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A beautiful October day to search for my one dessert of the week! Because The Driveby Tourist wants to continue the visits to Eat Street Minneapolis, I “driveby” suburbia and into the city. Of course, the best way for more experiences is to have a lunch entree at one place and then a dessert at another. This day, The Copper Hen Cakery & Kitchen became the dessert place for this week. And it was perfect! By the way, their dessert specialty is a “boozy cake”. It’s baked in a Mason Jar and includes a pipette of liqueur in each cake. All this makes The Copper Hen one of the best places to eat in Minneapolis!
The Copper Hen Cakery & Kitchen opened on May 1, 2014. Initially, it opened as counter service. Their business planning work indicated they needed to provide a full service menu in order to serve wine and beer. In spite of Danielle’s background as a pastry chef, they dove into the full menu and brought in a highly skilled team to make nearly all the food from scratch in their kitchen. The counter service quickly evolved into table service and a full bar. Most recent expansion brought seating capacity to 140. And, naturally, you want the link to their main page. Their regular hours are Wednesday & Thursday – 11:00am – 10:00pm, Friday – 9:00am – 10:00pm, Saturday – 8:00am – 10:00pm, Sunday – 8:00am- 9:00pm.
In fact, Danielle’s background included making wedding cakes which led her to want her own place. She and husband Chris decided to go in full blast. After the obligatory business and financial planning (Chris is a CPA), they found the Copper Hen location on Eat Street and became one of the best bakeries in Minneapolis!
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Farm to Table
As planned, they provide fresh food with locally sourced ingredients as much as absolutely possible. Since they do breakfast (and brunch) plus all the baking they do, eggs, eggs, and more eggs make it through their delivery door! In fact, that’s how the name came about. Because Copper has a rustic look and reminds us of farms and with the large use of eggs, what else could it be but The Copper Hen! Their average purchase of eggs per week is 30 cases, which works out to over 4000 eggs a week!
Bakeries in Minneapolis
With Danielle’s pastry chef experience, wedding cakes are still a big part of their offering. They also host 25 to 30 weddings in their restaurant every year. That’s in addition to the wedding cake and bakery delights they serve at weddings at other locations. And, they are very well known for other bakery greats! (Check out the Copper Hen dessert menu.)
Does The Copper Hen look like a farmhouse table?
My dessert for the day. Best skillet dessert I’ve ever had! Of course, I could have had lunch. Certainly, their full menu tempted me. An enjoyable afternoon experience on a great October day. I must come back for a full lunch or dinner. Certainly hope you will eat here at the Copper Hen as well. As a side note; they also own Grey Fox Coffee in downtown Minneapolis.
Copper Hen Interesting facts
Reality TV!
In 2016, The Copper Hen struck gold on CNBC’s “Restaurant Startup” show. After breezing through two preliminary rounds, they “won the gold” on the episode of finalists. On the show, storied international restaurateur Joe Bastianich, puts restaurant owners through their paces to “show their stuff.” He liked what he saw and negotiated an investment. Initially, the investment was to be $200,000 for a 20% ownership stake. While that investment earmarked funding of a rooftop patio, negotiations with the landlord led to delays. The deal was renegotiated to be $50,000 for a 10% share and it funded a “creative cocktails” program for The Copper Hen Cakery & Kitchen.
Second restaurant
In 2019, Danielle and Chris opened The Copper Cow in Minnetonka. The Cooper Cow maintains the great desserts and the creative cocktails and provides a burger and brunch place in the suburban city close to Lake Minnetonka. (For you city dwellers, the ‘burbs have great food as well! And you won’t drop off the edge of the world if you visit Minnetonka!)
Want to see a shop for my road trip photos? You can have them printed as wall art or puzzles. They also work on coffee mugs, t-shirts and more! So, take a look. Maybe you'll see something you will like!
Want to know more about Eat Street? Here’s more to the story.
But wait, here’s more – The post is named “The best places on Eat Street”.
“Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies
Oh sugar, pour a little sugar on it honey
Pour a little sugar on it baby
I’m gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah
Pour a little sugar on it oh yeah
Yeah, Pour a little sugar on it honey
Pour a little sugar on it baby
I’m gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah
Pour a little sugar on it honey
Songwriters: Andy Kim / Jeff Barry
(And, of course, eggs as well! Couldn’t find a classic rock
song that included both sugar and eggs!)
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