“My desert island, top five…”
December 28, 2010
Being the coffee shop junkie/loiterer/aficionado that I am, I’m way overdue for one of these silly lists. The nice part was that it was actually pretty easy. Before delving in, it’s important to consider that I’m not a coffee connoisseur. My list speaks more to aesthetics and overall experience than the actual quality of your cup o’ joe. Secondly, I’m biased toward places that break the mold. There are dozens of great coffee crashes all over Portland, but I give precedence to the places that have something more to offer than the standard. There are too many coffee shops in this area that seem to be all cut from the same mold, as if Stumptown were making mandatory design stipulations for the retailers that brew their coffee. My list honors those that serve up an experience going beyond caffeine and pastries. What else you got?
Anyways, *ahem*. Should you find yourself in Portland, my top five recommendations for places to hang out and drink coffee are as follows:
5. Southeast Grind (1223 SE Powell blvd)
I’ve talked about them before, and I really don’t have to say much beyond “they’re Portland’s only 24 hour coffee shop” to justify their inclusion. They’re double-espresso only, so they certainly take themselves seriously. They’ve also got plenty of seating (couch, table, or stool) and some pretty hip old-school PCs with behemoth monitors. You’d think that Portland would have more 24-hour coffee shops, but if they’re drinking coffee at midnight, then they’re not drinking microbrew, and we certainly can’t have that. If only they sold books, then they’d be higher on this list than…
4. The Fresh Pot (3729 SE Hawthorne blvd)
Now, before you say it: Yes, you could always go to the ginormous Powell’s in downtown PDX with the ginormous cafe inside of it. Well, you know what? If I want a copy of the UK special box set of The Gum Thief, I’ll drive downtown to that book metropolis and get it (which I did). In the meantime, I’ll relish the cuisine (like, donuts, or something), comfort (wooden furniture), and caffeine found at the Fresh Pot. Being conjoined to mini-Powell’s Books, it can be hard to find a seat in the cafe, and I’m sure it hasn’t gotten any easier with the opening of the New Seasons market nearby, but it’s one of the more complete cafe experiences you can ask for. It’s also open late (10pm Mon-Thurs, 11pm Fri & Sat, 9pm Sun), and, as I’ve already mentioned, that’s rare around here. Whenever I go there, however, I really wish I was at…
3. Guapo Comics and Coffee (6350 SE Foster Road)
Take the best elements of Fresh Pot on Hawthorne (graphic novel section of the bookstore and a coffee shop), multiply the comics by 10, subtract the sweet location, add some rockin’ interior decorating, and you get Guapo. Yes, I’m biased because it is essentially a comic shop and a coffee shop that have been in a transporter accident. The nice thing is, it does both well, with a good selection of comics and respectable menu options for coffee and food–which actually includes dinner-ish options. The bad thing is, you’ve got to sojourn all the way to Southeast Portland to get there. I ain’t complainin’, but I regret that I don’t get there as often as I get to…
2. Elevated Coffee (5261 NE MLK Jr. Blvd.)
The waffles are great, the service is great, the coffee is great, and the interior is gorgeous. Computers for the laptop challenged and a white baby grand piano for the musically inclined. Lot’s of options, but the Honey Latte is especially tasty. It’s location also makes it easy for me to drop into. MLK blvd. is a slower alternative to I-5, but at rush hour it’s actually preferred. On top of it all, you might even catch some live music on the weekend. In fact, the place is so great I’m surprised I didn’t find it in…
Located due north of Portland, on the other side of the Columbia River “fence” lies Portland’s wacky neighbor, ‘da Couve. Compass Coffee, Java House, Mon Ami, Paper Tiger, Rosemary Cafe, and even that Starbucks that stays open until 9:30 basically make it worth never heading south across the I-5 bridge again. Vancouver’s also got less traffic, a half dozen art galleries, an underground arts community, and even it’s own local satire column. Yes, I’m a curmudgeon for Washington and I live in the ‘Couve. Represent, yo.
“Today, on Thatcher’s Coffee…”
October 12, 2010
The soundstage where Thatcher's Coffee is filmed. I'm in the studio audience.
