Gen-X music fans seem to be steering the ship for the inaugural Minnesota Yacht Club festival, which announced its lineup Tuesday with such 1990s-era names at the top as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gwen Stefani, Alanis Morissette, the Black Crowes and the Offspring.

The maiden voyage of the nautical-themed festival — paddleboats and the Mississippi riverfront are part of its branding — is scheduled for July 19-20 on Harriet Island across from downtown Saint Paul. Twenty bands will perform on two stages over a Friday and Saturday in the city-owned park.

Smorgie’s, a new restaurant and bar focused on affordable comfort food, opened on Monday across the street from the Xcel Energy Center.

Open daily and serving its full menu until 1 a.m., Smorgie’s will fill a void in late-night dining in Saint Paul.

The restaurant, inside the new Courtyard by Marriot hotel, is also promising two-for-one rail cocktails, house wine and tap beers seven days a week from 3 to 5 p.m. and a brunch with bottomless mimosas on Saturdays and Sundays starting in late February.

Greta Oglesby could sing an instruction manual and make it marvelous, especially if her interpretation is straight out of the gospel tradition in which she grew up. If you’ve caught a production of Penumbra Theatre’s “Black Nativity” in recent years (save 2023, when Oglesby was busy being the Ghost of Christmas Present in the Guthrie’s “A Christmas Carol”), you know how this skilled staple of the Twin Cities theater scene can make a tune her own.

And now she’s trying her hand at storytelling. While St. Paul’s History Theatre typically casts a spotlight on historical events local and national and the figures who set them in motion, it’s currently presenting what amounts to a memoir with music. “Handprints” finds Oglesby recounting her life story, from a Chicago childhood with a preacher father and schoolteacher mother to a college-age awakening and courtship to what’s become a very successful theatrical career.

The Saint Paul Winter Carnival partnered with the Rondo Roundtable on Thursday night to celebrate the first day of Black History Month with the carnival’s second annual Rondo Night.

The downtown Saint Paul event was emceed by Rondo native and Emmy Award-winner T. Mychael Rambo and include local musical performances, small-business booths, entertainment for kids and food from local Caribbean restaurant West Indies Soul.

A 258-unit apartment community across from Mears Park in Saint Paul's historic Lowertown neighborhood has sold.

Golden Valley-based Bigos Management Inc. acquired The Cosmopolitan Apartments, located at 250 E. Sixth St., according to an announcement by JLL, which represented the seller, Boston-based AEW Capital Management.

No purchase price was disclosed, though the property had an estimated market value of about $45 million, as assessed in 2022, according to Ramsey County property records.