The Seattle Coffee Shop Awards – Part 6

As you know Seattleites have the stereotype of being coffee drinking fools. This is no stereotype, we take our coffee seriously. And if you ask 20 different locals what their favorite coffee place is, you’ll most likely get 20 different answers.

These are our choices for Best Seattle Coffee Shop Awards. With two young’uns, we’ve had to trade in our frequency of night life in Seattle bars and pubs to morning life in a lot of Seattle coffee cafes.

In doing so, we’ve gotten to revisit a lot of coffee shops we hadn’t been to in a while and also got a chance to visit a lot of new places that had always been on our radar but never been able to go to.  We Seattleites are so lucky to have so many varieties of roasters and cafes in such a condensed area.

You’ll notice in our Coffee Shop blog posts we rarely mention how good the coffee is in each place, because we feel like it’s a given we’re going to get exceptional coffee.  If we happen upon a coffee shop in which the coffee is not good, we will not review it. This might be the reason you may not see a particular coffee shop on our blog.

See our other installments of Seattle Coffee Shop Awards:

Part 1 – Best Coffee Neighborhood, Most Popular, Most Underrated
Part 2 – Best Coffee Shops for Groups or You Want To Be Alone.
Part 3 – Best Seattle Coffee Drink Sets, Best Views
Part 4 – Best Seattle Coffee Shops to Impress Visitors, Impress Visiting Coffee Snobs, Make Visitors Feel Like Locals.
Part 5 – Best Seattle Coffee Shops for Food Options, Friendliest Service 

Best Seattle Coffee Shop With Most Character

Summary: 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.” I love coffee shops that stand out from the rest with their quirky or original decor. You step in and think, “Wow, this place is one of a kind!”

1. Ada’s Technical Book Cafe
2. Cafe Vita – Pioneer Square
3. Zeitgeist Coffee
4. Seven Coffee Roasters
5. Bauhaus

There’s no place like Ada’s Technical Book Cafe. It’s part coffee shop, part restaurant, part retailer, part working space and community space. You can enjoy your coffee while sitting at their various display tables which could literally double as museum pieces. You can browse the extensive STEM focused books, puzzles and models. It’s also got a warm inviting vibe. All the Caffe Vitas in Seattle have different atmospheres.

Our favorite is the Caffe Vita in Pioneer Square. This location has a lot of cool things to look at-the coffee grinder in the front window, their huge siphon, and even the floor tiles(see below), which are definitely original to the building. The architecture has an industrial look with huge steel supports, a huge metal staircase and bar stools made from camshafts.

Zeitgeist Coffee also located in Pioneer Square, has so many interesting features to look at as you enjoy your drink-the art deco clock above the cashier/barista, the old fan hanging from the wall, the vintage percolator signage right behind the cashier, the massive hanging lights, the old school newspaper/magazine stand, the ornate steel partition above the magazine stand(remnants of a bank teller?),the dictionary displayed above a map drawer that contain all sorts of little goodies, the small little counter in the middle of the space that has a banker’s lamp on it.  It’s so out of place, but it’s not. Even the toaster near the coffee station is an older mode.

Seven Coffee Roasters is literally a general store with local snacks, local wines and beers and happens to be a roaster.  It’s got a mellow neighborhood vibe in the middle of Ravenna. It’s got outside seating in front, a separate patio and seating inside.  Enjoy your coffee while perusing all the local wares or sit outside and enjoy the tree lined street of Ravenna.

 Bauhaus Strong Coffee You can read about the tumultuous history of Bauhaus in the our review. The “library coffee shop” has unique features such as vintage pieces from yesteryear such as encyclopedias, slide projectors, globes, typewriters and old TVs.  Also there’s a orange imac which is considered vintage in technology years.

Best Coffee Shop Overall 

We’re not going to go into detail on each of these coffee shops. You can read our glowing reviews of each of them in the links.  But you will notice that many of them were mentioned multiple times in our award lists.

We can tell you a few things they have in common are these characteristics:

• When we go here, we feel like we can relax, decompress and talk for long periods. And we want to stay there for long periods.
• Good food options
• We enjoy the atmosphere, decor and the little original details of each place.

1. Mr West Café Bar
2. Cherry Street Public House
3. Preserve & Gather
4. Café Allegro
5. Ada’s Technical Book Cafe
6. Seven Coffee Roasters
7. Lighthouse Roasters
8. La Marzocco Cafe
9. Anchorhead Coffee Co,
10. Zeitgeist Coffee

We’ll continue to scour Seattle for coffee shops and we’ve already visited a few new ones that will definitely make this list in the future.

See our other installments of Seattle Coffee Shop Awards:

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Seattle Coffee Shops
Part 1 – Best Coffee Neighborhood, Most Popular, Most Underrated
Part 2 – Best Coffee Shops for Groups or You Want To Be Alone.
Part 3 – Best Seattle Coffee Drink Sets, Best Views
Part 4 – Best Seattle Coffee Shops to Impress Visitors, Impress Visiting Coffee Snobs, Make Visitors Feel Like Locals.
Part 5 – Best Seattle Coffee Shops for Food Options, Friendliest Service