Kudos to Thatcher’s Coffee who followed up the unspectacular chai from my first visit with a vanilla honey soy latte (hint: light syrup) that rocked my socks so hard I was able to look past the fact that the place made me feel like I was being served from a Bed, Bath, and Beyond gift registry. Even their chalkboard menu was pristine. For all the jars, mugs, cookbooks, cookie-alchemy machines, and such, I would have expected to see a larger display of baked goods. Also in spite of the cubic half-acre of space Thatcher’s gives its customers, it still seemed as if the employees had sufficient space for a raquetball court behind the counter.
Can a coffee shop be too nice looking? All I can say is if Thatcher’s were a person, it would be better looking than its employees (who are all reasonably handsome people) and patrons (or, at least me). That doesn’t seem like it should matter, but the polish of their interior design leaves me walking away wanting more. Martha Stewart should be making me lemon bars and pacifying me with her soothing voice. Rachel Ray should be ringing up my order with that insane grin of hers. Giada de Laurentis should be measuring espresso shots as I’m hypnotized by her gratuitously excessive face size.
I’m not sure what I’m talking about anymore. So here’s Martha Stewart and Conan O’Brien in Thatcher’s Coffee.
“If you really think about it…”
October 8, 2010
Is anyone else surprised that white plastic lawn chairs have survived consumer product natural selection as long as they have?
In the last couple weeks I’ve visited two coffee crashes that were among the first I landed in when I first moved to this area. Compass Coffee on Main St. in Vancouver and Common Grounds on Hawthorne in Portland both casually and humbly occupy their spaces only blocks away from their higher-traffic neighbors (Mon Ami and The Fresh Pot, respectively). Both are reliable and comfy, with no fuss and all the essentials. They are well-dressed coffee-drinking spaces with tables, chairs, board games, wi-fi (duh), and a great selection.
What’s funny is while I visited these spaces several weeks ago, I didn’t really think of them until I found myself sipping chai drink on a late evening in Starbucks. I wanted so badly to be anyplace than this generic coffee pit. That then got me thinking: how could I love Compass Coffee and Common Grounds for really looking like coffee shops while bemoaning every Starbucks, Tully’s and Peet’s for looking the same?
Easy. (Hint: skip to the last sentence of this post. You really don’t want to read this.)
I have a picture of the Common Grounds interior, but my shoulder is in it.
In my experience, art consistently follows one rule:
Art establishes an expectation, and creates conflict by either going with or against that expectation.
Good art follows an additional rule:
A work of art presents a series of elements which must, in the end, find a balance to create satisfaction.
Whether it’s charcoal paintings, an independent film, a break dance routine, a haiku, a lego sculpture, or a classical symphony, all are essentially (and subjectively) judged by these standards. It’s what keeps art interesting, it’s what keeps life interesting, and it’s what keeps me searching for new coffee shops and bookstores.
More Compass. I know I'm being unfair to Common Grounds, but seriously, my shoulder is in the other picture.
I can count on walking into a Starbucks in Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Toledo, New York, and North Carolina and ending up in the exact same place getting served the exact same drink with the exact same options with the exact same ingredients. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s that same notion that allows us to continually enjoy pop music, and sitcoms, and breakfast cereal. Unfortunately, while there may be balance in consistency, there’s none in predictability.
It’s like hearing a new artist cover a song you’ve heard a hundred times before. It gives you something you’ve experienced countless times before, for the first time. Of course, isn’t visiting the same indie shop ten dozen times the same as visiting the same Starbucks ten dozen times? No. I go to Compass Coffee, and I know that I’m at 304 Main Street, Vancouver, WA. I drop in Common Grounds Coffeehouse and I know I’m on Hawthorne boulevard. I go to Starbucks, or McDonald’s, or Target, or Best Buy, and I’m in all of them from Seattle to St. Petersburg. I’m everywhere, but more accurately nowhere.
In short: Vancouver needs another coffee shop that stays open until 9:30pm.
“I know what’ll cheer you up…”
July 22, 2010
In any other coffee shop, I'd probably roll my eyes and scowl. Here, I kind of shake my head and smirk.
“Service with a smile.” Sadly, it’s one of those business adages that’s so overstated we’ve learned to ignore it from seeing it so many times. You know, kind of like “employees must wash hands.” Ideally, both should be common practice, but the difference is that while the latter is practical, the former is meaningful…if you mean it.
