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| - Just some quick first impressions, after my first visit to this brand new Madison branch of a Milwaukee standard.
I had a feeling parking would be an issue, and it was. Even Google maps was confused about where the place actually is. I ended up parking on Few St., which had no signs saying whether that was okay or not.
Rounded the corner onto E. Wash. Oddly, there was some sort of sound system being piped to the exterior of the building, like they have at some gas station pumps. Whatever was being played was too low to hear clearly. So, yeah. There's a lot of permanent bench style seating all along the E. Wash. side. Can't imagine wanting to sit there, given the volume of car traffic.
They're offering free coffee, any size, on Fridays in February, but even given that, the joint was far from jumping at 10 am. Maybe it was earlier and I missed it. I bought a quinoa bar to go with it out of ingrained midwestern guilt syndrome. The coffee was very, very hot, didn't taste like a light roast as described, but it was fine, maybe slightly above fine. Unfortunately it spilled quite dramatically as I pried off the lid, and the restlessly pacing young man behind the counter made no move to assist this hapless customer standing three feet away. There were other customer service missteps, but that was the one that stood out.
East Washington businesses of this type are going to continue to struggle until the parking and walkability issues are addressed by the powers that be. I'm going to stop by again in six months or so.
(Edited to add that the 2nd ingredient in the quinoa bar is hydrogenated oil. Seriously? Straight in the trash.)
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