Caffe Vita – Where I Made a Fool of Myself

Name: Caffe Vita 

Description on their web:  By creating an environment where the customer can see, touch, and taste the coffee they purchase, we provide a unique learning opportunity that allows our coffee to speak for itself. Caffe Vita is always fresh, imported directly from the farm and roasted on-site.

Neighborhood: Pioneer Square

Address:  125 Prefontaine Pl South, Seattle, WA 98104

Music playing:  Conventional Wisdom by Built to Spill 

What we ate/drank:  Americano, Frosted Apple Fritter from Mighty-O

Comments:  Unlike Caffe Ladro, that seems to have a different vibe per location, Caffe Vita locations all seem to have the same vibe-warm and comfortable. Of all the Caffe Vita locations, this is by far my favorite. Some thing to be aware of — this location is not open on the weekends, but all their other locations are. I guess Pioneer Square is generally a ghost town on the weekends.  Another thing I didn’t realize is the Capitol Hill location is open until 11:00pm for all you night owls.  They also have locations outside Seattle in Portland, NY and LA.

This particular location has an industrial look with huge steel supports, a huge metal staircase and bar stools made from camshafts. Because of it’s size, it’s good for groups. A huge community table is located in the front along with 3 or 4 tables for two. In the back is more bar seating. That’s not all. They have an upstairs area with a leather couch and a few more table seatings with a really interesting glass coffee table that have a huge cut section of a tree trunk surrounded by a steel mechanism.The ceilings have to be at least 25 feet high, which means the huge windows allow in a lot of light. 

For all you vegans out there, you’ll be happy to know that their pastries are from Mighty-O Donuts. I had a huge apple fritter that had an unusually large portion of frosting(see pic above) with my Americano. The cashier said, “Looks like they put extra frosting on this one for you”

People call me a Looker. I don’t mean that as in, “wow, that guy’s a looker!” but more like “wow, that guy likes to look at things a lot.” This Caffe Vita location has a lot of cool things to look at-the coffee grinder in the front window, the coffee table pictured above, their huge siphon, and even the floor tiles, which are definitely original.

Ratings(Scale 1-5)

Favorite Thing: All the cool things to look at-the coffee grinder in the front window, the coffee table pictured above, their huge siphon, and even the floor tiles,

Atmosphere: 5 

Service:  5 + 1 extra point(see below) 

Food Options:  3 

Overall:  4.5 

Eavesdropping My Convo: Let me preface the story below. I’ve always been interested in Caffe Vita’s logo. It’s dude who looks like a court jester who is offering up a cup of coffee. I was trying to make small talk with the cashier and asked about the origin of of the logo for “Caffe Ladro“. Yes, I asked her about the logo of a different cafe. As you can see from the two logos below side by side, there is nothing in common except both are humans and both are wearing hats.

Anyways, here’s how it went down. I had just put in my order.

Me-You know the logo for Caffe Ladro, the guy with the trench coat? What’s the origin? What does it represent? Remember, my dumbass is in Caffe Vita.

Cashier – Looking perplexed.  You mean……..

Me- You know the silhouette of the guy in a trench coat.

Cashier- Well different coffee places have different logos, but Cafe Ladro’s owners probably had their logo of what they envisioned a typical Seattle person looking like, bundled up in a hat and trench coat. She even physically showed me how a bundled up person looks similar to the logo!

Me- Ahhh…. Ok.

Cashier- Yeah, no problem.

I sat at a table and waited for my drink. I started thinking of the conversation. By the way she phrased her answer, it finally dawned on me. I was mortified when I realized I had asked her about another cafe’s logo.

After I realized what I had done, my first thought was, wow I can’t believe she was so nice and actually tried to explain a another cafe’s logo. She was not condescending in any way and was genuinely trying to answer my question.  I never did find out about Cafe Vita’s logo, but I did find out about the Cafe Ladro’s logo from Cafe Ladro, which I’ll write about next.

When I do find out about the Vita logo, I’ll report back.

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• Caffe Vita-Fremont
• La Marzocco Café & Showroom
• Our Seattle Coffee Shop Thoughts – Updated/Revisited 2020
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