From its service counter to its pool tables, Michael Born began navigating the contours of his father’s Rice Street dive bar when he was just two years old. Over the decades, Born’s Bar drew its share of politicians and boxers, “celebrities, CEOs, bankers, people from every trade … bikers, gangsters, mafiosos and everyone in between, from the street to the top,” wrote Born, in an online eulogy of sorts for the watering hole his father made famous throughout the neighborhood.
A Rice Street institution in St. Paul, Born’s Bar is seen on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. Opened by the family in 1972, the bar closed on Feb. 12, a day after the bar’s liquor license was revoked in response to an unpaid tax balance owed to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
“Over the years I’ve met them all,” wrote Michael Born, 56. “Such a wonderful experience. I’m so fortunate to have that and I love each and every one of you.”
Jerry Born, who opened the bar with his twin brother Jimmy in 1972, died in May 2018 at the age of 75 following a battle with ALS. Michael Born continued in his father’s footsteps as long as he could, before pouring the establishment’s last drink earlier this month.
On Feb. 11, the St. Paul City Council voted to direct the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections to revoke the bar’s liquor license in response to an unpaid tax balance owed to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. Born’s Bar, located at 899 Rice St., closed the next day.
Reached by phone this week, Michael Born said he had started a new job and would hold off on comment before speaking with the former bar manager.
The location has weathered other troubles. Last August, a 45-year-old woman and her 17-year-old son were charged with shooting a Roseville woman in the shoulder and stomach just outside the bar the previous June. Last September, a Ramsey County jury found 43-year-old Edward G. Robinson guilty for his role in the group robbery of another man who was shot outside the bar in late 2024. The victim died nearly a month later, and prosecutors charged a bartender — who had a son in common with Robinson — with aiding the offender after the fact. She was fired from the bar.
Other fatal shootings took place outside Born’s Bar in 2018, 2017 and 2011.
In a lengthy Facebook post on the bar’s last day in operation, Michael Born thanked customers, cooks, DJs, bouncers, bartenders, managers and other vendors and staffers, naming more than 30 people individually for their contributions to his family’s namesake establishment.
“The amount of people that have reached out to me in the last 48 hours is nothing short of amazing,” he wrote. “This is such an emotional time, we’ve put our blood sweat and tears into this bar.”
He also promised better days ahead, without elaboration.
“We are not going anywhere,” Born wrote. “We will be back and better than ever!!!!! Rice Street strong!!!!”
Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.
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