Delightfully Strange Places in the Twin Cities
Looking for strange places in the Twin Cities to take your seriously curious kid? You’re in luck. Some cities hide their weird. The Twin Cities puts it on a shelf, prices it, and hands you a punch card. From taxidermy shops to artist-built mini golf, the metro rewards the curious and the slightly offbeat. The kid who picks the skull sticker over the puppy will feel right at home. Here are some wonderfully strange places in the Twin Cities worth a detour for anyone hunting oddities, a strange souvenir, or an afternoon somewhere that defies easy explanation.
Odd Mart
2520 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55405
Billed as the “store of the strange,” Odd Mart is a treasure box of underground comix, zines, monster art, vintage oddities, and its own house-brand GLORP Gum. Founder Brad McGinty has turned a small Uptown storefront into a hub for the Twin Cities’ weirder creative talent, with a wall of gumball machines and a back room full of stranger finds. It rewards a slow browse and a curious eye. Definitely earns its spot among strange places in the Twin Cities.
Twelve Vultures
507 E Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55414
Tucked into Northeast, Twelve Vultures is a curiosity shop devoted to natural history and the macabre. Owner Adam DeJarlais fills the space with taxidermy, skulls, specimen jars, steampunk gears, and chandeliers that stretch farther back than you expect. Much of the taxidermy is sourced from Europe, and the shop also runs hands-on workshops like beetle pinning and butterfly preservation. Come for the oddities, stay for the education.
strange places in the twin cities
Twin Cities Reptiles
2363 University Ave W, St. Paul, MN 55114
Part pet store, part free mini-zoo, Twin Cities Reptiles has been the metro’s go-to for scaly, slithery, and many-legged creatures since 1978. Turtles, lizards, snakes, frogs, spiders, and the occasional thing you can’t quite name fill the tanks. Customers return again and again for the staff, who are knowledgeable, patient with beginners, and visibly happy when a kid wants to learn about geckos. The animals are well cared for and healthy, and small touches like reusing takeaway containers for feeders show the same thoughtfulness extends to how the shop runs. Even if you’re not buying, it’s worth a wander to say hello to the shop critters. Bring the kid who’d rather hold a millipede than a kitten.
strange places in the twin cities
Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore
2716 E 31st St, Minneapolis, MN 55406
The oldest independent science fiction bookstore in the country, Uncle Hugo’s has been a haven for genre readers since 1974. After losing its longtime home to fire in 2020, owner Don Blyly rebuilt and reopened in Longfellow, across from Moon Palace Books. New and used sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery line the shelves, with used paperbacks starting at a few dollars. You’ll go in looking for one title, and leave with a stack…speaking from experience.
strange places in the twin cities
Ax-Man Surplus
1639 University Ave W, St. Paul, MN 55104
8134 Minnetonka Blvd, St Louis Park, MN 55426
1021 E Moore Lake Dr, Fridley, MN 55432
Ax-Man is a maker’s fever dream: barrels of gears, tubes, gas masks, mannequin arms, googly eyes, and inexplicable industrial parts, all waiting to become someone’s next weird project. The St. Paul original is the flagship, complete with not-for-sale oddities like a giant telephone and an old iron lung on display. You never quite know what you’ll find, which is the whole point. There are also locations in Fridley and St. Louis Park.
strange places in the twin cities
Can Can Wonderland
755 Prior Ave N, St. Paul, MN 55104
Housed in a former can factory, Can Can Wonderland is an artist-built indoor mini golf course where each of the 18 holes was designed by a different local artist. Add a retro arcade of 125-plus games set to free play, a pour-your-own tap wall, boozy malts, and two stages for live shows, and you have a night out that lands somewhere between art gallery and carnival. Weekends run 21+ after 9 p.m.
strange places in the twin cities
Hunt & Gather
4944 Xerxes Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55410
A creatively curated vintage labyrinth in southwest Minneapolis, Hunt & Gather packs every inch with kitschy antiques, old sign letters, science posters, skulls, coral, and folksy furniture. The storefront alone, crusted with salvaged letters and numbers from long-gone businesses, tells you what you’re in for. Don’t skip the lower level, where the real digging happens.
strange places in the twin cities
The Bakken Museum
3537 Zenith Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55416
Set in a Gothic-Tudor mansion overlooking Bde Maka Ska, The Bakken is a museum about electricity, medicine, and imagination, founded by pacemaker inventor Earl Bakken. Its standout is the Frankenstein’s Laboratory exhibit, an object theater where you peer into the doctor’s lab and watch the creature come to life, a nod to the movie that first inspired Bakken as a boy. Between that, Ben Franklin’s electricity party tricks, and a green-roofed garden, it’s science with a delightfully eerie streak.
strange places in the twin cities
