Vendor Alley

Let’s continue with CMLS “After Hours” Part II with a stop at one of Minneapolis’ favorite restaurants…

Murray’s steakhouse has been in Minneapolis since 1946. Home of the “Silver Butterknife Steak” the service and food were fantastic. A lot of people headed over to Manny’s but I think we made the right choice at Murray’s (thanks SMH!), which had a great “old school” vibe. I mean the neon sign outside says “COCKTAIL LOUNGE”, you gotta love that . We need more cocktail lounges in this country!

Our apologies to the couple sitting in the booth next to us, I guess they had heard their limit of f-bombs and had to leave.

What happen after Murray’s cannot be shared is such a public forum. I’ll just say this….off the hook!!!

Let’s jump forward to “The Kissing Room”. It seems a bar called “The Local” had a “kissing room” where some of the attendees of the Council of MLS 2008 conference found refuge.

I’m told there was both “Vendor on Client” action and “Vendor on Vendor” action. After I heard a few of these stories I stopped by to take a look. The room was in the back of the bar and properly labeled with a couple red lamps adorning the inside. What stories those lamps could tell!!

And who could forget the lawn bowling at Brit’s Pub! The weather was perfect and I can’t think of a more original place to throw a party. I never made it down to “the pitch”, at that point of the day I wasn’t too confident with my hand motor skills.

Also one of my favorite places was a tequila bar (go figure!) called “Barrio“. There is nothing like having any tequila you want served any way you want by young female college students that must traverse up a long ladder to the top of the bar to fetch it! Ay Caramba!

I’ve got one more story to tell, I’ll leave that till next time and I might even talk about what happen during the conference (oh really?!)

Well I didn’t do such a good job of any live coverage via VendorAlley.com. I did most of the live coverage via the Vendor Alley twitter account. So I thought I would serialize the recap in two, maybe three parts…

To start off, I didn’t see Prince. I guess the Purple One was out of town. : (

I can say John Mosey and his staff at NorthStarMLS did a great job. The agenda was great, the attendance was great, the Millennium Hotel…..not so much. The food however was fantastic, so compliments to the hotel chef!

The Golf Tournament was hosted by eNeighborhhoods held at North Oaks, a private country club in St. Paul. Fantastic course! Somehow I was paired with two titans of industry Chip Roach of Fox & Roach and Ron Peltier of HomeServices. Freaking Ron Peltier! Rounding out the group was Tom Diffley. Tom was a super nice guy and hosted the awards ceremony and should be a touring comedian.

Who won the golf tournament? - My group….natch! (not a misprint)

Downtown Minneapolis had a cool scene going on. Some people told me that they had really cleaned it up for the Republican Convention. No matter, lots of unique restaurants and bars. The first night I joined John Mosey, and a few others, at Seven. Under the stars and in the shadows of downtown Minneapolis skyscrapers we ate sushi, drank (from drinks served by John Mosey’s daughter, more on her later) and talked around the outdoor fire pit where Kristen Carr held court. I kept repeating in my head…”never go big on the first night…never go big on the first night..never…”

One night I had dinner with the Brian de Schepper and Matt Eide from Tarasoft and two lovely ladies Patti Sesto (now Patti Dauer, Congrats!) of Heartland MLS and Suzanne Harris of OnBoard at Maza.

Muy bueno gourmet Mexican food!

Another night (maybe two) I found myself at Prohibition,

a bar at the 27th floor of the W hotel.

Very cool art deco type of vibe. Cozy atmosphere where tables and chairs were found behind all sorts of corners and spaces.

But that was just the beginning. Come by tomorrow for Part II of CMLS 2008 -”After Hours”. You’ll hear all about lawn bowling, John Mosey’s daughter, the kissing room, and the home of the butterknife steak!