Downtime is situated on the University of Minnesota campus in the same building as a student bookstore. It’s a bar with a few tables and a stage for live music and feels like a place you’d only find fried bar food. I never thought to check it out until Kyle, who works at the University, told me I needed to stop by to try the pizza. Surprisingly, there’s wood-fired oven here and as I found out, the pizza is much better than one might expect.
I sat at the bar and ordered a Guinness thinking it was on tap but she pulled a special can out of the fridge and put it in the machine in front of me, the “Guinness Surger,” which uses “ultra-sonic” powers to simulate Guinness from a tap. It still tasted like Guinness to me, for what that’s worth, but next time I’ll explore some of their taps as they have a few good locals. Ordering is done with a marker and a laminated menu where you fill in boxes. I indicated a small pizza with pepperoni and red sauce.
The pizza took a bit of time to arrive — I think they had to get the oven heated up just for me. This pizza was thin crust but nicely charred on the bottom and crispy. The edges were airy. As it’s the midwest, there is a lot of cheese and grease here but it isn’t overboard. The pepperoni was quite flavorful too. It’s wood-fired Midwestern if there is such a thing and is far better than your regular bar pizza. Students must know how great this is already but if you’re not at the U, it’s worth a trip to the campus to try this. As far as I’m concerned, it’s far better than the insanely popular Mesa Pizza by the Slice a couple blocks away.
I’ll be back soon.
Downtime Bar & Grill
1501 SE University Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612-379-1224
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I can honestly say, the only reason I ever consistently returned to Mesa (other than the always novelty pizza selections and quirky employees) was the Avocado Delight pizza. Black beans, tomatoes, avocado, green chiles, feta cheese, popped in the oven and doused in hot sauce — man, that was a good combo.