Nibs Martin had a problem. He owned a bar at 35th Street and Cedar Avenue in South Minneapolis—a two-story building on the southwest corner, dating to 1914. It had been a store and a dentist’s office, but sometime in the 1940s, Martin turned it into a bar, with a small griddle and deep fryer by the entrance. The problem in post-Prohibition Minneapolis was that city fathers were not big on neighborhood drinking. Bars could only sell low-alcohol 3.2% beer, which required too many trips to the bathroom for the desired effect.
Nibs decided to open a joint at 26th Avenue and 26th Street (known colloquially as “the hub of hell” for its density of sin establishments), where he could purvey real beer, booze, and entertainment. He sold the tavern on Cedar to his bartender, Matt Bristol, in 1954. Bristol changed the name from Nibs to Matt’s and ran the place for 36 years.
Early on, a customer asked for a burger with the cheese placed inside two patties. Bristol obliged. Biting into the thing, the diner exclaimed, “that’s one juicy Lucy!” Not long after, the gimmick made it on the bar’s tiny menu for 65 cents (today, $10.50). Spoiler: It’s no longer a gimmick…