DS & I will be visiting St. Olaf next week. Are there any places of note (e.g., restaurants, coffee shops, etc.) in Northfield we should make a point of seeing while we are in town?
@Moonshot99 All on Division St are:
Coffee shop - Goodbye Blue Monday
gift shop - Swag
sandwich shop - Hogan Bros.
bagels - Tandem Bagels
bookstore - Content
pub - Contented Cow (below Anna’s Closet clothing store)
Near campus is a nicer restaurant The Ole Store on St Olaf Ave
Not sure if it is a place of note, but if you’re looking for decent pizza, try Basil’s on Water street. In some ways it’s a total dive, but for Mexican you ought to experience El Triunfo at least once.
Thanks @Snowball_City and @Bekp2018! We will definitely look into your suggestions. Much appreciated.
@Moonshot99 I don’t know when you are arriving in Minnesota. Be alert to the weather forecast for Thursday night and Friday.
@Snowball_City, quite nice of you to think of me. My son & I were at St. Olaf’s Junior day on Monday so we experienced unseasonably warm (though very wet) weather. We were not able to check out any of your suggestions but the visit to St. Oaf was fantastic.
I’m guessing we will be back again and I’ll make sure to build some free time into the schedule in order to walk the town a bit.
BTW, does the cereal factory provide tours? 
So glad I saw this post. My husband and daughter are flying in on Friday night…with a blizzard in the forecast. I guess this will give her a real taste for MN weather! It was sunny and 55 degrees on her first visit…kids were in shorts which thought was crazy but for them, it seemed balmy, I guess. I gave them a list of your suggestions. She’ll be busy, but perhaps my husband will see some of these places.
@searchwizard I use accuweather’s hourly forecast. You can see that around dinner time the visibility distances really improve.
Have them take 494 west bound to Mn 77 south. Get onto 35E south. Continue south until MN 19 for Northfield. The state highways and the interstate will be in the best shape. I really feel they will be fine.
If they are at all nervous, have them get a hotel near the mall of America area and then drive down in the morning.
@Moonshot99 Would you be willing to share your child’s impressions of his visit?
@mamaedefamilia I’ve been thinking about giving an update but have struggled with how to make it informative and/or useful to others. The bottom line is that, somewhat to my surprise, he LOVED St. Olaf. He is neither musically inclined nor religious (he would say he is agnostic) but by the end of the Junior Day he had a strong gut feel that this could be the place for him.
We have visited many liberal arts colleges and this was arguably the strongest positive reaction I’ve seen in him. It wasn’t like he was just caught up in the “Minnesota nice” aspect of the visit as he could not stand the school we visited the next day. Something about the St. Olaf community/culture seemed to resonate with him.
@Moonshot99 Thanks so much! I suspect that St. Olaf may be a better fit than my D imagines. I am hoping that we will be able to attend one of the admitted students days in April.