I visited Gypsy Cafe in Wallingford. Unfortunately my experience there was not quite what I had expected or hoped for. I’ll tell you why in a moment… but first, a little background…
I have driven by Gypsy Cafe on numerous occasions over the last six or eight year now. Of course at that time the place was called Gypsy Trader. My understanding is that the place was home to some kind of consignment store… that also included a coffee shop too. Now the main reason why I had not yet until rather recently, bothered to go there is simple. The place just did not look interesting or even inviting from the outside. This has not changed by the way.
Anyway it was just recently that I read about the place in the Seattle Times and that the place being sold to the current new owners, Debbie Galassi and Ben Steele, Debbie’s boyfriend. On reading this blog post, I decided, against my better judgment, to patronize the place.
It was one of those overcast Seattle afternoons with the light rain. I had not had any coffee all day and I was really in need of a latte. Now normally I would stop into a familiar coffee shop, but this time I decided to risk it and try Gypsy Cafe. I mean why not, I was close by anyway.
As soon as I stepped into the place and met the barista, I knew I was sunk. The barista was clearly one of those college kids who does not really care about coffee or anything like that, but works at the coffee shop simply to pay for college. How do I know this? Well, besides the fact that it was written all over his face, he was hanging out with his buddies at one of the tables and came over reluctantly when he noticed me waiting to place my order. Then when I started asking him about the coffee, he was basically clueless about coffee he was serving.
And the taste of the coffee actually reflected his personality. Under normal circumstances I would give the place the benefit of the doubt, and go back again just to see if the coffee is really that bad, but in this case, I just did not find the place that interesting to go visit and hang out. Maybe to put it another way, I find that the place really does not have any personality. And as a result, I have no real desire to go and try out their coffee once again, so I will reserve any further judgment on this place. However if any of you readers like going to the place or want to check it out, please let me know of your impressions of place and whether you think the place is great or not.
