Credit: worldchanging.comThird in a series of the things I’ll most miss about eating in Seattle.Though I’ve been eating at Cafe Presse since it opened in the summer of 2007, ending the night at the bar has become a more frequent pleasure since I moved four blocks away. Joanne Herron and Jim Drohman’s all-day, late-night cafe is one of those restaurants that is so well designed and well run that there’s no gap between what it wants to be and what it is. Sure, the food’s not always mind-blowing, but it’s not supposed to be — and at the prices Drohman charges, it’s impossible to find the cafe’s equal on the Hill (though when the kitchen’s humming, Oddfellows comes close).After a show, a meal, or drinks at Tavern Law or Pony, my friends and I seem to end up at the bar here — sometimes for a cheap glass of Cotes de Gascogne, sometimes for a Fernet Branca or Averna. Even if we’ve just finished off three courses, a bowl of frites always seems to show up at the table, and it always seems to be empty by the time we tip ourselves off our stools for the walk home. Highly stylized without being fussy, buzzing with people no matter what time of day I enter, Cafe Presse always makes me feel a little sharper, a little more plugged in, a little happier to be living in Seattle.
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