bestofmpls.com

What It Is

Best of MPLS is an independent local lifestyle guide focused on Minneapolis and St. Paul’s Twin Cities in the United States. It is not a general review platform, but a city recommendation site curated by local editors, covering restaurants, coffee shops, pizza, cocktail bars, breweries, music venues, art exhibitions, theaters, sports, hotels, neighborhoods, annual festivals, and more.

Core Features

The site is built around “category lists + calendars + maps + scenario-based recommendations.” Users can browse around 44 local categories and more than 500 place listings, and plan trips through entry points such as the map, Near You walking-distance search, This Weekend, Now Showing, Festivals, and First Time weekend guides. It also provides daily weather, sunset times, festival countdowns, weekly horoscopes, and an email newsletter, making it feel more like a city life operating system with a strong editorial taste.

Pricing

The site is free for regular readers. Its business model mainly comes from Featured partner placement for local businesses: top placement on category pages starts at about $200/month/category, with quarterly and seasonal packages negotiable; homepage event partnerships are about $350–500/week. The site clearly states that paid placements will be labeled as Featured, does not guarantee traffic or ranking results, and does not disguise sponsored content.

Pros and Cons

Its strengths are its highly vertical positioning, strong local feel, and editorial judgment, which help it avoid the noise of mass review platforms. Transparent paid placement rules, along with its rejection of third-party tracking, programmatic ads, and paid reviews, also improve credibility. Features like maps, nearby search, and weekend planning make it more than just an article-based site.

Its limitations are that its city coverage is very narrow and only suitable for the Twin Cities context. Since the information relies on manual maintenance, its real-time accuracy and completeness may not match Google Maps or Yelp. The collected content does not appear to include user reviews, an account system, or a multilingual interface, making it less friendly for non-English users.

Who It’s For

Best of MPLS is suitable for Minneapolis/St. Paul residents, short-term visitors, international students, business travelers, and restaurants, bars, theaters, shops, and event organizers seeking precise local exposure.

Access from China

Based on the nature of the site, it is an ordinary local information website, with no apparent login requirement or regulated content, so it is expected to be directly accessible from mainland China. However, maps, external links, email subscriptions, or third-party booking services may be affected by the availability of third-party services.