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Surrounded by top headlines covering more than a century of news stories, The News Room is as much an archive as it is a restaurant in the heart of Minneapolis.

There's plenty to capture the eye at The News Room.

I can’t leave behind our trip to Minneapolis without a post about The News Room.

This is the most unique restaurant I’ve ever visited. It was a couple of blocks from The Hyatt Regency, where we stayed and we had to pass it on our walk to the light rail line.

Our little crew humored me and agreed we needed to enjoy a meal there. Meanwhile, Brian and I speculated on the restaurant’s roots. We guessed that it was surely once the site of a real newspaper, reinvented as a restaurant.

The top of the building has a newsboy and the restaurant's name wraps in a striking fashion. I wondered if the interior would contain décor somehow representing the newspaper industry. Or if the menu offerings would boast clever print-journalism terms for the offerings.

As soon as we walked through the front door for an early lunch, I was in awe! Copies of newspapers were framed and also upsized into wallcoverings throughout the restaurant with screaming headlines of the top news stories of the past century.

Theme areas included sports, hard news and entertainment. Coordinating newspapers appeared in those areas. For example, the bar area had an enlarged newspaper headline and story announcing the end of prohibition. The ladies room’s dominant headline and story is from Variety proclaiming that “Women get the vote.”

Overhead were a variety of TVs with live news and sports programs, providing a current news feed overlaying the historic print ones.

We learned that the building itself has nothing to do with a real newspaper. The one-of-a-kind restaurant was simply the creative concept of the owner and it’s been around for a dozen years in the heart of downtown Minneapolis at 990 Nicollet Mall at 10th Street.

Even though I wandered around and took photos and asked questions of the good-natured staff (having ink in my blood and all) my dining partners were there for a meal, not a habitat experience, so we ordered and enjoyed our food.

I had a California turkey and avocado panini. The guys had clubs. I’m drawing a blank on what Allison had but we all agreed it was a great stop on our journey. We ordered from menus designed to look like late-breaking Extra! editions.

The server said sometimes people call The News Room with news tips. We didn’t have a news tip but we left her a nice one.

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