For a new deli, running out of sandwiches during your grand opening isn’t necessarily ideal—but it is a pretty rewarding proof of concept. All the more so if you also run out of bread, pastries, and apple cider.
Such was the situation Shepherds Table found itself in after opening in late September. Chalk it up to long-bottled neighborly excitement; owners Elia and Aidan Read have been working on the shop since 2023, when their family took over the building at 37th Avenue and 34th Street in south Minneapolis.
The Reads, who are also part of the family-owned Shepherd's Way Farms in Northfield, thought the Longfellow neighborhood could use a shop stocked with Minnesota-made goods. Then, after an optimistic series of preview events in 2023, they were repeatedly set back by health scares and issues with the city’s licensing process. “When's Shepherd's Table going to open?” Longfellow Whatever asked back in June of 2024, and the answer (“Soon. Ish.”) proved to be “another year and three months from now.”
But you know what they say: Fresh, local goods and delicious sandwiches come to those who wait. Today the doors are open and the shelves are stocked with made-in-Minnesota foods, from Buffalo-based Norte Café coffee to Scandia’s Serious Jam to boxed wild rice from Red Lake Nation Foods. There’s a fridge with butter from Hope Creamery and Bongards, milk from Autumnwood Farm in Forest Lake (including chocolate and strawberry), cider from Sweetland Orchard in Webster, and eggs from Wrenshall’s Locally Laid.
And, of course, there’s the cheese and meat case, full of treats from Redhead Creamery, Eichtens, and, naturally, Shepherd’s Way Farms. (Hot tip for Duluthiphiles: They’ve got smoked salmon from Northern Waters in there, too.) I’d stopped by Shepherds Table to grab sandwiches during a bike ride last week and was simultaneously annoyed and relieved by the limitations of my unrefrigerated backpack.
After some quick mental math around the dangers of schlepping dairy long distances in 85-degree weather, I pulled myself from the cheese case’s glow and made for the sandwich counter at the back of the shop. The selection is streamlined and affordable, with the priciest of the bunch, The Papa, topping out at $12.
Which was all the more shocking when I saw the size of the sandwiches I was handed a few moments later:
I am a lanky broad, and that is a fully forearm-sized sandwich—The Daisy Melt ($11), to be more precise. Let’s take a look under the paper:
The Daisy Melt is a gorgeous showcase for Shepherd’s Way’s Hidden Falls cheese, a soft and creamy sheep’s milk cheese that’s perfection alongside salty ham and crisp local apples. The faintest drizzle of honey lends a slight touch of sweetness, setting off the cheese’s woodsy notes.
While The Daisy Melt is a subtle sandwich, The Papa is anything but. Packed with a trio of meats—City Ham from Lowry Hill Provisions, cotto salami, and white wine salami—it also gets Shepherd’s Way’s friesago cheese, which was a first-place finisher in the Farmstead Sheep Milk American Cheese Society Competition. (Trust us, it’s a big deal in dairy.) My only regret is not opting to “make it zesty” by adding Beaufor’s whole grain mustard. There’s always next time.
Both were served on Laune Bread’s naturally leavened sourdough baguette, immediately recognizable from its dark brown hue and earthy whole grain flavor. Laune is providing the pastries for Shepherds Table, too, which just makes sense—if you’re going to open a shop that focuses on Minnesota-made goods, the bakery four blocks away that can boast that 98.1% of its ingredients are grown and processed by small Minnesota farmers and businesses is an obvious choice.
Now, not everything at Shepherd’s Table is made in-state. You simply can’t grow San Marzanos in this part of the world (anything else is just sparkling tomatoes), and we don’t know about any local olive tree farmers either, so Partanna it is. But for almost everything else here—ground beef, crackers, chocolate milk—a local producer is to thank.
More like Minnesota Ex… chef-tionalism? We’ll work on it.
Shepherds Table
Address: 3708 34th St. E., Minneapolis
Hours: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday; 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday through Sunday
