The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

I'm a neighbor and am thrilled thrilled thrilled to have the Citizens Cafe open up around the corner. Went there on Friday night. The dining room and patio were both full, with several parties waiting to be seated. Great news. Service was very friendly and knowledgeable and predictably slow (predictable because it was their first weekend dinner service). The atmosphere and prices are exactly what is called for in a neighborhood restaurant (I've had enough of so-called neighborhood bistros that price their neighbors out). The food was hit and miss (wonderful roasted-tomato blue cheese dressing for the house salad; oddly sweet pulled pork sandwich; delicious and light house-made potato chips; fine-but-uninspiring Caesar, etc.) but absolutely worth coming back to, especially after giving the kitchen a little time to settle in. I'm excited to try breakfast next weekend. I hear that they're expecting a wine and beer license by August and will start a morning take-out menu for commuters in the next couple of weeks. Yay!

Do they have a website yet? The link in the article doesn't work.

I have been to the Citizen Cafe twice. Once for dinner and this morning for breakfast. I'm not convinced that this is the answer to this area's dining woes. For dinner they have a few "Entree Salads," the roasted vegetable, spinach one I ordered and the scallop, sun-dried tomato salad my sister ordered. Neither came with a paired dressing, instead we were asked what dressing we wanted. I didn't choose the right dressing and my dinner was very unappetizing. The vegetables were also pratically raw. Not very roasted at all. Both salads did use up a fair share of the plate's real estate, they just should come with a paired dressing. For the money and the concept of an entree salad, a dressing should've been thought out as well. The carrot soup I had was delicious and super flavorful as was the roasted beet spread that came with the complimentary bread basket. (Bread basket was simply rolls from the supermarket, nothing really interesting or note worthy except the spread). My father got the braised short-ribs and he declared them "alright, a little fatty with very little meat." Our server was quite attentive and nice. Breakfast this morning was kind of disappointing. We were greeted by a very morose woman who looked as if she wanted to be the last person to walk us to a table. Our server was very unapologetic about substitutions. As stated on the menu, "Substitutions...ain't gonna be cheap." Any substitution is no less than $2. On the up side, it is no more than $2. This is a bad, bad, bad idea. This is breakfast and people can hop-step it out of there and walk (or drive) a couple of blocks and get substitutions up the hizzy! (Chatterbox, Cardinal, Colossal, Victors, Longfellow, etc.) And for free! Little accompanies Citizen's breakfast's (either fruit or hashbrowns) and being in the market for an omelette but detesting breakfast potatoes I would've had to pay $2 to change it to toast. So I settled for the brioche french toast which was very pale, super sweet, thinly sliced and topped with dried blueberries. My sister got the eggs benedict which came with fresh fruit. Her eggs came poached hard (a request she didn't make) and after sending them back, only one came back poached easy. We both got bacon which might as well have been deep-fried* because it was cooked into practically ashes. Our coffee was kept full and the "unapologetic" waiter kept his distance as we were given a new one who was very sweet. I like the idea of this place, but it needs work. And please Citizen, lose the brown paper table coverings!! After a meal it looks as if not a morsel made it to your mouth since the paper sops up every greasy fork print and water droplet. I will offer just one more thing. Sweet Lorraine's (this location's predecessor) had the world's best salsa. Get their recipe! Do something crazy with it! *Has anyone ever deep-fried bacon before?