Business - Dec 2024

Ingebretsen’s Gift Shop Turns 50
This year the Ingebrestsen’s Gift Shop celebrates its 50th birthday. Julie Ingebretsen started running a small counter with just a few imported gifts alongside the well-known Meat Market and Deli in 1974, and has built the store into one of the most respected Nordic import and gift stores in the country. The combination of the traditional food at the deli (opened by Charles Ingebretsen - a Swedish immigrant to the Midwest - in 1921) and imported gifts and home goods for sale makes Ingebretsen’s a source for the local community to find connection with Scandinavian culture.
Ingebretsen’s is one of the last stores still standing from the early 20th century era of “snoose boulevard,” a hub of Scandinavian American activity. The street remains a corridor where immigrant businesses can get their start and contribute to a multicultural fabric of Minneapolis.
Christmas is the time of year that brings the Scandinavians in the Twin Cities out in droves. Beginning after Thanksgiving you will often see a line of shoppers waiting outside Ingebretsen’s to get their Christmas presents and traditional holiday foods.
Julie Ingebretsen said, “My favorite part of my experience has been the feeling of creating something. It took me a long time to figure that out. That’s what I was doing. That was my art basically. That it was a thing that I was making. But now it’s true. Like we together were making something that was a good thing in the world.”
The store has commemorated this milestone with a selection of anniversary merchandise, including a new mug with the famous Ingebretsen’s mural featured and more.
In 1997, Judy Kjenstad painted a two-story mural on the building, modeled after traditional Swedish folk painting styles that serve to tell stories through large scale murals. It speaks to travel, welcoming community and breaking bread together – past present and future. This work has become its own landmark of sorts. It is now the oldest existing mural on Lake Street. This summer, the stucco beneath started to break and after months of road construction, parts of the wall gave way. Thanks to support from Lake Street Council, Kjenstad returned to restore the mural to its original glory (photo at right).
Find more history of the store at
ingebretsens.com/our-anniversary.