After 15 years, Minneapolis' Common Roots Cafe has closed

After a decade and a half on Lyndale Avenue, Common Roots Cafe has closed its doors.

Owner Danny Schwartzman announced the closure in an email to customers Wednesday evening.

"I started this business with a dream and was naive enough to not fully realize how utterly impractical it was," wrote Schwartzman, who opened the cafe, at 2558 Lyndale Av. S., when he was 25.

"The truth is that a small business like this is a tremendous load to carry," he added.

The locavore, counter-service cafe was a bastion of environmentally friendly homestyle cooking in the Lowry Hill East neighborhood. Dishes incorporated many Minnesota-grown, organic ingredients, some from the cafe's own garden. It was known for its bagels and "noshes," casual fare such as a wild rice burger and hearty mains like brisket.

In 2012, former Star Tribune critic Rick Nelson wrote of the harmonious balance Schwartzman struck between purpose-driven dining and pleasing the masses. "The south Minneapolis restaurant makes a valiant effort to leave as dainty a carbon footprint as possible, yet does so without piously wrapping itself in some kind of hemp shroud," Nelson wrote. And the bagels, he said, were ones that "Minnesota can be proud of."

Schwartzman cited the extreme challenge of running a restaurant, even before the pandemic took a huge bite out of business.

Early in the pandemic, Schwartzman expanded the cafe's patio and rerouted his catering resources to offer delivery and begin a weekly subscription service that provided customers with regular Shabbat dinners and other fare.

Still, sales this past year were "roughly half" of what they were before the pandemic. "Our margins were thin in good times, but there's absolutely no possibility of the budget working at anywhere near the volume we are at now," he said. "At some point, I have to accept the reality in front of me."

Additionally, the cafe's staff was in the process of unionizing. Schwartzman said he supported that move and "would have loved being able to run a union business." But "this big step forced me to take a fresh look at the overall state of the business," and he says he didn't have confidence he could keep the place open.

"When I took a careful look at the totality of the challenges I faced, the financial losses, the operational challenges, the personal toll of the ongoing strain of 15 years of confronting countless problems, small and large, I knew I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep believing I could make next year a success in the face of reality. It's time to call it done. Nothing lasts forever."

The restaurant has already closed. Customers with gift cards can redeem them for dry goods or a cash refund by emailing info@commonrootscafe.com. Catering deposits will be refunded.