Coffee shops with corollary vices

A dirty dozen of Austin's caffeine dealers who traffic in alcohol, tobacco and attitude.

By Mike Sutter
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT WRITER
Thursday, May 21, 2009

When Austin's Warehouse District was forming its nightclub and restaurant identity in the mid-1990s, Ruta Maya was a way station at Fourth and Lavaca streets, a hot and noisy place to buy deep Mexican coffee from indifferent counter people, then cross over to Scott Campbell's cigar shop in the back corner to let the nicotine and caffeine do their chemical two-step. It wasn't a place to drink, really. More like a place to decide where to drink next. Ruta Maya's long since moved to South Congress Avenue and become the apotheosis of the modern coffee bar: a place to satisfy the conflicting human desires for emotional stimulation and suppression. Espresso with a beer chaser, please. These dozen Austin shops recognize the need for coffee with something extra: draft beer, raspberry-infused vodka, hand-rolled cigars, exquisitely bad poetry, a place to linger at all hours. They can pick you up, put you down and send you on your way.

Bobalu Cigar Co.

509 E. Sixth St. 469-5877,

www.bobalucigarco.com

Corollary vices: Cigars, cigar rollers, cigar smokers

You could argue that Bobalu is Austin's only coffee shop that also has people rolling cigars in the front window, but that's kind of pushing it. Owner Jeff Lipton's little shop, which has been on Sixth Street for 13 years, added a coffee bar four or five years ago, and he allows that coffee is just about 5 percent of his business. Not that there aren't a few complete addicts. 'We have a huge number of followers, especially people who work here on Sixth Street, who would probably die if we weren't here,' Lipton said. They do Cuban-style coffee and get their beans from a family operation in Italy that has been roasting for some 140 years. (Taking a bag with you is more than $20, so try before you buy.) The place is a great spot to duck in for a restorative cup of caffeine and a smoke when the hordes on the street get oppressively thick. (Because the business is classified a tobacco shop and not a coffee shop, smoking is allowed under city ordinance.) His in-house cigars start around $2, average around $5 and top out at $20. Often the rollers are Cuban expats, many of whom have been rolling 50 years or more. And when you can't visit in person, www.livecigarrollers.com has a live webcam 11 a.m. to midnight Mondays through Saturdays. 'I have people from every corner of the Earth watching us,' Lipton said.

- Patrick Beach

Cafe Mundi

1704 E. Fifth St. 236-8634,

www.cafemundi.com

Corollary vices: Cold beer, hot-blooded revolutionary zeal

Mundi behaves like a proper coffee shop: service is laid back, you can sit all day with an empty cup and no one will care, they promote vigorous bike riding and other community activities. They've got renegade anarchists in bandanas and abstract metal art nestled among the banana trees. They've got veggie sandwiches and a custom blend of beans for sale. They've got their own logo (a lime-green praying mantis) and their own loyal fan base (old-school Austinites and grackles). Across the street are train tracks, graffiti art, and a tortilla factory which makes everything smell like you're hungry. And during happy hour, starting at 4, their bottled beers are cheap cheap cheap (Fireman's #4 for $2.50). Basically, Cafe Mundi is a good place to go if you want to browse the alternative press magazines and maybe find a new job. It's a good place to go if you're wanting to strike up a conversation about American Spirits (particularly, to ask if anyone has an extra). Cafe Mundi is good if you don't really want coffee after all, but a nice Shiner Bock and a place to sit tight until the Revolution calls you home.

- Dina Guidubaldi

Clementine Coffee Bar

2200 Manor Road. 472-9900, www.clementinecoffeebar.com

Corollary vices: Beer, wine,

all work and no play

Inside Clementine, it's quiet and bright. The day I went, they were playing Cinematic Orchestra softly on the speakers, and no one seemed to be having much fun. The baristas didn't joke or smile, the customers didn't stray from their laptops and instead managed to have civilized conversations on their cell phones while eating scones. Clementine is for people who want to get work done, not for those who want to socialize. Snacks - paninis and salads - are in the $6 range, and beers are cheapish on Tuesday nights ($2 Shiner drafts and $1 off everything else) but around $4 the rest of the week (though happy hour is daily from 4 to 7 p.m.). If robots drank coffee they'd go to Clementine, identifying with its stark orange walls and chalk-white lines. They'd order some espresso/motor oil business and spend the day laughing at the Casual Encounters on Craigslist as they sat on the plastic IKEA chairs parked out front, and they'd likely admire the traffic honking down Manor Road. If robots drank coffee, however, most of us would be out of work and living in caves, and the world would be a more efficient, more Clockwork Clementiney kind of place.

