Posted by Adrienne on November 25, 2012

Warehouse district by Ricardo Motti, flickr

Since I get most of my writing done at coffee shops, I can’t resist writing a bit about them when I find a good one. Today I’m writing from a new (for me) coffee shop, Corner Coffee just north of downtown Minneapolis. It’s located in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District, a former industrial area listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The beautiful old brick warehouses, designed predominantly in the Chicago Commercial style, once functioned as wholesale and storage for milling and manufacturing in Minneapolis. It was closely tied to the nearby railroad network that connected Minneapolis to the rest of the country. Now these gorgeous 6-story structures house architecture firms, upscale condos, art studios, and nice restaurants. Corner Coffee is tucked into the first floor of one such building and offers a cozy and friendly atmosphere with lots of nooks in which to work, chat, or read. Today there’s live music, an informal hootenanny with half a dozen musicians doing a decent rendition of “Take a Load Off Annie”. I recommend it as an informal office-away-from-office, especially if you want to get away from the typical residential neighborhood coffee shops and see a beautiful example of adaptive reuse of a historic district.

Corner Coffee