Martin's Seattle Coffee Hub

Martin's Favorite Seattle Coffee Houses

In reverse order of atmosphere:

• Trabant Coffee and Chai (602 2nd Ave.).  Featuring a Clover coffeemaker.  Trabant has another store in the U. District.
• Cafe Wannabee (5049 Brooklyn Ave. N.E., at 52nd) Opened late in 2005.  Handcrafted tables and a very shaggy dog in the early days.  A review.  Wannabee closed in summer 2007 but reopened in October with new management.
• Cherry Street House House (103 Cherry in Pioneer Square).  A cozy underground sipping room, trompe-l'oeil fireplace, and more than a drop of Persian wisdom.  Three other locations downtown, none as nice as the original.  Allows makes the best BLT sandwich I have ever eaten.
• Caffé Vita (1005 E. Pike; formerly Cafe Paradiso) Also a coffee roasting company.  Members of the sadly defunct post-industrial collective/rock band !Tchkung! and their offspring organizations have been spotted there.
  
• Herkimer Coffee (5611 U. Way, in the Park Modern Ravenna condo building).  Opened 9/7/2007.  The original store is in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood.
• Victrola (411 15th Ave. E.)
• Cowen Park Grocery (1217 N.E. Ravenna Blvd., at Brooklyn, across from the southwest corner of Cowen Park).  This neighborhood fixture has evolved in recent years from a bare-bones convenience store to a cozy amalgam of Uwajimaya and Whole Foods.  In November 2006 one corner became an espresso bar with several tables and coffee from Caffe Umbria.
• Caffe Umbria (320 Occidental Ave. S., on Occidental Mall in Pioneer Square).  Authentic Italian caffe and roasting company.  Most upscale of all the places on this list.  On my first visit there in October 2006 La Dolce Vita was showing on the wide-screen plasma display.
• Café Allegro (4214 University Way; enter from the alley east of U. Way).  One of Seattle's oldest espresso houses.  No coffee pilgrimage to Seattle is complete without a visit to the Allegro.  Further down the Ave., Allegro at College Inn (4002 U. Way) offers full meals.
• Espresso Vivace (901 E. Denny Way), a coffee roaster as well as a coffee house. Owned by David Shomer, who is the author of two books about espresso.  Like the Allegro, Vivace has exceptional ambiance due to a large wall of windows looking out into the neighborhood.
  
• Blue Dog Coffeehouse (5247 U. Way) Opened August 16, 2004. I was their first customer that morning, at 5509 U. Way.  The food side (e.g., homemade waffles) of the business was always important, and Blue Dog eventually moved into space previously occupied by Brooklyn Grinder (and before that by Silence Heart Nest).
  
• Zeitgeist (171 S. Jackson).  Great space, was off my beaten path for years.  Remember this place if you have some downtime before an Amtrak departure (there's no coffee in King Street Station).

Some Other Seattle Coffee Places

...which I like a lot in principle, but in practice rarely visit (in alphabetical order):

• B & O (Olive).  Amazing desserts.  Founded by Cherry Street's owner.
  
• Bauhaus Books & Coffee (301 E. Pine)
• Bean and Bagel (1410 N.E. 40th, in the historic College Inn building).  Good for coffee-to-go and lunch-time bagels. Original art, often by the baristas, lines the walls of the tiny interior.
• The Boiserie (in the Burke Museum on the UW Campus, at NE 45th and 15th Ave. NE.)
• Bus Stop Espresso (800 N.E. 65th St.).  A 1999 Jet City Maven article about the place and its owner, David Barnes seems no longer to be on-line.
• Cafe on the Ave (4201 University Way).  In the space formerly occupied by Espresso Roma.  Corner location with big windows, outside seating, and WiFi access.
• Café Stellina (2000 East Union St. at 20th Ave.).  Opened early 2002.
• Caffè Fiorè (3125 NW 85th St.).  Comfy neighborhood cafe and coffee roaster with small terrace, right at the terminus of the #48 bus line. [1st visit 6/14/2005].  Second store on Galer on Queen Anne.
• Chaco Canyon (4757 12th Ave. N.E.; recently moved from nearby at 50th and Brooklyn).  Vegan goodies.
• Coffee and Comics (1408 N.E. 14th St.).  Tucked away in plain sight, in an odd angle of the Wells Fargo building at the U. District's busiest intersection.  Opened early December, 2005, replacing a coffee spot which was equally overlooked.
• The Globe (17th).  As real as it gets.
  
