Okay, now that my personal biases are out of the way, I’ll speak highly of the place. We went here on a lazy soon to be snowy Saturday afternoon, Matt and Mike and myself. Matt got a little sampler cup of his Crazy Choco Cavalcade or whatever, and then defended my barbs about his obvious succumbing to a bait and switch tactic. “It’s all I need”, he sez, but I’d want more ice cream for $2.50. Yeah, that’s a “food is terrible, and the portions are too small” fallacy, but its funny cause its true. Mike got one of those cream Giant Novelty coffees that looks vaguely like a Swiss Stew, I’m sure it was okay. I stood perplexed at the menu, looking for a straight coffee. Instead of the normal lambasting that an overcomplicated java pusher would invoke, the counter jockey pulled Caffeine’s collective ass out of the fire with her friendliness. “Oh, you want the Coffee Al Dia”, she said, “I got confused all the time by that too, it’s Italian for Du Jour”. Well, okay, now we’re in business, my 20 ounce cup of black was a shade less that $2, which is about industry standard. Also, Caffeine didn’t go through a 20 minute Rube Goldberg brewing system to produce my basic request, they had the thermos dispensers right there.

Inside the place, Caffeine is a pleasant enough environment for wasting a half hour. It’s a pretty open area, not a hint of claustrophobia, but they make good use of space (note the hidden three-stool bar in the corner). The walls have a cool spray pattern; Matt sez he witnessed some of this construction, and that must have been cool. Between a wall-long bench, a leather couch, and a half dozen tables, I’ve never seen the place lacking for seating. Staff is cute, probably young as all outdoors, and we’re just picking up on that infectious vitality. Matt just yelled at me from downstairs, “Caffeine, thumbs up or thumbs down?” Well, I have to say I enjoyed myself there, to a point. I must admit that my problems with the place are all tied up in the fact that I generally don’t frequent ice cream parlors, and I don’t need morning coffee; in many respects, Caffeine is extraneous to me. But I can see that what it does, it does well..