It's not as if there is any shortage of Austin Coffee Shops. I'm sitting in the East Village Cafe in East Austin, but there are so many to choose from. It seems every time I turn a corner, there's some tastefully retro coffee shop with great coffee and filled with the kind of furniture you usually find in your grandparents old lake house-you know, vinyl couches, tartan patterns, wobbly tables, broken chairs. The resulting caffeinated atmosphere of a town packed with creative people like Austin is inspiring, and in fact it reminds me of an interesting conversation I had with Dr. Oolong, the founder and main proprietor of Austin's Zhi Tea. He'd lived for a while in Seattle back when Seattle was awesome, and the vibe in Austin these days, that of a fast-growing, coffee and marijuana-fueled town with talented people pouring in, is as exciting as Seattle was in the 90′s. Good time to be alive and in ATX, no?

I love these dusty coffee shops, a taste likely instilled by my many hours spent in the Motherlode Coffee House in Houghton, MI, where I hail from. (Unfortunately, the Motherlode has since closed, robbing this Earth of one of its last perfect sanctuaries. I couldn't find any site to link to, so to fill that void here's a picture of our famous lift bridge, Houghton's other claim to fame. Er-I meant "fame".)

Luckily for me, Austin's East Village Cafe is close to home, a little out of the way of any kind of hustle or bustle (it's in a largely residential neighborhood), and is the kind of peaceful place with winsome proprietors who go out of their way to give you the Austin Coffee Shop experience you crave. It's the kind of place where the barrista will stop by every so often to offer a glass of water or another drink, which I find to be awfully sweet of them.

We moved here from New York, a dismal and lovely place (I MISS IT SO MUCH) where charming coffee shops that let you sit for hours using their free WiFi just do not exist in any meaningful number. Even my favorite, Grey [sic] Dog Cafe, has a strict "No Laptops" policy, at least during busy hours. And so East Village Cafe in Austin fills, for me, a niche that needed filling, a quiet place with great coffee and a great selection of Mexican sodas.

I'll be back. I already have been, many times.

PS: The guy who works here just gave me a bagel for absolutely no reason at all. He doesn't even know I'm writing this. Southern Hospitality is the best part of the South.


Story and Photos by: Ben Britz