Swede Hollow Cafe, the cozy East 7th Street gathering spot that has fed St. Paul's Dayton's Bluff neighborhood for nearly three decades, is closing its physical location for good. The cafe will host a farewell event during its final weekend of service on August 29 and 30, with its last day of service falling on August 31.
The cafe announced the closure on social media, thanking customers, friends, family, staff, and the entire East Side community, according to Bring Me The News. The announcement did not share details about why the cafe is closing, and representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment, per the same report. Located at 725 E. 7th St. in St. Paul, the shop built its reputation on quiche and rolls, along with a peaceful garden patio that regulars have long treasured.
Even as the storefront closes, the business behind it isn't disappearing entirely. Cafe ownership plans to continue offering catering, hosting pop-ups, and appearing at community events, the report notes, meaning the recipes that built a following over 29 years won't vanish along with the physical space.
A Community Institution Since 1997
Swede Hollow Cafe was founded in July 1997 by Dayton's Bluff residents as part of a 1990s neighborhood revitalization push, and it passed through several owners over the years, including Wes Lindstrom and John and Ruth Campbell, according to the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Current owner and chef Shirley Yang took over after working as the cafe's longtime baker, a path that led the business to win the City of Saint Paul's Ward 7 Business Award for People's Choice in October 2023 in recognition of its community presence and house-made baking. Yang also runs Shirley's Catering, which will continue operating after the cafe's physical location shuts down.
The cafe occupies the historic Stutzman Block building, constructed between 1885 and 1889. The structure fell into severe disrepair in the early 1990s before the grass-roots Upper Swede Hollow Neighborhood Association purchased and restored it in 1994, part of a broader neighborhood-led effort to spur economic vitality in Dayton's Bluff, per the Daily Planet's account. Sitting directly across from Metropolitan State University's main campus and next to the Mississippi Market food co-op, the cafe has anchored a stretch of East 7th Street that doubles as an educational and commercial corridor for the East Side.
Named for a Ravine With a Painful History
The cafe takes its name from the adjacent Swede Hollow Park, a 150-foot-deep ravine along Phalen Creek where Swedish, Italian, and Mexican immigrants settled beginning in the 1850s. City authorities declared the area a health hazard in 1956 and burned the remaining homes to the ground, according to Saint Paul Parks and Recreation. The city later designated the cleared ravine a public nature park in 1976, transforming a site of displacement into green space that still borders the cafe today.
Beyond baked goods, the cafe built a following for a house mocha made with house-crafted cocoa powder, using beans sourced from Brooklyn Center-based wholesale roaster Roastery 7 — a detail that once earned it recognition from Heavy Table as one of the best mochas in the Twin Cities metro area. The outdoor patio garden also hosted a partnership with Urban Roots, a Twin Cities non-profit that used the space to teach East Side youth about urban agriculture, conservation, and culinary skills, according to Discover The Cities.
More Than a Cafe for the East Side
The space functioned as something closer to an informal municipal gathering place than a typical coffee shop. St. Paul Ward 7 Councilmembers Jane Prince and Cheniqua Johnson have regularly used Swede Hollow Cafe to hold official city council office hours and public constituent meetings, with neighborhood office hours held there as recently as July.
That role fits a neighborhood built on community investment. St. Paul's East Side, encompassing Dayton's Bluff and three adjacent districts, is home to roughly 105,000 residents, or about 34% of the city's total population, according to 2020 U.S. Census data cited on Reddit. The cafe's closure removes one of the district's longtime anchors from that dense, diverse community.
Part of a Wider Wave of Closures
Swede Hollow Cafe's shutdown adds to a string of independent cafe and bakery closures across St. Paul in 2026, including the 16-year Hamline-Midway gathering spot Groundswell in February and Highland Park's Altera in May. Independent operators across the city have pointed to rising input costs and lease challenges as recurring pressures behind these shutterings.
What comes next for the 1880s storefront across from Metropolitan State University remains unclear, and the cafe's announcement did not address the building's future. For now, the East Side community has one more weekend, August 29 and 30, to gather for a farewell before Swede Hollow Cafe's doors close after 29 years of feeding, and hosting, Dayton's Bluff.
