COVID 5 Years Later Series P5
- Shidonna Raven
- Apr 21
- 2 min read
By Jeremy Olson
MARCH 6, 2025
Source: The Minnesota Star Tribune
Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,
HOW COVID-19 CHANGED MINNESOTANS
A kickboxing nurse, a dancer who hopes to walk again, and a defiant bar owner reflect how the pandemic changed lives in Minnesota.
Infamous protest
Minnesota tried to limit severe COVID by reducing the person-to-person spread of the virus that causes the disease.
Gov. Tim Walz closed schools and businesses like most governors when COVID emerged in spring 2020, and ordered a partial lockdown for four weeks that winter to buy time until a COVID vaccine was available. The state also mandated indoor mask-wearing for nearly a year and aggressively promoted COVID vaccinations.
Minnesota had the ninth-lowest COVID death rate among states and the 10th lowest rate of long COVID, according to federal data. But it also ranked in one think tank’s analysis among the 10 worst for economic and academic declines during the pandemic.
Lisa Zarza moved her business, Outpost Bar and Grill, to Wisconsin after losing her liquor license in Minnesota. She was not political before the pandemic, but the losses of the lockdown orders pushed her to activism. Last month, she testified at a hearing on state legislation to limit lockdowns in future public health emergencies. (Aaron Lavinsky, the Minnesota Star Tribune).
Lisa Zarza protested Minnesota’s approach, and it cost her the two bars she operated and her dream home in Lakeville, Minn.
She complied at first with state orders, closing Alibi Drinkery in Lakeville and Froggy Bottoms in Northfield in spring 2020 and gradually re-opening them with outdoor seating and indoor capacity restrictions. But she ignored Walz’s second shutdown order, arguing it was unfair to ban indoor seating at bars and restaurants during the holidays while retailers remained open.
Trouble is, she thought another 300 bars would join her. Only about 10 stayed open, and they were made infamous examples when Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison ordered them closed. Zarza later lost her liquor licenses over her stance.
“If we would have been 300 strong, I wouldn’t have lost everything,” she said.
A pandemic ban on evictions allowed her to keep her house for a while, but the mother of three eventually sold it after filing for bankruptcy. Zarza moved this winter to a mobile home in Wisconsin, where she has started over and opened Outpost Bar and Grill in Bay City, Wis., a popular stop for bikers and travelers.
Zarza didn’t vote before the pandemic, but has become political. Conservative media featured her during the election when Walz was running for vice president. She testified at a hearing last month on state legislation to limit lockdowns in future public health emergencies.
“I didn’t realize that I was going to make so many people hate me and love me at the same time,” she said.
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