The Dogwood Coffee bar is an established cafe and roaster in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The shop is known for its single origin coffee, friendly Coffee for Others slogan, and an excellent environment for remote workers and students.
The branding at Dogwood Coffee is a cartoonish dog mixed with elevated stick figures painted in various red-toned hues. Check out the shop’s site to pick up your bag of Dogwood Coffee today.
Or stop by one of 3 locations in the Twin Cities to grab a fresh cup.
Dogwood Coffee Bar Locations
Dogwood Coffee operates 3 locations around Minnesota.
Each cafe offers tall warehouse ceilings, modern vibes, and plenty of seating.
- Northeast – 1209 Tyler St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
- M – F: 7 am – 7 pm
- S – S: 8 am – 6 pm
- East Lake – 4021 E Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55406
- M – F: 7 am – 7 pm
- S – S: 8 am – 5 pm
- St. Paul – 825 Carleton St, St Paul, MN 55114
- M – F: 7:30 am – 5 pm
- S – S: 8 am – 5 pm
I enjoyed my visit to the St. Paul location. I can’t complain about a nice writing session in a chill space with a high-quality latte.
What to Order
Dogwood takes great pride in its precision and approach to pour over coffee, so you can’t go wrong ordering a pour over. On my visit, I decided to order a specialty latte. The Spumoni latte is a honey pistachio-flavored drink with a hint of cherry and a pistachio sugar crumble around the rim if you wish.
After a quick chat with the barista, I decided to get it half-sweet and was pleased with the result. The pistachio flavor was subtle and perfect, with notes of nuttiness here and there.
I made up for the half-sweet latte by ordering a decadent everything cookie. I couldn’t eat more than half of it, it was so deliciously rich.
The Coffee
The coffee is smooth and flavorful enough to deliver that full, somewhat bitter, somewhat charred flavor that is undeniable with coffee. Next to Five Watt Coffee, the flavor profile was one of my favorites on the trip.
The size of the latte I ordered left the milk to coffee ratio a little more balanced than the other lattes I had tried. Little espresso bubbles slowly appeared after my first taste. They grew bigger and bigger with each sip.
Dogwood Coffee – St. Paul
The Dogwood coffee bar in St. Paul, MN is not far from the bustling streets of University Ave. or Snelling. Yet it is conveniently tucked away and offers a quiet space for writing or studying. A lucky bonus is, it isn’t too far from some thrift shops on the corner of Snelling and Selby.
Thrift Shops Near Dogwood Coffee
One of my favorite things is grabbing a unique latte from a specialty coffee bar and doing some thrifting. This is exactly what I did in my spar time in Minnesota.
Check out:
- Up Six Vintage ($$ vintage shop)
- Lula ($$ hippie vintage shop)
- Succotash ($$ excellent interior design items and some vintage clothing)
- Everyday People Clothing Exchange ($$ pricey for a consignment shop, great inventory though)
If you only had time for one, I’d choose either Up Six Vintage for a smaller, boutique vibe with unique items. If you had plenty of time and something particular in mind, I’d head to Everyday People. As the highest rated on Google, Everyday People has 90+ reviews compared to 35 for the others.
Everyday people is a little pricey for my taste, but there were some excellent dresses and jackets, and a nice large selection of jeans. The locals I saw shopping here were impeccably thrifty chic, like a good Gen-zer.
The Dogwood Coffee bar is only around 7 minutes or a little under 3 miles away. For a much cheaper and much more primal experience, visit the Goodwill outlet 5 min / 1.3 miles away. This shopping experience is a buy by the pound experience, and the name of the game is rummaging through a ton of bins with a bunch of people to find the best item.
Parking
The cafe is convenient to get to and has a good amount of street parking. Even not knowing the area, I found the shop and got to park close to the door on my visit.
Seating – Booths and Outlets A-Plenty
You can expect a wide open warehouse-style space with plenty of seats and tables. There are 7 tables and 7 booths to be exact. Some are two-seaters with fun lime green chairs, and others are long 4-seater tables with space enough for multiple people.
The booths are a mix of two to four seaters. Each booth and large table has a dedicated outlet that provides power for those looking to set up their remote workstations to stay a while.
The center of the space holds a few standalone tables and four comfy armchairs for anyone looking to catch up rather than work or study.
Noise Level
The noise level is actually really well maintained since the barista bar is set apart from the seating area. This fact and the spread out tables make this cafe a perfect spot for remote work and focus time.
The music was a low background amount that wasn’t distracting in the least. Especially given the tall ceilings that work to eat up the ambient noise.
The Atmosphere
The space is industrial. More specifically, it’s a warehouse. The entrance is welcoming and the staff was the most engaging and personable that I had encountered.
The location of this shop is closer to a warehouse district, which means the traffic and parking are null compared to other shops in the area.
Founder of Dogwood Coffee
The co-founder and president of Dogwood Coffee, Dan Anderson, started his coffee business with co-founder Greg Hoyt in October 2010. The driving idea behind the business was delivering excellence on every level with a focus on serving the people he encountered.
While wholesaling is a large part of the business, Dogwood also excels in providing excellent brews at its 3 Twin City coffee bars. Dogwood creates its product with care, paying attention to the temperature of the dairy and the brew process.
Approachable is a good word to describe the way the founders discussed their brand in this 2016 Park Bulge article. Dogwood delivers a high-quality artisan product and attempts to educate the consumer on the process and the product.
It’s not that the old coffee isn’t good, it’s that artisan specialty roasted coffee has something else to offer and should be treated as such.
Washed Coffee
A quick Google search for Dogwood coffee bar will bring you to the cafe’s about page. Along with claiming to have a positive posture towards life and preferring dogs as companions, Dogwood highlights its preference for washed coffee.
Washed coffee is the style and preferred coffee at Dogwood roasters. If you’re wondering what that means, think of washed coffee as simply a method that enhances the flavor of the bean over the flavor of the fruit drying process.