• Grateful Bread (35th N.E.)
• The Henry Gallery Cafe, currently operated as Baci Cafe.  The space was created when a major building expansion was completed in 1999.  Normally you have to pay admission to enter the Gallery, but tell them you are just going to the Cafe and they might left you in free.
• Juan Valdez Cafe (1457 5th Ave. at Pike downtown).  Opened 4/2005.  Operated by the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Columbia.  Seattle Times story.
• Lucky Dog (5828 Roosevelt, just S. of Ravenna and the Trading Musician; site of former Peace Cafe).  Also serving beer starting in June, 2005.  Name changed from Lucky Dog to Cafe Racing July, 2005.
• Motore Coffee (1904 9th Ave., i.e., 9th & Stewart).  Opened 5/2005.  Big-windowed corner, Mac computers.  Architectural firm Adams Mohler Ghillino says of its project "great coffee served up with bold ideas in a cool, Vespa-inspired cafe."
• My Friend Cafe (310 NE 72nd St., Greenlake neighborhood near Greg's Cycles) [First visit 7/8/2003].  Some of the signage has it as "Friends" rather than "Friend".
• Panama Hotel Tea and Coffee House (605½ S. Main St.).  Just off the beaten path in the International District.  A slice of Japanese-American history.
• Parnassus (in the UW art building basement)
• Planetary Espresso (505 E. Denny Way).  [First visit 4/4/2003].  Tiny, dog-friendly, vegetarian.
• Solstice (4116 University Way N.E.)
  
• Star Lite on the Oasis (formerly Still Life on the Ave) (1405 N.E. 50th: at University Way).  Stranger review 4/2002. Opened c.April, 2002, to succeed the Grand Illusion Café & Cinema [cafe closed fall '98, reopened in 2000; closed again 9/2001.  The space is shared with Grand Illusion Cinema, a movie venue operated by volunteers (and a must-see destination for all movie-loving visitors to Seattle).  Grand Illusion has remained open through all the cafe changes, and through some ownership changes of its own.  Still Life on the Ave. was sold around October 2003(?) but retained the old name for a time before becoming Star Lite on the Oasis.
  
• Tully's (Madison Park)
• Tully's (Mercer Island)
  
• The Ugly Mug (1309 N.E. 43rd St.)
• World Cup Espresso and Wine (5200 Roosevelt Ave. NE).  Also a music venue.

Directories

• Caffeinated and Unstrung: A Guide to Seattle's Free Wireless Coffee Shops.  A wiki with lots of cool features, including maps.  One of the best lists of Seattle coffee houses on the web, even though it includes only those with wireless access.  Sister wikis have been started for Vancouver, BC and Boston, MA.
• AOL CityGuide list of Espresso and Espresso Bars for Seattle and vicinity; includes links to maps and directions.

Coffee Politics

• The Seattle Latte Tax Initiative of 2003, officially known as Proposition 77: each espresso drink served would be taxed by ten cents, the revenue to promote early childhood education.  Full text. As viewed by Newsweek's Gersh Kuntzman.
• The Fair Trade Coffee campaign
• The Northwest Shade Coffee campaign
• Seattle Times article about three local coffee companies trying to make a difference: Grounds for Change, Cafe Humana, and Motivo Coffee.
• Bird-friendly coffee as certified by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
  