I won’t beat around the bush here. You want service with a smile? Go to Java House. I’ve dropped in no more than a half-dozen times over the last couple years, and I’ve gotten quite possibly the cheeriest service I’ve seen anywhere in the greater Columbia area. There’s no gimmick or secret here, they’re just nice people that know good service. Actually, there’s no reason for them not to know good service. They’ve been camped out on the corner of Evergreen and Columbia since 1990. Indeed, they’ve been serving up espresso longer than many Americans have been drinking it. Rumor also has it that this is the place to chill if you’d like to run into some of our local legislators, since Java House is in the heart of downtown.
All the fun of the outdoors...indoors!
Now, if you aren’t necessarily looking keep your finger on the pulse of the Vancouver business-suit scene, there are plenty of other reasons to go there. They’re a corner shop, which means a lot of window seats, which I’m a fan of. The decor rocks this kind of outdoorsy-indoor look, which makes me want to waste much of my life there (if they put down more electric outlets and upgraded their wireless bandwidth). The outdoorsy motif bleeds over into the adjacent to the Art On the Boulevard Arts Gallery, a cool little indoor villa complete with fountain, cobblestone floor, sculpture, and even tables and chairs. It’s probably one of the more relaxing places in Vancouver to do work actually.
So if I love the place so much, why am I not there all the time? I’m not there more often merely because it’s not close enough for me to walk to (Mon Ami win), they don’t serve the best-tasting coffee in Vancouver (Paper Tiger win), they close too early for me to loiter after work (Starbucks on Hazel Dell win), their wireless is pretty dodgy (Tully’s on 78th win), and they don’t serve food (Rosemary Cafe win). Of course, if they’ve got the mayor going there on a regular basis, so I can’t imagine they’re losing sleep over missing my regular patronage.
“…Orange Mocha Frappuccino!!!”
“I want to go to there.”
July 10, 2010
I will go to this new, magical place and it will make me happy.
Scenes from an 82nd St. coffee establishment.
June 25, 2010
Mocha Express: Bringin' the class back to 82nd Street.
It’s a Wednesday evening on at Mocha Express 82nd St. in Southeast Portland. Following an ill-advised bout of $1 Sushi I needed something to redeem my body’s faith in ingestion.
“…so there’s a bunch of guys fighting, then they stop fighting, they line up, then they fight again.”
“I just don’t get it.”
I was curious where this particular exchange between the baristo (male barista, my quest to create a new word continues) and an elderly gentleman was going, so I took a moment to take in the architecture. The three computer terminals looked exciting and the cool little desk attachments on the pleather chairs was a nice touch. Beyond that, the fireplace in the corner was surrounded with a clusterf*ck of plushy chairs creating some kind of Feng Shui migraine. If the place weren’t so accommodating, it’d kind of remind me of a Forza that wasn’t trying very hard. There was also a tray of cookies begging for my attention.
“Sometimes they kick it,” the baristo said. “Sometimes they throw it, but they always stop.”
“American football?” I asked.
Aw, Mocha Express had a baby...and parked it out back.
The older gentleman looked up and continued to try to explain American football to the Jordanian baristo. We started to chat, but I was still distracted by the tray of cookies. As the exchange wrapped up, I considered acting in blatant disregard to the sign on the door (“All customers are required to make a purchase before taking a seat”), but I really wasn’t in the mood to make a scene, and I kind of wanted a cookie.
“What would you like?”
“What do you do well?” I ask, as if the list of a dozen mocha drinks didn’t tip me off.
“Hot or cold?”
“Hot.”
“Sweet or not?”
“Not sweet.” I was still staring at the cookies.
“Snickers mocha with half the syrup?”
Look, the fireplace thing...can we just...not?
That sounded like it would go well with cookies, so I went with it.
“Would you like cookies? Three for a dollar.”
“Three cookies for a dollar?” I exclaimed in diabetic joy.
“Any three!” he replied, gesturing at the twelve cookies, all peanut butter.
“How amazing!” I exclaimed, as a large, white truck labeled “BURRITOS FUNNY” pulled into the adjacent lot.
“That will be one million dollars.” That struck me as fishy, since that would imply that the mocha was $999,999 dollars. Who sells coffee for that price and cookies for $0.333333333333333333 cents?
“This coffee better cure cancer.”
“Four dollars.”
Three dollars for a mocha? Wow, I need to come here more often.
A second elderly gentleman enters and orders a vodka followed by two young boys who order bloody Marys and review their stock portfolios. Ok, ok, the elerly gentleman discussed 1930s Western films and the boys watched YouTube videos. One of the old dudes did make a Klingon reference (“today is a good day to die”) though, which was pretty cool.
