Coffeehouses per capita: Northfield ranks!

800px-Roasted_coffee_beans.jpgMy co-host Tracy Davis blogged about Northfield’s coffee culture a month or ago (Creativity and the “Coffee Quotient“). Evidently, the Strib’s South section editor, Dennis Buster, read it and it inspired him to pay us a visit. In this week’s editorial: Northfield has an eye-opening number of coffee shops per capita.

It was about 8 a.m. last Tuesday, and as he tended a steady stream of customers in Northfield’s HideAway, manager Craig Stroeing tallied the coffee shops around the town of 18,000. He wound up with six, including three within a block of each other downtown…

I count 7, though the Ole Store’s coffeehouse is temporarily closed, awaiting a new ower. Plus, our population of 18,000 includes college students (approx. 5,000) so one could argue that our per capita is even lower than the 3.3 cited in the article:

Are there any coffeehouses on the college campuses?

4 Comments

  1. Christopher said:

    Sadly, there are no coffeeshops at Carleton. The only places to get coffee on campus are in the snack bar in Sayles-Hill and the cafeterias, and the coffee is horrible. Students occasionally make noises about opening a student-run coffeeshop, but their plans never develop. Thankfully, it good weather it’s ten minutes’ walk from the heart of campus to Goodbye Blue Monday.

    March 26, 2007
  2. Christopher said:

    And let me be the first to make the natural recommendation for a new sign:

    Northfield: Cows, Colleges, Contentment, and Coffee.

    March 26, 2007
  3. Griff Wigley said:

    Thanks for that update, Christopher. I like your idea for an updated town slogan, too. How about:

    * Cows, Colleges, and Caffeinated Contentment

    March 26, 2007
  4. tim said:

    TINY’S…..TINY’S…..TINY’S
    probably Northfield’s oldest coffee shop. I don’t think the bakery was serving coffee in 1947. TINY’S was and still is..great good ‘ole’ diner coffee. We still have a regular group of morning, lunch and mid afternoon coffee drinkers whose numbers are decreasing, but nevertheless still possess the “whats happening”
    news of northfield and its citizens like any good coffee gang should.
    Many of TINY’S coffee drinkers are also members of an even larger group of Northfielders who start their coffee drinking day at another hot spot..the QUARTERBACK CLUB…their seats are filled all morning as their members come in all day long…another original coffee club…TS

    April 3, 2007

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