There is an old saying: “the plural of anecdote is not data.” I have never felt comfortable with it, after all, the data on employment, for example, does reflect individual jobs created and people hired to do them. But, at the same time, anecdote cannot be a substitute for data.
I have written occasionally of individual businesses, usually bars or restaurants, closing in the Twin Cities, but do these anecdotes illustrate a wider phenomenon? What do the data say? Thankfully, WCCO’s Jeff Wagner has written a piece titled “Is the Twin Cities restaurant scene in crisis?” in which he provides solid data indicating that there is certainly a problem.
Noting some “recent, big-name restaurant closures in Minneapolis,” Wagner asks “is the perception that times are tough actually the reality? Or have the headlines about restaurant closures exaggerated the normal cycle of businesses coming and going?” As I’ve noted before, “[i]n any healthy economy, there will always be some businesses going out of business, but they will be replaced by others coming into business.” Which number is greater? “[W]e asked the city of Minneapolis to send us records of restaurant licenses going back to 2017,” Wagner notes. The results are shown in Figure 1. The data for 2025 only runs up to July, but if we compare 2024 to 2019, the pre-Covid-19 peak, we see a decline of 8.7% in restaurant licenses in Minneapolis. Even more concerning, perhaps, is the decline of 4.2% since 2022, the post-Covid-19 peak.
Figure 1: Total restaurant licenses in Minneapolis
Figure 2 uses the data on renewals and new restaurant licenses to see whether this decline is being driven by a slowing of new openings or an acceleration of closings. We see that new licenses have been issued at a reasonable rate in recent years, at least compared to other years. Again, the data for 2025 only run to July. Rather, it is a decline in renewals which has driven the decline in Figure 1, down 5.7% from the post-Covid-19 peak in 2022.
Figure 2: Total restaurant license renewals and new licenses issued in Minneapolis
Whether this counts as a “crisis” is somewhat subjective, but it isn’t the story we want to see. It certainly does not suggest the dynamic city economy boosters like Mayor Frey often portray.
