Coffee Emporium

I'm vegan. And sometimes, you just have to drive a hundred miles to get a good - different - vegan treat.  I honestly wasn't intending to go to a coffee house (I don't drink coffee), and certainly not as far away as Cincinnati, yet that is exactly where I ended up.

First off, I came to the Coffee Emporium based on a "Find Us Here!" link off of Sweet Peace Bakery's web-site. Their products looked awesome, and different, and are sold out of local retail establishments like Coffee Emporium and a handful of other places I wasn't familiar with.  I saw the multiple listings for this coffee place and figured "why not?"

Let's talk about traffic and parking: certain parts of Cincinnati aren't the easiest to get around, especially if you're not familiar with the areas.  It didn't help that there was a major festival a block down the street, so certain streets were blocked off entirely, making GPS navigation somewhat odd.  Then, I'm driving around in circles ("Hey look kids, there's Big Ben, and there's Parliament... again.") trying to find a parking spot or a lot - adventure!  But I eventually found a place down the street that was reasonably priced ($5 for all-day parking, which was perfect) and parked.  

After walking a block, which was a good choice given the upcoming vegan treat fest, I came to the Coffee Emporium.  Yay!

The atmosphere in this location is totally college.  Smaller tables, couches, natural light coming in through the multitude of windows...so much natural light!  It's also cool how they have metal wire mesh over the windows, and the floor is this built-to-be-dirty long-lasting substance.  I find myself wondering if it was stone, concrete, or something else.  People all over the place were using laptops: a nice blend of PCs and Macs.  I felt a lot of collaboration and discussion in the air: teachers, students, shoppers, shop owners.  Little pockets of close-up connection, facilitated by the smallish tables, with just the right amount of space between them.

Okay, so, I didn't come here for the atmosphere (although it certainly helps to encourage future visits!) or even the people - I came for the vegan sweets, and some of the random caffeine-free beverages.

The beverages seem to be pretty most of the time - I saw a lot of people drinking specialty coffees with the toothpick art in the foam, which I enjoy looking at.  I also really enjoy the smell of freshly roasted coffee.  What did I drink?  I had a cider, which ended up being hot and totally hit the spot.

Oh! Speaking of coffee, the hot drink sleeves are neon-green awesomeness.  I took a picture and posted it, because it wasn't that boring "recycled paper" look.

So we talked about the drinks, the atmosphere, and where to park - let's talk about their fantastic choice of locally-baked vegan baked goods!  Sweet Peace Bakery: even the name is awesome!  I probably ate too many treats while hanging out, but the two most memorable were the pumpkin cinnamon roll and the coffee cake muffin; out of this world! I probably could have eaten more than one of the cinnamon rolls, but I wisely stayed my hand. The coffee cake muffin is exactly what you'd expect from the name: a super tasty muffin that has coffee cake crumbles baked into it.

There's a space separated off by windowed doors, and I'm fairly certain that's a special event location, because it seemed like a wedding party was having a blast, and people were all dressed up in weddingy clothes.  From reading some of the signs, pamphlets and postcards kicking around, it also seems like they have periodic themed special events.  This really would be the perfect place for a casual event, and if you slid the tables around, you could probably even get a temporary dance floor!  Untz untz untz!

So overall, a great experience, and worth the drive down from Columbus. Having frequented more than a few coffee houses in Columbus over the years, I can say that this location in Cincinnati feels unique.  Plus, there are plenty of shopping and food places nearby, so you'll have other things you can do besides eat pastry and drink coffee.

Road trip anyone?

The best coffee house in Cincinnati. Reasonably priced, great location and awesome service.

I've passed by this location for almost a year before trying it. The food was great, I had the chicken salad sandwhich. Drink was nice. Service was AMAZING and I rarely say that. The girls that helped me find what I wanted to order were nice, conversational and helpful. They even delivered the food to me.

Cons:
Only issue I had is I found a few pieces of hair in my Cinn, Pumpkin roll. Not a major issue for me concerning the service well made up for it for me, However working in resturant management for over 10 years it is without excuse to have issues like that arise and most would never return.

The seating is limited, not because it's a small place because it's probably the biggest in Cincy but it's always so packed it can be a little hard to get a seat.