I’m operative a new kick for Sprudge, covering a “major Washington State on-going coffee bar openings not in Seattle” scene. It is my favorite beat. As a lifelong Pacific Northwestern and local Tacoman, I’ve prolonged quiescent myself to looking to Seattle—or spasmodic Olympia—for large coffee news. And it creates sense: Seattle’s place in American coffee enlightenment is a things of legend, and we (mostly) loved my time vital there as a coffee drinker. Our 2016 Sprudgie Award winning Best New Cafe is in Seattle, and that’s not a fluke. (BTW that cafe, a La Marzocco Cafe during KEXP, is dialed in like whoa right now, and value a outing alone.)
But as a Seattle we grew adult with and lived in for a decade morphs into some arrange of Gotham City/Paul Allentown/SimCity 2000 Arcology satire of itself, all a cold coffee things is function outward a limits. This feels large and critical to a 253 area formula imprinted on my soul, and so I’m anxious to be means to write stories like this one, about a smashing work function with Narrative Coffee‘s new cafeteria in Everett, or this one, about Olympia Coffee Roasting Company‘s entrance flagship in Tacoma’s poetic Proctor District. And currently I’m anxious to uncover off a new Camber Coffee cafe/restaurant/sweeping liberality chill zone, located in a old-fashioned tiny northern strand heart of Bellingham, Washington.
Camber’s Bellingham cafeteria occupies some 2000 block feet at 221 W Holly Street, on a dilemma of Holly and Bay, a few brief blocks from a lifelike Bellingham Bay. The cafeteria is designed by Michelle Banks of Spiral Studios, with architectural work by Dan Welch of Bundle Design and construction by Chuckanut Builders. The plan has captivated a singular collection of talent to Bellingham, drawn in equal tools from a worlds of coffee and excellent dining, including Assistant Manager Natalie Stevens (formerly of Canlis and Vif), Head Barista Rose Shahbaghlian (formerly of Slate Coffee), and Retail Operations Manager Kevin Rosencrantz (formerly of Blackberry Market).
The space’s endless drink menu is overseen by barista Stephen Wiederspohn, and Camber’s food module was consulted on by Kiel Kleeburg, a West Coast excellent dining maestro who was partial of a opening staff during Bay Area nouveau-kaiseki end Single Thread. There’s even a daily uninformed flower module by Miranda Bowman of Wildrye Farm.
Not bad for a former comics emporium in a exhausted northwest college town. After a weekend soothing use Camber is now strictly open, portion espresso from a three-group Synesso MVP espresso machine, filter coffee around a 3 crater Poursteady brewing deck, and a low dais of teas (Natalie Stevens’ passion) and tisanes sourced from Kilogram Tea of Chicago. There are beers by Holy Mountain, Urban Family, and Mollusk. There are milkshakes. There’s a earnest opening day booze menu that should pull some bounds in Bellingham. There’s farmstead cheese, and honeyed corn soup with dumplings, and a half duck cooking set—unthinkable in an American coffee bar environment even a few years ago, though here we are.
So let’s keep it going. More, we say! More large openings in Washington State that aren’t in a city of Seattle. Who’s going to open a darling tiny city coffee bar with genuine understanding espresso in Roslyn? Those humanities weirdos in Tieton substantially need a good new cafe, and so do a college kids in Ellensburg. Who wants to go in with me on a tiny cut of PNW modernist mid-century oblivion on a shores of American Lake? Let’s keep a trend going, from Bellingham to Walla Walla. we wish this to keep apropos a thing, since it is a good thing, and so that we might work this kick forever.
Jordan Michelman is a co-founder and editor during Sprudge Media Network. Read more Jordan Michelman on Sprudge.
Photos pleasantness of Caleb Young (@keepitcinematic) and Camber Coffee.
Camber Coffee is an promotion partner on a Sprudge Media Network.
