We were in Fargo in early September 2022, as part of Big Trip #4. Read about our first trip to Fargo in 2020 here.
The drive to Fargo from Grand Rapids was a pretty one, through forests and past lakes on smaller roads. We arrived in Fargo at one of our favorite campgrounds with a simple goal: go to two of our favorite breweries and drink some beer.
Campground
We love staying at Lindenwood Campground in Lindenwood Park, a scenic campground on the Red River not far from downtown Fargo and Moorhead. The park was busy for Labor Day weekend–lots of campers, picnickers, fishers, runners, bikers.
We enjoyed taking it all in from our picnic table, and getting out for a run on the Red River Trail before it got too hot–and we learned that you can ride a bike or run along the trail all the way to downtown or Moorhead! It’s only a few miles! That makes our campground even more special.
Drinking
From our last visit, we knew much of our Fargo trip would center around beers at two of our all-time favorite breweries, Junkyard and Drekker. While we can fairly easily find Drekker beers in Virginia, the only place to find the fabulous Junkyard brews is in their Moorhead, MN tasting room.
Junkyard, in Moorhead, was our first stop. It was crowded and for good reason. My sours and seltzer were good but a bit too sweet. J loved all his IPAs and bought 200 crowlers and a t-shirt that he has worn everyday since.
Drekker, our favorite brewery from last time in Fargo, is in the homestretch of a massive expansion, to include a hotel and food hall. The taproom remains the same, with a big dog-friendly patio, and we tried all our favorites. My sour tastes have morphed since 2020 and become way less sweet, and the genius barkeep suggested a Techno Viking (Berliner Weisse) with a shot of blueberry Brains (a smoothie sour) and it was so good!
Eating
On our first night, dinner was easy: Sol Ave. Kitchen is adjacent to Junkyard, and fit in nicely with our brewery plans: we’d have a beer at Junkyard, and take food to Drekker for our next beer. We enjoyed our spicy and interesting kimchi fried rice bowls.
On night #2, we went for a fancy dinner at Rosewild. It might be our third favorite on the trip thus far, after Zeitgeist in Duluth and Mint Mart in Madison. The dishes were based on local ingredients and everything was delicious. The setting in the new Jasper Hotel was also top-notch–that’s clearly the best place to stay in Fargo, if you’re not in an RV.
Before we left town on Saturday morning, we wanted to get a treat at Sandy’s Donuts… womp womp they were sold out of just about everything, and the few we tried were only so-so.
Before we struck out on donuts, we admired the food menu at Twenty Below Coffee while we ordered coffee and matcha lattes. Bread with toppings! Yes please. Next time! The drinks were fab.
Exploring
We didn’t do a ton of exploring this visit, because we enjoyed hanging out at our campsite so much. We took Bugsy for a walk around downtown, popping into some shops (it’s a very dog-friendly city) and admiring buildings. I couldn’t resist making my family pose for pictures at some of the murals around town.
We were lucky to be in town on a Saturday morning and visited the Red River Market, a popular downtown farmers market, with long lines at a couple food stands, a couple alcohol booths (the genius beertender with the Berliner Wiesse + smoothie sour idea was working the Drekker stand!), and live music on the plaza by the Jasper Hotel. And that’s kind of the extent of our exploring.
Fargo is a cool town! We hope to include it on future trips, but it’s so far north!
To do
Breakfast at Twenty Below Coffee
I’ve had this on my list but it hasn’t risen high enough before–next time for sure! Visit the Crazy Tree on the Concordia College campus
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