Seattle at Night: Cupcake Royale

photo by Jim (sea turtle); Seattlest Flickr pool

Cupcake Royale // Ballard, Washington // Sunday // 8:45 PM

A scruffy man in a well-fitting jacket plays the guitar outside with his friend who is sitting at one of the sidewalk tables. Earlier the skinny friend was waiting in line for a coffee; he tuned his guitar while he waited. Some minutes later, a bass-heavy, rock-bluesy instrumental began to reverberate through the high-ceilinged cafe. At first it mingled seductively with the collective chatter—as only a bass can—but eventually rose up in volume and reverb and overwhelmed it entirely. We first thought it was the improvisations of the guitar guy until we saw him and his friend playing outside. The large window isolated us from their musical stylings. No, the sound was apparently from the in-house stereo, whose playlist had entered a more ethereal and instrumental set than the classic Cure it was playing earlier.

The droning bass begins to subside and lose volume as if it were a diesel tugboat slowly but gradually motoring downriver toward the Locks. Even before the track changes, the chatter quickly re-establishes its aural dominance. With the sun setting earlier and with the glorious weather causing customers to come in wearing jackets and stylish boots, the cafe seems a lot warmer and cozier than our previous visits. There are a number of smashing scarves. It's crowded for a Sunday night. Once again, the Mac-to-PC ratio is skewed toward the high end, contrary to real-world market share statistics.

The middle-aged man next to us has balanced his checkbook and, by the looks of him pulling stubs off of perforated pages, finished paying his bills. He's now reading the Times. The couple at another table has been playing some sort of complicated card game for a while. It involves a hand containing a large number of highly pictorial cards (of ostensibly little order and no discernable suits) than comfort would dictate and multiple groupings of cards in front of each player. As they are leaving, we hope that the table isn't once again occupied by parents who let their child kick the adjoining display case.

We were v. impressed earlier upon going to the restroom and seeing that one door had a small sticker reading "and Men" below the dress-wearing figure, while the other had a sticker reading "and Women" below the pants-clad figure. These days, there's no excuse for single-occupant bathrooms to not be bi-sexual.

Mr. Satriani has just come back inside to refill his cup. Meanwhile, Mr. Vai has also stopped playing. He is now hunched over the table, his face illuminated by the cool phosphoric glow of his Mac.