Elliott Bay Cafe

Big fan of the book store… but the café… not so much. I order my drinks extra hot everywhere I go… and this café NEVER gets it right. Always lukewarm lattes. There was ONE time I asked for extra hot… and actually got WAY TOO HOT. So hot in fact, that the milk scorched and curdled. You know the skin that forms on the top of pudding… well when I took a sip of this WAY TOO HOT latte, a gooey film of milk plopped out of my drink and onto my chin and beard (dead serious… I can’t make this stuff up)…I also think it might have been a napkin that was in my drink somehow. Needless to say I immediately tossed the pathetic excuse for a latte in the compost and left the store. Aside from the drinks, the Wi-​Fi is AWFUL. I’ve been here multiple times… trying to get some work done… and the Wi-​Fi just won’t connect… or keeps kicking me off. When I inform the staff they are very nonchalant and basically say oh well… have to wait until it’s fixed I guess. The staff is mostly friendly… and all the food I’ve had has been delicious. A few problems need some ironing out and this would be a decent place.

Great café with horrible network connection. It is a pity that this café won’t invest in making their Wi Fi offering top notch. We have been here for 20 minutes and internet is just not working. Food and coffee is great though. We experienced the same shorty Wi Fi conditions last year too.

Friendly baristas and good coffee. Great place to sit and work on a weekday. Plenty of outlets to plug in your laptop.

I’ve eaten in Elliott Bay Café a few times now. The quality of the food noticeably increased when there seemed to be a change in ownership/​management a few months ago and it was generally a better experience. However, it seems to have gone downhill recently in terms of customer service.
This lunchtime I was in and there was a few people waiting. There were two people working there. One of them was cooking and delivering food while the other was counting out the change from the tip jar! I couldn’t believe that she would do that while there were plenty of customers waiting. The poor guy doing the cooking had to take my order and then I had to remind them later about my tea which they’d forgotten. Very slapdash.
In terms of the laptop tables, I think I come from the opposite perspective to one of the other reviewers. I’ve struggled to find a table (as I did today) because of the large number of people with laptops who finished whatever they ordered a while ago and are just browsing/​studying/​working. It’s all very well, but it is a café, not a study hall :)
I generally like Elliot Bay and love the book store part. I will use the café again, but if customer service continues to be so bad, I will probably stop going.

Elliott Bay Café is starting to launch catering, which I discovered in searching out great vendors for a group of about 35 at a meeting held at Seattle Central. Erik, the catering manager, was communicative and did an outstanding job of providing a lunch that got RAVE REVIEWS from our picky eaters.
Erik also went above and beyond, able to offer delicious vegetarian and vegan options and accommodate last-​minute additions to our order. Sandwiches came in individual boxes and two fresh salad dressing flavors were delivered. The salad and dessert were presented on reusable serving ware that Erik and his team picked up after our lunch.
I’d definitely recommend Elliott Bay for your catering needs. Bring those delicious treats into your office or event!

I had a couple hours to kill in Capitol Hill and I was lugging a 12-​pound pug and a bunch of study materials around so I racked my brain to think of a dog-​friendly café. Liberty was too far; Café Pettiroso didn’t seem like the kind of place where I could just sit and camp out for two hours; so I called Elliott Bay Café to see if they let dogs into this space since dogs were allowed in the connected bookstore. And the are!
I visited on a rainy afternoon and all of the several tables along the wall were taken but I found a spare table in the middle of the café and ordered the three (or maybe it was four?) cheese sandwich. The baked goods also looked delectable but I I figured three different cheeses melted between crispy toasted bread would be more than enough to fill me up. The sandwich was absolutely delicious — melted cheese was oozing out of the sandwich as I tried to gobble it up. After I finished studying, I simply walked right into the bookstore and wandered around reading snippets of books for an hour. What an awesome way to wrap up a study session.
I’d love to come here again sometime, early enough to snag one of the tables tucked in the back corner with sunlight flooding in from high windows.

Loved this place!
Quite and wifi = great place to do work, study or just to read. Big tables and individual couches to take your pick.
Great display of books to peak your interest should you need to let your mind wander.
Awesome café inside with super friendly staff (Didn’t try their food or coffee but got some hot water for free (upset stomach)).
Warm and well-​lit — I will be back again!

