Jewel Box Café | ★★★★★

Jewel Box Café

321 NE Thornton Pl, Seattle, WA 98125

(206) 432-9341

Rating: ★★★★★

As good as it gets. Fantastic. Comfortable. Open early & late. Northgate location will make coffee shop snobs scoff. But they can hit the bricks.

Website: 

http://www.jewelboxcafe.net/

Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jewel-Box-Cafe/175706992459139

Hours:

M - T: 6 am-11 pm | Fri - 6am to midnight 

Sat 8 am – Midnight | Sun 8am - 11am

Who Is It For?:
Anyone looking for a great place to get coffee or food, business people, people in the Northgate area, people who want a late night coffee, students (North Seattle College, Everest College, Pima Medical Institute).

Neighborhood: 
Northgate

Ease of Location: 
Exceptionally easy:  Right off of the I-5 and Northgate exit, directly across from the Northgate Mall, across 103rd.

Local: 
Yes

Multiple Locations: 
No. Totally independent.

Transit:  
Tons. Northgate Transit Center is 550 feet away. 
Metro: 16, 40, 41, 66, 67, 68, 75, 242, 303, 345, 346, 347, 348, 995
Sound Transit: 555, 556

Parking:  
Plentiful. There is a parking garage directly beneath the area.

Price: 
$$

Coffee Brand: 
Zoka Coffee

What I Had: 
12 oz drip breve 1 Splenda

How Was It?: 
Ok. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. Again, this is "Where Would Ed Drink," not "What."

Staff:  
Incredibly friendly and hardworking. 
Top notch, a hundred percent. 
Great sense of humor, best staff I have encountered in my travels so far. 
The customer in front of me ordered some food, and it was done before she could pay for it. She exclaimed "Wow! You're fast!"

Food:
A huge menu.

Seats & Tables: 
6 2-person tables.
7 3-person tables.
1 bar-height counter with 6 bar stools.

4 4-person booths.
1 2-person waiting booth as well - awesome.

3 person couch with a large table in front of a fireplace.
2 high-back chairs - old Victorian style.

Outdoors: 
6 – bar-height metal tables with tile tops.
Four bar-height chairs with each table. 

Metal, a couple of padded seats!

Recycling: Yes.

Power:  
All over the place. Nearly every seat and booth. 

Music: 
Everything near as I can tell. 
At the time, R & B. “U Shoulda Known Better” by Monica was playing while I was there. 
They also have live music events, I’m sure there’s a wide variety of music.

Decor: 
A great combo of American diner with Americana old wood, & a Victorian era parlor tonight area with couches and chairs. 
It’s comfortable and a real welcome expansion on the usual small, uncomfortable chairs of a lot of coffee shops.

Temperature: 
Good. It was a little cool and there but not too bad; I am still trying to get acclimated to the thicker air of Seattle (vs 3 years of living in the thin air of Denver).

Heat-A/C:  
Central air. Air conditioning and heat. 
Be a good place in sweltering heat, which we’ve had a lot of in 2014-2015 here in Seattle.

Lighting:
Lots of natural light. 
Two of the walls are windows and bring in the light.
Incandescent bulbs with chandeliers and on the wall fixtures. Interesting look and quite lovely.

Special / Extra:
Tall entryway doors are at least 8 feet high, with metal artwork on top of the glass. 
“Garage door” walls that open up for sunny warm days.

Other Notes: 
Padded booths in the style of a diner.
All the chairs have padded seats which is 100 percent completely awesome for me. 
A lot of the tables have checkerboard squares on the tops of them. 

You can call your order in by phone if you are running short on time. 

They serve a multitude of different food and drinks. 
They have a 12th man flag over the counter.