The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

What's next, green stamps? With the cost of food and dining going up, and the economy going down, restaurants are scrambling to find new ways of keeping diners coming in the doors. Both Parasole, Inc. and the Twin Cities Originals have recently introduced customer loyalty programs that use member cards to track purchases and reward customers. With the Twin Cities

Be it his folk-blues amiability or his pervasive wide-brimmed hats, Eric Bibb favors Taj Mahal. His voice is less basso and gravelly (more reminiscent of Spearhead's Michael Franti), and his musical palette less diverse and worldly than Mahal's 'round the globe hybrids, but Bibb is the superior songwriter.

The singer Somi, who will be performing at the Dakota tonight and Thursday, is like a cool glass of pink lemonade, a titch more sweet than citrus, yet still refreshingly tart on the tastebuds. Born in Illinois to parents of Rwandan and Ugandan heritage, Somi (actual name L.

I've spent the last year or so lauding the Dakota at every chance I get, but I have to admit that, until this week, I had never just gone there on faith, without first checking to see who was playing. The beauty of the Dakota, though, is its consistency. Go there any night, for any show, and while you might not be as fortunate as I was this past Wednesday, you won't be disappointed.

While I appreciated the long-overdue article on Lowell Pickett and the Dakota ("Planet Pickett," February 2008), I did not like the implication that St. Paul jazz fans won't cross the river. As someone who's been attending Dakota shows since 1988, I don't care if it is in St. Anthony, Sauk Centre, or Staggerford—it is the best jazz club in the Midwest.

A gauntlet of black-and-white portraits of jazz luminaries lines the walls of the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant on the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Nearly all of these musicians have appeared at the Dakota in one of its two incarnations. The trick with this sort of self-promotion-as-interior-decoration is in the execution.

Twenty-eight-year-old identical twins Kate and Carly Beane share similarly striking features—demure brown eyes and hair, high cheek bones, and quick smiles that precede regular bouts of easy, endearing laughter.