- Dina Guidubaldi

Epoch Coffee

221 W. North Loop Blvd. 454-3762,

www.epochcoffee.com

Corollary vices: Insomnia, Lucky Strikes

Visions from self-induced sleep deprivation might seem like an appealing alternative to buying a black-market hallucinogen. If so, Epoch Coffee is your after-hours hangout. The 24-hour cafe is a popular refuge for the night owl in North Austin, offering sanctuary in the wee hours. Indeed, zoning out on hypnotic music while sipping a cup of joe on a cozy, collapsed couch or a faded, flower-pattern reading chair is the best of all ways to induce artificial enlightenment - especially in soft lamp light at 4 a.m. Sit all night: Epoch serves Texas Coffee Traders beans, 18 flavors of tea, blended and unblended espresso drinks, sodas, juices - even (root) beer on-tap. Mexican Coke is a popular one. And for the diehards, an extra shot of chocolate to a triple-shot iced mocha is only 50 cents. The menu includes slices of pizza from East Side Pies for $3.50. Sandwiches - such as salami and Gouda or curried chicken salad - run about $5. Brownies, muffins, scones and Danishes are $3 or less. And don't forget a pack of American Spirits ($6), Sherman's ($7.50) or Lucky Strikes ($5.50) for dessert. Epoch also has quality Wi-Fi to keep the brain interested. Just be careful you don't wander too far away from the designated smoking patio. Is that a graveyard over there, or am I losing it?

- Geoff West

Flipnotics Coffeespace

1601 Barton Springs Road. 480-8646,

www.flipnotics.com

Corollary vices: Beer, wine, live music

Settled at the base of a small hill, with tree branches canopying a multitiered wooden deck, Flipnotics Coffeespace feels like a cabin in the Smoky Mountains or a bungalow in Santa Cruz, Calif. But as the sun begins to pass in the western sky and the coffee mugs give way to cold bottles of Lone Star, Real Ale and Shiner, there is no mistaking the setting for anywhere but Austin. After 17 years, the neighborhood coffee shop on Barton Springs Road near Zilker Park is under new ownership, but the commitment to mellow vibes, great coffee, cold beer and the music of local singer-songwriters is as strong as ever. The friendly staff at Flips (as it's known among regulars) takes pride in its coffee drinks, but knows that people can't be expected to live on caffeine alone. For lazy afternoons and relaxing but spirited evenings, the offerings of more than a dozen bottled beers (including Brooklyn, Newcastle and Sierra Nevada) and two house wines are a welcome change of pace. Management plans to add keg beer and more wine offerings in the coming months, adding to the appeal of this watering hole just a stone's throw from Barton Springs.

- Matthew Odam

Halcyon Coffee/Bar/Lounge

218 W. Fourth St. 472-9637,

www.halcyonaustin.com

Corollary vices: Alcohol wonder wall, cigars

Ask what Halcyon is all about, and a good $8 answer would be the chocolate espresso martini: a blend of Stoli Vanilla, Godiva liqueur and a shot of espresso. It's a wonderland of premium liquors fortified by a solid coffee bar where service is above-average and a large drip coffee is two bucks. Concentric rings of seating reflect the layers of experiences here. Utilitarian bar stools, languorous velvet lounge pits and spread-out-with-the-laptop tables define the indoor space, a good setting for the sandwich-and-wrap menu that also includes Italian flatbreads from Primizie Osteria for $10. Cafe tables and railside stools form a people-watching gantlet on the sidewalk outside, where the smokers go with the cigars and cigarettes they can buy from the 4th Street Tobacco shop tucked in a back corner. Once a collegial sit-and-smoke space, the shop is now a shoulder-width sales counter and a narrow humidor stocking a few status brands - Ashton, Cohiba, Montecristo and Fuente among them - at markups only a late-night smoker with no other options could love.

