I enjoy The Root Cafe in general, and have been enjoying it since soon after moving here in May 2011. I found out about the place through a cop. I was shopping or something in Lakewood and figured if anyone knew where the good coffee was in a particular area, it would be a police officer. I asked an officer who was standing around the stores where the best coffee in Lakewood could be found, and he directed me to The Root Cafe. Originally he directed me toward a fancy kind of coffee, I was thinking, because of the way he described this special filter for the coffee--a cone-like object that some people will be familiar with or know what I'm talking about--like the thing that you put the coffee filter in on a coffee maker. Not a french press but a more regular-looking thing. Anyway it turned out when I went to The Root Cafe and asked one of the employees about which kind of coffee the cop might have been describing that was so good, she told me he meant just their regular coffee--less expensive than the kind prepared using the special filter thing I described before. So I got a cup of regular. Indeed it was good coffee. Not necessarily the best, but good.
I also enjoy the food at The Root. They have delicious molasses cookies, and the vegetarian dishes--they are all vegetarian--are satisfying enough that one might think there was some meat/protein-based item snuck into their sandwiches. After I eat something there, I am full.
The only downside to this place is if you want to have an audible conversation and you go at one of the times of the week when they have a band. I went with a friend one time when they had what I thought was a sort of bluegrass band playing, and I could not hold a conversation so we ended up leaving pretty much upon arrival.