Due to hav­ing a tech­ni­cal job with­out an office this sum­mer, I’ve spent my time rotat­ing around the local cof­fee shops. Because I’m really bored and I can’t think of a bet­ter way to spend this next 30 min­utes, I’ve decided to sum­ma­rize my thoughts. Even though there’s a star­bucks that I’ve vis­ited, I’m not includ­ing them on this list, for sev­eral rea­sons. I’m sure I’ll talk about that some time in the dis­tant future, but I don’t want to include the “rant” cat­e­gory on this post.

The Past
Penny Lane
The best place on earth, and prob­a­bly the only place I’ve ever seen goth teenagers, suited busi­ness­men, hobos and col­lege stu­dents all talk­ing to one another. Unfor­tu­nately, they had to go and make me cry by clos­ing about a month ago. There’s talk of open­ing some­where else (hard) or some of the employ­ees cre­at­ing sim­i­lar places (a lit­tle less hard).

The Present
Maxs­presso
Even with car­ry­ing a “free drink” card around in my wal­let, it look a while before I tried Maxs­presso, just because I felt the name was painfully hip. Of course, once I finally got inside, I learned that the owner (a won­der­fully enthu­si­as­tic Japan­ese man) was named Max. The loca­tion leaves a lit­tle to be desired, as far as ambi­ence goes — it’s located in a shop­ping area, but it isn’t really a gath­er­ing place. Really does deserve the “best espresso in town” award they won from a local newspaper.

Jet’s Espres­so­ria
I’m not sure how long Jet’s has been open, since I only found them the other day while on a late-night walk. The fur­ni­ture was eclec­tic (good) but kind of shabby (bad). I got the feel­ing that most of the fur­nish­ings had been col­lected last August along the sides of the roads. Not a whole lot of peo­ple there. They served a pretty decent espresso, but the rel­a­tive empti­ness along with the creepy fur­ni­ture cer­tainly didn’t make me want to stay there for the entire day. Since I’ve only been there once, and I got called away quickly for a meet­ing I for­got I had sched­uled, I may or may not be lying.

Cafe Bravo
In a strange loca­tion, but there have been peo­ple sit­ting there every time I’ve gone. Rea­son­ably good cof­fee, but it seems like their pri­mary busi­ness is boba teas (who would have thought?). For some rea­son I haven’t gone there a lot, but I don’t have any rea­son why.

Book­ends
Located by the Boul­der Book­store right in the heart of the Pearl Street mall, Book­ends is never not over­flow­ing with peo­ple. It’s kind of fun, since you inevitably end up shar­ing a table with peo­ple you’ve never met, but since it’s so busy, it’s hard to work there.

The Brew­ing Mar­ket
Occu­py­ing the haute cou­ture slice of the cof­fee sec­tor, The Brew­ing Mar­ket is busy but calm, with an almost exclu­sively white-collar clien­tele and clas­si­cal music play­ing softly in the back­ground. They’re the only place I know of that roasts their own beans in-shop, which is very cool. Most of the other local shops get their cof­fee from alle­gro, which is pretty good, but it’s very nice to have the vari­ety which can only come from local roast­ing. Of course, if you man­age to come in while the guy is oper­at­ing the roast­ing machine, it’s amaz­ing to watch.

The Future
Fol­som St. Cof­fee Co.
The donut shop went out of busi­ness (sadly), but is in the process of being replaced by a cof­fee shop (hur­ray!). One can’t help but won­der if the par­tic­u­lar area isn’t already at sat­u­ra­tion, but they’re directly on my route to cam­pus, so they’ll at least get my busi­ness. Inside looks great — nice fur­ni­ture (and a lot of it), top of the line equip­ment, and a lot of space for peo­ple to just sit.

There are also a few more in the area that I haven’t tried yet, mostly because I wasn’t aware of them.

My Cri­te­ria
Of course, good cof­fee is a must.

If it hasn’t become obvi­ous from the above, I like cof­fee shops where peo­ple can con­gre­gate. It’s very unhappy to be the only per­son sit­ting in a cof­fee shop while peo­ple come, order their drink and leave. At the very least, this means hav­ing more than two tables (yes star­bucks, I’m talk­ing to you), and at best, hav­ing a choice of lots of dif­fer­ent couches and chairs.

Bonus points for local art­work, good music and cute baristas.

Tags: coffee, food