CoffeeBeer >> Double Shot Buzz >> Seattle 3
Back in June of this year when I was visiting Seattle, my Bay Area friend flew up and joined me for a few days. Although Rick and I were staying in a bungalow in Ballard, we got all around the city where I used to live. On one of our first days, we went downtown to take a ride on the Seattle Great Wheel, and we also walked through Pike Place Market, which I visited regularly to buy all sorts of things from jewellery making supplies to fresh fish and ingredients for ethnic meals. After having lunch and making a couple of brewery stops on 1st Avenue, we decided to check out Storyville Coffee Roasters for a late afternoon pick-me-up.
Hidden away upstairs in Pike Place's Corner Market, Storyville is a roomy place, which offers lots of sunny seating by the windows as well as a roaring fire in the centre. The window seats were all taken, and my fingers were frozen from the angry winds outside. So Rick and I sat over by the fire at a nice little wooden barrel-shaped table. Next to us was a large coffee table topped with some sort of board game with dice that neither of us had ever seen. (We learned later that it was called irk!, and it was designed by the staff at Storyville so that their customers could interact with each other without using screens or batteries. I mean, what an innovative idea!)
Our Cortados were bigger than we expected, but at least they were served in appropriately shaped glasses, and the coffee itself was extremely smooth. The majority of clientele were very young, but for a change we weren't the only ones there who were over 50 years of age.
Airplanes seem to be a theme in Storyville's decor, which was coincidental as we'd started our day checking out the Boeing 747 wedged between two skyscrapers on Denny Way. And both of us aerospace programming veterans enjoy flying anyway, so airplanes are always a good theme.
Storyville also offers fresh baked cinnamon rolls, croissants, cookies, and brownies, and there are two other locations, with the site on Bainbridge Island offering roaster tours. The company sources its beans globally from the top 2% available, and each bean varietal is roasted individually before being blended.
On another morning, Rick and I felt like bagels for breakfast, so we took a walk from our Ballard AirB&B east to Fremont to check out Backyard Bagel. Our walking route was along Market Street, where it appeared to be rush hour. On the way we chatted with a fluffy orange ginger cat who was performing his sidewalk calisthenics for us. (Rick gave him a solid 9 for his athletic skills.)
The interior of the cafe was very simple and basic, furnished with light wood tables and a wall bench, and an ordering counter at the front. The cafe makes their own bagels, and I must say they're really good, with just the right texture. And there's an array of schmears to choose from. I went for an Everything bagel with caper and dill schmear, and Rick had a sesame bagel with scallion schmear, and we both had the lox and pickled onions as well. And the portions of lox were very ample.
Our coffees were served in paper cups, but my macchiato was pretty good, and the 8-ounce cup was only half full, so that was a good sign. Rick had a cappuccino prepared the way a cappuccino should be. And as it was breakfast, we split an orange juice. I have to say the food was very good. Apparently their bagels are award-winning, and they bake them all day long in a traditional deck oven. With other locations in Ballard and in Laurelhurst, the Fremont shop is their original location.
As we finished our breakfasts, we looked forward to walking down Fremont Avenue and saying hello to the statue of Lenin, the Rocket, the perennial commuters, and Rapunzel, all landmarks in the Artists' Republic of Fremont that I visited often when I lived in Seattle. It's sad that Vlad no longer stands proudly in front of the now-defunct location of Taco Del Mar, but hey, at least he's survived the decades.
We then moved on to visit a cat cafe, followed by the essential visit to Archie McPhee to buy some trinkets. From there we caught a bus north to Green Lake where we ended up having lunch and a pint, and then we walked further east for another pint to the Roosevelt District, which I had never actually visited during my years of residence. After having done a lot of walking, and with more pubs to visit in the evening, we decided to have another late afternoon caffeine reviver, this time at Armistice Coffee.
When we walked in, we found ourselves in a trendy place scented with the gorgeous aroma of the coffee roaster on the side. Our two Cortados were served with different rosettes, mine a heart and Rick's a fern. There was nowhere to sit, but we managed to muscle up to the bar on the side, moving someone's computer equipment over just a bit so that I had a place to set down my coffee. (The owner of the computer was nearby and apologised for being so rude.) On the other side of me Rick was sitting next to an instruction book for an Arzen Google TV.
I have to say our drinks were very smooooooooth, and they definitely matched the smoooooooooth music. Our view out the window was of, um, parked cars and a carpark. Oh, and there was a man who was standing to one side, looking at the carpark. That's about all there was to see.
The name of the cafe instantly appealed to me, as it reminded me of a very moving museum I visited one morning last year when I was in Reims, France. I don't really know why a rather suburban coffee roasters in Seattle would be called Armistice, though. Apparently the story is that the owner, Rebecca Smith, chose the name because she wanted her cafes to serve as a literal and figurative "truce" from the daily stresses of life. Hmm, okay.
Armistice started in 2018, and there are now four locations around Seattle. As a proper roastery, they roast their coffees in-store, and bags of their beans are for sale. They also offer snacks from local bakeries that are paired with their specific coffee blends and single origins. I was tempted to buy some beans; but since we had plenty at our AirB&B and I was still a week away from flying back to England, I didn't want to risk buying some this early. As we were finishing up our coffees, we noticed that written on the side of the bags displayed for sale was the following: "We do what we do so you can do what you do". Which made me feel like singing "doo-bee-doo-bee-doo!"
Speaking of singing for some reason reminds me of a recent short WhatsApp conversation with my adopted brother about my current stressful life living with a stroke survivor:
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