Poverty Bay Café & Deli

1108A S. 322^nd Place, Federal Way

http://www.povertybay.com/

I should start by mentioning that I do not drink coffee.  That’s right, I am the one person in the Seattle area who does not drink coffee.  It’s not that I don’t like the taste or the act of spending hours in a cozy coffee shop on one of our endless rainy days.  I just can’t handle the caffeine.  It makes me feel like I’ve smoked a pack of Marlboro Reds while wearing seven nicotine patches.  No one likes me after I have a strong cup of coffee.  Fortunately, my husband makes up for me by having a hardcore caffeine addiction.  The yang to my yin, this man can drink a triple grande mocha right before bed and promptly sleep like a rock. 

Poverty Bay Café & Deli, which takes its rather off-putting name from a nearby body of water here in Federal Way, is the kind of place that makes a non-coffee drinker happy to accompany her caffeine-addict honey for a fix.  It’s tucked away behind the Safeway on 320^th – skip the in-store Starbucks and drive the extra 200 feet to Poverty Bay.  Its hard-to-miss exterior is covered in colorful murals.  Inside, they have a collection of mismatched tables and some funky old armchairs to lounge in, plus a small patio in the summer. 

I am assured that they have great coffee – not to mention sustainable, shade grown, song bird-friendly, direct-trade, and all that happy hippy goodness so you can feel good about buying it.  They also have an extensive and tasty breakfast menu with things like waffles, omelets, pastries and a huge selection of biscotti, plus they have really great sandwiches.  In fact, one of my favorite sandwiches of the world is their Chicken Panini which has chicken, spinach, Provolone, red onions and Dijon mustard happily nestled between two fat pieces of rosemary olive bread.  I eat this nearly every time I go to Poverty Bay and sometimes even in my dreams.  In fact, we went there while I was in labor prior to heading to the hospital so that I could eat this sandwich – the one and only time I didn’t clean my plate at this joint.  If that isn’t a testament to the deliciousness, I don’t know what is.