Book Nook & Java Shop

The BEST COFFEE SHOP IN AMERICA!! I'm not kidding. I am a retired professor who travels, and have traveled - a lot.  I always look for a good coffee shop.  Here is why this one is so good.  Good coffee.  Great Ambiance.  Excellent tables and chairs, with a selection of very comfortable chairs and sofas of very good quality.  Music played at a perfect volume.  Excellent live music in the evenings.  (They have a grand piano.) They have aine, a nice bar and bar chairs.  Good food.  A small, pleasant book store so I can get up and browse.  If you are a coffee shop conniseur, what else could you ask for?

For atmosphere I'd probably give this place 5 stars, unfortunately they also serve coffee and food.  I ordered a large Mexican Mocha, which is usually hard to mess up, when it was brought out to me I was impressed, it came in a huge cup, more like a soup bowl really, towering with whip cream.  Unfortunately the proportions of the drink were all wrong.  It was essentially a bowl of warm milk with a shot of espresso and a little cayenne pepper. Then came the food, I had ordered a meatball sub, mistakenly thinking it would be something resembling home made.  Unfortunately what I received was sub bun topped with microwaved, more less tasteless meatballs and a store bough marinara.

Well, for coffee and a chill atmosphere, this is a nice place. The book selection isn't exactly inspired; they had a lot of teen fiction and entertaining beach reads. I had an iced latte, and my husband had an iced soy mocha. Both were better than Starbucks.

Anyway, we also ordered food, and here's where things went south. We ordered chips and salsa, a ham panini, and a BLT panini. Apparently, the only person working was a young guy who took our order and made our satisfactory coffee drinks. Then he forgot about us. After 15 minutes, I asked if I could possibly have the chips and salsa. He apologetically admitted he'd forgotten. 5 minutes later, (still a long time for chips and salsa, right?) we had basic chips and salsa from a jar. Fine, pretty much what I expected. So we munched on those for about 10 minutes, chilled out, finished our iced coffees, still no sign of panini. I asked again. Oh, he forgot those too. By this time, an older guy was there too. He explained that the owner was in Texas. I wondered if they had all the panini with them. For about 10 more minutes, the younger guy threw a tantrum in the kitchen, slamming silverware, etc. Finally, we received our sandwiches. Store-bought wheat bread, they were pretty under whelming. Mine even had the heel! The ham panini was tasty, but the BLT was not remotely as good as I could make at home. I'm talking basic Miracle Whip, here.

Like I said before, coffee and atmosphere were good, but don't go here for food