prada experience, which incorporates two of my favorite activities — walking in the great outdoors and shopping in the great indoors — into a full day’s itinerary. Whichever track a planner goes down, they are sure to discover the many exciting developments taking place in Minneapolis, fueled in part by the city’s preparations to host the Super Bowl in 2018. (Look for me to retrace my steps in our January issue.)
As it turns out, Parks to Prada not only indulged my personal tastes, it took me on a fond trip down memory lane. The fam is supposed to start off with a sumptuous breakfast served family-style on the terrace of Basil’s Restaurant, located on the third floor of the Marquette Hotel and overlooking Crystal Court in the IDS Center. To accommodate my late-morning arrival however, Matt and Alicia reversed the order so that my breakfast topped off my visit before I headed for home.
The fabulous spread — featuring locally grown and sourced breakfast items including buckwheat lefsa, smoked steelhead trout, a green tea and citrus smoothie, creamy wild-rice porridge, and sunflower butter which I spread over 7-grain toast (and was tempted to wrap in my napkin and take home) — would have been memorable enough. But I was also seated where Mary Tyler Moore was filmed as part of opening credits for her TV show set in Minneapolis, which I watched faithfully during the ’70s. As Alicia played the video for me on her iPad, I was transported back to my teen years. Excellent meals, a brisk walk along the Mississippi River, stops at trendy shops, some sightseeing, a few venue site visits — plus an emotional connection. All in a day’s fam.