Claire Rosinkranz Fine Line Minneapolis

Fine Line Music Café is a club located in the heart of the Warehouse District in downtown Minneapolis. The venue is located at the main level of the Consortium building, a historic site. The club’s original owner was Ruth Whitney, who worked for two years to build her first-class nightclub vision. The mission behind the club’s inception was to present top-quality local and national musical acts every night for the entire week.

During its first months, Fine Line Music Café featured many well-known performers such as Edie Brickel, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Cowboy Junkies, Indigo Girls, and Sheila E. Even Prince has been spotted listening and playing at the Fine Line Music Café. Soon the venue was famous as “The Premier Music Club in Town.” The club introduced an award-winning Sunday Gospel Brunch, the first of its kind in the Twin Cities area. Sheryl Crow performed at the club for the movie release of Dill Scallion on October 7, 1999.

Fine Line Music Café had to be gutted on February 17, 2003, due to a pyrotechnics accident that lit the club’s ceiling on fire. Thankfully, everyone made it out safely, but the club sustained tremendous amounts of smoke, along with water and fire damage. The club was reconstructed within five months. Over the past 25 years, the venue has witnessed thousands of nationally and regionally known acts such as The Neville Brothers, Amos Lee, Raphael Saadiq, and Lady Gaga.