Wise Acre Eatery

While on a recent family vacation, we met some friends at Wise Acre Eatery in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  

Our overall rating was 4.75 Stars (out of 5 stars).

Here's how that breaks down:

Family Friendly: 5 Stars

Menu: 5 Stars  The menu was simple, but we all wanted more than one thing because it sounded so good!

Taste of the Food: 5 Stars  The food was fantastic!

Appearance of the Food:  5 Stars

Restrooms:  5 Stars  The restrooms were very clean and featured actual towels that were put into a hamper to be laundered and reused.

Atmosphere: 4.5  Stars  The building and decorations were very cool.  The restaurant was located near an airport and across the street from a fire station, which made for some occasional added noise.

Service:  3.5 Stars  They were friendly and accommodating (in spite of our large group during busy lunch hour).  However, we had to consistently request water and coffee refills.

Ethical/Sustainable:  5 Stars  Nearly everything on the menu (75-95%) comes from their farm, which is less than an hour away from the restaurant.  How amazing is that?


Pricing:  $10-15 per person for Brunch.

Peace Coffee

On our way out of the Twin Cities recently we stopped by Peace Coffee.

Our overall rating was 4.5 Stars (out of 5 stars).

Here's how that breaks down:

Family Friendly: 5 Stars

Coffee: 5 Stars

The Nocturnal Brew and Ethopian Yirgacheffe were both excellent.

Food Options: 5 Stars

They get a lot of their food from other places, but it all looked good.  The couple of bagels we split were great.  (They were from Common Roots Cafe.)

Restrooms: 3 Stars

Atmosphere: 4 Stars

Ethical/Sustainable: 5 Stars

It was really great that Peace Coffee gave you the option to recycle or compost almost everything.  While there are a few things that you actually have to just throw away, they made it a point to have super-small garbage cans.  Even in the bathrooms, the paper towels went into a separate can to be composted!

Pricing: About what you'd expect for an upscale coffee shop.

The next time we're in the area we'll be swinging by Peace Coffee.

Common Roots Cafe

What a great place to start our dining out ratings blog.  Common Roots Cafe was excellent.

Our overall rating was 4.5 Stars (out of 5 stars).

Here's how that breaks down:

Family Friendly: 5 Stars
Common Roots is a seat-yourself restaurant.  You order at the front and then find a seat.  Their staff bring your food out to you.  The day we were there the staff was excellent at accommodating us.  (We had 4 adults, 3 kids and 2 babies.)  They got us extra silverware and napkins, brought an extra plate two adults who were sharing a menu, and most importantly, didn't act perturbed that we brought a crowd of kids with us.

Menu: 4 Stars
Everything on the menu looked great.  The only knock was that at the time we went (over the lunch hour), the sandwich section of the menu was the only thing available to order.  The breakfast and entree sections looked amazing, we just wish we could have tried them too!

Taste of the Food: 5 Stars

Appearance of the Food: 4 Stars

Coffee: 5 Stars
They serve Peace Coffee.  It was great.

Restrooms: 3 Stars

Atmosphere: 4.5 Stars

Service: 5 Stars
Keeping in mind the type of restaurant that it was, the service was excellent.

Ethical/Sustainable: 5 Stars
This was the coolest part of Common Roots.  They can tell you what percent of what they serve is organic, local, and fair trade.  They had a huge garden behind their restaurant as well.  We've never seen another restaurant come close to this.

Pricing: Sandwiches were all about $10.  The entrees were $12-$15.

We'll definitely visit Common Roots Cafe the next time we visit the Twin Cities.