For over a century, Minnesotans have outlined Northfield by its cows and schools. Now, the world is coming to know the leafy little metropolis for its coffee.
Northfield’s personal Little Joy Coffee shop has brewed itself onto the world map in current weeks after inviting cafes and caffeine lovers all over the place to steal the recipe for its smash-hit raspberry Danish latte.
From Paris to Poznań, Malaysia to Morocco, it’s a name that has been answered by an ever-growing checklist of institutions round the globe, and no person wherever is extra stunned than the drink’s inventor.
“I was thinking to myself, ‘Okay, what if only like five people put this on their menu?’” Little Joy proprietor Cody Larson informed NCS.
“I thought, at best, it would be maybe a dozen shops.”
That’s to not say Larson didn’t anticipate his creation to be well-received.
The recognition of earlier carrot cake lattes and cardamom bun lattes at the coffee shop had confirmed his principle that dessert-inspired drinks are in the ascendancy. After weeks of toiling in the shop’s basement kitchen to finish the seasonal spring menu, he gave up on a mango sticky rice concoction and located inspiration in a flaky European delicacy.
Anchored by a raspberry syrup that mimics the filling usually present in Danish pastries, the drink sees milk and a double shot of espresso splashed over ice earlier than being topped with a cream cheese foam.
Rolled out in early March alongside a matcha-ginger beer creation and different iced specials, the raspberry Danish latte was an prompt winner, even at an $8 value level.
“For a lot of people, that’s a lot,” Larson mentioned. “When you’ll be able to put one thing acquainted in your menu, I really feel like persons are extra keen to take an opportunity on it.
“That’s maybe why these drinks that are inspired by something else that people might know already are tending to do better right now.”
Publicly critiquing your personal pricing could seem an odd ploy for many companies, however for Little Joy it has helped construct a 139,000-strong Instagram following that equates to roughly six instances the total city’s inhabitants.
The shop’s lately launched “DIY or Buy” social media collection is an evolution of its long-running method to giving freely recipes away on-line, whereby retailer supervisor Serena Walker delivers judgement on whether or not viewers can be higher off making the chosen drink at residence — all in her personal nonchalant, often profane, Gen Z model.
“We hardly have to script anything — she’s just got it,” mentioned Larson.
The raspberry Danish verdict? Though coming in low-cost at $2.46 home made, “too many dishes, and you’re gonna stain your white clothes,” Walker concluded, earlier than inviting all coffee retailers watching to “steal” the recipe for themselves, even pointing viewers towards a link that defined methods to produce the drink at scale.
Coca-Cola or KFC will certainly by no means quit the system behind their best hits, so why has Little Joy Coffee? Larson’s take is that exclusivity, a minimum of as a advertising ploy, is “dead.”
“People are shown so much stuff online that’s out of reach for them, that when something finally is in reach, they’re just happy to be a part of it,” he defined.
“By sharing the recipe with all coffee shops, we made it within reach, got it off the screen into the real world, which is a gap a lot of people are trying to bridge right now. We’re on our phone so much, we see so much on the screen — let’s bring that into real life.”
Little Joy determined to help the companies keen to take the pulp-straining plunge, by serving to potential clients discover them. It created a world map that tagged each outlet that had added the raspberry Danish to its menu.
Since launching on March 21, the map has been considered greater than 3 million instances, with pins popping up at greater than 480 retailers throughout 41 nations spanning each continent bar the one the place a scarcity of demand for something iced is solely comprehensible: Antarctica.
Even some 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles) away in Perth, Australia — the farthest main metropolis from Northfield — three cafes now boast a raspberry Danish latte. One of them is Ashby Coffee House, whose matcha and traditional iced latte variations have been met by glowing critiques.
“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” supervisor Asha Fisher informed NCS. “It’s safe to say this seasonal special has been a standout.”
Inundated with messages thanking Little Joy for a lift in enterprise, Larson has reveled in supporting the native economies of communities that can, most certainly, by no means have heard of his hometown.
The inhabitants of Northfield, lots of whom examine at considered one of the two non-public liberal arts schools, Carleton and St. Olaf, are basking in it too — residents have thanked the shop for “putting Northfield on the map,” Larson mentioned.
It’s been a century and a half since Northfield has garnered such widespread consideration. Any native might let you know the story of September 7, 1876, when Jesse James’ notorious band of outlaws sauntered up Division Street to rob the First National Bank, solely to fail miserably and flee empty-handed in a cloud of gun smoke, triggering the largest manhunt in US historical past at the time.
Like the Defeat of Jesse James Days pageant staged every summer time, it’s an thrilling flip of occasions for the residents dwelling in the shadow of the bustling metropolitan space that types the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, 45 miles to the north.
Oft in comparison with the charming fictional city that gives the setting for “Gilmore Girls,” the spirit of close-knit neighborhood that outlined Stars Hollow is ever-present in Northfield, says Larson, who sees it embodied in a single explicit buyer who Little Joy Coffee has served “every day” because it first opened its doorways in 2019.
It’s a neighborhood that, like so many throughout the state, has endured a turbulent begin to 2026. The influence of the 74-day lengthy Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, described by the Department of Homeland Security as its “largest ever” immigration operation, was felt past the confines of the Twin Cities earlier than it resulted in mid-February.
“The bakery where we get our pastries from closed down because they were afraid. The workers were afraid to go to work,” Larson recalled.
“It wasn’t some far off thing, it was happening in our community.”
That was the main motive Little Joy bucked calls to not “get political” or “stick to making silly little coffee videos,” they defined in a January post. The shop joined different companies in closing as a part of an “economic blackout” on January 23 to boycott the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers, earlier than internet hosting an “Open for Community” occasion every week later that raised cash for mutual support funds.
“I think it’s important as a business to kind of put your foot down and tell your customers where you stand, because they want that,” Larson defined. “Customers want to know where they’re spending their money.”
In 2024, Northfield City Council tweaked its longtime slogan of “Cows, Colleges and Contentment,” switching the ultimate phrase out for “Community” however urging locals to drop in different options starting with “C” the place applicable. If Little Joy can maintain its worldwide and native success, the case for including “Coffee” would certainly be as sturdy as some other.
“Right now, we’re just trying to make the drinks as fast as we can, and it’s not slowing down yet,” mentioned Larson, who has been in a position to give his employees a elevate off the again of the current curiosity.
“We’re going to keep making our silly little coffee videos, sharing recipes and not gatekeeping.”