My girlfriend goes to school at Seattle Uni so finding a nice coffee shop for her to study that serves good tea/​coffee as well as a good food can be hard to come by.
We used to visit often on the weekends and always enjoyed the atmosphere. However this weekend we showed up for her to study for her finals. We sat down, got a spot and started doing our own thing. After about an hour of sitting and working, one of the waitresses came up to us and asked:
«Are you going to be getting any tea or coffee or food? If not you will need to leave as we may need the table for customers.»
First off, I work in Customer Service and have been working in the industry since I was a kid. I would NEVER ask someone to leave after an hour. I find this completely rude especially since there were plenty of tables for customers.
We had planned to have lunch as well as tea and coffee, but wanted to wait till it was closer to noon. However the waitress turned us off completely. As a coffee shop, one would EXPECT people to come in and hang out. Especially during finals season coming about.
I feel that this waitress was completely wrong and should have rephrased her question towards us and asked something similar to «would you like some coffee or tea?»
She also asked some ladies next to us to move their yoga mat since it was sitting on the bench next to the table next to them. She stated «Can you please move that since customers might want to use this table”(as their was at least 8 – 10 other tables available).
If a customer wants a table at a coffee shop, they will ask, Hey are you using this table?

EB Café is A-​OK. During the week (non peak lunch/​dinner hours) this is a nice place to come for a cup of coffee/​tea, a pastry, and a place to read (already purchased) books*. The wait for some of their more prepared items, such as salads/​sandwiches/​crepes, can take awhile, especially if it’s a peak lunch hour, but its all made from scratch, so I can understand that. Coffee ranges from really good to mediocre– there’s too much of a variance in quality, so I’ve stuck with tea more often than not. The staff also tends to get flustered and stressed easily, and I’ve spent more than one occasion spending a good 10 minutes waiting for an espresso beverage when there were only a couple drinks ahead of mine; the communcation between register and barista could also use some work, as ive also witnessed a buch of mistakes– someone wanted soy instead of dairy, decaf instead of caffinated, etc. The problems were always fixed immediately though, and without a hassle.
*I imagine they want paid for only books as a way to reduce selling books with coffee and food stains, which I totally get. However, their signage telling you this is almost nonexistent, and I’ve rarely seen employees enforce this, as theres really no way to immediately determine someones paid/​umpaid book status.

Fonte espresso. Organic/​local products. Friendly service. Quiet but still lively crowd. Comfortable seating. Good for groups and perfect if you wanna fly solo. I’ve always been able to find a seat and the service is usually quick. Relaxing music that is never too loud nor too soft. Enjoy a sweet or savory crêpe or just stick with a demi baguette and jam. I love this place. Not to mention it’s a part of one of the best bookstores in seattle.
The food (besides the pastries) may be a little pricey but it’s worth it if you find value in local/​sustainable hand-​made products. Also, it’s absolutely delicious and served with style.

I had heard wonderful things about this place, the book store is nice. i used to live in Portland, home of Powells but nevertheless the bookstore portion was nice. Once I got to the café, I noticed that numerous tables were labeled as no laptops allowed. Ironically, all of these tables were the larger ones, that are located next to the wall (ie power outlets). There were a few small tables in the middle of the room but they had no power sources close to them other than running the cord through to the wall, causing a hazard for people walking to the restroom.
On the other side of the café are a few laptop tables but they were all being used and there were’n many of them. They were too small to ask someone if you could share. I gave up and used one of the «no laptop tables» because there were others using their laptops at those tables. We (4 people in total, all of whom I didn’t know) were approached and asked to move because they were getting an influx of clients and they needed the tables. We were asked to merge together into one table.
We were all in shock, all of us left the café feeling pushed out. Granted, I had just bought my coffee and pastry, how RUDE! I will never go there again. This is the worst place I have been to in Seattle, two big thumbs down!

The food is a little pricey, but tasty nonetheless. what really sets this place though, is that you can have your beer/​wine and engage in the theatre of the imagination, in other words, write like a mofo. it’s also great for people watching when you’re tired of wearing the next great american writer cap or just browse in the discount book pile. not too crowded, not too loud, not too dark, just perfect.