The heat wave following Snowmageddon might soon force us all to start building arks, but it’s certainly refreshing to see the sun again. Warmer weather means it’s time to take our studying and caffeine cravings out of the confines of dorm rooms and library towers. The typical spots in downtown Evanston are Starbucks, Unicorn Cafe, Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Argo Tea Cafe and Kafein.
If you didn’t start drinking coffee until college, Norbucks was probably your gateway to coffee snobbery. The real Starbucks on Sherman is actually much better. Just don’t make it your default hangout. Starbucks coffee is reliably consistent and fairly priced, but it’s nothing exceptional.
Unicorn and Peet’s close the earliest, at 8 p.m.. Peet’s is a little on the expensive side, but the drink sizes are similar to those at Starbucks. The pastries are also fantastic. Unicorn sports a charmingly quaint decor, but they charge you for the atmosphere. The coffee comes in tiny cups, and the pastries don’t taste very fresh.
Kafein and Argo Tea aren’t your typical coffee joints. The former is really a dessert-type coffee place, best for conversation and entertainment, and it’s open until 1 a.m. Argo Tea doesn’t technically sell plain coffee – they have Americanos and other espresso drinks (not to mention a large selection of tea).
If you just want to go somewhere where you’re unlikely to bump into hoards of students, you could also try Cafe Mozart on Davis, between Orrington and Chicago, or Other Brother Coffeehouse, on Sherman, a little past Edzo’s Burger Shop.
For those of you that reside up north, the Coffee Lab is a new spot on Noyes that does something different with its coffee. It promises freshness with its one-cup, pour-over brewing method. The atmosphere is warm and sleek – sort of like Chipotle but with soft yellow paint. They close at 7 p.m., so (like many Evanston businesses) it’s not conducive to late-night studying.
