Downtown Minneapolis just got more flavorful. At the end of April, the creative brand Flavor World hosted its grand opening at their new headquarters located in the Harmon Place historic district, near Loring Park. The new storefront serves as a community art space for local creatives to connect.
Drew Kinkade founded Flavor World, which began as a clothing brand, while attending college in 2018. Eventually, the brand became too hard to juggle with his studies, so he decided to pursue Flavor World full time. Throughout the years, Kinkade and his team have expanded the brand, which now offers screen-printing services, publishes a magazine, and hosts events, among many other things, to build community in the Twin Cities.
“I feel like the Minneapolis and St. Paul art scenes, they’re kind of like a web,” Kinkade says. “And we kind of entered the web and got excited and bounced all around the web and tried to do as much of the art world as we could.”
The opening of the new space marks the beginning of a new chapter for the brand. As one of five recipients of the Vibrant Storefronts initiative, the city-funded award offers two years of rent subsidization in a previously vacant downtown storefront. Kinkade’s excited to be a part of a creative cluster that’ll help bring people downtown.
“We’ve always been confident in ourselves and what we’re doing, but something like this, something like having the City of Minneapolis kind of backing you and putting their faith in you, it really just adds that extra bit of confidence that we’re doing something good here,” Kinkade says.
Before opening the new headquarters, Flavor World operated at a private workspace located in south Minneapolis on 41st and Chicago. Kinkade and his team have designed the new headquarters to be a public-facing space. Not only is the new storefront bigger, but the location will help draw more foot traffic.
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Kinkade describes the new headquarters as a “one-stop shop for the art world.” There, Flavor World are hosting a variety of events, from art-related experiences to movie and game nights. The retail portion of the store will sell Flavor World products, as well as merch from other local artists on consignment. In the basement, you’ll find a photo studio and a music studio. Plus, the brand will continue its screen-printing services in the new location.
“We’re really just trying to create this creative services and experiences hub, which, that’s a mouthful,” Kinkade says. “But I think kind of what we’re doing, it’s also a mouthful. A mouthful of flavor.”
It’s been a journey to get the headquarters to the place it is now. If you scroll back on Flavor World’s Instagram, you’ll see videos of the renovation process. The projects to revamp the space included painting the basement floor purple, building a gallery wheelie wall, and giving the bathrooms a much needed makeover. Kinkade found it important to film the process so that the public could be a part of the adventure.
“It was cool to share the experience real time with our community, instead of just kind of closing the curtains and revealing them the finished renovation,” Kinkade says. “Instead, taking them along for the ride so we can all be a part of it together. That’s kind of the Flavor World way.”
Flavor World celebrated its big milestone with the public at its grand opening. The open house gave attendees the opportunity to explore the new space and see all of the projects the team has been working on. A mini art gallery was on display, and some tunes were spun by DJ EA and DJ Lemony.
Despite all of the work going into the grand opening, Flavor World isn’t slowing down any time soon. This summer, Flavor World is hosting events like an art share, open jam sessions at Green Room, and a vendor market at the Loring Park Art Festival in July. And don’t miss out on next years annual arts and music festival Flavor Fest
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