Minnesota's Coffee Scene: 39 Indie Roasters from the Twin Cities to the North Shore
Minnesota drinks a lot of coffee. Five months of winter and a state full of Scandinavian descendants will do that. What's less obvious is how many of those cups are coming from local roasters.
We mapped 39 active independent coffee roasters across Minnesota — 15 in Minneapolis alone, three more across the river in Saint Paul, and a long list in suburbs and small towns from Brooklyn Park down to Marshall and up to Lutsen on the North Shore. The Twin Cities are the obvious center of gravity, but the real story is how many small-town operators are roasting in places most people would not expect.
Minneapolis: 15 Roasters and Counting
Peace Coffee is probably the name most people outside Minnesota recognize. B-Corp certified, fair trade, and unionized in 2022 — one of a small number of US roasters where the staff have a contract. They have been roasting in Minneapolis since the mid-90s and still set a benchmark for what a values-led roaster looks like at scale.
Coffee and Tea Limited is the other end of the timeline. Jim Cone has been roasting there since 1976 and at 87 he is still hand-roasting batches — almost certainly the longest-running independent roaster in the state, and one of the longest in the country.
Bichota Coffee is one of the more interesting newer additions. Founded by C. Terrence Anderson, with a Puerto Rican identity that runs through the brand, the roastery sits near George Floyd Square. Whether you read that as context, location, or both, it is part of the story.
B+W Specialty Coffee and Clockwork Roasters anchor the more straightforward specialty corner of the city. Dogwood Coffee Co. has been a Minneapolis fixture for over a decade and ships nationally. Driven Coffee Roasters, Northern Coffeeworks, and Misfit Coffee round out the established mid-tier.
The newer wave: Silverbird Roasting Co., Ember Coffee Co., Thesis Coffee Collective, and Coffeewomple. Wildflyer Coffee deserves its own line — they hire and train homeless youth, with coffee as the vehicle. Minnesota Coffee Roasting Company closes out the list with the most on-the-nose name in the state.
Saint Paul: Smaller, Sharper
Saint Paul is the quieter twin, but the three roasters there punch above their weight.
True Stone Coffee Roasters has built a reputation for clean, careful sourcing. SK Coffee does a similar thing with a slightly different sensibility, and Cloudline Coffee is the newer entrant — small, focused, ships nationally. Three roasters, three distinct points of view, no obvious overlap.
The Twin Cities Suburbs
This is where Minnesota stops looking like every other state's coffee map. The suburbs are not a roasting dead zone here — they are part of the story.
Edina Coffee Roasters handles the south metro. Dandy Lion Coffee Roasters operates out of Chanhassen. Backstory Coffee Roasters runs in West St. Paul, and Coffee Mill covers the north metro out of Brooklyn Park.
Buffalo, an hour northwest of Minneapolis, has two: Caffe Strada Custom Roasting and Custom Roasting — same family of names, both shipping nationally. Sunshine Coffee Co. handles Lake Elmo. None of these are pretending to compete with a Minneapolis flagship — they are roasting for their towns, and the towns are buying.
Duluth and the North Shore
Duluth has two — Almanac Coffee and Duluth Coffee Company — both shipping nationally, both serious about what they do. For a port city of 85,000 with a brutal winter, that is a healthy ratio.
Up the North Shore in Lutsen, Fika Coffee takes its name from the Swedish coffee-and-pastry tradition and runs with the heritage angle in a part of the state that earned it. And just across the bridge in Superior, Wisconsin — close enough to count for anyone driving up Highway 35 — ARCO Coffee Company has been operated by the Andresen family since 1916. Four generations, over a century in business. State line aside, the North Shore coffee economy includes them.
The Small Towns
This is the list that tells you Minnesota is not a one-metro state.
St. Cloud has Kinder Coffee Lab. Sartell, just up the road, has Adventure Coffee. Le Center — population around 2,500 — somehow has Euroroast, a roaster that ships nationally. East Grand Forks has Bully Brew Coffee. Marshall, way out in the southwest corner, has Columbia Imports. Pine City has Coffee-n-Caffeine. Starbuck — yes, Starbuck — has Beau Coffee Company. Waconia has Specialty Java Inc.. Jenkins, up in the lakes, has Blue Ox Coffee.
That is nine roasters in towns most non-Minnesotans could not place on a map. None of them are trend-chasing. They are roasting because their neighbors want better coffee than the gas station down the road sells, and that turns out to be a viable business.
What Minnesota Gets Right
Minnesota's coffee scene does not look like Portland's or Seattle's, and it is not trying to. What it has is depth — a real flagship in Minneapolis, a sharper second city in Saint Paul, suburbs that roast their own, and a small-town network you don't see in many states this far north.
It also has a genuine coffee culture to feed. Five months of winter, Scandinavian heritage, a fika tradition that never really left — Minnesotans drink coffee the way other states drink coffee plus a little extra. The roasters that survive here are roasting for people who actually pay attention to what is in the cup.
That is a more interesting scene than its reputation suggests.
Explore Minnesota roasters on Roast Local:
For a closer look at the Twin Cities flagship, read our guide to the best coffee roasters in Minneapolis. Not sure where to start? Take the quiz to get matched, or browse the full map on Explore.
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Last updated: May 2026