Every Friday, I work out of a different Seattle-area coffee shop and offer up my review of the experience here.
I was looking forward to setting up my temporary office in the Green Bean, which is a new coffee shop in my neighborhood. I liked the promise of being able to walk someplace, and they advertised free WiFi. Perhaps my excitement is what contributed to my disappointment.
The Green Bean is very focused on tranquility and comfort. Cutsy messages written on chalkboards invite you to sit and chat, comfy sofas surround a corner fireplace, the walls are painted with soft greens and yellows, and th earoma of an extensive tea selection wafts through the air. Unfortunately, the sound of speeding cars from NW 85th St. cuts through the delicate ambiance, the seating is haphazard and not uniformly comfortable, and all the above elements really just make it look like they’re trying a bit too hard. A friend of mine described it as a “Pottery Barn”-type of coffee shop.
I spent my usual 5 minutes getting my tablet PC set up and booted, crawled on the floor to access the power outlet, got my Bluetooth mouse paired up, got my headphones plugged in, fired up iTunes, ordered my coffee and a pastry … and then couldn’t get a signal. The barista (who may have also been the owner) apologized and acknowledged that their WiFi was down. She said they had had 3 different groups come from Qwest to try to fix it, but they were stymied. I didn’t press the issue that they still had their “Free WiFi” sign up; I just packed up and left.
I will give them a break on the WiFi as they are new and I certainly understand the glitches that can arise in dealing with Qwest. However, they should have posted that they were having problems with it so customers don’t end up wasting their time.
Oh, and the coffee wasn’t anything to get excited about, but I drank it from a paper cup while walking home, so I really can’t offer a full review. The pastry selection was also quite limited. But I’ll withhold judgment for now and try them out once they get their Internet access problems resolved. I will say, however, that if you open up a coffee shop in Seattle, you better know what you’re doing, and they didn’t seem to.
