Address:
Cafe Europa
600 U.S. 169
St Louis Park, MN 55426-1205
(952) 546-5062
The Dish:
Monte Crisco
Curly Fries
Diet Pepsi
$7.68 (tip and tax included)
Grade: 1 Fork, 1 Spoon
I had the privilege of spending a week in training at the at the Minneapolis location of Epicor. While this is a shared building, the first floor is almost like a little strip mall. Every day I went with classmates and some phone buddies to the eatery known as Cafe Europa. It was not what I expected.
Ambiance: Has the feel of a hospital cafeteria, mall food court, upscale downtown lunch gathering, and meeting room all rolled into one ball of wax. They had beyond your normal cafeteria options. They had little “kiosks” where groups of food we’re ordered and prepped. For instance, if you wanted a cheese burger or similar grilled sandwich, you went to the grill kiosk. If you wanted a fresh salad, there was a kiosk where they made salads to your liking. There was at least four or five of these, but I mainly focused on the grill kiosk. When you we’re done and visited the drink kiosk, you went to pay. The atmosphere was very lively as you felt you were in a larger mall’s food court.
Menu/Price: The menu’s at each kiosk really had something everyone would like. Plus they we’re made to order in which they met the customer’s requests. Although I did not take note of the pricing, I was told that nothing there costs over $10 per person… unless you wanted to get fat.
Meal: While I had five lunches there, I am going to focus on the Monte Crisco, which just happened to be the special on that particular Thursday. It was a grilled ham, turkey, and Swiss (I think) that I swear was between two pieces of light French toast, served with powdered sugar and raspberry sauce. I have never experienced anything like that and have desperately been trying to find another one! The curly fries that came with were pretty much like Arby’s… meaning they were good but not spectacular. However there was quite the quantity of them!
Service: As mentioned above, the staff would cater to the requests of those ordering, and it was observed that staff recognized frequent visitors and usually made up whatever they wanted without them asking. The lady who rang up half of the people (there were two lines, two registers) was exceeding nice and pleasant to work with.
Overall: So given the majority of the positive comments, why did I go for the 1 Fork, 1 Spoon, when ultimately it probably should be 1 Fork, 1 Knife? The reason is I found out after it was too late, that they were open for breakfast. And here I was eating hotel breakfast like a sucker, I guess my disgust is that I did not see hours anywhere in the cafe, but it is partially my fault because I guess I was not looking. That still does not seem like enough to doc them for, so I’ll nitpick that it was busy and hard to find a table.