Milkweed
A Gluten-Free Community Driven Cafe
Photo by Becca Dilley
The story of Milkweed goes well beyond its opening on Lake Street in May 2019. Blue Moon Cafe occupied 3822 E. Lake St for over 24 years until owner Lisa Berg closed the cafe in 2019 due to health issues. Brenda Igersoll and Alex Needham, once part of the Blue Moon Cafe team, decided to purchase the space they fell in love with. Since then, the space has evolved into Milkweed, a community driven cafe that incorporates plant medicine into the traditional coffee shop menu to create nourishing, gut-healing elixirs and gluten-free treats.
“Our ingredients are sourced locally and our syrups and wide array of luscious alternative milks are all made in house.”
- Brenda Ingersoll, co-owner of Milkweed
Below is the entirety of our interview with Brenda Ingersoll.
Why do you love Lake Street?
It is the most vibrant and diverse stretch of South Minneapolis. If you can't get it on Lake Street, it's not worth getting!
“If you can’t get it on Lake Street, it’s not worth getting!”
Brenda Ingersoll, co-owner of Milkweed
Why did you decide to remain open during the civil unrest?
While many other businesses in the area shut down, we felt it was necessary to continue to be a hub for our community and provide much needed caffeine for protestors and passerby. At night our Longfellow neighbors patrolled our corner and drove away people trying to start fires and damage property.
How has Covid-19 affected Milkweed?
Milkweed employed 12 people before the pandemic forced us to reimagine our business model. We have reduced the hours and days we operate and have been operating with a skeleton staff since we reopened in April. We no longer offer lunch fare and have concentrated on our beverage and pastry program. [Please] continue to frequent our establishment through the winter! We are already starting to see a drop in sales since it has started getting cold out. We appreciate the business!
What do you hope for the future of Milkweed and Lake Street?
We hope to reopen fully at some point. We have a lot of plans for events, community involvement, and kids activities. Eventually we would like to offer more food in the future as well.
We hope that the local businesses that were destroyed are able to rebuild and flourish. We also hope that the corporations that were burned will reassess their position in the neighborhood and be more of a help to the community going forward.