It’s right across the street from the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. Inside and out it’s a café that finds a perfect balance of sleepy and hip, busy and leisurely, with its baby blue interior fit with finished plywood cabinetry and rail station-style benches lining the back wall, complete with power strips every ten feet. Show posters cover the wall by the front door.
The mood at Neptune Coffee is pleasant and very workable: as I write this an enormous Mastiff named Oscar who came in with a young woman is making friends with a couple who are scratching his head asking, “Will you come home with us?” This is my kind of place.
It’s too early yet to say if this place is ideal, but it suggests the kind of mood I look for in my cafes. It’s a good balance. The music I’ve heard here—primarily rock and folk records (literally records) from the 60s—adds to the mood, does not diminish it.
And the coffee…
The coffee is good. Excellent, I’d say. For brewed coffee they do a press that’s appropriately creamy and robust. I haven’t yet had an espresso, but given the Synesso machine they have I expect it’s at least as good as the brew.
And to top it off, it’s the neighborhood. This part of Greenwood, close to 85th, is rich and underrated in grand conceptions of Seattle defined slightly further south. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. I get the sense this part of town’s underrated. I enjoy being in this part of town, taking my time down the sidewalk, peeking in restaurants and businesses my temperament won’t allow me to patronize (specialty chocolate and burgers are pretty much off the menu, but quite alluring all the same).
I feel a little sad it took me four years to first set foot inside this Neptune Coffee. I have time now to make up for it.
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