Sprawled across the corner of 16th and Selby in St. Paul, Augustine’s is known for the pecan caramel rolls they serve by the trayful on weekends. However, their croissants make for an excellent weekday breakfast, with the same flaky, buttery dough used across all four variations they offer: plain, chocolate, ham and cheese, and a particularly lovely almond rendition.

Every mornings —weekday or weekend—the line is always out the door at this Uptown bakery and cafe. While their bakery case houses everything from crisp, sugar-studded scones to impossibly chewy coconut macaroons, the biggest draw at Isles are the “puppy-dog tails”: cinnamon-sugar braided into stretchy, vanilla-scented brioche and drenched in cream cheese frosting. All orders come with a coffee cup filled to the brim with extra frosting.

With a name taken from its origins as a bike delivery bakery, Brake Bread’s brick-and-mortar shop is open Tuesday through Saturday, serving a regular selection of naturally-leavened breads, as well as a constantly rotating selection of pastries. To cheer up any workday, pick up a box of their “Spinners”-- braided pastries with crisp, golden exteriors, with both sweet (orange-cardamom, cinnamon, a seasonal babka) and savory (spinach and feta, olives and pesto, jalapeno) options.

Located in the downtown Minneapolis Skyway, this cash-only, counter-service bakery slings hundreds of cookies a day, in flavors ranging from the classic (sugar, chocolate chip, snickerdoodle) to the adventurous (raspberry white chocolate, oatmeal-coconut). For a breakfast meeting, pick up a few muffins from the rotating selection every morning: raspberry-oatmeal, blueberry, orange poppyseed, chocolate chunk, pear-ginger, cinammon streusel, and more.

With craggy, sugar-crusted tops and crisp, burnished edges, the scones at Rustica always hit the perfect balance of buttery layers and hefty mix-ins. The excellent, classic English currant is always available, but the daily specials are the way to go: particularly Tuesday’s chocolate ginger, a dark chocolate dough studded with sparkling bits of candied ginger and Friday’s lemon poppyseed.