Insomnia: the coffee, not the condition
May 30, 2010
I didn’t know much about the greater Hillsboro/Beaverton area. Now that I’ve been there, I can tell you that there’s a Five Guys, a Costco, a Blockbuster Video, and some sort of creepy Nike campus out that direction, but that’s about it. Well, a musical diversion brought me out that direction a few days back, and since I’ve been out of touch due to poor health and matrimonial adventures (no relation between the two), I figure I may as well pick up as if nothing ever happened.
*Ahem*
It sure looks exciting from here.
Insomnia Coffee Company has got it going on. On a Friday evening they had the place packed with a mostly young crowd that made me recall the insomnia of my youth spent at coffee shops sucking down mochas at 2am. Insomnia, which reportedly took off like a shotgun in Spring 2007 represents the best case scenario of coffee shop business ventures. The environment bleeds charisma, largely due to the high volume of business, which surprised me for a Friday evening, since Portlanders are normally at bars. Then again, this isn’t Portland, and Insomnia seems to have established itself as a hub of…well…a hub, period. There was just plain a lot of people there. I bring this up because in my Northwest coffee experience, most big coffee shops aren’t crowded, and most crowded coffee shops aren’t big. Insomnia was big–and busy.
Insomnia seems to keep to a regular schedule of musical acts, which brings my to my only criticism. With it’s high ceilings and cavernous architecture, Insomnia is not well-suited for live music. From onstage, the chatter of the audience was nearly a roar. While there were plenty of bodies to absorb sound, there were twice as many surfaces to reflect it. Barring a captive, silent audience–which I don’t think would suit the vibe–engineering a comfortable listening environment would be tricky.
I think I was supposed to be playing an instrument or something on stage, not taking pictures.
Since I spent most of my visit occupied by my musical commitments, I had little time to scope the menu (I had the fruit Sangria decaf tea and my legal life companion had a pear Italian soda) though I’m going to go ahead and say that the menu and the music aren’t as important as the mood. Just take a glance at their blog and you realize that Insomnia is a community center–a place for pals. Whether you’re chatting with your friend over an au lait or supporting a friend performing on stage, check out Insomnia Coffee Co. and bring a buddy.
They go together like coffee and hot dogs.
March 20, 2010
Not only has Reo’s Coffee and Hot Dog Emporium opened up next to Pop Culture (which specializes in sodas and hot dogs) but they’re close enough to Mon Ami—the popular community coffee stop—that I could fetch creamer from there before my coffee from Reo’s gets cold. Yes, there’s also Dulin’s Coffee and Espresso, Starbucks, Paradise Café, and Rosemary Café also within comfortable walking distance on Main Street, but to my knowledge none of them sell hot dogs .
Yeah, I forgot to take the picture before eating half the hot dog. I nearly lost a finger getting it away from me.
Coffee and hot dogs. In the immortal words of The Little Prince, “what a queer idea.” Well, not really. According to a quick google search, apparently New York and Boston are all about the hot dog and coffee thing. In my experience, if you take the word “coffee” in the Northwest yellow pages and replace it with “hot dog” you pretty much get New York City. There’s nothing really clashing about coffee and hot dogs, and it’s not like you can get both at either Mon Ami or Pop Culture. Reo’s has got a good spot for foot traffic, and the hot dog was actually pretty good. Perhaps they are onto something.
Like any shop just finding its legs, they aren’t quite a well-oiled machine yet, which is okay, given that they’ve only been open for five days. The staff is friendly, and like any good new business, they seem to already have plenty of friends in the area. It’s a good place to meet new people, because Reo’s is small—six tables—and everyone is in pretty close quarters. That could be good or bad, depending on whether or not you want to meet your neighbor.
Santa Cliff, in and out of costume. I asked him for a Roomba.
Well, I did happen to meet my neighbor, who happened to be Santa Claus (Santa Cliff, actually). Mrs. Claus showed me pictures of their children, one of which was a musician and actress, and that got SC and I to talking. We chatted for an hour or so and he shared stories about everything from Mexico and Willie Nelson to education and photography. For a guy with such a hectic job, he’s a pleasant man—talkative, quick with a joke, and rather jolly.
So yeah. Check out Reo’s. You may run into Santa Claus.
“You gotta’ have fun.”
