Hospitality, a word often used yet rarely fully considered in these busy days. However, let’s do it: Hospitality was core to the Old Testament; when strangers are outside, you have a sacred obligation to care and bring them inside. In the New Testament, hospitality was a sacred obligation too; as God has welcomed us to life, and to earth, so must we welcome others. In the Qur’an, hospitality is a key of expressing faith; Rumi, in his poem “The Guest House,” notes that even bad guests are a gift from God, “because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” For the Lakota, a key principle of life is wancantognaka, which is to say sharing and generosity. In Buddhism, monks sometimes are ordered to live on nothing but the gifts from community so that everyone involved may be ennobled by giving and receiving hospitality. That’s hospitality. Yes, it’s keeping water glasses filled, but it’s way bigger, too.
The “hospitality industry” is that essential part of being human, distributed over countless taco stands, 20-course tasting menu counters, banh mi shops, steak houses, pancake-and-bottomless-coffee diners, and all the rest. Ask anyone in hospitality and they’ll tell you there are easier ways to make a buck, but they do it for the love, the camaraderie, and the sense that they’re doing the most human thing of all, giving food and care, and doing what they do well.
Every year, we here at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine anoint the best 50 restaurants in the Twin Cities. This year, with ICE in the streets and so many local spots teetering inside this new instability, naming our leaders in hospitality seems more important than ever. Who’s in here, in our MSP 50 this year? The folk who feed and care for us, the guests, like it’s the most important thing that they could ever do—and we appreciate it, more than ever…