Zokas Greenlake

Zokas is a company that is slowly but surely growing. They currently have 3 locations, each with it's own aesthetic. The two in the Seattle area are nicely tailored to the neighborhoods that they inhabit, rather than attempting to reproduce the feel of a different store with a different customer base.

Zokas cafe at Greenlake has a much more neighborhood and business oriented feel. You can still count on this cafe to offer a great study environment, but you're less likely to find a nice big table to spread your textbooks and notes out on, not to mention peace and quiet. That's not to say that this Zoka is loud; it's just more about being with people than the U-district location.

The soy cappucino I had here was pretty dang good but not the best I've ever had. I suppose that in all things, it really comes down to the barista behind the counter.

Zokas Coffee Roaster & Tea Company

Zokas University District

This place is great! The lobby is huge and conducive to study, hangouts, or whatever. Furthermore, they make the best mocha I've had in quite some time. The espresso here is great, and the mocha that they use is just the right level of sweet and bittersweet. High praise for the foam art too. Free wifi and unabashed music selections also make this place pretty primo.

Check it out, I say!

Yummy Bites

It is, in fact, yummy. It's on the ave. It is cheap-ish. They have lots of vegetarian items (I recommend the tofu yakisoba). It is basically small and busy, not too noisy, and service is quick. That's all I've got.

Henry Art Gallery

The Henry Art Gallery is the sort of place you could lose yourself in, and I don't mean that in the blissful, well-stocked-used-book-store kind of way. The layout is confusing; it's difficult to know where you can/should/are allowed to go. Sometimes there is a doorway that seems as though it should be accessible, but is covered by a curtain velcroed on both sides. Only a slight deterrent, perhaps, but for me at least, it would be terribly awkward to get kicked out for walking into a supply closet.

The upside is that, if you go without a specific piece or exhibit in mind, the things that you will stumble upon are beautiful and intriguing. I don't necessarily consider myself to be one of those people who "gets" art, but I truly believe that it is essential to expose yourself to beautiful, thought provoking things on a regular basis. Life is just better and more complete that way.

Also, if you do it right, the enrichment is free. Every Thursday you can get in without paying, and if you're a UW student, it's free all the time.

Victrola Coffee Capitol Hill

Victrola Coffee is one of those places that is tailor-made for the neighborhood that it inhabits. If it wasn't there, it wouldn't be anywhere, and a cafe very much like it would be exactly where it is...or isn't. Wasn't? What I'm saying is, walking down the street, this cafe comes up like the inevitable wrong diagnosis halfway through an episode of House. That doesn't mean this is a generic coffee shop.

This surprisingly deep little coffee shop manages it's cavernous qualities by lighting it's depths with a soft golden glow that mitigates what would otherwise be an abyss of a retail space. With clever lighting, artwork and spacious windows, the abyss is translated into a fantastic coffee shop that manages to be large while maintaining a nice cozy atmosphere. It might have been the discussion I was having with my friend about my employer (Starbucks) but the barista did some truly impressive foam art atop the soy latte she was crafting for me. Too bad I ordered a cappucino. In any case, the beverage was fantastic, as was the environment.

Check out Victola Coffee's website for the ubiquitous claims of superior coffee knowledge and passion. Oh, there might be directions to the coffee shop too.

Russian Civic Center Swing

You know the scene: the crowded mass of writhing bodies. The sweat, the strangers. Yeah, the seamy underbelly that is our city's Swing dance scene. If you're under 21, there aren't too many well known options to get your fix. The most popular is probably Century Ballroom's Sunday night all-ages dance. The music is great and there's always an abundance of people to dance with. Unfortunately, that abundance of available dancers also means an extreme lack of space to...do anything. Thursday nights at the Russian Civic Center on the back side of Capitol Hill present a welcome alternative, though the lack of crowd has its cost.

The first thing I noticed is that this dance was a community thing. There was no bar, no low lights, no bouncer at the door checking ID's and stamping hands. This also meant that I could bring in my bottle of water without shoving it into a purse. At Century, you feel like you're somewhere doing something. At the civic center, you just feel like you're dancing, which isn't necessarily the most horrible thing ever, but it doesn't exactly feel like the wild night-life you'd always envisioned growing up in the boonies of Utah.

It's also harder to disappear into the crowd after an awkward dance. With an attendance struggling to reach 30 people, it's hard to find anything vaguelly resembling a crowd. If you've never been a single guy working the floor at a dance hall, you don't know what I'm talking about, but let me just make it clear that it is very important to be able to disappear if things go south, or if that girl that you really wanted to dance with finally escaped the clutches of the creepy old dude. Speaking of creepy old dudes, there are significantly fewer of those, making the dance hall much more high schooler friendly.

Long story short: If it's Thursday night and you just want to dance, the Russian Civic Center is a good bet, and at $5 a head, it's not too hefty wallet-wise. Plus, there's no creepy walk on Broadway late at night. But, it might be a good idea to bring a date, because the pickins are a little slim if you're hoping to work the floor.

Although we seem to usually be fans of making you do your own homework, I don't like to watch someone suffer, so here's a little website to help you on your way.

Cafe on the Ave

This particular cafe came highly recommended (by those sorts of sites I am trying to provide an alternative to). It has a classy, hip look, and fairly decent espresso. I can throw my recommendation behind the tomato basil soup, it was absolutely lovely, with just the right amount of texture (I'm not into the whole stewed-tomatoes-in-a-bowl bit). The bread that came along was obviously from a bag, and needed to be drowned in soup to cover the preservative flavor. My least favorite aspect, though, was the atmosphere. This is perhaps a place you would come to study by yourself (there were people on laptops everywhere), but the vibe does not encourage the meeting of new people, or even much animated conversation with people you already know. I know that many Seattle-ites pride themselves on respecting each-other's privacy, not engaging in unwanted conversation with strangers, or even exchanging glances on the street. However, I want to walk into a coffee shop and at least feel that people wouldn't bite my head off if I were to say hello. Studying alone is why god invented libraries.