onomatoblog

Footenote: Since our favourite coffee hangout spot, Mr Spot’s Chai House, closed, we’ve been trying to find another place in Ballard. I’ll be displaying our search here.

Now, we already kind of knew that this couldn’t be The Place – it’s too far away. Lucas wanted to try it anyway, though, as he’d heard good things about it, and he wanted to buy some beans. So off we went (by car) and lo, it was delicious (Lucas wanted an americano, so I actually bought my own coffee to take a sip off. It was great. It looked great, too. I wanted to finish my cup, but my body won’t allow that.)

Pros:
-Really good coffee, really good barista
- Makes white moccha
- Cozy (on the inside)
- Serves both pastries and foodier stuff, but…

Cons:
… none of the pastries seemed tasty, no cookies
- Too far away
- Sound sound volume was so low we felt we had to whisper and I went outside to take a phonecall.

Verdict:
If this had been in Ballard, it would be a clear winner, hands down. Now it will be more of an occasional place, if we’re in Fremont, or feel like a Really Long Walk, or just like driving over for good coffee.

Footenote: Since our favourite coffee hangout spot, Mr Spot’s Chai House, closed, we’ve been trying to find another place in Ballard. I’ll be displaying our search here.

Nervous Nellie’s sort of has location on its lists of cons; it’s closer to our house than the Chai House was, but further from downtown Ballard, so errands can’t be combined with coffee if we were to pick this place. Which we aren’t; according to Lucas, the coffee was quite good (I am currently not all allowed caffeine for medical reasons), but my hot chocolate was mediocre.

Pros:
- Close to our house
- Good coffee
- Plenty of chairs, both soft and hard
- Ostmacka! (Swedish cheese toast).
- Cool Sweden map that I could use to illustrate out vacation to Lucas.

Cons:
- Too far from downtown Ballard
- Cash or check only (what the HELL? The actual HELL?)
- No pastries
- I make better hot chocolate myself
- Lacks in cozy
- While there might have been “for here” cups, we weren’t asked about them even if we got toast for eating in.
-  Supposedly really bad service at times (I have no personal experience there, I found it firmly in the range of average.)
- I’m pretty sure white moccha wasn’t one of their options.

Verdict: Nope, this isn’t the place. Not bad, but not the place where we’d want to hang out half our weekends.