Jones Coffee - Linden Hills

Jones on W 43rd in the Linden Hills part of Minneapolis is built for sitting down with a laptop. Couches, window seating, free wifi, outlets that work most of the time, a back patio for warmer days, a parking lot. The bones are right for a remote-work cafe in a neighborhood that doesn't have a lot of them.

The execution is uneven. Tables wobble. The wifi has stretches where it doesn't hold long enough to finish a video call. Service runs slow during the lunch rush, and recent visits have flagged inconsistency in the drinks themselves, which on a return visit can be the thing that turns regulars into former regulars. The other thing to know up front is that they don't take cash. Bring a card or don't bother showing up at the door.

The maple cardamom latte is the drink to order, the one that's worth the visit on its own merits. The breakfast burrito is the food to order. Past those two anchors, the menu does what neighborhood-cafe menus do without standing out one way or the other.

For remote workers and students in Linden Hills, the parking lot and the room are real assets, and on a slow morning the place delivers what it promises. For visitors who want a quick precise cup or who'd rather pay in cash for any reason, this isn't the stop and pushing it won't go well. It's a neighborhood shop with neighborhood-shop strengths and the neighborhood-shop weaknesses that come with them, and judging it as anything else gets you to the wrong conclusion. Show up on a Tuesday morning, sit on a couch, work for two hours. That's the visit this place is best at, and there are worse ways to spend a Linden Hills morning than a wobbly table, a maple cardamom latte, and a breakfast burrito while the snow piles up outside the back patio that nobody is sitting on in February.