Caffé Fiore - Queen Anne

Caffé Fiore

224 W. Galer St.

Seattle, WA 98119

(206) 282-1441

Rating: ★★★★☆

Hours:

Mon-Sat 6am-6pm | Sun 7am-6pm

Website:

http://www.caffefiore.com/queen-anne/

Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/CaffeFioreQueenAnne

Who Is It For?:

Early morning and mid-day Neighborhood folks, business people, students, people looking for a really, really nice place to have a meeting or meet a friend for coffee or read a book where they have to drive a while to get there.

Type:
Coffee shop.

Location:
Queen Anne, W Galer St and 3rd Ave W.

Ease of Location:
Place is easy to find, it is right on W Galer St., which is a main drag through Queen Anne.  But (again), Queen Anne is not such an easy neighborhood to access, from any part of town.

Local:
Yes.

Multiple Locations:
Yes. Seattle only.

Transit:
KC Metro 2, 29

Parking:
Street only. Slow neighborhood, it's no problem.

Price:
$

Coffee Brand:
Caffé Fiore.

What I Had:
Decaf Americano with steamed cream

How Was It?:
Fantastic.

Staff:
Exceptionally friendly and helpful.

Crowd:
Upper-middle class folks, locals, business folk, students.

Food:
Baked goods.

Seats & Tables:
Inside:
1 2 Person table
1 4 Person rectangular table
1 6 Person round table
1 10 Person gigantic round community table. Wooden, wooden and plastic chairs

1 2 Person bar height counter, metal stools 
1 6 Person bar height counter, 3 wooden stools facing each other

1 Standard height counter, facing the windows, facing the street, with 3 wooden chairs

Outdoors:
17 Wooden Adirondack chairs

Recycling:
Place in bin.

WiFi:
Yes. Free.

Power:
Very good. A/C power outlets have been added to the walls post-facto to accommodate electronic devices.

Music:
Barista's choice. Jenny Lewis was playing overhead while I was there.

Decor:
Rustic antique Americana.  Beautiful wood floors, wood counters, tables. Interior looks to be part of a house at one time, e.g. doors that go nowhere.

Temperature:
Fine. Outside air temperature. It was a little cool and rainy that day.

Heat-A/C:
Baseboard heating. No A/C.

Lighting:
Incandescent, track lights. Gorgeous golden tint bulbs

Special/Extra:
Interior decoration is out of this world with beauty and comfortability (is that a word? I don't think so).

Other Notes:
Closes way, *way* early, at 6pm. Kept the place from getting 5 stars.
Definitely not for the late night crowd.
Barista said the place is usually very busy, not when I was there, however.

Empire Espresso - Columbia City

Empire Espresso

3823 S. Edmunds St.
Seattle, WA 98118

Hours: Mon - Sun: 6:00 am - 9:00 pm

Website: 

http://empireespressobar.blogspot.com/

Facebook Page: 

https://www.facebook.com/empirecolumbiacity

Rating: ★★★★★

Who Is It For?:  Neighborhood folks, business people, students, people looking for a nice place with hard seats to sit on.

Type:
Coffee shop

Location:
Columbia City, Rainier Ave S & Edmunds St

Ease of Location:
Place is easy to find, if you are looking for it. It's a block off of Rainier Ave S in a residential neighborhood. Columbia City is out of the way; nowhere near any major freeways or other throughways.

Local:
Yes

Multiple Locations:

No. Truly local.

Transit:
King County Metro 7 & 9.

Parking:
On-street only.

Price:
$$  
$1.59 extra for steamed milk. Most places it's free.

Coffee Brand:
Kuma.

What I Had:
8 oz Americano with steamed cream. 

How Was It?:
Excellent!

Staff:
Very friendly.

Crowd: 
Techies, neighborhood folks, business folks, Seattle Central University students. Not a whole lot of diversity. White collar job interview going on right next to me.

Food: Baked goods, sandwiches, waffles.

Seats & Tables:
1 Rectangular six person table
10 Two person bench-chair combo tables. Plastic chairs with metal arms / legs
1 Two person standup counter by the front window.

Outdoors:
Garage door thing opens to the patio. I never know what to call these garage doors that open to a patio that aren't really garage doors because it's not a garage.

Recycling:
Yes. And composting. Hand the cup to the barista or put it in the tub.

WiFi:
Yes. Free.

Power:
Lots of outlets, every other table, but still not close enough. Your cord will need to be 4' long to reach.

Music:
Barista's choice - iPod.

Decor:
Modern, wood and metal. Cinder block walls painted brown, dry walls painted light brown.

Temperature:
Fine. Same as outdoors.

Heat-A/C:
No apparent form of heating or cooling. Staff says place is warmer in winter than summer.

Lighting:
Good natural light front and back. Nice decorative orange-brown incandescent lighting.

Special/Extra:
Gets five stars in spite of the lack of padded seating and it being a little pricey. Great decor, really beautiful place make up for it. Really great place.

Other Notes:
No big comfy seats nor padded chairs. The lack of padded seats gets a big boo from me.

Interior is narrow and envelope-shaped, it's a really small place - a little difficult to navigate for a big dude like me.

