Location

454 Snelling Ave. S., St. Paul
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Ratings

Pros

“Real” food, baked goods prepared on premises, “cozy” feel, reliable WiFi.

Cons

Unappealing storefront exterior directly on Snelling Ave., a little too hot inside, limited parking, very few available electrical outlets.

Review

Bacon.

OK, that’s not my entire review, but upon walking in the front door, I was assaulted (in a good way) by the smell of bacon. What it said to me was that, despite outward appearances as a typical coffeehouse, Blondie’s Cafe offers real food options beyond the trucked-in-from-a-nearby-bakery pastries and plastic wrapped sandwiches.

I placed my order for a spinach and mushroom frittata and large cappuccino and took a seat. Within a couple of minutes the coffee and food were brought straight to my table by the friendly-yet-laid-back barista. (He complimented me on my t-shirt as well.)

I’ve driven by Blondie’s, located on Snelling Ave. just north of Randolph, many times, but never bothered to go inside. The ’60s-era storefront-with-limited-off-street-parking was just never that appealing to me, despite the good things I had heard about Blondie’s. Today’s review was originally going to be Brewberry’s, the now near-legendary David to its across-the-street Caribou Goliath, but the place was so crowded (presumably with St. Kate’s students cramming for finals) that I had to defer it for another week. And so, Blondie’s it is.

I’m glad I’ve come here. Now that I’ve been inside and given it a chance, there’s almost nothing bad I can say. The food options are (so far) unsurpassed, great coffee, nice environment inside with some interesting art on display (and The Current on the radio — of course), great service, and the WiFi seems a lot more reliable than at most other coffeehouses I’ve visited. The only complaints I have, and they’re minor, are typical of just about every place I’ve visited: the parking is limited and it’s a little too warm inside. That said, I have to give Blondie’s my highest (so far) recommendation. And now I need to get down to work, which is the whole reason I come to these coffeehouses in the first place.

By the way, I am fully aware of my overuse of “unnecessary” quotation marks and overly-hyphenated-and-equally-unnecessary compound adjectives in this review. I’m in a bit of a rush today; I’ll try to polish my writing techniques a bit more for next week’s review.