- Mike Sutter

Irie Bean Coffee Bar

2310 S. Lamar Blvd., Suite 102. 326-4636, www.iriebeancoffee.com

Corollary vices: Beer, wine,

unnatural sense of ease

Put the Jamaican word for (vaguely translating) feeling good in the name of a business and you think reggae, dub and thick, herbaceous smoke. Which is not the case at Irie Bean. Co-owner Jay Proske just wants you to chill and be happy, and that's easy with a full line of coffee, treats, beer and wine (and a 4 to 8 p.m. happy hour that includes $2 domestic beers and $3 imports - cheap) and a cool, nicely landscaped and dog-friendly patio out back. That thing that looks like a drum from an old cement mixer is, in fact, an old cement mixer. You can, like, go in it. There's also a stage. And perhaps best of all: Two-for-Tuesdays every single Tuesday - two musicians (one at 8 p.m. and one at 9 p.m.) and $2 domestic beers until 10 p.m. When you can have such a good time for such little dough, how can you not chill? Raise a cup in honor of Marcus Garvey, enjoy the Wi-Fi if you must work. And don't forget to get a pound of $10 beans on your way out.

- Patrick Beach

Little City

916 Congress Ave. 476-2489,

www.littlecity.com

Corollary vices: Wine, beer,

decorative concrete

Little City was conceived as Austin's first really urban-feel coffeehouse. Opening on Congress Avenue in 1993, it welcomed weary caffeine-lovers with concrete surfaces, distressed metal wall panels and assertive art. With its shifting clientele of students, business types, bike messengers and Capitol habitués, Little City felt like an oasis dropped down from some heavenly San Francisco. One thing it didn't serve was alcoholic beverages. This, despite a burgeoning downtown nightlife scene and a late-late crowd at the popular caffeine dealer. It just didn't fit into owner Donna Taylor's scheme, as she expanded to a campus-area location, since closed. Three years ago, however, Little City joined the coffeehouse parade by obtaining a beer-and-wine license. Session Lager and Lone Star are among the customers' preferred brews. 'Because they are cheap and people already know them,' says longtime employee Travis DeWitt. Also fast-moving are Anchor Steam, Rio Blanco Pale Ale and Fireman's #4 Blonde Ale. 'The Belgians are the least popular,' DeWitt says. He rotates the wines so much, no label or varietal has triumphed. On the counter recently were a white and a rosé from the Rhone region, a 'red table wine' under the banner L'Ancien de Jean-Paul Brun and other fairly inexpensive offerings. Coffee remains Little City's core business, but if one is in an alternative mood ?

- Michael Barnes

Music Cafe

2050 S. Lamar Blvd. 326-8742,

www.austinmusiccafe.com

Corollary vices: Wine, and lots of it; cigars, hookahs, men in porkpie hats

This old house and sprawling yard used to be a junk shop right out of 'Sanford and Son' called Good Gawd. It cleaned up real nice, the inside now a bar and casual dining room with brown wood floors, red walls and black leather sofa-lounges, with wine bottles suspended in racks, hanging from hooks and lying in glass-front pastry cases. The crushed-granite yard is filled with bistro tables and design-forward white chairs, walled with limestone parapets and shaded by primeval oaks. Wine-sipping new Austin inside, shade-tree old Austin outside, with a river of coffee running through it. The shop brews Sangfredo Italian coffee for as little as $1.75 for a roasty espresso, but the stunner is a $2.75 pint-glass iced coffee frappe, a creamy froth shot through with espresso. For food, bring a friend and go right for the Music Cafe Platter, a $19.95 ambrosia of smoked salmon, Greek caviar, hummus, fresh mozzarella, Gouda, olive tapenade, spanakopita and spring rolls. From a 60-label wine list, more than 20 are available by the glass, including a fruity Italian Frascati Superior for $6.50 and a rich California dolcetto for $10. At happy hour (4 to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 9 p.m. to close on Sundays), wine and beer are $1 off. Hookah pipes with sweet tobacco can be rented for $10, and a case on the bar carries a few $10-plus cigars. The sum of this overabundance is a coffee shop with more chatter and life and less of the shushy library vibe. 'There's plenty of space for you to find your own little place,' said customer Karen Knippa.

