Central Cafe

Seattle coffee predates most American specialty markets by decades. Pegasus Coffee opened in 1983 inside the Dexter Horton Building, the old First National Bank headquarters founded in 1870, and was the first storefront in downtown Seattle to serve specialty coffee over the counter. Espresso Vivace followed in 1988 when David Schomer and Geneva Sullivan opened a cart, and Schomer went on to bring latte art to the United States after a trip to Milan. The Vivace bar still runs in the Brix building on Broadway East in Capitol Hill.

The neighborhood map sits east of downtown. Capitol Hill carries the densest cluster, with Espresso Vivace, Victrola Coffee Roasters in a 1920s auto row building on East Pike, Analog Coffee on Summit Avenue, and Porchlight Coffee and Records on 14th Avenue between Pine and Pike, which opened in 2009 and became a record store the year after. South Lake Union holds Cafe Hagen at 800 5th Avenue North, founded by Maria Beck in December 2019 around Scandinavian and Danish bakery traditions, with the cafe doubling as the Hagen Coffee Roasters production roastery.

The wider city covers a long radius. The U District runs through George Coffee and Pastries on NE 47th. Rainier Beach holds Winnie's Ethiopian Coffee on Rainier Avenue South, where Woina roasts Ethiopian beans in small batch and pours through traditional ceremony for those who order it that way. South Park keeps the Pacific Northwest drive-through bikini espresso tradition alive through LadyBug Bikini Espresso. The result is a city where the bar discipline runs deep and the working network covers around 199 active specialty rooms.