Fletcher's Ice Cream & Cafe — Restaurant in Minneapolis

This one's a doozy so let's break it down into three categories: The Good, The Bad, and The Funky.

The Good: You're supporting a small, local, LGBTQ-owned business. It's so important for us to uplift and support community spaces like these. The coffee service is amazing & the cinnamon rolls are to die for. Everyone who works there is super friendly, chatty, and they seem to enjoy their work (good sign). The atmosphere and interior design is on-point. They really embrace the rustic feel of the building. They support their community by selling art from a local artist and collaborating with local bakeries and distilleries. They offer a fair selection of vegan and vegetarian food as well.

The Bad: It's pretty expensive. Their menu does explain the 15% service charge but it's always a bummer to order what you think is two $6 ice cream cones and your end total, before tip, is $17. They say gratuity is not required, but we all know food service workers don't get paid enough. The ice cream is good... but not worth the price. It's all made in-house, which is really cool considering they have some really unique flavors— but then you are told they are almost all made using flavor extracts which, personally, takes the magic away. With ice cream giants in Minneapolis like Milkjam and (formerly) Izzy's who have always been loud & proud of their use of high quality, fresh ingredients, Fletcher's Ice Cream just kind of tastes cheap in comparison. The soups are really inconsistent. You can see there's a water heated food-warmer unit on the counter, but I've never seen it be used for anything— especially not for keeping soup warm. My friends and I have ordered soup from here and it's always inconsistently cold, lukewarm, or has undercooked elements. Definitely avoid the soup unless they start putting it in the warmers (keep an eye out).

The Funky: Nobody who works there seems to know what's going on or at least taught the same things. Like I said, everyone is super friendly and great, but the knowledge they have on what's in ice cream, where certain items are sourced from, or even how some items are prepared. Namely, the tea options. I always get a different batch of answers, even from different employees on the same day. I asked a lot of questions on various visits and always got different answers for the same question. Branching off my previous point, there is some menu incongruity. They say they sell apple cider, but I was told they don't make that anymore. There are also some ice cream their menu says they have, but they actually don't. The owners (the two, clearly oldest/adult employees) are kind of kooky. It's not a bad thing— they're just a little strange, personally. From what I've seen they're both very professional and nice, but yeah. A bit kooky. I suppose it adds to the atmosphere.

Overall, Fletcher's Ice Cream & Café is a welcome staple to the neighborhood that needs our support, there are just some food service inconsistencies and issues that need to be ironed out. There's a lot of potential here and I'm hopeful they will up their...

Overall, a bit underwhelmed. I was super excited to try this new little shop so close to home. I left feeling a bit disappointed. Let's start with the good. The vanilla ice cream is AMAZING. Easily one of the best vanillas I've had. Fletchers offers a few unique flavors including Golden Gears which stars turmeric and ginger. The sundaes came in 1 or 2 scoop options in a cute little cup with a giant heap of whipped cream and a cherry.

Which leads me to the big disappointment. Hot fudge, or should I say lack there of. Clearly on the menu for $7.79 is a single scoop hot fudge sundae with the option to add additional toppings for $.99 each. The extra $.99 got me 7 slices of fresh strawberry...one strawberry. And no hot fudge. I asked if it had been forgotten and the guy added more of the chocolate syrup that was drizzled across the whipped cream. He asked if that was better and explained they don't have hot fudge, he was unaware hot fudge was on the menu. Its Ghirardelli syrup that they use for both the ice cream and the coffee. Not hot, not even warm. Super disappointed. I'll come back for a scoop, but only cones going forward as the $4 extra for whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and one strawberry is not worth it.

The ice cream also seemed super hard and all the staff was struggling to form complete scoops.

I'll be back to give it another try and see...

Hello Fletcher’s team, I was a first time visitor tonight and thoroughly enjoyed your ice cream. It was a busy night, with us waiting at the tail end of a line out the door. However, I wanted to express my disappointment with a staff members. I had intended to order a triple scoop and did in fact order a triple scoop. What was off putting about my interaction with this staff member was that she mentioned it was a 3 sample limit. Of the three flavors I tried, I didn’t like all 3 and had to explain my rationale for her to provide another sample. As a customer who sees many options for flavors and was excited to support your business, I was very unhappy with her response to me.I was very patient waiting for my turn to sample and order. The staff should also be patient while serving their customers. If this is a store policy that she was trying to enforce, I think it doesn’t make sense to offer triple scoops if we don’t have the option to try more than 3 flavors since we may not like the first 3 flavors we try. Either she needs training to be more patient with customers or the policy is not conducive to help people buy a triple scoop combo that will make them the most satisfied. I hope this feedback can be helpful to make all customers’ experiences a...