May Day Cafe

Cheating losers hang out here when cheating on their partners. They come here the next morning. It’s a really good place for that. It’s conveniently located in between their houses.

I was not a fan. I just needed a little pick me up. I got the chai tea and it was not good. I tried hard to say I should give this place another chance, but the bad taste still lingers in my mouth.
This place is a little too grungy for my taste, but it is fortunate to have little competition in the area. Plus this place is really slow with their customer service! I would think during the morning rush is when the staff would be fully on deck, but no, so that really killed it for me.
FYI, there is a credit card minimum, so look for the hand-​written sign when you enter.

Went for brunch, was very satisfied with the food we ordered. I personally liked their quiche more. Love their coffee

Although I am a relatively new customer of May Day Café, I have had nothing but positive experiences there. My absolute favorite thing to order are the scones. They are fresh, delicious, and HUGE. I can’t get enough of them, especially the currant cream ones. The décor is simple and the patrons are friendly and fun. It is a small café so seating can be a challenge during busier times, but it is worth it.

Everything about this place is great. They haven’t raised their bean burrito price in at least 12 years, good quality ingredients, best croissants, biggest cookies for the price and super friendly staff. Thanks for feeding my family!

This place is worth all time and money you will spend. The food is full of flavor. The portions are hearty. And vide is chill. The employees are pleasant. All the right boxes check off.
If you are in a hurry then it may not be the Just choice. It’s not the largest place so you should be prepared to wait. Especially on a weekend brunch.

My home away from home! Great food, art and people watching. Hard to not get something to eat. The baked goods are tasty. The staff cheerful.

don’t come here if you don’t like waiting in line for 10 minutes.
don’t come here if you don’t like dirty and unorganized restaurants.
don’t come here if you don’t like paying $ 4 for a below-​average latte.
don come here if you want a hot breakfast item (that is reheated instead of made to order) in less than 20 minutes.
don’t come here if you want a side of bacon – or any normal breakfast side – with breakfast instead of a salad or potato chips.
don’t come here if you don’t like burritos that are cold in the middle.
just don’t come here.

It feels almost wrong to write a review about May Day Café. There’s so much heart and love underneath the surface of this café that it’s more than just a café and more than mere words can portray. But I have to put my 5 stars into the Unilocal world so others can share in the knowledge.
May Day has been a main stay since 1997 — which in the restaurant world seems like forever — and it will likely be there for years to come. Why? Because May Day is more than just a coffee shop. May Day is a community hub. Here are the things that –I– love about May Day:
1. The Pastries. The Day Olds. The Food.
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May Day rolls the pastries out of the oven like there’s no tomorrow. And they’re all SO GOOD. The huge fresh cinnamon rolls on weekends are a community favorite. I love the date bars, they’re something different. The pastries are very fairly priced compared to most coffee shops, but if you get there close enough to open they always have a basket of day olds for $ 1.
The other food is also exceptionally good. The pizza and the breakfast sandwich are my favorites. The greens they serve with the sandwich are possibly the best dressed greens in town (and you can order a plate just of them!)
2. Affordability
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You can get a coffee and a pastry (day old) for $ 2.08. When you’re ready for a refill, just drop 50 cents on the counter and fill up – no need to stand in line again. Enough said. This is not a white collar neighborhood, and May Day makes it affordable for the people who live here. That is a very honorable and rare thing these days.
3. The Community
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This is the #1 reason I am a regular here and keep coming back. Nowhere else will you find such a eclectic mix of patrons — and many of them are from within a few blocks. Sure, you can come to May Day and plug in your laptop and work, but good luck keeping yourself from all the wonderful distractions. May Day has very few 2-​person tables, and the rest of the tables are FAIR GAME. You sit with other people. You talk with other people. You make new friends. You flirt with babies. Imagine that. It’s a beautiful thing. They also have a copy of the newspaper (and at least on Sundays the New York Times) — but you have to share. Pass those sections around so everyone can read them.
Be sure to check out the bulletin board above the bus tubs. You’ll find all kinds of things to do in the neighborhood, cats to adopt, concerts to attend, protests to join, clubs to join. You really should never leave without stopping to check it out.
— — — -
May Day holds a very special place in my heart. Know that when you come here, you’re visiting a community, a family, a place that people love. You’ll probably be stuck in line for awhile (unless you’re smart and come right at open). Enjoy your time in line. Smile and say hello to someone. This is more than just a coffee shop.

This place is delicious and super casual. The quiche and pastries are the BOMB; Flaky crust and fresh ingredients. Their service is beyond awesome. They’re gonna get to know me here on a first name basis. I love places like this. They notice you and it’s such a personal like treatment from the staff to the guest. Officially, customer for life!

Charming neighborhood coffee shop.
Savory food choices are limited, but delicious – they usually have one each of quiche, pizza, pasta-​or-​vegetable salad, and topped focaccia, rotating through a number of choices throughout the week. They also have a simple, regular menu of sandwiches and burritos. Good vegetarian and vegan options, but not an exclusively meat free menu. (The avocado black bean salad is wonderful – get it with chips and enjoy!)
Bakery items are tasty, with several regular offerings and a couple rotating treats.
I’m no coffee connoisseur, so I can’t speak to the quality of the brew, but the caramel latte (with house-​made carmel syrup) is delicious, and the seasonal drinks (mint lemonade in summer, caramel apple cider in winter) are both great. (The lemonade is pretty intense, and I usually dilute it a little with some water from the cooler.)
All of the staff are very friendly, but they usually only have one person working front of house at a time. This means that service can be really slow, and during busy times, the line builds up fast. This is NOT a place to drop in for a quick coffee on your way to work – you’ll almost certainly end up late.
But for a low key morning or afternoon spent with a newspaper or a book, this is a great place to hang out. Good food, good drinks, good people. Just keep half an eye on the line and pounce when it gets short.
(Tip: if you need a refill on your coffee, you can just leave the quarters on the counter and use the press pot yourself.)

