while we're talking the mpls music scene, a friendly reminder that the owners of icehouse are verbally and emotionally abusive, especially toward their black/female staff and regularly had issues paying their employees

when live shows come back, if you want to play in uptown i encourage y'all to go to mortimers instead

watching people defend this place for so long has been so fucking hard. i had coworkers constantly coming to me that brian or chef was berating them until they cried or that their checks kept bouncing and not once has anyone ever gotten an apology - JK only the white men got them

there was rarely enough cash in the safe to pay us our tips, which was super fun when it was rent weekend and the cash owed to us was just an "IOU"

it was also super fun watching the owners get WASTED in the middle of a dinner shift snd then have to tiptoe around them becsuse they would start finding any reason to say or scream some nasty shit at you

when i finally left, my mental health was in shambles and my substance abuse had skyrocketed. most of us could not get through a shift without drinking, management included, because the owners were that volatile and the environment was that negstive

ever wonder why the staf is majority white/male? the women are treated so blatantly different and worse and employees of color are chased out by mistreatment and abuse. i witnessed so many people come in all excited just to be talked to snd treated like they were nothing

people who know me in person know just how badly that place affected not only my mental health, but also my self-worth. you ever been there and felt like the vibe was bad or weird? it's because the employees were fucking underpaid and miserable

remember the controversy with james buckley? ever wonder why the DADDY shows don't play there anymore? if you're a woman, lgbtq, or black/poc, so you feel safe there? have any concerns you have actually been addressed? there's a reason.

*DO you feel safe*

i recently spoke with one of the black women who opened the place and she said, and i quote,

"I’ve never been harassed or treated that way before or after my time there."

and also

"He’s perfectly okay making money off of black people but treats them with zero respect"