Seattle People and Activities

• A rare interview with Gordon Bowker, who co-founded Starbucks and Redhook Brewery among other notable accomplishments.
• The 2005 World Barista Championships were held in Seattle April 15-18.  The 2005 US Barista Championships were held in Seattle March 10-13, 2005.  Organizer of both is the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA).   The world championship was in Berne, Switzerland in 2006 in Tokyo in 2007. The SCAA offers a potentially neat interactive global coffee map.
• Seattle artist Ezju (Edward Kranz) paints images of the coffee culture using coffee-based pigments.  2004 Seattle Times article about his work.
• The LaughingMeme Coffee Archive of highly caffeinated blogger and extraordinary hacker Kellan Elliott-McCrea; sadly, he no longer inhabits Seattle.
• The Seattle Coffee Meetup Group.  One of many Coffee Meetup Groups worldwide. [Entry added 4/16/2005]
  
• Steven Callihan's Seattle coffee lexicon
• JC Mitchell's Double Shot Buzz
• Yes, Seattle is the home of Starbucks and Tully's. Seattle's Best Coffee (SBC), which also operates the Torrefazione brand, has a history roughly as long as Starbucks, and brews its coffee on Vashon Island.  On July 14, 2003, Starbucks completed the acquisition of SBC's parent company, Seattle Coffee Company.  In March, 2008 Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz announced the company would buy Clover, a tiny Seattle firm which makes the high-end Clover single-cup coffee brewer.

Notable Web Sites

• Shannon Wheeler's Too Much Coffee Man, a comic strip and now a magazine.  A wonderful comic quite apart from its caffeine-drenched theme.  Brew a big pot and spend a long afternoon (or a late night) browsing the archive.  Photo of Shannon Wheeler with Joe Sacco at the Olympia Comics Festival, May, 2004.
• Wikipedia article for "coffee".  Includes some coffee quotations.
• National Geographic's coffee site.
  
• Coffee Science Source, an "on-line source for coffee, caffeine, and health information."

Coffee Trade

• Coffee Fest Trade Shows, based on Mercer Island.  Seattle's turn at a Coffee Fest comes in the fall.  Seattle Times article.
• CoffeeGeek.com, "a community of coffee and espresso lovers...the CoffeeGeek website gives people, both consumers and folks in the coffee industry, a place to hang out, read, debate, write, or even ponder the finer aspects of coffee and espresso."
• Fresh Cup, a trade magazine of national circulation, published by Ward Barbee out of Portland, OR.
• The Coffee Review, which calls itself "the world's leading coffee buying guide."
  
• Lucidcafe, an Internet coffee hub, with sites in German and other languages.
• Peet's Coffee and Tea.  Information and sales.
  
• Coffee Universe, "information resources for the coffee industry", but with much of interest to coffee drinkers, too.
• Bellissimo Coffee Info Group.  For coffee entrepreneurs.

Books and Art

• The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug
  by Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K. Bealer.  Routledge; ISBN: 0415927226, January 2001.  [Information from amazon.com].  Reviewed by computer pioneer Dan Bricklin.
• The Coffee House: A Cultural History (2005) by Markman Ellis.
• More books from Lucidcafe.
• AllPosters.com has a section of vintage coffee art, including posters of Le Cafe Martin.

"Coffee" in HTML

• Caffé Vita has this beautiful coffee-colored background color on their page:

  The code is <BODY BGCOLOR="#522110"...

  A slight variation is #562010:

• Shannon Wheeler's Too Much Coffee Man site uses #763604:
• Coffee Clip Art.  You can find plenty more by typing "coffee clip art" into a search engine.
  • Clipsahoy.com
  • "Sip Art" from Bellissimo.  Hundreds of images, at a price.

Visits Pending

Some other Seattle spots I haven't visited.  Thanks to various readers for these suggestions:

• Cafe Rozella (9434 Delridge Way SW, in White Center).  Opened in mid-2005.  An informant says it is "tucked away in a beautiful old building from the 1920's" and offers both indoor and outdoor seating.
• N.W. Coffee (E. of U. Village)
• The Good Coffee Company (818 Post Alley)