Spyhouse Coffee Roasters | Whittier — Restaurant in Minneapolis

This is one of my favorite local coffee houses (especially since the Anodyne closed). I find the staff to be friendly, helpful with suggestions or explaining a drink, and relaxed but still professional and efficient. Also, I observed them help someone with an accidental spill, and they were totally nice, cool, and helpful about it.

The latest Spyhouse seasonal drink has been my favorite all summer: Rosemary & Mint Tonic Espresso It's a shot of espresso and dash of a rosemary mint syrup blended into almost a bottle's worth of Boylan Bottling Co Tonic water poured over ice in a tall glass and topped with a sprig of rosemary. You get the remaining tonic water to use as a chaser. It's delicious, and I just saw that it will be leaving (along with summer) this week (September 2015).

I generally find my fellow patrons to be a friendly and eclectic mix of young to old, many meeting a friend or working solo on a laptop, enjoying the lovely sidewalk seating, or the generally roomy dining areas in front of and behind the bar--both sides have varied seating options (booths, tables, and bar-type seating along the spacious windows). Patrons are sometimes chatty but not usually overly loud (think "cafe sounds"). I think it's also important to note (and a huge bonus) that, while I theoretically love babies and children, I love coffee houses designed for and patronized by grown-ups more, and Spyhouse is thankfully that.

For ambience, the music is sometimes just one notch higher on the volume dial than I would set it, but honestly it's never been an issue--I often use earbuds anyways, and the house music has never interfered with my earbuds or work habits.

The wifi is fast and free, with the changing passwords posted near the menus up front. Way more than half the indoor seating has easy access to 2-4 electrical outlets. The bathroom has always been clean, but I've only visited the men's--might make sense to convert them both to gender neutral, but I've never noticed a line.

Try it out. It's just a...

I have to say I'm sorely disappointed in how the staff treats people down on their luck.

I've been spending a lot of time here recently (per request of people I'm meeting) and while I was sitting outside of spyhouse, a homeless woman approached me and asked me for a dollar. i offered to buy her a cup of coffee instead since i had no cash, and she was very appreciative.

We stand in line and all the staff continually give this woman strange looks, which obviously made her uncomfortable. I offered to buy her some food too because she had been staring at the food and looked hungry. This homeless woman was grateful and extraordinarily appreciative.

We get to the cashier and order some food and coffee and the cashier scrunched his nose at this woman, glared at her, refused to say anything to her, didnt ask if she was staying (put everything as to go) and literally shoved the food and drink into this homeless womans hands after i paid for it.

I get it, they dont want homeless people in their shop, but maybe they should instill human decency in their staff and treat everyone like a valued customer. How they treated a woman down on her luck was repulsive and showed me how snobbish this coffee shop is.

The true character of an individual is shown with how they treat the lowest in their society. They think its acceptable to treat a homeless woman with great disrespect like she wasn't even human. they treated dogs better.

If I could give negative stars, I would. I used to reccomend them and I was always happy to get their beans on special occasion, ...

Good atmosphere. Prices too high for mediocre coffee and baked goods.

Also, fun fact about this place: I learned from someone inside the scene of local coffee shop owners that the reason that Spyhouse's internet seems to curiously drop out every now and then (I've encountered this just about every time I've been there for more than a couple hours) is because they intentionally cut it off to cycle people out who have been sitting for a while. Don't want people sitting around for longer than X length of time? Okay, fine but have some integrity and post that intention openly instead of undertaking some rodentine action in secret to accomplish the same goal. In any case, bring your hotspot if you plan on doing work here for a while.

Also still mandating masks-- which maybe there is some articulable reason for doing so (certainly not one that's derived from methodologically rigorous clinical studies FWIW) but taken together with the other issues I'll be going elsewhere at least until I can sit inside without taking a ride in a time machine back to 2020.

Edit (4 Oct 2022): upgrading to 3 stars because antediluvian mask mandate finally,...