The Superior Dollar Goes So Much Further

Your typical bar tab at the Anchor.

Breakfast at the Minneapolis cafe nearest my home there.

"I've never made as much money in Superior as I did in Minneapolis.  But in Superior I never felt poor and in Minneapolis I never felt like I was doing well," said a friend of mine before I moved here.  And while not everything is cheaper here, that dynamic is generally true.

The first photo is from a night out at the Anchor, and in Minneapolis any one of those things - a burger, a 34-ounce beer, or a double shot of Bushmill's - would easily run $13.50.  The local diner nearest my longtime north Minneapolis abode will run $16 before a tip for breakfast and a coffee.  Three blocks from my Superior home, Pizza Man has $5 breakfasts from Monday through Thursday. You can get steak and eggs for a fiver (MUCH BETTER steak and eggs than you'd think five bucks would bring) and that includes a bottomless cup of joe.

In fact, most restaurants around seem to have deals on various nights.  Grizzly's has two-for-one burgers on occasion, so even though you won't get Anchor prices there, you can bring a friend and time it right to get the same effect.  Keyport has incredibly cheap tacos on Monday night (my trivia team there consistently places a proud second).  If one put these deals from bars and restaurants on a calendar, you could strategically eat and drink on the cheap on virtually every day of the month.

Here is my unofficial tally of what's generally cheaper and what is sometimes more expensive in Suptown vs. Minneapolis, with a bit of a culture shock at the end about one area that is so much better here...

The New Guy in Suptown

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man at the Anchor, in possession of a good burger must be in want of a beer.  And that's how my time in Superior begins.

I spent the first twenty-ish years of my life in Upper Michigan, going to college below the bridge with Trolls.  Then the next nineteen years were in the Twin Cities.  So I'm no stranger to Wisconsin, even spending two summers working in a small Northwoods town called Sayner.  Still, Suptown has its surprises and this blog is dedicated to revealing and understanding what those are.  Even this blog title is borne of a missed attempt at pronunciation.  I'd read the word Suptown before, but assumed it was pronounced "S'up-town."  Nope, "Soup-town" it is.  But I had already decided on the name and reserved the title with Godaddy, so here we are.

Or take this whole alternating parking habit.  It's second nature to everyone here, but that first Sunday switch was disorienting.  Luckily all my neighbors came over at least twice to knock on my door and remind me.  Some newcomers get a pie as a housewarming gift; up here they make sure you don't get a parking ticket.  I like that better.

Also, I don't know if you all realize this, but Superior has an abundance of good, cheap burgers.  Like, this is not normal, people.  Just about every bar or restaurant I've been in has a $5 burger option that a Minneapolis restaurant could get away with charging triple for.

But after my initiation at the Anchor, my next order of business was finding a place to live.  The home I chose is in the BOB neighborhood, which people tell me is supposed to be blighted.  But compared to my corner of Minneapolis...