Catching Up with Rick Nelson
The retired food critic has built a loyal following on Instagram, often exploring and commenting on local design
Interview by Joel Hoekstra | June 20, 2024
Rick Nelson on the Wise Acre Eatery patio in South Minneapolis. Photo by Chad Holder.
SPOTLIGHT
Rick Nelson retired from the Star Tribune in 2022 after writing several thousand restaurant reviews and food-related articles. While most readers knew him as the paper’s James Beard Award–winning dining critic, they also saw his byline on articles related to dance, architecture, and urban design.
Today, those topics are intermingled with food content on Nelson’s Instagram account (@ricknelsonmn). Below the snapshots of mouthwatering cookies, iconic buildings, and mulch-filled flower beds (more on that later) are crisply written, carefully researched opinions, pleas, and celebrations.
ENTER recently sat down with Nelson to talk about his adventures in social media, his longstanding interest in design, and his deep regard for the late Barbara Flanagan, famed Star Tribune columnist.
When did you start posting regularly on Instagram?
Maybe six or seven years ago. I use it to chronicle my various obsessions—architecture, Minneapolis history, baking, flowers, breakfast sandwiches—and I occasionally treat it as a sort-of diary. Instagram nudges me to think visually, and it’s a helpful writing exercise, because the keep-it-brief word count counteracts my propensity to ramble.
His favorite architect? “Probably Philip Johnson, the creative force behind two of my top-tier happy places: the IDS Center here in Minneapolis and what is now called the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City.” Photo by Chad Holder.
What kinds of posts on your IG get the most comments?
My rants about the state of Nicollet Mall generate a fair amount of commentary, and I really appreciate the input. I’m always surprised by what sparks people’s imaginations. Sometimes it’s a cookie I’ve baked, or a blueberry U-pick farm I’ve visited, or a building I’ve encountered.
When in life did you develop an interest in architecture and urban issues?
This is a nerdacious admission, but when I was a kid, I was a stamp collector, and one of my favorites was a 1969 series that celebrated Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification initiative. They had slogans like “Plant for more beautiful cities” and “Plant for more beautiful streets,” matched with flower- and tree-filled urban scenes. They made an impression. Also, my favorite after-school activity was inhaling Barbara Flanagan’s column in the Minneapolis Star as soon as the newspaper hit our front steps. I read her before I turned to Peanuts.
You have great respect for Barbara Flanagan. Why?
She was my journalism hero. Her interests—livable cities, local history, sidewalk cafés—became my interests. I even share her love of iced tea. We’ll never see another career like hers, especially the way she so effectively managed her powerful bully pulpit.
It was an honor to write her obituary in 2018. My first call was to former Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak, a fellow Barbara enthusiast. He really nailed her legacy when he said, “She inspired, prodded, scolded, and relentlessly made us believe we could take a perfectly good Midwestern city and will it to become the Star of the North.”
“I’m always surprised by what sparks people’s imaginations,” says Nelson. “Sometimes it’s a cookie I’ve baked, or a blueberry U-pick farm I’ve visited, or a building I’ve encountered.” Photo by Chad Holder.
If you ran city hall, what public space would serve as your inspiration for remaking one of your favorite targets, the currently austere Nicollet Mall?
I’d say we don’t have to look far. The plaza outside the Minneapolis Convention Center, which was beautifully reimagined a few years ago by Damon Farber, serves as an excellent role model for Nicollet Mall and its tedious, mulch-covered planting beds. The plaza does a fantastic job of softening its hard edges with a prodigious use of native plant materials. Why can’t the bleakly monochromatic mall be similarly green and blooming?
What are your favorite restaurant interiors, and why?
Owamni [designed by HGA], because it takes full advantage of its historic, one-of-a-kind site. Young Joni [Studio MAI], for its tech-billionaire’s-treehouse aura. Spoon and Stable [Shea], for its timeless, big-city energy. Alma [JDD Studio], because I’ve enjoyed so many happy occasions in that understated, innately Midwestern dining room. Khâluna [Shea], for its gorgeous, tropical resort vibes. And the spectacular, 95-year-old dining room at Naniboujou Lodge near Grand Marais, which an astute writer—alas, not me—once described as a “North Woods answer to the Sistine Chapel.”
If you could time-travel to see a building or space that’s now gone, what would you go see?
The 1890 Metropolitan Building in Minneapolis. Another journalism idol of mine, Larry Millett, characterized its 1962 demolition as “perhaps the most inexcusable act of civic vandalism in the history of Minneapolis.” That assessment has always made me curious about experiencing its wondrous interior.
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