*****Seattle Coffee Works has moved to 108 Pine Street. See our updated review here.*****

Description on  Seattle Coffee Works website : Seattle Coffee Works is a place to experience and experiment with coffee in its richly diverse forms and varieties. Wine connoisseurs have tasting rooms; beer aficionados have brewery tap rooms; fine dining enthusiasts have five-star restaurants. Our goal is to create a dedicated tasting space for specialty coffee. All of our locations commit unrelentingly to making coffee better and providing resources to help our customers make and explore better coffee.

Neighborhood:  Downtown

Address:  107 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101

Music playing: The General by Dispatch

What we ate/drank:  Macchiato

Comments:    Seattle Coffee Works first started a few yards down the block as a pop up in the touristy  T-Shirt store on the corner of 1st and Pike back in 2006. It then moved into the old Johnny Rockets location where it remains today.

If you’ve ever been to Pike Place Market, you’ve most likely seen Seattle Coffee Works since you literally there when you step out the door. The first thing you’ll notice is that there is outdoor seating looking right on Pike Place Market. I’ve never sat there, but although you’ll have a great view, us locals know that it’s also a street that attracts a lot of, how should I put it, crazy people.  Although I’ve got to admit it is 10 times better than it used to be now that Target and Hard Rock are there. It used to be a bunch of strip joints.

When you walk in you’ll notice two seating areas One is their ‘Slow bar”, which is where the manually brewed coffee drinks are concocted. Check out the cool syphon in the picture below. This area is comprised of high counters and about 8 stools. The other seating area is just a general seating that has a long bench with five individual tables. There are a few stand alone tables and your coffee shop commonplace leather seats.  One thing I want to note about the benches. They are unusually high. My feet were dangling off the floor and the tables, which are normal height were up to my knees due to the bench being so high.

Food options are packaged sandwiches from Molly’s, yogurt and pastries locally sourced from Standard and Macrina Bakery. They also have other drinks besides coffee -juices/water/carbonated drinks/cider/tea/chai.

There are lots of tourist due to proximity to the Market, but if you come early in the morning on a work day it’s nice a peaceful. While there on a Tuesday morning, I’d say most people were not locals/regulars, which is to be expected due to the location near downtown hotels, Pike Place Market, the aquarium, SAM, waterfront, cruise ship terminals, etc.

I can’t really put my finger on why I don’t find it a place I’d like to hang out at regularly or suggest it as a place to meet up. Maybe it’s the weird bench proportions/height, maybe just my mood on this particular day, maybe I like a sense of community, while this location seems to have a more transient vibe.  I didn’t think that stuff really mattered to me, but maybe it does.

The coffee was great, cashier and barista helpful and cheerful, convenient location, definitely have the people watching factor, but…… I don’t know.  I’m just not feeling it.  In comparison, I really enjoy their other locations. Bright and airy Cascade Coffee Works and Capitol Coffee Works. Maybe it’s not fair to compare this location with those being relative new locations and probably without the space and building restrictions this location has. The Ballard Coffee Works has a neighborhood feel, is bigger and has a cool Brew Bar area.

Website: I love their Authenticity Reports that shows transparency of how much they paid and how much they ordered from each of their farms. They also go into great detail about their employee benefits. I don’t know if Second Pay is an industry standard, but I think it’s a really fair policy in which Seattle Coffee Works will pay a little extra to the farm if they determine the quality of the coffee is better than expected after the coffee has already been purchased!  If it’s less than expected Seattle Coffee Works admits it’s their mistake an honors the original negotiated price of the coffee beans.

I also really enjoyed the short biogarphies of the farms they source from and their locations.

Super detailed Brew Guides on their website that gives measurements to the gram and timing to the second for Aeropress, Chemex, Hario, Kalita Wave and even a Syphon.

Ratings(1-5)

Favorite Thing:  The above mentioned Authenticy Reports and Second Pay policy.

Atmosphere:   3.75

Service:  5

Food Options:   3.75

Extra Credit: +1.25 for Authenticity Report and Second Pay

Overall:  4.50

Eavedropping  Convo: No conversations to report here, but Duh!  I just realized after all these years that the Seattle Coffee Works logo of the guy drinking coffee is a play on the Hammering Man in front of the SAM(Seattle Art Museum)