Finn's Bakery & Café - Magnolia

Finn's Bakery & Café

3204 W McGraw St

Seattle, WA  98199

206-406-7271

Hours:

M-F 6am - 6pm | Sa-Su 7am - 3pm

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Website: 
FinnsBakery.com

Facebook Page: 
https://www.facebook.com/FinnsBakery

Type: 
Bakery & Coffee Shop

Neighborhood: 
Magnolia

Ease of Location:
Coffee shop easy to find.  Magnolia is not easy to get to, period. Even if you live there.

Local:
Yes.

Multiple Locations: 
Nope. The one and only.

Transit: 
KC Metro 24, 31. 
Bus route 31 does not run on weekends. I was dropped off at Finn's on a Sunday, and I waited quite some time before figuring this out. Awesome.

Parking: 
On-street. No worries; Magnolia is the Mayberry, R.F.D. of Seattle.

Price: 
$$ 
Muffin was $3.49 plus tax. A bit pricey for a man of my means. But holy cow was it good!!

Coffee Brand: 
Stumptown

What I Had: 
12 oz Americano, steamed 1/2 & 1/2, 2 Splendas.

How Was It?: 
Incredible. "Woah!! Holy crap!!!" were the first two words out of my mouth after the first sip.

Staff: 
Ok; not unfriendly. To be fair, it was 5 minutes before closing time on Sunday afternoon. They seemed like they wanted to get out of there, and I don't blame them.

Crowd: 
Locals only.

Food: 
Baked goods. Really great ones.

Seats & Tables: 
3 4-person wooden tables

1 regular-height counter with 4 chairs, facing the front window.

All chairs have padding!

Outdoors: 

2 round, 2 person tables, with metal padded chairs.

2 city sidewalk benches

Recycling:  
Yes - including composting!

WiFi: 
Yes. Free.

Power: 
Pretty decent. Nothing you couldn't reach with your laptop cord.

Music: 
Barista's choice. Pandora's "Wanda Jackson" channel was playing. It was some great stuff.

Decor: 
Quite nice. Like so many of the places I've visited, wood floors, wood counters, partial wood walls with drywall painted in pastel color. Original artwork on the walls.

Temperature: 
Perfect. But again, same as outside temperature. Warm, sunny day.

Heat-A/C:
No apparent form of a/c or heating that I could tell. I think the heat from the bakery probably does the trick.

Lighting: 
Incandescent, frosted globes hanging overhead.

Who Is It For?:  
Locals, people who want to make the trip and find some amazing baked goods, great coffee and some padded chairs. Early morning and mid-day crowd - the place closes really early for us night folk.

Special/Extra: Finn's is truly independent, no other locations in town or anywhere else.

Other Notes: It's like a trip into the past - small, friendly, slow-paced bakery with coffee to sit and relax. The shop that time forgot.

Cederberg Tea House - Queen Anne

Cederberg Tea House

1417 Queen Anne Ave N

Seattle, WA 98109

(206) 285-1352

Hours: M-F 8:30am-6:00pm | Sat 9:00am-6:00pm | Sun 10:30am-6:00pm

Rating: ★★★★☆ Great place. They are not open early or late.

Website:
http://cederbergteahouse.com/

Facebook Page: 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cederberg-Tea-House/141432225947632

Who is it for?:
South African ex-pats, QA residents, people who to make the trip to QA for a really, really nice coffee/tea/bakery experience.

Type: Tea house & pastry shop 

Neighborhood:
Queen Anne. W. Galer St. and Queen Anne Ave.

Ease of Location:
Not great. Place is super-easy to find, it's on one of the main-est main intersections in Queen Anne, But again, it's in Queen Anne, one of the most difficult neighborhoods to access in the city.

Local: 
Yes

Multiple Locations:
No

Transit: 
KC Metro 13, 2

Parking: 
On street - really tough, or their garage - really small.

Price: 
$$

Coffee Brand: 
Roobios

What I Had: 
Iced cappuccino. No drip available. Not really happy about that.

How Was It?: 
Very good!

Staff: 
Very, very friendly, polite and professional. Upscale. No piercings, tattoos or rock concert t-shirts.

Crowd: 
South African. The place is owned and run by a family from South Africa. I heard at least three different parties speaking in a South African / British accent.

Food: 
Super fancy pastries and sandwiches.

Seats & Tables:
5 4-person tables
1 3-person tables
3 comfy chairs w coffee table
1 bar counter with 3 bar stools

Wooden tables
All chairs are padded (thank you, owner of the shop)

Outdoors: 
2 2 person tables
1 4 person table

All metal

Recycling:  
Yes. No composting.

WiFi: 
Yes. Free.

Power: 
Good. Outlets on all walls. Not near the middle tables, but it's not really a hang out on your lap top kind of place.

Music: 
Pandora Africa channel. Perfect volume. You can hear it, it won't blow out your conversation.

Decor: 
Very nice. Good deal of wood and wood paneling on the walls, with pastel colored dry wall, tile floors and wood tables.

Temperature: 
Good - but again, same as outside. Perfect sunny day.

Heat-A/C: 
Central air.

Lighting: 
Recessed incandescent. Lots of natural light; 1 1/2 walls are glass.

Special/Extra: 
They have South African flags hanging up outside. Very proud of their country of origin.

Other Notes: 
Just a really nice place. My friend was served her drink on a silver platter (literally) by an employee (ok, it was silver coated, but still).