My Cafe Report X.
Yelp
You start outside. You always start outside. Start out across the street, on the west side of Manhattan ave, a street that courses through Greenpoint. Its cerulean store sign might catch your eye, but its name 'odd fox' might not, it's printed in such a faded, almost careless black. Still, the quaint result might be enough to intrigue you. The street is also probably empty enough to jay walk across, so you might, which you might do, the dream is unbroken.
The café has a railroad layout. The larger front room is divided like a paper folded hotdog style. There is the barista's bar on the left, and two-seater tables clinging to the right. The bar side is roomier than the table side, emphasizing whose domain this is. The walls are the shade of parchment paper and scattered with frames, gold and dark brown. A few of them hold illustrated portraits of posh foxes in renaissance clothing, but most embrace bare wall. Golden semi-opaque lamps hang over the bar. No which one is alike, but the shapes seem like friends and emit a similar warm light. It's comfortingly dim inside, not so bright where everything becomes ugly but an improvement from the light in, say, a typical NY apartment, which may be why so many of its patrons are working on their laptops here instead of at home. Whenever a bus passes by on the street, it fills the entire storefront window and the café briefly darkens.
The front room ends at a wall full of holes, the holes being a door frame and two punched-out windows. Beyond this wall is a smaller back room. Though compact, this second room doesn't feel cramped, perhaps because of the holes and the light coming in from the patio door in the back.
You could go out the patio door, but then you'd be back outside. And it's hot out there. The sun smiles but is unkind. You might take a peek, though. You've always wanted a backyard. There are large tables and benches sitting lazily under enormous tree branches. Ok, it's time to go back inside. You sit at the counter by the bar, sip a drip coffee, which has a comforting fruity taste. The croissant is bready and definitely not the best croissant, but it is large and satisfying.