- Mike Sutter

Rio Rita Cafe and Cantina

1308 E. Sixth St. 524-0384,

www.riorita.net

Corollary vices: Infused vodkas,

beer, wine, iron oxide

Rio Rita seems more cantina than cafe. But the coffee they do serve, all day long, is hearty and purportedly fairly traded. On a sunny day, it's nice to sit outside with a $3 iced toddy coffee (warning: super strong) in one of the rickety chairs on the back patio, admiring the fence that separates you from the parking lot, an expanse of rusted radiators arranged like a zipper. If it's cold or nighttime, there are several dark, curtained alcoves indoors featuring old couches and swanky hanging lamps. They've got Wi-Fi, of course, and pizza from East Side pies ($3) as well as sandwiches and cheese plates. They infuse vodka at Rio Rita, too, and though the blackberry/lavender martini I had tasted a little like mildew and cost $7, I'll probably get adventurous one of these days and try another one. Or make someone else try it first.

- Dina Guidubaldi

Ruta Maya

3601 S. Congress Ave., Suite D-200. 707-9637, www.rutamaya.net

Corollary vices: Habana House cigar shop, open-mic poetry

If there were a Museum of Austin Clichés and Stereotypes, Ruta Maya would be its gift shop and snack bar. On the patio, there are petitions to sign and a table promising 'Cabalistic Tarot Readings.' And the deep, roasty aroma of coffee fills the senses, tingles the scalp - a caffeine contact high, with liquid satisfaction starting as low as $1.50 for an espresso. There's beer on tap and six wines by the bottle or glass, plus sandwiches, wraps, empanadas and whatever else lands in the takeout cases. On stage, an open-mike poet in black leather pants drops flinching F-bombs in adjectival and astonishingly active verb forms. But even before Ruta Maya left its dodgy Warehouse District birthplace on Fourth Street for its rambling warren on South Congress Avenue some years ago, cigars have given the place an earthen Latin American character. The Habana House tobacco shop's door opens right into Ruta Maya, an F-bomb shelter with a walk-in humidor the size of a two-car garage and half a dozen chairs, all occupied on an April night by cigar-smoking men staring blankly at 'American Idol.' For cigar people, the shop carries dozens of boutique and classic brands, including 26 Arturo Fuente frontmarks, at reasonable markups. For tourists, the Acid cigars smell like tobacco and patchouli oil, an authentic sensory memento of Ruta Maya.

- Mike Sutter

Spider House Cafe

2908 Fruth St. 480-9562,

www.spiderhousecafe.com

Corollary vices: Beer, wine, premium intoxicants

Spider House Cafe pioneered the phenomenon. When it opened in 1998, the putative coffeehouse also served beer and wine. Three years ago, it added a full bar, still an anomaly on the caffeine scene. The liquor selections include standard club fare, but also some higher-end spirits, such as Maker's Mark bourbon, Bombay Sapphire gin and Patrón tequila. Local distilleries are represented by Paula's various liqueurs and Tito's Handmade Vodka. The dozen or so wine offerings include sparkling options (chardonnay is way popular, too). Yet the real gold is in the brews - understandable at a campus-area establishment. More than 25 beers and ales are available by the bottle, and Live Oak Hefeweizen, Chimay, Brooklyn Lager and Murphy's Irish Stout come on tap. Why not Guinness? 'It's a toss-up,' says general manager Richard McGowan. 'They are both Irish stouts. We got a lot of requests for Murphy's. And Guinness sales were off, I think because we're not an "Irish" location.' Scoop: Spider House's annex, the U.S. Art Authority, already a favorite special-events facility, is nearing final OKs as a full-time bar.

- Michael Barnes