Kelli S.
Yelp
This shop is famous as Seattle's first coffee shop, so we set out early one morning to check it out.
It was a little difficult to find this shop, at first. We were looking at pictures on Yelp and it looked like it was in an alleyway (just look for the vine-covered wall). As it turned out, we were parked on the street and that's not the entrance to the shop. We basically had to walk around the corner and then we saw the Café Allegro signs.
There weren't too many people in the cozy coffee shop during the time of our visit, which was nice; we were able to order quickly (there were only two people in front of us). However, by the time we left the shop closer to 9 a.m. (it was a Friday), there were more people coming in. Since this is close to the university, I can imagine this ends up being a popular study spot. It's a cozy nook filled with lots of tables and chairs.
Even though Starbucks is literally right around the corner, it was neat to visit Café Allegro. It reminded me of a lot of the indie/hippie coffee shops I used to see in Eugene (or Oregon in general) - lots of character with an older vibe, delicious coffee and pastries, and a friendly staff (even though there was only one girl working during our visit, who took the orders and made the coffee by herself!).
The pastries here looked amazing, but we only ordered drinks during our visit. Here's what we got:
Iced Mocha: This tends to be my go-to coffee order, especially at places that are famous for their blends. Even though it was a chillier morning, I wanted to get this drink because it got good reviews, and I love trying different mochas from the various coffee shops I visit. This version was smooth and velvety, and the glass was really large (I thought I ordered the medium size, but if so, it was bigger than I expected). And, since I was able to get soy milk, I didn't have to worry about getting an upset stomach later on.
House Coffee: One of our group members got the regular house coffee, and he said it was good (he just orders his black). The nice touch about getting any of the hot coffees is that it comes in the Café Allegro coffee cup ... perfect for that Instagram picture.
Green Tea: One of the people in our group doesn't like coffee but wanted something warm, so he opted for green tea. It was so cute how it came in a little teapot. He enjoyed it and said it was a great choice to combat the morning chill.
Apple Fritter and Chocolate Croissant: If I did order any pastries from here, it would probably be one of these two. Even though we were there early in the morning, during the time of our visit, there was only one apple fritter left, as a testament to its popularity. There was a good assortment of donuts, scones (especially marionberry flavors), cookies and more. The chocolate croissant here looked especially good, and if we didn't have breakfast already, I would have gotten this.