Cafe Solstice: Coffee culture personified

I stepped in to Café Solstice on University Way today with the prior intention of eyeing any newspaper racks first. Right there in the entryway is a below eye-level rack with stacks the Stranger and Seattle Weekly, among a select few other publications. Board games and a few miscellaneous pamphlets fill the rest of the rack, partially blocked by the long line to the register.

            I came to Solstice both to take some notes for my blog and study for a midterm, but the tables and bar stools were filled with others doing the same along with several pairs of people having conversations. I like what the Seattle Weekly had to say in a review of Solstice online: “This U District cafe is collegiate, but not Animal House collegiate. Its pea-green walls and mismatched furniture set the scene for a thriving community of thinkers, talkers, and typers.” (http://www.seattleweekly.com/locations/cafe-solstice-170222/)

            I think it’s interesting that both Café on the Ave and Café Solstice seem to continually expand their food menus- but Café Solstice does not even HAVE a menu. You better know you’re coffee order, and quick, the baristas as a whole (my experience shows) aren’t overly patient or friendly by any means. A confused woman leaned towards me while I was waiting in line and asked, “Do they have soup here?” I guess I seemed a bit friendlier than the busy employees.

            Solstice’s popularity among college students is undeniable, and its similarities to other University Cafes is noteworthy too. Like Café on the Ave, Solstice’s small selection of newspapers is located not prominently, below eye level at the entryway. The absence of newspapers spread out on tables like the visual I got from Zeitgeist downtown combined with the omnipresence of laptops is an indicator of the generational shift to consuming the news for free online.

            Read more opinions on Café Solstice on the Stranger’s website:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Location?location=24120&srs

 

By the way, the coffee itself at Solstice never disappoints!

Starbucks offers free coffee on Election Day

It’s election day and Starbucks Cafes are encouraging voter participation in the election by offering a free 12 ounce drip coffee to customers who come in and say they’ve voted.

Apparently Starbucks came in to some trouble when planning the event, since offering incentives to vote violates federal law. They responded by saying they’ll offer anyone a free cup and do not require proof that you voted. Here’s more on that:

http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=50042&catid=2

I think this is relevant to my topic of coffee and the news because Starbucks has involved itself in the political world and encouraging citizenship. Walk in to any Starbucks in the U.S. and you will be met with the same consistency of both coffee and a rack of newspapers.

I’m not tech-savy enough yet to embed the video but check out Starbucks’ video promoting their free coffee giveaway today:

http://www.youtube.com/user/starbucks

Coffee and Communication

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”

-Anne Morrow Lindberg “Gift From the Sea”

 

Coffee and communication go hand in hand. Seeing newspapers scattered across tables in cafes is as commonplace as requesting room for cream. The purpose of this blog is to explore how Seattle’s coffee scene affects our local culture and how news plays a role in the conversation and atmosphere of coffee shops. This blog has the capacity to change emphasis as I explore my interest in the identities of cafes, the music they play, and the people that frequent. To add thoughtfulness to my entries, I plan to include quotes and news clips that relate to my thoughts on Seattle’s coffee culture and the ways coffee facilitates community.

 

Thanks for taking a break to check out my blog!

Zeitgeist Coffee

I visited Zeitgeist Coffee in Pioneer Square on a weekday mid-afternoon. I wanted to get a different perspective on the Seattle coffee scene than the University District offers, and I certainly did. Zeitgeist had a completely different feel to it than Café on the Ave.  It was full of business professionals, some holding important conversations, some sharing a cup of coffee over a break. Almost everyone was interacting with someone, whereas at Café on the Ave, more kept to themselves.

                Another stark contrast was Zeitgeist’s massive ceiling-high rack of newspapers directly to the right of the register. It held probably about thirty choices of newspapers and magazines, everything from the Weekly Standard to Business Weekly, the Seattle Times to the Wall Street Journal. I think this indicates the atmosphere the café is trying to create as well as the type of people that visit the establishment. Through selling an extensive collection of publications, the café sends a message that coffee and news go hand in hand, and it is natural to embrace that concept and let the news be a part of your interaction. Also, a few of the professional looking people that came in were greeted by name, showing that they are frequent customers and perhaps rely on Zeitgeist to sell them both coffee and the news, consistently.

                I see consistency as a possible theme that may reoccur as I continue to visit cafes. People always say that Starbucks is successful because they are consistent. Wherever you go, in Seattle or in the world, you can rely on Starbucks to provide the same quality drink. At other cafes, people rely on the news consistently provided, or a place to consistently study, or even a place where a barista always knows your name.

 

More about Zeitgeist on their website:

http://zeitgeistcoffee.com/

I couldn’t help but overhear…

I ventured to Cafe on the Ave Thursday afternoon to do some studying and “pick up on vibes.” The baristas were an interesting juxtaposition of friendly and customer service oriented and a bit snobby. I asked how much drip coffee refills are and one said “ahhhh….well…..” to which I replied, “you don’t do refills, do you?” To me this either indicates that the coffee is expensive or that they don’t want you hanging around too long.

The cafe is very large but dim and if any music was playing I can’t recall it. About half the guests sat alone with laptops, the other half conversed with friends and study buddies. At one point I had on one side of me four college males discussing physics..or maybe it was engineering….? and two girls on the other side of my table dramatically gossiping about their relationship issues. I was just about to give up for a while on trying to gather any conversations on current events when I walked by a few men talking politics at a tall table. Nevertheless I was a little interested to see the only newspapers on a stand far from the counter near the exit. Part of the reason may be that I visited later in the day and I would assume more people read the paper in the morning, but also I think that this cafe, with a primarily university student customer base, does not see as many people coming in to spend some quality time with the morning paper.

Hopefully as I keep visiting cafes, some patterns will develop and I can better support my hunches.