Roy Street Coffee & Tea

I paid a visit to the new Roy Street Coffee and Tea (Starbucks). This is the second of two new neighborhood coffee shops owned by Starbucks. The first is located on 15th Avenue on Capitol Hill. Starbucks is trying to go back to its roots of being the local neighborhood coffee shop. I haven't visited the 15th Avenue location yet, but I was very impressed with the Roy Street location. First off, you wouldn't know the place is owned by Starbucks except for the "inspired by Starbucks" on the front door and on their white, non-Starbucks looking cups.

The coffee house doesn't look anything like any of the typical corporate-looking Starbucks coffee houses. The Roy Street coffee house is very inviting. The decor is very Northwest with large, over-sized wood furniture. All the light fixtures are very old-school. They are large clear glass vessels with exposed light bulbs. The coffee house itself is rather large. There is a lot of space. To help soften up all the wood furniture, red drapes are hung all throughout and add some good color to the place.

As for the coffee, I was impressed. I have heard a lot of bad reviews about the coffee at the 15th Avenue location, so I was pretty skeptical. The one nice thing about these two coffee houses is that the Baristas actually pull their own shots, rather than having the ultra high-tech coffee machines dispense the shot like they do at all the regular Starbucks. I personally like Starbucks coffee and I've had my fair share of lattes. I definitely like the taste of the lattes from the Roy Street Coffee and Tea. They taste more like the lattes you would get from one of the independent coffee houses, although I think the independent coffee houses still taste better.

So if you're one of the many Starbucks haters out there, give Roy Street Coffee & Tea a try.