Cooper’s Coffee…[Insert '90s Mark Curry Joke Here]
April 8, 2011
Cooper's Coffee: Stylin' up Stark St.
If you haven’t noticed, I don’t review coffee here. That’s not my forte, and that explains why I use terms like “rocked my socks” and “crappy” to describe the coffee itself. It also explains why I don’t have caffeine headaches. If I really cared about caffeine, then I would just make instant coffee and never spend money. If I really cared about coffee, then I’d probably just go to Compass Coffee and the Paper Tiger. Yeah, it ain’t the coffee of or the caffeine. I’m after the third “C:” chillaxin‘.
Finding a great place to loiter isn’t easy, as certain characteristics set some establishments apart from the non loiter-friendly crashes. Most notably, the open past 9pm standard. This brings us to Cooper’s Coffee. While they aren’t open 24 hours (Southeast Grind is still the only one I’ve come across in PDX or the Couve), I dig that I was able to drop in at 8:15 to snag a honey soy latte before a 9:30 performance at Biddy McGraw’s around the corner. Cooper’s is nothing special, but they’re plenty accommodating. They’ve got all the standards–wifi, pastries, sandwiches–with a couple extras tossed in, such as beer on tap and a washer & dryer in the restroom. Sure, it’s not for customer use (to my knowledge), but it’s a nice aesthetic touch.
Have your PDX, and drink it too.
March 31, 2011
It’s strange to hang out in a place where I’m not the only person taking pictures of coffee.
I wasn't cool enough for the couch in the corner.
Okay, so lets say you’ve just landed in Portland. You’ve watched that show about Portland (which I will not dignify by identifying it by name or linking to it), and you really want to get the Portland experience. Make your way downtown, hit up that goofy donut place (as I said before…), and hit up Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Seriously, your cafe experience can’t get more saturated with PDX-chic unless you hire the Decemberists to pee in your espresso.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters is less a cafe and more an art gallery in which itself is the central piece. It’s a cavernous space, reminiscent of Thatcher’s Coffee, but with 1/4th the seating. The hip, indie music crashes off the walls which are neatly adorned with art pieces hanging in a row with couches toward the rear. As it got darker, I also noticed the reddish tint the lights seemed to have. They’re open until 9pm, after which I assume that’s when the rave starts.
Stools designed for the delicate contours that are your rear end.
The artistry of downtown Stumptown Roasters doesn’t just confine itself to the inside. Anyone taking a seat on the ass-contoured stools can enjoy a glorious breakdown of PDX stereotypes in under 20 minutes. I guess if you’re in this part of town, you’re either a teenage neo-hipster shopping for donuts that match your pants, a “poor” college student (with a Mac Book Pro, iPhone, and $300 camera), a gainfully employed designer-dressed thirty-something, a nondescript forty-something, a suspiciously non-existent fifty-something, or over sixty with your entire life in a backpack. Apparently by seventy you’ve either moved to Lake Oswego or died. It’s as if the middle class (and middle age) somehow don’t exist here.
Now, pretension aside, while I’m not a huge fan of Stumptown Coffee, I appreciate and support the regional flavor they’ve propagated for the Portland area. Feeling adventurous, I had myself a chemex-brewed coffee and let me tell you, this is no coffee bean kool-aid. It’s like coffee wine, that most unfortunately doesn’t get you drunk. It’s a damned satisfying cup of coffee, that also tastes really shitty cold, so get off your iPad and pick up that mug.
A couple enterprising young folks have just unpacked a cardboard sign reading “spare some change for weed and beer.” I really just…forget it. No comment. I’m done.
Remembering the “fun” in “dysfunction.”
June 20, 2009
Breakfast @ Mamacita's Mexican Cafe
I’ve performed enough improvised music to recognize the odd, chaotic way related events can line up to make fortune or misfortune alike. Buying Douglas Coupland’s All Families Are Psychotic on a whim a couple days before my own family life played a variation on that exact theme was, if anything, musical. Long lost uncles who work on fishing boats dropping in from Alaska and unheard-of cousins calling me on my way home from work, for me, is getting off light.
Am I complaining or am I celebrating? Neither. As I said, this is business as usual for me. Attempting to
I'm gonna' need glasses too? Oy...
genetically decipher your future balding patterns, discomfort with flying, and condiment preferences from people you last saw before you lost your baby teeth is simply part of the fun. I quote a purple haired vixen from a fanfiction novel based on an anime series from the mid-‘90s:
It’s just nice to think that there’s a reason why you’re so messed up. That there are people somewhere that just by the sheer power of their genes made you this way. It’s nice to think the way you are isn’t an accident.
Wise words, Ms. Valentine.
Starbucks yo, what?
June 18, 2009
If you look closely, you can see a birthday present in a Starbucks bag.
Supporting the evil empire, one chai at a time.
June 7, 2009
1) This is a Barnes & Noble, & not just a Starbucks. 2) Please note the Douglas Coupland book purchase.
Pre-gig coffee break.
May 30, 2009
A coffee toast to the Mandolin Cafe.
