Fairgrounds Craft Coffee and Tea — Restaurant in Minneapolis

Whoever the female barista was working yesterday (Thurs 12/2) around 8am was extremely rude to me for no reason. I placed an order online for pickup and when I arrived 10 minutes after it said it was ready, I waited by the counter because it wasn’t ready yet which was fine. It was not crowded at all though, I was the only person waiting and the boy working seemed confused and I could see he was checking the bag which looked like my order. He told me there was a mixup and it would just be another minute. Again, that was fine. But after waiting another 10-15 minutes and noticing nobody seemed to be making anything I finally asked the woman what was going on since she didn’t acknowledge my presence this whole time and she went over, talked to the boy, and then came back and said they just started to make the salad I ordered. (Clearly nobody had been making it that whole time). I told her I needed to leave and couldn’t wait any longer and asked if I could replace it with a pre-made item and she threw up her hands. So I asked if I could just get it refunded then and she said yes, it would automatically be refunded. So I left without the salad, I was late for my class and had no lunch yesterday, and now 36 hours later...

Last visit, and probably mean it was my last visit. The place should be creative, a bit quirky, trendy, inviting, quality and tasty, but it simply wasn't. Service was poor. Our friend must have waited at least 10 minutes or more for her drink. My college age daughter commented more than once on the unfriendly, bordering snobby employees. In her words, "like they think they are better than you". We were going to order food, but after watching people wait and wait, we decided it wasn't worth it. This was after we sat in one spot and had to clean it up ourselves - crumbs and smears. Then we moved to another slightly less dirty table. Looking around we saw each table was left messy after the guests left. It didn't make wanting to stay or order food an inviting proposition. We had 2 cold brews on tap. One was simply not good at all, the other better and the one we actually wanted was out. Also, the food does look good but we were less than impressed when reading the menu to see american cheese on many items and one item offering scrambled egg whites - aren't we over pretending that yolks are bad? We went from thinking this was a fun destination with elevated coffee offerings to a neglected, becoming...

I used to work here. It's all fun and games (joke bc of the carnival vibe) until they don't have what you want. People when I worked here over a year ago constantly came in thinking they had found the place that serves the specific item advertised that they want. This is false. I had to recommend multiple options as a replacement for desired orders. They weren't always the best alternatives.

Anyway, this place is okay. It's just another coffee shop that is kind of pretentious. They have the notes of coffee, blah blah blah. They still overprice and have to take a pretty long time explaining what's happening when the line to the register is hitting the front door.

So, should you come here? If you're close by, there's a better small hole in the wall type place that is cheaper, plus the several other coffee shops with the same attitude in the area.

I miss the shawarma wrap they had. Was it culturally appropriative and not real shawarma? Yes. Was it still really good and vegetarian? Heck yeah. I don't see it here on the menu, so it looks like they took their best thing off.

3/10

P.s. The avocado toast is not worth the $10 or whatever. Please, you will...