I forget how much I enjoy this place – atmosphere, food, & beverages. The laid back atmosphere & high quality pastries are two elements making me a fan. Making a note to stop in soon.

Wow… Better go to starbuck coffee or dunkin’s donuts. The ice coffee here is expensive and taste really bad. This is a waste of money…

I love having this café in the neighborhood. I meet here for coffee with one of my neighbors pretty regularly, and it is very nice. Good, sunny tables for sitting and talking. There are also plenty of people who bring laptops or books for studying and writing.
Good coffee drinks, and while I’ve never ventured much into their food menu, the baked goods I’ve enjoyed have been wonderful. I usually get one of the fresh croissants to accompany my beverage.

This place makes me happy. I often wonder what I might miss if I ever moved to a different neighborhood, and mayday café is always at the top of the list.

A busy coffee shop and bakery. Great for morning coffee with a friend or a place to pen your next work.

I want to like this place because it’s one of two coffee places walking distance from my home. However, I really don’t think I can support this business.
The staff is rude, I felt like they were extremely annoyed when I amended my order to a decaf drink (they hadn’t started making it yet). Service was slow & there seemed to be only one person working up front despite a line of customers.
The more disturbing aspect of this place is that it’s dirty. After many years in the food/​bev industry I know the standards for cleanliness & when I see glaring violations I immediately get nervous about food bourn illness. Examples: a bucket of homemade simple syrup was clearly dated months old, a common spoon was used to stir every espresso drink being made & was kept in a dirty mug in between stirs, there were grounds in the bottom of my drink (a telltale sign of an uncleaned machine) & the floors were filthy.
Not recommended…

My friend and I were in MPLS for six days and went to May Day twice because we loved it so much. Both times, I got a dirty soy iced chai (perfect sweet-​spicy-​coffee balance) and a square of the asparagus-​goat cheese pizza (oh yeeah), and my friend got a sticky bun (I believe?) and orange juice. Very comfortable environment for sitting and talking. Extremely personable staff.
This café was actually a factor in me considering moving to the Twin Cities, so I will likely be back, at least on a visit!

Not nearly as hippy-​dippy/​grungy as I was fearing it would be. Plenty of «mainstream» customers chowing down on baked goods and sipping caffeinated beverages.
I’d categorize May Day more as a coffee shop with a small hot menu (versus a traditional café-​style restaurant). Burritos, breakfast sandwiches, etc. I had called to place a take-​out order, but couldn’t find their online menu. The gentleman on the phone quickly rattled off their offerings, a whopping 7 items. (Not a shortcoming, but just a heads up not to expect a wide array of salads and sandwiches).
I ordered the veggie breakfast sandwich: fluffy eggs and vegan sausage all smothered in cheese and hugged by thick, buttery slices of pressed toast. Definitely yummy, but incredibly (almost disgustingly) oily. And, it’s a brick of a sandwich that will fill keep your belly full over the course of the day.
I sensed that baked goods were the real hit here! The fresh cinnamon buns, the size of my head and bathed in ample frosting, were particularly drool-​worthy.
Notes: Some sidewalk seating; Work space potential (laptops present but the exception), though unsure of outlet availability.

Before becoming a mom, I enjoyed visiting all the coffee shops around the city. But now that I have a little one, this is old trusty. Friendly staff, great coffee, and now they are making gluten free pastries too! Awesome! And if you can eat regular bread, their croissants are worth an out if the way trip. Seriously great.
Thank you Andy and staff for making such a great place to hang, eat lunch or grab a coffee on the go and run into all your neighbors. You are part of the Powderhorn neighborhood glue.

I went here with my daughter and her fiancé for a simple breakfast and coffee, so my needs were met as soon as we walked in the door. They have a bunch of small tables — not enough for a group, but plenty of space for groups of 4 – 6.
The coffee and pastries were great, as was the atmosphere!

Muffins, mismatched chairs, homemade caramel sauce… what else is there to say!
I live in the area and have been meaning to stop in here and finally did this week! This place is adorable. I think I was expecting it to be this dirty, grungy, hipster place, because that’s who I see sitting outside. Instead, it was a very eclectic mix of customers, high quality baked goods, and a really friendly vibe.
I ordered a caramel latte. I am not a big flavored latte person normally, but my friend told me that they make their own caramel sauce. So yeah, I had to have it. IT WAS AWESOME. And it was only $ 3 for a 12 ounce! So cheap!
My friend and I split a blueberry-​peach muffin and a cinnamon roll. The muffin was big, soft, warm. Mmm. The cinnamon roll was really good– very fresh, light, gooey, with a sort of odd runny icing on it. It tasted like marshmallow fluff and was not my favorite. Overall though, very tasty.
1. Get a caramel latte
2. Sit at a cute table
3. Be in awe at the reasonable prices!

I definitely want to go back to this obviously charming place in an equally charming neighborhood. The cold pressed coffee was delicious and while I’d already grabbed a small bite to eat elsewhere, I shared a couple of baked treats with my friend: spying two vegan baked items in the case, we ordered the oatmeal raisin cookie and the strawberry scone (I believe «sweetened with maple syrup»?). Both were wonderful, and I’d like to revisit and get one of the other vegan items on the menu. It was busy on a Saturday mid-​morning, but the line moved along and we were able to snag a small table so it all worked out! They also have a small patio area.