Cafes of Minneapolis: Caffetto

How one of the dingiest cafes in the cities terrified me - and then stole my heart

By: Quinn McClurg

The first time I walked into Caffetto, I was terrified. I was new in the neighborhood at the time, just a small-town kid who thought he was a city kid until he actually got to the cities. And here I was, wearing a button-down flannel and blue jeans in one of the dingiest spots a real city had to offer; I was hopelessly out of place and realized it more and more with each glance around the room. It was 8 pm, I was alone, and the entire cafe smelled of cigarette smoke. The wallpaper was peeling, all of the upholstery was torn, and the walls were crowded with yellowed paper and other framed pictures, once eclectic, now old and cluttered. That miasma of grunge and neglect lingers even to this day, where almost two years later, I can walk in and everything inside will be exactly the same as it was then. I can understand how this would put most people off but I only  love it all the more for it.

Well, everything inside is as much of the same as it can be. Even though the scenery may be static, the rotating cast of characters hosted at Caffetto every night is always different. Poets, punks, and starving artists from across the cities will travel here, meeting or even just sharing space with chess champions, college kids, and the occasional rat or two. Sometimes new friends can be made under the blarring of the questionable music, other times friendships are deepened over unquestionably good coffee, and sometimes patrons will just become acquainted with each other through time spent in one another's silent proximities.

There aren’t too many opportunities for silence, though. At any point throughout the day, the cafe is filled with the churning of espresso machines, the hiss of steaming wands, and the muted wooshing of cars off Lyndale. As the night goes on, the murmurs and jokes of cordial conversations become obscured by the shuffling of playing cards and the clinking of forks on empty pie plates. Staff will yell at and converse with one another while the bizarre music continues on indifferently, becoming even more bizarre under the cover of background noise; post-punk- experiemental-indie rock dronings and screechings become overlaid and punctuated by the trillings of broken pinball machines echoing the basement. Oftentimes it’s hard to sit in Caffetto without actively listening to everything transpiring around you. Sometimes the noise proves to be too much and warrants an early exit, but on other nights when the noise borders on pleasant, it isn’t difficult to find yourself staying until close. 

You may ask why I come here so much, especially when the ceiling is so blue, the decor is so distracting, especially since I can’t sit downstairs without getting distracted by every word of graffiti plastered on the walls. Still, all those little criticisms are beside the point. I love Caffetto so much because I view it as a tiny little microcosm of the cities. Sure, neither are clean or quiet or pretty or welcoming, but they never could be. No, my version of the cities is covered in graffiti, dark and dim. It burns until midnight in harsh neon with roots anchored down in counterculture, local music, and independent art. Despite how mean or dirty or bizarre they may feel at times, both will always be filled with passionate and interesting people, some of which have worn the wood smooth in their regular spots, and others whose trajectories will only be made known to you once before they spiral off into a direction unseen with pursuits you could never even guess at. 

All of these factors and more make both the cities and Caffetto feel like a living and breathing thing. Both are honest and true, static and changing, and always filled with people new and old coming and going. But no matter how many people come or go or how much either of them changes, I will always be willing to spend my fair share of time in both places; I want to wear in my regular seat and finally fit into the city I love so much after first stumbling in two years ago… that is as long as there aren’t too many mice, the music isn’t too unbearable, and, of course, if there are any places left for me to sit.