It has been a couple weeks since we learned the latest twist in the drama around Bauhaus Coffee, the Melrose Building and the Pinevue Apartments. The developers say they won’t be tearing the buildings down. What that will mean, exactly, will shake out in coming weeks. In the meantime, here is another take on the situation from our friends at Sprudge. What does the original Bauhaus mean to Seattle’s coffee culture? Parts of the answer may surprise you — “…the coffee at Bauhaus has never been very good, and the stereotype of the snooty, aloof barista may owe a small part of its origin story to Bauhaus,” Sprudge writes. The rest, however, is mostly a love poem. We’ve paired the offering with a piece sent in to us by videographer Aurea Astro capturing some of the ambient sights and sounds of a few moments inside Bauhaus. You’ll find both, below.
Sprudge — Seattle: From Bauhaus To Our House
Seattle cafes, like the walking tours of patriotic Boston or a visit to a National Park lodge, offer a kind of living history of place and time. They are to be cherished, but also to be enjoyed, utilized, dirtied and cleaned; historic cafes are alive in the best possible sense. When you’re talking about Seattle’s historic cafes, there are so many to choose from, but to me, the big three are Cafe Allegro (opened in 1975), Espresso Vivace (in 1987) and Bauhaus, which opened in 1993. These each played a major role in the progressive elaboration of what it means to be an American independent cafe. They each have their strengths and fans, and while I spent my formative years mainly in Vivace, where I worked as a barista, I recognize Bauhaus’ incredible historical influence, and have been disheartened to follow the news that it is being threatened, first with closure, and now with extensive “retrofitting” and modification. This is, in some ways, a proper eulogy for what Bauhaus means right now, in its current state, an epitaph this cafe assuredly deserves. more…
For more on the block of Pine at Melrose, check out these essays shared on CHS:
Interesting and eloquent op-ed. Thanks for the pointer.
I agree. An extremely well-written tribute to these three cafes.
This is a great piece on these three coffeehouses.
However, the pre-eminent Seattle coffeehouse of all time, on whose smoke-stained shoulders these three establishments stand, is/was The Last Exit on Brooklyn in the U-District. If you never had the pleasure, then, to paraphrase the song, I guess you were born too late…
http://seattle.wikia.com/wiki/Last_Exit_on_Brooklyn
Love Bauhaus coffee above all others. Likes are a matter of personal preference & many of us prefer the taste of Bauhaus coffee. Enjoyed Sprudge take on history.