-Santa Claus
“You’ve already won me over, in spite of me.”
March 6, 2010
The undertone of all advertising and marketing is that we’ve got waaaaay too much stuff, and as a society we’ve long since abandoned practical need as the primary motivator for acquiring stuff. It’s largely that reason that advertising has become as so exceedingly absurd. For example, the only possible reason a company like CocaCola needs to continue their aggressive advertising campaign is so no one stops and asks what the heck cola actually is. They have one of the most recognizable brands on the planet, yet they spend millions on advertising. Chances are, their product is killing you.
Can you feel the choco-love?
The opposite is true with Sahagun in downtown Portland. An establishment can’t have that big of a reputation and be that small, in that location and not have something special to offer. Now I haven’t liked chocolate since a minor bout with cavities ruined it for me when I was 12, but I’ve never stopped appreciating it being done well. While the Sahagun specialty is chocolate, I was curious if my pro-coffee-anti-supersweet M.O. would dampen my experience. Much to my surprise and delight, both my desire for a non-sweet drink (cocoa latte) and my fiancee’s need for some endorphin-engaging hot chocolate were both satisfied. Having tried their cocoa latte and a sip of their hot chocolate, the mocha can’t possibly be anything less than phenomenal.
The cocoa-latte: it ain't sweet, but I love it anyway.
If you like chocolate then you will want to live in Sahagun Chocolates. Unfortunately there just isn’t enough room. There’s just enough room for owner and primary chocolateer Elizabeth Montes to perform her chocolate alchemy, but not much more. Accommodations be damned, good chocolate is good chocolate. In the couple minutes we spent fumbling together our orders, a line of about six slowly built itself and extended out the door. Considering the size of the place, that’s not saying much, but it’s just another indication that Montes serves up something special (check out her story here).
You would think that a coffee shop loiterer like myself would be turned off by an establishment with only four seats. Of course, I am a fan of window seats, so, in theory, I’ve found an establishment with only window seats. You can’t beat that.
“A very, very unbirthday…to me?”
February 26, 2010
“I’ll just have a cappuccino.”
“We only serve tea.”
Chai tea and crumpets. FYI: Those are not actually crumpets.
I felt like the guy who walks into the neighborhood mom n’ pop coffee shop and asks for a frappuccino or a local eat-at-joe’s diner and asked for a “Big Mac.” Fact of the matter is I hadn’t mistook The Tea Zone for a coffee shop as much I had actually mistook the sound of a blender for the sound of an espresso machine. I was corrected simply, and without offense. None was necessary, since their menu speaks for itself: the Tea Zone does as much with tea than all but the most resourceful coffee shops do with coffee…and the food is pretty good too.
Now, I have no issues with Starbucks, but when you’re serving coffee to a healthy chunk of the developed world, you’ve got to make certain compromises with flavor. Not being a seasoned tea consumer, I opted for a chai—the tea everyone can agree on—and I got a chai. Comparing the Tea Zone chai to a Starbucks chai is like comparing orange juice to orange kool-aid. So this is what chai tea tastes like when it’s not beating you over the head with flavor. Perhaps it’s a fine print thing. Does Starbucks ever really say they’re serving you chai tea, or are you getting chai drink?
I guess you all probably wanted to see the swank in the back. Sorry, I like being near windows.
But I digress. If you come for the tea, stay for the vibe. All of my visits to the Tea Zone thus far have been business-related (please tip the musicians, by the way), but if I found myself in downtown Portland and in the mood to sip tea lattes while debating the aesthetics of neo-proto-post modernism with my art history grad-student associates more often I’d probably drop in regularly. The front end has limited seating, but if you’re there for the vibe you’ll want to head to Camellia Lounge in the rear anyways. They’ve got a full bar, some fantastic artwork, and much more seating in the lounge, and they host an assortment of live music six nights a week with a sweet jazz jam on Tuesday nights.
In short, if you really like tea or if you want to feel pretentious but don’t have a Mac Book Pro, treat yourself to a visit. I love the place, but how can you not feel high falutin’ when you’re served a glass of tea, a mini tea kettle, and a mini hourglass to tell you when your tea is ready? There’s also the impeccably dressed gaggle of twenty-somethings behind you sipping fresh mojitos which made me self-conscious about busting out my recently purchased Marvel Secret War graphic novel.
Sigh. I should have brought my Machiavelli biography and moleskine notebook.
