I miss Portland, I have been in Seattle for several years now and still struggle to find good community based spaces. I was recently in Cherry Street Cafe and offend by the staff. here is the letter I wrote Cherry Street:
I was a local patron of the Cherry Street Coffee House’s, on an average week I would come in two or three times a week of coffee and a bite to eat. I have also held several short informal meetings at various Cherry Street locations with other tech and legal geeks. I moved up to Seattle from Portland almost 10 years ago and still miss the friendly Coffeee houses of Portland. Rimsky-Korsakoffee House, Pied Cow, Anna Bannanas and Coffee Time on 21st still hold a special place in my heart. By contrast I have always been bothered by the fast food feel of Seattle based Starbucks, SBC, Tully’s and most recently Stump Town Coffee (the one on pike that replaced Aurafice is terible with bland corporate art walls & very unfriendly staff, the one by SU Law is better it is still boring but the staff are much nicer.)
Since moving to Seattle I have searched out locally owned coffee house’s like Wayward Coffee to patron, until last night Cherry Street was on my favorites list. I was even recently made the mayor of the Cherry Street Coffee House on foursquare, although my wife just stole it back. Last night I came in around 4:30 with my daughter, ordered a coco, bagel and scone. After my daughter was done with here scone and coco she ask to borrow my phone to take pictures. It was near 4:50 about 5 minutes before I was expecting to see Sarah, I did not see a problem. She walked around took a few photos said hi to people including staff. After about 3 minutes one of the staff who appeared to be in hurry to close came up to me and asked me to keep my daughter under control. I was a bit offended, she was well with in my sight and merely being friendly she is on the extroverted side. At that point I also realized that this was the first time a staff member at Cherry Street had spoken to me out side of ordering.
I find it quite odd that a Coffee House that promotes the comfortable atmosphere and community through things like a facebook page and a children area at one of the other locations can be so cold at this location. I have noticed that Cherry Street has expanded a lot in recent years, if you intend to move to a colder chain feel you might want to consider changing your brand name to Cherry Street Coffee Corp.
PS: This post / email was written from a competing coffee house.
If I get a response I will post it. Until then I will be at other establishments like Wayward and Cloud City Coffee.
UPDATE: One of the owners reached out to me and invited me back. I went in on Monday March 8th and had a much more friendly experience Gwen and I will back again.
