In search of the perfect coffee shop

Coffee houses are weird and, to some, weirdly wonderful. This article is not about coffee as much as it's about this particular American phenomenon. The coffee house is a tricky gustatory medium because evaluation of the house atmosphere is subjective and depends far more on who is drinking than the setting of consumption. All I can say is that this past Sunday I found myself in the mood for adventure. A Sunday afternoon has never felt so off-kilter for me, and I think I can attribute this to a strange quest that seems without end: What's the right atmosphere for the American coffee shop?

I also feel that it is my duty to tell you that as I type this, I am drinking coffee on my way to New York City. When I get there, my goal is to have lunch at Motorino, a pizza place on 1st Avenue that I've had my eye on for months. This same place, believe it or not, just received a star from Sam Sifton of The New York Times. A pizza place getting a star from the Times is huge, and I fully expect to have to bulldoze my way through a mob of leisure-suit wearing sycophants to dig into my Brussels sprout, mozzarella and pancetta pizza. Maybe I should postpone the rest of this article and just talk about how damn good I know this pizza is going to be. But I'll save that for another week.

Where was I? The atmosphere of the coffee shop, right. Sometimes, instead of splashing it into a paper cup and running to class with scalding liquid searing your hand and staining your shirt (me on a Monday), it's nice to sit down and remember that it's occasionally acceptable to act like a semi-civilized human being. Anyone that has ever been lucky enough to have visited a real live Parisian café can recall with a glazed look the simple indulgence of sipping a hot cappuccino and people watching like a proper flaneur. However you feel about France, the simple truth is that the American coffee house is modeled after the French café (which is a little incongruous if you think about it, considering the fact that coffee comes from the Americas, and the Euro-folk only ever got it once the Spanish gunned their way through this hemisphere).

A note regarding my own coffee preferences: I am not any kind of bean purist. I doubt I could adequately describe the difference between good coffee and great coffee. I never shell out the big bucks for the primo beans. All I know is that I can tell a serious difference between coffee that I can drink and coffee that I can't put anywhere near my mouth. But I'm not exactly critiquing coffee itself today. No, my sights are set a little higher: on the ever-elusive coffee house atmosphere.

The question is where to enjoy with leisure this liquid that so many of us guzzle like an 18-wheeler sucking down gasoline. We all know that the Vassar student enjoys his or her latte at Raymond Avenue's Cubbyhole or Crafted Kup. There is a notable difference between the two coffee houses: The moods and settings are decidedly polarized between the two. The Cubbyhole offers what might best be called a dimly-lit lounge setting, designed for people who want to spend a long time comfortably sipping out of oversized mugs. Conversely, the Crafted Kup offers a brighter, crisper atmosphere, like a stream of light breaking its way through your window in the morning. The Crafted Kup always makes me want to open my eyes as wide as possible and take a deep breath of the bracing morning air. But then again, I hate feeling that cheery.

I don't want to seem prejudiced toward or against either of these businesses. My general attitude towards both of them is something between "meh" and "mmmeeehhhhh…"

People asking me to spend an evening with them lounging at the Cubbyhole chatting about post-modern poetry isn't really my cup of tea (so to speak). Neither is an onslaught of cheery people asking me how my morning is going (it normally sucks because it means I'm not asleep anymore.) What does get me excited is funky stuff. People, places, designs. If it's quirky, I'm in. Lucky for me, there are places in Poughkeepsie that cater to my eccentricities.

I'm a firm believer that one of the best ways to find these quirky food venues is to get out of one's comfort zone. For me—and, to be fair, most of Vassar's students—the small portion of Route 9 in Poughkeepsie just north of the train station is foreign enough to be another city entirely. The culture around Marist College and the commercial zone that caters to the College has an entirely different atmosphere than the three blocks of Arlington by Vassar. A desire to find the new led me to a coffee house right in the heart of this world.

Which brings me to the main event: Casablanca Coffee Co. Casablanca is right across the street from Marist in a little commercial park that also houses a tanning salon and tattoo parlor. Stepping inside, two things struck me immediately. One: This place is obviously in the business of catering to college students. The prices were amazing throughout, and the quirky, unpolished design insisted upon no excuses, no apologies. Two: While students are the obvious target market, just being in college doesn't make you fit in here. I hardly ever get very self-conscious, but I just couldn't help noticing the fact that I felt out of place. This is probably because I wasn't wearing a sweat suit and Uggs to match the girls and guys seated around me.

But the simple, unavoidable value of the place assuaged any of my lingering fashion hesitancies. I don't often list prices, but here I feel that I must. Coffee (that tastes really good) and a bagel (that you can get in a ton of varieties—jalapeño for myself) with cream cheese (again, everything from plain to walnut raisin to olive) will never run you more than $4.50. That price seems to be something of a moniker for them, as their most expensive breakfast item (on an extensive list), the "Famous Breakfast Burrito," loaded with eggs, sausage, jack cheese, onions, peppers and tomato, is the same price, and well worth it. The lunch menu, which caters to vegetarians as well as meat-lovers, tops out at $7. The deals hardly stop there. What if you're into buying in bulk? Fear not, my friend. You can also buy big bags of day-old bagels for a buck and a half.

Wallets aside, Casablanca offers some interesting menu bits that aren't strictly by the book. A huge menu of rotating flavored coffee is available for those who want some variety and aren't too stickler-ish about their preferences. Something that you don't see too often in a small coffee operation—an extensive and customizable smoothie menu—sits next to the espresso drinks with an element of some prominence.

Of course no place is perfect, and Casablanca does have some issues. Their pastry selection is both lackluster and limited. On my visit, there were three sad looking muffins and two cupcakes whose frosting looked like it had crustified more than a couple days ago. They do a good job of not reminding you of this by hiding that particular display case in a shadowy corner. But for me, pastries are an integral part of the café experience and a failure to recognize this on their part is pretty disappointing. The shop's layout is also a bit bonkers, which is a blessing and a curse. Which brings me to the age-old question of atmosphere. Here, I am a picky customer.

It seems that Casablanca couldn't quite master whether they wanted a lounge atmosphere or a typical café atmosphere with round tables and tall chairs. The café interestingly attempts to straddle the Crafted Kup-Cubbyhole divide by literally dividing the space in the café. A short aisle separates a plush couch and poofy chairs on one side from wooden, acute seating blocks set against the window.

So the quest continues. Would that I could declare an ultimate coffee house atmosphere champion, but I'm forced to declare that I cannot. Perhaps this is part of the appeal of the American coffee house, a culinary genre that we've stolen from the Europeans and are still struggling to adapt. But I remain optimistic about the prospects for caffeine consumption when you dare to venture away from Vassar. Maybe I'll never find the perfect coffee house, but at least I continue down this (possibly endless) road with a thirsty spirit and plenty of caffeine surging through my veins to boot.