The Good Life Cafe

Wonderful food. We had the walleye Blt and a pb tai burger. Yum. Can’t wait to make a day trip to Park Rapids soon so we can eat here again!

I have eaten here many times, solo, family and business. The food and service is always excellent! Highlights are the Walleye tacos and WBLT! The Bison meatball sandwich and Reuban are great etc! You will not be disappointed!

Excellent friendly service, awesome food, unique menu choices, local ingredients, large craft beer selection, cozy ambiance. Love it.

Again, Good Life has performed magnificently. The Cucumber Beet Burger was so good had I closed my eyes I could’ve imagine I was eating beef. Moist, favorable, hearty. Paired with a side salad and a cranberry balsamic vinaigrette it was the perfect meal midway on our return trip home Labor Day weekend. I have never been disappointed eating here so while you are enjoying the delightful town of Park Rapids, MN, be sure to try the Good Life on main street; it will make your day!

My wife and I have eaten here several times… most recently a couple of weeks ago. They had recently remodeled the interior and it looked very nice. Our meal was very good and I would have give them 4 stars except for the sometimes inattentive service. It really wasn’t very crowded but our waitresses seemed to have difficulty refilling water glasses until I had to go up to the bar and do it myself. Apparently our waitstaff wasn’t able to make it all the way through waitressing 101. Too bad because it spoiled an otherwise nice outing.

I eat here not as often as I would like, I live in town and it is the only place in the area that has a selections for Vegans. They always have a good selection of beers, the Margarita I had last time was wonderful, small, but not sickly sweet. I really like their mac and cheese, get that most of the time I am there, the pretzel bites are quite good. Service is fast and pleasant.

Thai PB burger is delicious. Highly recommended. If ever in Park Rapids stop in here.

Had the Pulled Pork with Apple Sandwich it tasted very good. My sweetie had a Greek and Chicken Salid and it was very good also. Lots of interesting beers to choose form. Will come back as long as I’m town.

Great, creative food and friendly service. Try the walleye tacos! The bean and beet burger was flavorful enough to be a hit with a carnivore. Delicious potato chips made on site.

Vegetarian burger was awesome! Husbands turkey club was the best!
This community is filled with fun shops, beautiful flowers, and a feeling you should have allotted more time.
The café was a find from Unilocal and I recommend it highly.

Gluten free options noted on the menu (thank you!). The risotto was PHENOMENAL! My brother in law had the pork medallions which weren’t gf but he said they were excellent as well. I will definitely be back whenever I’m in the area.

This place is a break from the bar and grill places I have frequented recently. Very nice little place in downtown Park Rapids with plenty of street parking.
I decided to splurge and go a little over my preset average meal spending. The interior is nicely done and they have an outdoor patio. The menu is a bit more creative than most of the eating places I have encountered on my long vacation.
I had to try the jumbo wings as an appetizer in the sweet chile version. The wings were jumbo and very flavorful, almost worth the $ 14 price for 10 wings.
I also ordered the apple pulled pork sandwich that was very average but the fries were good. The service was spotty and I didn’t get the impression the staff wanted to be there on such a beautiful day.
All in all it was a good meal in a very nice setting with spotty service. I would go back for the wings and skip the entrée.

Excellent food and friendly service.
Some of the best sandwiches I’ve seen or tasted. Quality ingredients and no skimping on portion size that we saw on our orders. Care of preparation and creativity that surpasses most home cooking.
Can’t speak to the dinner menu, but for lunch this was a fantastic experience. After a week of eating out at restaurants I needed this.

