By Griff Wigley, on April 29, 2012, 11:35 pm
By Griff Wigley, on April 27, 2012, 11:55 am
 As far as I know, the HideAway Coffeehouse and Wine Bar is still the only eating and drinking establishment in downtown Northfield to offer sidewalk dining, including serving wine and beer.
I stopped by to chat with co-owner Jim Spaulding earlier today and I asked him why others had not tried it. The ordinance has been on the books since 2008. He didn’t know and neither do I.
See all the sidewalk dining-related blog posts going back to 2006.
By Griff Wigley, on November 10, 2011, 9:38 pm
 It’s not often I get treated to a meal with my LoGro hat on, but it happened yesterday. My beneficiaries: regular commenter and resident punster John George; and Nancy Amerman, an occasional object of my blog spoofs. We ate at the HideAway Coffeehouse & Winebar.
John and Nancy are members of Transformation Northfield and Nancy is a member of Rejoice! Church. Both organizations have been the subject of, um, my critical attention here on LoGro (TN tags here, Rejoice! tags here).
Was I worried?
 Initially, no, but when I noticed a plainclothes Northfield police officer (once again in really plain clothes) pretending to be reading a newspaper at an adjacent table, it gave me pause. Was he expecting things to get out of hand? And how did he know we’d be there? Was he following me on Foursquare? Tracking my tweets? Does he know where I live?
As it turned out, we didn’t even talk religion so violence wasn’t an issue. We kept to non-controversial topics, like politics. We had fun, as you can see. So no worries. Move along now. Nothing to see here.
By Griff Wigley, on July 16, 2011, 6:42 pm
   
Dina Fesler & her Children’s Culture Connection (CCC) friends held an event during last week’s Art Crawl at the HideAway Coffeehouse & Winebar. In her email alert she wrote:
The artwork of children who have participated in several of CCC’s programs (in India, Haiti, Iraq and the U.S.) will be on display… I will be presenting on our latest programs for Northfield youth, along with middle-school-age youth who have participated in our programs. We will also be holding a raffle for a three-hour limo ride and a David Allen print.
 Dina also presented info about their Summer Fundraising Event coming up next Saturday, July 23 from 2-5pm.
See this PDF flyer and the CCC website for more info.
By Griff Wigley, on July 6, 2011, 7:46 am
 Coldwell Banker South Metro has completed its move from S. Hwy 3 to downtown Northfield in the old Present Perfect space.
They’re now right between the HideAway Coffeehouse & Winebar and the Hogan Brothers Acoustic Café.
By Griff Wigley, on June 18, 2011, 11:27 pm
 Cameron Nordholm and Morgan Weiland were in Northfield this week for Carleton College’s Reunion week. They graduated in 2006, got married last summer, and are now living in Silicon Valley. We had lunch with them at the HideAway Coffeehouse & Winebar on Friday.
So who cares? Well, we do, since they’re the parents of Locally Grown, and like all good parents, they keep track of us and regularly visit. See all our LoGro blog posts tagged with Cameron Nordholm or tagged with Morgan Weiland.
And you can keep track of them via their blogs, here and here.
By Griff Wigley, on May 14, 2011, 2:55 pm
By Griff Wigley, on May 7, 2011, 8:34 am
I prompted HideAway Coffeehouse and Winebar proprietor Joan Spaulding earlier this week to hold up the issue of the May issue of the NEG.
It has a feature (page 40) by Felicia Crosby on the HideAway which is celebrating its 5th anniversary this month
Here’s the full text:
The pictures on the long hall of the HideAway say it all. Three large sepia-toned portraits of the Spaulding family – Jim, Joan and their six offspring – illustrate what makes the HideAway such an irresistible destination for a light meal, a glass of wine, or a mid-morning muffin. This very family business feels like home, and when you’re there you’re part of the family.
 Occupying a light and bright space once part of Jacobsen’s Department Store, the HideAway boasts soaring tin ceilings, period moldings and fixtures, and tall windows that overlook busy Division Street. Walls are painted in warm shades of honey and saffron, the furniture is comfortable enough to curl up into, and the nook and cranny eating spaces create the most delightfully intimate places to talk, work and read. Celebrating its fifth birthday in May, the HideAway is convivial and unhurried, exuding a breezy welcome that makes it easy to fantasize about owning this little spot of gastronomic heaven; how hard could it be to own something so fun to be in?
Continue reading The HideAway turns 5
By Griff Wigley, on May 29, 2010, 7:04 am
 
I’ve been experimenting with Foursquare for the past couple of months. The app on my Android phone (also available on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Palm) uses GPS to show a list of nearby places. I can then check in to see if the business is offering a foursquare special, alert selected friends (txt msg, Twitter, etc) to my location, earn points, and acquire ‘badges’ for repeat check-ins.
The person who has checked in the most at a given location becomes the ‘Mayor’ of that location. I’m currently the Mayor of the Goodbye Blue Monday but just lost my mayorship to someone named ‘Dan’ at the HideAway. Nationwide, retailers are starting to offer Mayor Specials. Starbucks launched a nationwide Mayors Special last week.
Last night was the first time I experienced a foursquare special from a Northfield-area retailer: the Contented Cow has a Foursquare special going this Memorial Day weekend. (No, I didn’t set this up, even though the Cow has been a client of mine for years.)
What other retailers are using Foursquare in the Northfield area?
By Griff Wigley, on April 19, 2010, 7:02 am
I noticed that the HideAway Coffeehouse and Winebar put out its tables and chairs this weekend so it seems a good time to revisit the issue of sidewalk dining in Northfield (that’s a Tag link to all our blog posts on the subject since 2006.)
Plus, there are two more Division St. eating/dining establishments opening this year.
I blogged last November that “Northfield’s sidewalk dining ordinance has been in effect since early 2008 but only one establishment has taken advantage of the alcohol clause: the HideAway Coffeehouse and Winebar. Five others have not. It might be helpful to find out why.”
Ross sent me a link a week ago to a blog called cooltownstudios that has a series of posts on outdoor cafe districts. (The blog is part of the bigger CreativeCrowdSource project.)
One of those blog posts is titled How to crowdsource an outdoor cafe district and it links to a forum thread on related attempts. The overview of how to do it:
Continue reading Let’s crowdsource Northfield’s sidewalk dining scene
By Griff Wigley, on September 10, 2009, 8:36 am
 I took this photo last week of Joan Spaulding, co-owner of the HideAway Coffehouse and Wine Bar, holding up two new menus: in her right hand is the print version of their 2009 menu, now available in PDF form. She’s blogged about it here. In her left hand is the September menu for the "Prairie Creek Cafe," the lunch service they now provide for Prairie Creek Community School. It reads:
A tasty, nutritious lunch is being served every school day – cooked fresh by our chefs at the HideAway in downtown Northfield and served by parent volunteers!"
By Griff Wigley, on June 27, 2009, 7:58 am
By Griff Wigley, on May 11, 2009, 7:07 am
  Jim Spaulding has another business to attend to besides the HideAway Coffeehouse & Winebar.
It’s called Just Trikes, an authorized dealership for Hannigan Trikes (three wheel motorcycles).
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