A new sober bar — one of few establishments in the Twin Cities dedicated solely to non-alcoholic beverages — is now open on St. Paul’s East Side, with proceeds going toward youth wellness programs.

The bar, called Club Throw Down, is open from 7 to 11:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, with drinks created by SIPS Drinkz, a local beverage company run by Danyelle Powell.

Even though no alcohol is served, the bar is still ages 21 and up. It’s an adult space, just a redefined one, founder Felicia Henderson said.

Felicia Henderson smiles in a 2020 headshot. Henderson is a yoni steam practitioner and reiki master in St. Paul. (Photo courtesy Felicia Henderson)

“I don’t drink — but I like to have fun, I like to feel free, I like to hear loud music,” Henderson said. “And I’m corny, so it’s going to be stuff the rest of the world might think is corny, but it’s going to be fun as hell.”

On the schedule: Dance nights, live music and open mics, karaoke every Saturday.

The small space is adorned simply with floral decor and gold accents — a compromise for Henderson, who can usually be seen sipping from a yellow mug or pulling her yellow keychain or yellow iPhone from her yellow purse. Friends had talked her out of making the sober bar yellow, too, so gold felt like a good and perhaps sneaky workaround, she joked.

As non-alcoholic drinks grow in popularity, more producers and restaurants are offering options for customers who are sober or prefer not to drink. Local breweries are creating great N/A options, and bottle shops like Marigold and Zero Proof Beverage House are opening up around the Twin Cities. And while a variety of restaurants serve N/A options, just a few — including vegan cafe Hi Flora! in Minneapolis and now Club Throw Down — are fully dry.

‘Every aspect of what it takes to live a better life’

The building that houses Club Throw Down is home to a variety of Henderson’s other initiatives, too, primarily Yoni Treats Wellness Center.

There, she offers a variety of alternative treatments including yoni steam, a practice sometimes called vaginal steaming; reiki, a type of energy healing; and other herbal detoxification remedies. Henderson is a reiki master, a certification that requires several levels of training.

A “resource tree” inside the Yoni Treats Wellness Center on St. Paul’s East Side, shown on March 19, 2024, helps connect visitors to wellness practitioners. The center is owned by Felicia Henderson, a yoni steam provider and reiki master. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)

Other wellness practitioners work in the building, too, and Henderson has created a “resource tree” to help visitors find providers who meet their needs.

Another part of the building is dedicated to a teen safe haven and the relatively new Restoring Humanity Resource Center, where Henderson offers support, mental health and past trauma counseling and necessities including clothing to local teens. Funds from Club Throw Down go to support this work, she said.

To Henderson, the sober bar is a natural match with the rest of her wellness practice.

“The goal is to create a full-functioning healing space where we can have every aspect of what it takes to live a better life,” she said.

Much of Henderson’s work is informed by her efforts to address her own physical and mental health challenges.

She experienced abuse as a child, she said, and is a suicide attempt and self-harm survivor. When she was growing up in Chicago, therapy wasn’t presented as an option, she said. A tattoo across her collarbone reads, “My story isn’t over yet.”

Within a short time span about five years ago, she developed cervical cancer and had an ectopic pregnancy, and surgeons removed the right half of her reproductive system, she said. She has also been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. But when doctors recommended a hysterectomy and said she would be unable to have more children, she became concerned that surgery alone wasn’t sufficient to build more holistic wellness.

So she declined the procedure and discovered yoni steam, she said, and within a year, became pregnant again and safely delivered a healthy baby, her third of four children. Through various wellness practices, she has also been able to manage her panic attacks and reduce medications for mental health, she said.

“Everything I’m doing stems from a part of my journey of healing,” she said. “I have survived all that to be able to help other people overcome their trauma, too, in the ways I learned to do it for myself.”

People often remark to Henderson that she keeps herself busy, she said, and it’s true: She birdwatches every morning. She runs several parallel wellness businesses, with two toddlers at home. She gives her personal phone number to the youth in her orbit. She saw a need, and within the past couple months or so, created a sober bar from scratch to fill the gap.

“If we’re going to gripe about something, we might as well do something about it,” she said. “There’s no point in complaining or seeing an issue with things that we’re not willing to be a part of changing.”

Club Throw Down: 1440 Arcade St., Suite A, or search “Club Throw Down Sober Bar” on Facebook

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The family of Yia Xiong, speaking publicly for the first time since prosecutors announced they won’t charge the St. Paul police officer who fatally shot him, said they are “devastated, angry and confused” by the decision.

“But in his memory, I hope that St. Paul can learn from this,” said his daughter, Mai Tong Xiong, who called for policy changes for police at a Wednesday press conference.

Xiong, 65, was partially deaf and didn’t speak English, his family has said.

Yia Xiong in his Vietnam War uniform (Courtesy photo)

He was advancing toward officers with a 12-inch knife on Feb. 11, 2023, when Officer Abdirahman Dahir shot him, according to a summary of the investigation from the Ramsey County attorney’s and Minnesota Attorney General’s offices released March 20.

