Times are tough. But don’t tell that to a hole in the wall.

A hole in the wall is always hanging on by a thread. Its budget is always lean, its staff always skeletal. This year is no different. If a hole in the wall weren’t too busy saving its own neck day in, day out, it would poke its head out into 2009 and wonder, “What the hell is everyone complaining about?” Life is always hard for a hole in the wall, and it’s hard in return. Some folks call that “character.” For a hole, it’s just a living. That’s why we love them. And that’s why it’s getting harder to put together this guide (and these videos).

Every year for the past three years, we’ve scoured the town for the best holes in the walls. (Hole in the walls? Holes in the wall?) Most holes have been around a long time and, sadly, it’s their nature to close more often than they open. Especially these days. So it feels like we’re running out of hidden gems that our readers didn’t realize they were missing.

But of course we’re not. Cataloging holes is like counting stars: There’s always another one nearby and you’ll never catch them all. This year we surprised ourselves by coming up with dozens of holes we hadn’t covered before (to read our previous lists, I urge you to visit metromag.com). To organize them, we identified our favorite neighborhoods in the metro to find holes. We dug deeper this time around, and got a little dirtier in the process: One café on West Broadway looked promising until a prostitute propositioned us in the parking lot. We left one St. Paul restaurant off the list upon learning that it was the site of a recent multiple homicide; we’re all for exploring the city from every angle, but we draw the line at crime scenes. We also probably left off a hundred businesses that belong on this list. (Let us know about them at letters@metromag.com, or by filling out this newfangled intranet form.)

What is a hole in the wall, exactly? Every year we try to answer that question, an activity that, three years in, has proven impossible and will hereby be abandoned. A hole in the wall is like art and love: It can’t be defined, only experienced, and you’ll know it when it happens. Is that too tall a pedestal to carry something called the Wienery? Does Al’s Liquor really fit in among life’s highest pleasures? Maybe not. Maybe these places don’t really fit in anywhere. Maybe that’s the whole point—that the best stuff never does. All I know is, if there was ever a time to overstate the case for the wee, the hidden, the hardscrabble, it is now.

Just don’t tell that to a hole in the wall.

Click on the streets and intersections along the right column of this page to reveal our favorite wholly hole in the wall clusters from around the metro.   --->

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VIDEO TOURS:

Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis from METRO Magazine on Vimeo.

East Randolph, St. Paul from METRO Magazine on Vimeo.

Central Ave., NE Minneapolis from METRO Magazine on Vimeo.

West Broadway from METRO Magazine on Vimeo.