Sugar is Sweet and So are You

Seattlest works from home, as we've mentioned before, and these days home is a darkish (albeit big-ish) studio apartment on First Hill. Especially on days like today, it can get a little dark and quiet, the patter of rain against our window and our weird-ass cat can be a bit much. So we like to shake things up a bit by heading out into our neighborhood and spending some of our hard-earned cash at any food-and-drink-serving establishment with free wifi.

And so it was that we found ourselves at Sugar Bakery & Cafe recently. We thought you might appreciate tales of our experience there.

Because, on some work-heavy days, our only glimpse of a world away from our computer is the time we spend working in a coffee shop, we have been known to occupy a single table for several hours at a time. So, we have to note that we were a little nervous when we walked into Sugar. There are only maybe six tables there—not the kind of joint you can disappear into a dark corner and go unnoticed with your single coffee drink for four hours. The place is small, and it was empty when we arrived. We ordered a berry scone and a grande latte, and hunkered down.

The scone was dry like a communion wafer, but tasty. Had we not spent the evening before drinking merrily with colleagues, we may have appreciated it more. The coffee was strong and vibrant, full of the caffeinated gut-punch we need, and the staff was sweet as pie...or, shall we say, sugar. In the three-plus hours we were there, a constant tide of folks came in to have their cake and eat it too (quite literally). We worked through three flows of packed rooms, got our scone to go, and headed back to our lair to polish off whatever else needed attention from our now-well-caffeinated editorial eye.

Will we return to Sugar? Maybe. It doesn't provide the same sanctuary for the work-from-homers as, say, Bauhaus or Kaladi Brothers coffee shops—where we can sit in a lofted area or a back room, respectively, and disappear into articles for hours on end. But, we will keep it in our mental rolodex next time we need a smile from a barista and a tasty-looking fruit tart. Know any great getaways for work-from-homers who need to get out of the house while they work?

Shot of someone's morning coffee, courtesy of ChrisB in SEA