Coffee & Treats in Anoka

When visitors walk into Café Donuts at 5 a.m., chances are they’re still waking up or sleepwalking in their pajamas. Once through the doorway, they immediately regain consciousness as they’re greeted by an aromatic uppercut of fresh donuts and percolating coffee. With newfound alertness, they behold a menu of 40 standard donut varieties alongside specialty pastries such as apple fritters and éclairs. Behind the counter, baristas steam milk and grind beans for a variety of hot or iced espresso drinks. The café’s staff also keep sweet teeth from troubling neighbors for a cup of sugar with more than 25 flavors of hand-dipped ice cream from KaledioScoops.

In 1944, Reino Wuollet opened a small bakery where he prepared fresh bread each day. More than 65 years later, his humble shop has grown into six locations where 30 or so family members tinker over cakes, pastries, and pies. Wedding and other occasion cakes are one of their specialties; flavors such as chocolate mousse and Lady Baltimore can be coated with marzipan, buttercream frosting, or fondant in an impressive array of custom designs. Of course, they still bake breads: an international selection of loaves includes baguettes, challah, Swedish lympa, Irish soda bread, and buns shaped into busts of United Nations delegates.

Born from the imaginations of two brothers running a flower shop, Edible Arrangements has grown from a single neighborhood storefront in Waltham, Massachusetts, to more than 1,100 locations throughout the globe, sending clusters of fresh fruit to deserving loved ones throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Produce artisans arrange delicious bundles of candy-dipped apples, strawberries, and bananas alongside carved melon slices and morsels of orange, grape, and berry, combining the eye-catching color of a floral bouquet with every human's unconscious desire to feast on that bouquet. Guests stop in the store to enjoy fresh fruit smoothies and salad or pick up baskets to present to sweethearts, friends, or family in person. For web-based gift giving, helpful package tracking allows customers to keep tabs on their remotely ordered bounties of seasonal citrus bouquets and cocoa-covered berries.

According to an old Dutch proverb, "Coffee has two virtues: it is wet and warm. Stop giggling." For $8, today's Groupon lets you enjoy the dark elixir's many virtues with four coffee drinks at Dunn Bros Coffee (an up to $18 value). Bring your Groupon to either the Loring Park or Lyndale Avenue locations and you'll receive a four-beverage punch card that you can use to stay alert until baseball season.

SiP Coffeebar is an independently owned and operated java joint, serving up tasty bean-juice beverages made from organic and locally roasted coffee, as well as freshly made bakery bites, sandwiches, salads, and soups. For a no-frills caffeine fix, throw back a couple shots of classic espresso ($1.75/medium), or tempt your tasters with a specialty drink such as a raspberry almond latte, caramel latte, or Nutella mocha ($3.45/medium). Impeccably pair liquid power with the sweetness of homemade scones ($1.80) and gooey chocolate-chip cookies ($1.50 for three), or couple coffee with a protein-packed bagel sandwich ($3–$3.75) that will give your step the extra pep it needs to avoid back-breaking sidewalk cracks. All sandwiches, such as the veggie sandwich ($5), are made fresh and served on your choice of a baguette, croissant, multigrain, focaccia, or ciabatta bread, or wrapped up like a strongman wrestling an anaconda. Soup and sandwich combos can be customized for $7.75.

Though inspired by the northern California cafés of the early 1980s, Espresso Royale fits right in with Michigan’s modern coffee drinkers—in 2012 readers of The Michigan Daily voted it Best Coffee Shop for the third year in a row. Their coffees include a house blend developed in 1987, which has since been joined by a chocolate-almond roast and a southern Italian-style espresso called Napoli. Royale's customers also clamor to the counter for favorites such as raspberry mochas, mint hot chocolates, and ginger dragon, a tea layered with fresh lemon and steeped ginger root that can be served iced or heated by a dragon named Ginger.