“What is this, Eugene? We’re in Eugene!” I insisted. We weren’t in Eugene, we were in C&P Coffee, the place that is sure to be the new answer to that ever present Seattle question: Where do you want to go for coffee? It looks like Eugene in there, and I don’t mean in a bad way, I mean in a hippie kinda way. Not the shiftless hippie kinda way, I mean more like in the hippies that went grad school in Santa Cruz and then lived in Amsterdam and then came back and decided to open a really cool coffee house kinda way. Oh, never mind. You get it.
C&P is in a swell old Craftsman style house with a stunning fireplace. Their treats are from Essential Bakery, important because, hello, have I mentioned the cinnamon rolls? There’s a haphazard collection of furniture – a big dining table, some tattered armchairs, a flowered sofa… Dogs come and go. Outside, a woman in green work pants aggressively chops at a hedge. The main room is mostly empty mid-morning and people are – get this – visiting. Even though there’s free wifi, there are only two people with laptops – a guy across the room intently working and another guy who’s got up from his post at the window to chat with his friends who are seated in front of the fireplace.
C&P feels like a Cap Hill old favorite now long gone, Four Angels. The lumpy living room furniture, the sense that you’re in a home, not a business, the absolutely not shiny not corporate decor. They’ve got a big front garden which must be a fine place to sit on a mild summer morning and an extensive entertainment line-up. They’ve applied for a liquor license which means maybe, just maybe, this will be the place we wander to from our new house when we think we’d like a beer with our bluegrass.
It was nice to spend a little time in a place that felt so much like an old favorite. On the lists of things you need in your new ‘hood, a cool place to get coffee is very high up there. It’s a little bit of a hoof from the Palazzo del Mar (my beach house – that’s what I’m calling it, don’t try to stop me, and no, it’s not on the beach, wanna make something of it?) but I think that’s okay. A half hour stroll for a cup of joe in a cozy place? Sounds like a perfect afternoon to me.
Note: Okay, admittedly, this could be on a premature rebound from our upcoming breakup with Victrola. The stress of the move means we might just fall for a SNAG during the transition. Honestly, we don’t know sh*t about bluegrass.
[tags]West Seattle, C&P Coffee[/tags]
Glad to hear you’ve found a good coffee house in your new nabe. And love what you named the new place. As for Eugene… Yesterday I was scarfing a spicy chicken sandwich (burger) from the school cafeteria when our PTA president strolled in. I know him…he looked at the chicken burger and said that he was shocked to see me eating something like that…that he’d thought all this time I was “a hippie.” I nearly choked. I said I didn’t have anything against hippies, but I’ve never been one. (Even though I’ve lived in some granola-head places, i.e., Davis, Arcata, etc.) Said he had me pegged as “one of those Spirulina, wheatgrass types.” No wonder he looked so aghast when I took a slug of my Sierra Mist. 😉
Aw, I wish some of those hippies that went grad school in Santa Cruz and then lived in Amsterdam and then came back would decide to open a really cool coffee house in MY neighborhood. Vancouver is overwhelmed by corporate coffee. Wait, that’s not true. The Main St area and the Commercial St area have some great place. I just don’t live there.
Another issue with rampant gentrification, retail space lease prices go up so only the majors and high volume kinda places can survive. Then the neighborhood just gets boring (look at Broadway on Capitol Hill).
Makes me wonder what will happen to those cooler ‘hoods in Vancouver when the ubiquitous towers start popping up there too (they’ve started to arrive on Main St, not yet on Commercial).
This has nothing to do with West Seattle or coffeee, but…
After two weeks of getting “Server Not Found” messages whenever I tried to access NEV via my Mac (both Safari and Firefox…although I had no problem accessing via my Dell PC), the problems has suddenly/mysteriously disappeared.
Glad to be back.
Sal & Felix
Yay for the C&P! A really fine place with excellent espresso and music four nights a week. And let me put a plug for our GIG there: Susan and Niels and myself will be playing ukuleles along with the rest of the Happy Campers (not playing ukes) Saturday April 21 6-8pm. We’ve been playing together for seven years mostly at Elderhealth and other places for seniors or medical recovery. This will be our first real gig and we’re excited.