Gray Fox Coffee & Wine Bar - Minneapolis, MN Review

How’s it going? Hope the coffee is flowing! Today I’m bringing you a review of Gray Fox Cofee, a coffee and wine bar in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

There are 3 Gray Fox locations in the city, we visited the Deluxe Plaza location at 801 Marquette Ave. S. This location was a little bit tough to find when using navigation as the building is not marked well. This isn’t a Gray Fox issue, but more of a property management issue. With some help from my wife we found it though!

The simple, but attractive sign letting you know you reached your coffee destination

The location was described by my wife as modern chic, which after a Google search, checked out. The painted brick walls, brick mosaic floors, and black and copper decor gave the coffee shop a very unique look. Gray Fox is in the center of the building which gives it a huge and spacious lay out. The coffee and wine bar is tucked away in a corner with 2 windows for coffee and a small bar area.

The seating area viewed from the order area

While I prefer to have black coffee, when I try new coffee shops I like to ask the employees for their drink recommendation. In this case, the drink that caught my eye and the one the employee recommended matched. The employee knew the ins and outs of each drink and recommended the Fox in the Woods. I mean, the place is called Gray Fox, how could I not get the Fox in the Woods?

The coffee bar viewed from seating near the stairs

The fox drawn in my latte, a nice touch

The drink is a latte made with spiced maple syrup, bitters, smoked sea salt, and milk. I opted for oat milk as I prefer the taste and texture of oat milk to almond. Note this does come with a $1.10 up charge.

As a black coffee drinker I have to say this might be one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever had. For a specialty latte, the drink was well balanced and still had a great coffee taste. Each sip hit in layers, starting with a mild sweetness from the syrup and a hint of salt. It almost tasted to me like a mild salted caramel flavor. This flavor did not over power the coffee, which is key for me as I like to taste the coffee in my drinks. The bitters were most noticeable in the after taste, which was slightly spicy with a hint of hoppiness. I wanted to savor every sip of this and definitely make it last as long as I could. An added bonus was that the temperature of the coffee was perfect. It was ready to drink from the moment I picked it up from the counter. When I return to the twin cities I will have a hard time not stopping in again for another. However, duty calls and I’ll need to get some more coffee shops reviewed for you, my loyal readers.

Gray Fox offers a wide range of specialty drinks. The Fox in the Woods and Nutty Squirrel are supposed to be the most balanced, with the Nutty Squirrel being slightly sweeter. Their sweetest drinks are the Clever Bee and Horchata, which the employee described as more dessert like. Maybe they’ll hook me up with a flight next time and I’ll get to tell you about all of them!

If you’re in the Minneapolis area I cannot express enough that you should check out the Gray Fox, and even if you like black coffee get outside of your comfort zone like I did and grab yourself a Fox in the Woods, I promise you won’t regret it!

As always, if you want to stay up to date on my latest content follow me on Instagram and Facebook to get notified anytime new content drops, and to follow my adventures as they happen!