The Living Room has officially been displaced, its spot in my heart taken by the much-more-deliciously-grungy/hipster Pannikin. (Not quite winning me over yet, though...it's currently vying with The Art of
Espresso for the first place title in my heart. Neither of them are open as late as The Coffee Garden, but at least you can lurk inside of Pannikin 'til just before dinnertime, then venture down the street to The Living Room if you really can't bear the thought of leaving La Jolla. Why'd I leave La Jolla again?)
I
love the quirky, artsy vibe of this little coffee cabin. The female servers are
(laid-back hotties who also happen to be) really really sweet, and they
definitely make the place feel welcoming if you’re a regular. The males tend to
have a smug hipster vibe, but they’re cute so I guess they can get away with
it.
Speaking
of cute! There’s a giant chess set, torn-up pleather booths, folding chairs by
a fireplace, plenty of local art, a bathroom-wall mural that informs you how
grateful you ought to be for coffee (because it makes you a more interesting
person, of course). And a nice outdoor patio with a table where the world
record for longest conversation was held (or so a plaque on said tiny table
boasts).
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| Red pleather, giant chess, and a dirty chai. I don't know what happened to my picture of the table-plaque. |
Less
cute: Finches. The outdoor seating area is teeming with them. They WILL eat
your delicious vegan granola bar if you look away for long enough. Scratch
that, you don’t have to look away. Those little dinosaurs are gutsy as fuck.
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| Evidence of gutsy-as-fuckery, as of September of 2012. Also evidence of the most delicious vegan granola bars in existence. And the adorable patio (and patio-dwellers), the tree, the roses, and the fact that I was reading a book and wearing black pants while I sipped my almondy iced chai through a red straw. I miss that. |
Soy/almond
milk is extra, but you can also get their spicy chai mixture sans any milky
addition whatsoever. (The guy I tended to order a just-chai from got a bit
incredulous when I do this, but he complies. He also grimaced when I
ordered something “dirty,” but made it anyway. Everyone’s entitled to their
opinions, I suppose. And part of the charm of the hipstery place is the
slightly-unprofessional tone that the servers take with the customers.)
The
chai is mixed in-house, I believe, so it’s not syrupy at all. Which is a
welcome change of pace from the mouth-coatingly chemical feeling of alienation
you might get elsewhere. (Or, you know, just a little more fresh…if you want to
be less dramatic about your beverages. I can't see why you'd want to do kill my
buzz like that, though. Jerk.) Their chai mixture is decent: not too spicy, but
it’s not tooooo sweet either. (A bit sweeter than I'd prefer, but then again I
drink this stuff.)
Fair
warning for (crazyass) vegans: the lightly-sweetened chai mixture is made with
bee-vomited plant-sperm (aka honey).
They
also have (yummy) vegan bagels and an assortment of breakfast and lunch items
(none of which I’ve tried, few of which seem vegan). And they play a quirky
assortment of oldies, indie rock, acoustic/experimental/uncensored stuff, and
world music. Depends on whose iPod is hooked up to the (My Little
Ponies-topped) speakers at the time, I suppose…
Hours:
early-5ish? I don't remember, really. SorryI'mnotsorry.
Service:
My favorite combination of snarky and genuinely nice.
Seating:
Comfortably rickety, for the most part. Some tall and sturdy wooden stools on
the outdoor patio, assorted chairs by the tables under the tree and umbrellas.
The indoor booths (with outlets!) are ripping (p)leather, but those wooden
folding chairs by the window are pristine vintage nook-fillers. Speaking of
nook-fillers, right next door to Pannikin is an exquisitely overcrowded
bookstore that you absolutely must visit. If you end up in a car dealership,
you went the wrong way.
Eatables:
TRY THE VEGAN GRANOLA BAR. WORTH EVERY DOLLAR.
People:
A friendly assortment of older/middle-aged regulars, schoolkids,
twenty-somethings like myself, tourists, and your standard hipsterkids.
Music:
Baristas’ (hipster) iPod selections.
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| I meant to post this on my grandmother's 93rd birthday. |
