How do you get into Volstead’s Emporium?
Volstead’s Emporium is listed as inside another business. Walk through a working business to reach the bar.
Reservations are taken through Tock. Booking ahead is the surest way in.
What “inside another business” means in practice
A bar reached through a working business is the arrangement Prohibition actually produced. A shopfront that stood up to a glance from the street was the point, and the trade carried on behind it. The modern version keeps the structure and drops the risk: the front is a real business with real customers, and the door at the back is not hidden from anyone who asks. The practical consequence is that the front business’s hours can govern your access, not the bar’s.
The drinks at Volstead’s Emporium
How the venue describes itself: “Minneapolis’s hidden speakeasy bar. Find the red light, step through the secret door, and enjoy craft cocktails, live jazz, comedy, and classic burlesque.” (from its own website, retrieved 9 October 2026)
The current drinks list is published on the venue’s own site — see the menu.
Beyond what the venue publishes we have not verified a list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Adonis, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
Where Volstead’s Emporium sits
Volstead’s Emporium is in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in Hennepin County, in the Midwest of the United States. The city sits inside the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Our directory currently lists two speakeasies and hidden bars in Minneapolis — too few for a city guide of its own yet, so they sit on the Minnesota page until there are more.
Measured from the map pins, the closest of those to Volstead’s Emporium are Speakeasy, about 6.4 km away.
Minnesota holds 23 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our Minnesota speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in Minnesota
Minnesota came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in Minnesota.
What the newspapers recorded in Minneapolis
Searching the Library of Congress run of Minnesota newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from Minneapolis:
- Twin-City herald, April 1, 1933 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Saturday press, November 5, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- Twin-City herald, April 1, 1933 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Saturday press, October 22, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
Hours published by the venue:
- Wednesday, Th 17:00 to midnight
- Friday, Sa 17:00 to 1am
Hours as published on the venue’s own site, retrieved 9 October 2026.
You can reach Volstead’s Emporium by phone on (612) 404-4763, through its own website, and on Instagram and Facebook.
The address is 711 West Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Volstead’s Emporium we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, opening hours, a published drinks list, and an online booking link. We do not yet hold a listed-building record.
It is in the directory because the description in the source data describes an entrance behind another business, describes it as a speakeasy, and describes an unmarked entrance.
OpenStreetMap carries this venue, contributed by a mapper; Overture Maps has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.