Evoke Coffee

Description on  Evoke Coffee website : At Evoke, we strive to offer the best in  food and drink. We use Heart Coffee to craft the highest quality espresso drinks, infused with a broad selection of our house-made syrups, and utilize  fresh ingredients to make stunning dishes to order.

Neighborhood:  South Lake Union(SLU)

Address:  235 9th Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109

Music playing: Hate The Real Me by Future

What we ate/drank:  Macchiato

Comments: Evoke Coffee reminds me of a situation we have in our own household.  When we host visitors via Couchsurfing, they always mention our dog in our reviews, love to take pictures with her and try to conjole her into sleeping in their room.  If we see our Couchsurfers again, they always ask how our dog is doing.  Wait a minute?!? We opened up our house to you, gave you shelter, a place to sleep, a clean bathroom, use of our kitchen all for free! Don’t you remember us or want to know how we’re doin?  No, it’s all about our dog.  I feel that’s the same quandary that Evoke Coffee has.  Everybody will remember their Bernese Mountain Dogs, Pablo and Pedro.  I’m no different. If somebody asks me about Evoke Coffee, I’ll probably say, “oh yeah, the place with the dogs”. Their dogs are super friendly and well behaved and add to the enjoyment of having coffee there.  And if you know anything about Seattleites they go ga-ga over dogs.

Pedro, the shop puppy        Pablo, the shop dog

The location is in South Lake Union and takes industrial/minimalist to the max.  It feels like it’s still under construction with black tarp as a ceiling, concrete floors and white walls with not art or pictures. Their lighting are hanging lamps with multiple Edison bulbs. Their table tops, chairs and stools are all metal and all black with the exception of two couches.  The space is big with a high counter with six stools and a long bench with individual tables to the left and the aforementioned couches, a community table(with 6 outlets in the middles and USB jacks), and a high counter with 3 stools on the right. Besides their dogs, they are also known for their sign, “but first, coffee”.

They use Heart Coffee from Portland, OR which I’ve never had before.  The macchiato I had had a distinct sweetness. It was quite different.  I love that they use Delonghi double walled thermos glasses. Not only does this keep the drink hotter longer, but it also allows you to see the color and texture of the drink that you get in a Gibraltar glass, but not in the normal ceramic cups. For food options – construct-your-own omelettes, pastries and acai bowls. They also have sandwiches.

The weekday morning I went, there was one person taking orders and making drinks, so if you have a bunch of time consuming drinks ordered in a row in front of you, it might take awhile. This is where the two mascots definitely help. People were petting and playing with them while waiting for their drinks and even after getting their drinks, hung around to play with them some more.  We enjoy industrial/minimalism, but this was a bit too industrial/minimalism.  I loved the coffee, loved the Delonghi glasses and of course, loved the dogs, but it’s out of the way for us and not a “comfy” place to relax.  We’d probably take visitors who love dogs and a good cup of coffee.

Ratings(1-5)

Favorite Thing:  Loved the coffee, loved the Delonghi glasses and of course, loved the dogs, Pablo and Pedro

Atmosphere:   3.50

Service:  5

Food Options:   4.35

Overall:  4.25

Eavedropping  Convo: No conversations to report here. Just a lot of fawning over the dogs. A guy did come in with his dog and stayed awhile to let his dog play with Pablo and Pedro.  Then he and his dog left, but came back 5 minutes later. Apparently, his dog wanted to play more. He let them play a bit more and then said to his dog, “Done with your morning social visit, buddy?” and they left for good.