The new Old Man is a young girl

At the end of St. Paul's High Bridge, Smith avenue just continues to climb and climb. If you're on foot or on a bike, it's quite a grind to the intersection of Smith Avenue and Anapolis St. (Highway 13), where you've finally conquered the hill and entered West St. Paul, with its mix of middle-class homes and 19th century brownstones.

But once you get to the crest, you are welcomed by Old Man River Cafe, a delightful hangout with solar-roasted coffee, sandwiches, and even beer. But hold on a second: It's gone. Old Man River cafe is dead.

Long live Cafe Juliahna! Proprieter Sherry Asplund bought the joint this winter and renamed it after her daughter. A veteran of the Twin Cities organic coop scene, Asplund slightly tweaks the menu, simplifying and greening the offerings with sandwiches, pies, scones, and the like. Same great solar-roasted coffee, same comfortable digs, liquor license on the way.

We'll miss the Mark Twain/historic rivertown theme--it was a good one, and oddly rare in our most antique city, but so far the tradeoff is more like a spring freshening than a wholesale repositioning.

Cafe Juliahna, http://www.cafejuliahna.com, 879 Smith Ave, West St Paul, MN, 651.450.7070

The best designed coffee house in the city?

His commute took him past the place every day. And he'd seen ads for it in all the local rags. He assumed it was a total art-school joint, since it was just a street scene away from MCAD.

One dismal day he felt desperate for a hot cup of coffee and a quiet corner. He locked the bike out front amongst the klunkers and the fixies and the vintage Schwinns, and furtively entered.

The place was all bar and bin and boilers. Or so it seemed. But then he realized the ingeniousness of the design: Why put tables and chairs and people in the middle of the room, when they want to be in corners and nooks and at the windows? Indeed, there was not a bad seat in the house. Sofas for the social idlers, standups for the harried and lonely, sit-downs for the readers and the chess players, gracious French doors opening out onto a quiet side street of brownstones. And on the one continuous interior wall, a delightfully complex ink-on-paper maze for the eye.

Spyhouse Coffee Shop, 2451 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis
Photo (cc) by Bill Snyder

An early Valentine to my sweet cookie

Dearest peanut-butter cookie from May Day Cafe,

I want to be honest with you. To be real. To be forthcoming. So here it is, dumped out like a sack full of miscellaneous knitting goods and wrinkled and stinky Target gym attire and single mittens and melted peppermint candies and pink, smeared post-it notes from when Clinton was king: I can't stop thinking about you. Not in that creepy co-dependent I've-idealized-you and I'm likely to begin cyber-stalking you kind of way. But in a way that's pure. Like you are. All-natural, sweet, palm-sized peanut-butter cookie.

You see, delicious cookie and brainchild of May Day Cafe owner Andy Lunning and his wonderful pastry chefs, sometimes you are my reason for waking. On the cold mornings when even that sweet fireball in the sky can't remove me from a bed made purely of down pillows and sticky cement, it is you, crumbly cookie, that frees me.

It is your delicious crunchiness. Your chewy center. Your slightly browned underbelly. Your perfect balance of salty and sweet goodness that's like passion and contentment—two dichotomies that when blended just right are pure nirvana. It is you, yummy cookie, who gives me hope each day.

That's what you are to me, peanut-butter cookie: the sweetest morning retreat. A happy interruption in-between seemingly endless complacency. A gigantic bite of possibility. Have I mentioned to you how perfect you are? Your lovingly forked and salted face the size of the moon. The crumbs you leave behind that are as easily devoured as that first bite. The salt and sugar I could literally lick off your awkwardly globe-shaped face. You just might be the best cookie ever created. And I feel so lucky to have finally met you.

I hope this doesn't freak you out, peanut-butter cookie. I hope that you will still be there for me every morning, staring longingly back at me from the glass pastry case at May Day Cafe in South Minneapolis. I hope I haven't come on too strong or sounded like a lovesick maniac or anything. Just remember that my love for you is as pure and good as you are, peanut-butter friend. Your all-natural goodness is as real as my never-ending love. No matter what happens, let's at least promise to be friends forever. Because I don't think I could ever live without you, my delicious and lovely peanut-butter pal.

May Day Cafe, 3440 Bloomington Ave. S., Minneapolis,