Hello, Bison! The sun has finally started showing its face! Something about the warm weather makes me want to take a walk around downtown Fargo and buy myself an overpriced iced coffee. So I did! I bought myself an overpriced iced coffee. It was worth it. I cannot even be mad about the price. At least I am happy, and sometimes that’s enough. I did not mean to get depressing; I am just saying we are at a stressful time in the semester. We are almost there, though. Get yourself through it by buying an iced coffee. Here is my suggestion for the week: Revival Coffee.

I will start by saying that Revival is not the place to go if you want to sit down and have a chat with someone. Revival is the place to go if you have time to waste and want to do some exploring. Revival Coffee is inside the First Avenue Market. Within my short visit, I discovered a dog boutique, some dried soups and recipe books and some general house decor. There is also a freezer with some frozen meats, pizzas, soups and baked goods. It was unclear exactly where you purchased these, but I am assuming there was another cashier desk somewhere further in the store.

If you want to go to Revival Coffee, though, you really cannot expect to sit. I found an entire five seats within the front area of the building. Perhaps there were more somewhere in the back, but those would have been outside of what I considered to be the coffee shop. There were not a ton of people there when I was there so the few seats were not a problem, but they very well might be at a different time of day. This lack of seats does encourage customers to explore the store, but it does not leave much room for relaxing. I am a huge fan of sitting at coffee shops to do homework, as we know, which would be very difficult in this space. 

Something that I do not always mention but I will mention today is wait time. Revival Coffee did have a pretty long wait. This is definitely due to the fact that there was only one barista working, so I could not really blame them, but I think it is important for readers to know if they are considering stopping at Revival Coffee. Upon watching the process of the coffee creation, I noticed that it was a very tedious process. The barista was very careful with every measurement and step in the process. This, of course, makes the coffee taste very good. However, it is not good for time—especially when there are multiple customers. I think I probably waited around 15 minutes with 3 drinks in front of me. 

Because of the tedious process of coffee making, however, my coffee was quite good. I ordered an Iced Brown Sugar Oat Milk Latte. This sounds incredibly confusing for people who may not be baristas, but I promise it is not. I went to Revival with my cousin who ordered a Grandma’s Snickerdoodles Latte with oat milk. Both of us found our drinks quite tasty, although the oat milk flavor was a little overwhelming. The effort put into the espresso shot was quite evident, as it left me with a very smooth espresso flavor. The flavor in my drink was not very strong, but it was in my cousin’s.

Now let’s talk convenience of location. Revival Coffee is a short 6-minute drive from campus. All one would have to do is hop on University Drive and then take a left on 1st Ave N. It’s in a quieter part of the area, so parking is not too incredibly difficult. I found a parking spot right in front of the store. This could have been because it was a very slow time of day, but I cannot imagine that it would be too hard to find a parking spot at a busier time. Revival is also only open between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. which I didn’t find to be incredibly busy. 

One more thing to mention is the pricing at Revival Coffee. I found the coffee here to be quite pricey. My and my cousin’s drinks both came only in 12 oz., but they cost what I would usually imagine a 16 oz. drink to cost. Of course, our drinks were both slightly more expensive because of the alternative milk, but it definitely still hurt my bank account a little. Coffee is always worth it, though. 

One final thing to mention is that the iced to-go cups at Revival are super cute. They look like a potion, which makes me feel less bad about how much I paid. I just hold onto hope that it will give me superpowers.

To conclude, I would recommend Revival if you have time to waste that you specifically want to waste walking around an indoor market. The coffee was good, but the seating was not. Check this coffee shop out if you have that very specific agenda in mind. You could even grab a coffee to go and wander around downtown Fargo. Have fun with whatever wandering you choose to do. And don’t forget to tip your barista.