Watch out, another burger review that includes PB!
Four of us visited this place on a Saturday night for dinner. We were on the earlier side (after walking around Lake Itasca) and so there wasn’t a wait for a table.
We started with the sweet potato fries with mayo aioli which came out pipping hot. The fries were good, and the aioli (basically just flavored mayo right) wasn’t too rich. I ordered the Thai pb burger with veggie patty option. I saw rice and has to go with it since I love Fitger’s wild rice burgers. There was a definite kick to the burger (which was masked nicely by the malted red cabbage and refrigerator pickles. Everything pretty much fall apart after a few bites, however, the rice veggie patty unable to hold the weight of ingredients. I ended up with a pool of rice and sauce on my plate which was good, but not very pretty.
Other dinners enjoyed the meatloaf and perch fish n chips. The fish n chips folks thought it was a little odd the perch was huge planks of fish since I guess, perch is not really a big fish.
Service was okay. We kinda had the switchy-​servers at the end which was a little confusing (we got our bill and then our original server was going to get our bill again…)

YUM! We stumbled upon this gem thanks to Unilocal.It was really hard to find a place open in this town on a week night after Labor Day but Unilocal pointed us in this direction so we thought we’d give it a try. We were so glad we did. The décor was very fun, looked like someone’s photos of the area, and the booths were separated by colorful curtains so you had some privacy. The music selection was nice in the background, mostly up beat Beatles tunes.
I was back visiting from out of state so I thought I’d try an old favorite, wild rice hot dish. They definitely put modern spin on a classic, the sauce was very flavorful and delicious. I also tried a bite of the walleye sandwich, equally delicious. The menu had a variety of salads, burgers, and sandwiches along with a couple entrees. There were multiple local tap beers offered, along with a selection of wines.
My family travels up here periodically, the consensus was that The Good Life Café will definitely be a repeat stop on our travels.

Ok place, we sat outside on the back patio but not for very long since we were bombarded with flies… Gross! I had the perch taco and that was quite tasty but I tried my kids MAC and cheese and quesadilla which was blan…

Good options, interesting food. Service is horrible! Waited for almost an hour before we ever heard anything from out waitress after we put our order in. My companion and I both ordered an entrée and a soup and salad. At least bring the soup or salad! Don’t just leave us hungry over here for hour you goon! What the hell?!

Nice restaurant, good food and service. The only reason for 4 stars is that most of the dinners are heavily sauced or spiced.
Good local beer selections!
I had the pork medallions. Lots of seasoning. The mashed potatoes were made with red peppers.

Everything was great! Staff is very nice and helpful! We liked that things were locally sourced as much as possiable. Well done, all around. Whenever we are in town we make a point to come here.

Location: 5 out of 5
If you happen to be in quaint and picturesque downtown Park Rapids, Good Life Café is right there. It takes no more than about 10 minutes to walk from end to end of the downtown area, so let’s split the difference and say that you can get there in more than 7 minutes from any of the parking spots in the center median. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you’ve not been to Park Rapids.
Service: 5 out of 5
While I understand that «Minnesota nice» can be used in a back-​handed insult type manner to mean, «Minnesota people are nice… but only if you fall into a certain type of category of race, lifestyle, etc.» I try not to let that bias the way I think. The bottom line is that each one of the people I encountered in the Good Life Café were pleasant, amicable, and easygoing.
Ambiance: 4 out of 5
Laid back feeling throughout with booth and table sitting arrangements. There’s a decent bar to sit at, and none of it is fancy or pretentious. Top 40 tunes may be heard through their sound system (they use Pandora), and the noise level is low enough that you can have a conversation with your dining mates. Keep in mind that you’ll probably encounter a good number of tourists, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the locals drank here too.
Selection of beers: 3.5 out of 5
When in Rome, right? They carry Summit beer, as well as one selection from Leech Lake Brewery. My favorite out of all the ones that I tried was the Summit Extra Pale Ale. Oh — and there’s the ubiquitous Nordeast beer too, which I guess you could compare to a Bud Select or a Miller Lite 64. It’s not a craft beer, but it’s really not that bad if you’re in the mood for an American Style Light Lager.
Price of beers: 3 out of 5
I think pints were 4 or 5 bucks, but if you go during happy hour, they’re a dollar off. I mean — 4 or 5 bucks isn’t that bad if you’re making money from tourists, but I guess it would have been nice to see a local establishment charge local prices (2.50 during happy hour, maybe 3 dollars regularly). This is not a complaint — it’s simply an observation.
Overall: 4 out of 5
For someone like me who has little interest in doing «shopping» in the downtown district, hiding out in Good Life Café while drinking a few beers with friendly waitstaff was an excellent way to kill a few hours. Remember to try Summit’s Extra Pale Ale.