Officers were responding to 911 calls at the apartment building where Xiong lived in the 100 block of South Western Avenue near West Seventh Street. The prosecutors said Dahir and other officers “had no objective reason to believe that Mr. Xiong did not understand the multiple orders given to him by officers to ‘stop’ and ‘drop the knife.’”

Xiong’s family said he lost his hearing in one ear from serving in the Secret War in Laos, a time when Hmong generals fought alongside the U.S in the Vietnam War.

“As a refugee family, we sought refuge in this country with the hope of finding safety and a promise of justice and dignity,” said Mai Tong Xiong. “… It is painful that a veteran who … once fought for the principles this country stands for would fall victim to the very system meant to protect him.”

The Justice for Yia Xiong Coalition is demanding that officials release all data in the case, including unredacted body camera footage. The police department released footage of the encounter soon after Xiong was shot. A spokesperson for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which investigated, said last week that it would begin preparing all materials from the case file for public release as allowed by state law.

The coalition is also calling for Police Chief Axel Henry, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and their staff to meet with the community for discussions about policy changes to prevent future deadly force incidents, especially with people with limited English skills or with disabilities. Three St. Paul City Council members on Friday issued a letter about similar policy changes.

In a Friday statement from Mayor Melvin Carter and Henry, they said: “As the men and women of the St. Paul Police Department stand up to respond to dangerous and dynamic situations on all of our behalf, we remain committed to the deep work of healing from this specific incident, and partnering with law enforcement and community partners alike to reduce encounters such as these, which place both public and officer safety at risk.”

Mai Tong Xiong, who lives in Wisconsin, said it now pains her to come to St. Paul. Yia Xiong “was a great father, a loving grandfather” and had been married for more than 40 years, his daughter said.

“I miss my father every day,” she said. “… I miss his video calls to my children. …They ask about their grandfather every day.”

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By Taryn Phaneuf | NerdWallet

It wouldn’t be Easter without colorful eggs and chocolate bunnies. But threats to the supply of these holiday essentials are pushing prices up at a time when shoppers are worn out by years of high inflation.

Here’s a look at why inflation is having an outsized impact on your Easter basket.

Cocoa prices soar with no relief in sight

Chocolate prices have risen nearly 38% since 2020, the year before inflation started heating up, according to NielsenIQ market research data provided to NerdWallet. Recently, price hikes have stemmed from the soaring cost of chocolate’s key ingredient: cocoa.

A series of bad weather events, as well as disease, have devastated cocoa crops in West Africa, where about 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown. As a result, cocoa prices are at record highs.

So far, there aren’t any signs of cocoa prices turning a corner, says Billy Roberts, food and beverage economist with CoBank, a Colorado-based lender specializing in agriculture. Initial reports on next season’s harvest — which occurs in late summer and early fall — aren’t as optimistic as the industry hoped. Until crop yields improve, cocoa prices will likely stay high.

Roberts says chocolate makers have realized ever-higher chocolate prices aren’t sustainable. While shoppers spent more money on chocolate in each of the past two years, they did so while buying less of it, according to NielsenIQ data.

But that doesn’t mean prices will come down. Instead, Roberts says, packages will shrink. “It’s not necessarily that they’re trying to fool the consumer, but they’re trying to deliver a product at a price point that consumers are comfortable paying.”

Egg prices have increased 47% since August

While chocolate might be an indulgent purchase by grocery shoppers, eggs are a staple. So, even when it isn’t Easter, consumers tend to watch egg prices closely, says Brian Earnest, an animal protein economist with CoBank.

“People know the last dozen eggs, what it cost them, just like they remember the last time they filled up the gas tank,” Earnest says.

Just like with gas prices in recent years, there’s been a lot to watch. The average cost of a dozen Grade A large eggs was $2.02 around Easter 2020, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, retrieved from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ FRED site, a 38% jump from January of that year. That short-lived spike was brought on by sudden changes in consumer demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Easter 2021, the average price of a dozen eggs was $1.62. The next year, it jumped to $2.52, and prices continued to skyrocket through 2023.

Eggs have been expensive the past two years primarily because of a highly contagious and deadly avian flu that has wreaked havoc on the U.S. egg supply. The virus is the main reason U.S. consumers saw the average price of a dozen eggs more than doubled between January 2022 and January 2023, when it peaked at $4.82.

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Prices descended to an average of $3.27 per dozen around Easter last year and continued that way until the fall. That was partly owed to the fact that egg producers weren’t seeing new cases of bird flu and had an opportunity to rebuild their flocks. But farmers reported a new outbreak in November.

Over the past six months, egg prices have marched upward. In February, the average cost of a dozen eggs was $3 — 47% higher than the August price of $2.04.

Earnest doesn’t expect this outbreak to push prices as high as they were in 2022 and 2023, in part because chicken farmers have made changes to better protect their flocks. But now it’s spring again, and that brings more than the Easter bunny to chicken farms. Migratory birds, which have caused outbreaks of avian flu by spreading the deadly virus to stock animals, are a threat once again as they fly north.

Despite fewer new cases of bird flu in recent weeks, “we’re still in a period of seasonally higher risk to the flocks,” Earnest says.

 

The article Egg and Chocolate Prices Are Hopping — Just in Time for Easter originally appeared on NerdWallet.