Sneak peek at 20 Below Coffee Co.

The number of quality cups of coffee available to us in Fargo-Moorhead continues to grow. Small batch roasters have made their mark now, too, with Stumbeano’s setting up shop downtown last year. They roast beans in Fergus Falls, where they started, but now are slinging espresso near the Boiler Room restaurant.

Some drinks at Stumbeano’s I recommend are the chai tea, cafe miel or a cortado. They really know what they’re doing. Also available are pour-over coffee or aeropress.

Now another place is just weeks away from opening.

20 Below Coffee Co., at 14 Roberts St., looks to be a perfect pairing of quality coffee and outstanding customer service, as they write on the website:

Paired with this goal of bringing the highest quality coffee and community environment to our beloved city is the goal of strengthening community in the countries we are receiving our coffee from.

There’s also an emphasis on fair trade with coffee farmers:

One of our long-term goals is to develop direct-trade relationships with coffee farmers in order to maximize their profit, product quality, and relationship with others in their community.

Something the founders, Ty and Elisha Ford and Michael and Danae Moran, have been doing I found particularly interesting. They’ve set up a Kickstarter-like campaign “founding member opportunity” with different rewards for amounts contributed, ranging from a drink token to free coffee for life (with $2500 contribution).

An email went out to early supporters with photos of the new space and it’s looking good so far:

There will be a grand opening party on April 11th with live music and giveaways.

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‘Pounds’ coming soon

There will soon be a new place to try out in downtown Fargo. 

Pounds is setting up shop at 612 1st Ave N near Wurst Bier Hall.

They’re doing some renovations on the space right now, and no word yet on an opening date.

From the looks of it, Pounds will feature made-from-scratch food and going from their website design alone, it’ll probably include burgers, wings and drinks at least, so most likely an upper-scale bar menu.

Stay tuned.

Check out www.poundsfargo.com

Red Pepper has ‘soft opening’

There are till a few hours to get your grinder on.

Grinders

The Red Pepper is holding a “soft opening” for its “unpretentious Mexican” food at their new Fargo location at 1115 19th Ave. N. in the Happy Harry’s Plaza.

“The Pepper” has been a mainstay up in Grand Forks, mostly for inebriated college students.

Fellow blogger Jeni Flaa went to check the place out for the first time, but unfortunately had to turn back due to the extreme wait and slow-moving line.

In line, people were yelling to keep the door shut. Despite the publicity for the restaurant, the owners did not provide any way to guide the long line so it was a crowd of people struggling to keep any semblance of a line. Lots of people letting their families in so the line never seemed to get shorter. Waited for 20 minutes and moved ahead but only a few steps. Puzzled that hardly anyone seemed to leave the restaurant with their orders. Heard the ding of the microwave-also puzzled how it takes so long to put together food that mostly needs to be assembled and nuked.

Jeni said she’ll try again when the initial buzz dies down.

The Red Pepper Fargo will be fully open starting Monday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.