Best Coffee Houses

1. The Roma Café on College and Ashby, Berkeley: This is the best café for studying, meeting people, or just staring out the window. It has a nice airy décor with a combo of outdoor tables and a nicely divided indoor space with lots of sunlight. The traffic noise is a bit much on the weekdays but calms down a bit on weekends. The Roma also has great sandwiches and is just far enough away from campus to avoid becoming overly crowded most days of the week.
2. Beanery: This is another College avenue café that has great light. It is a bit on the small side and tends to be less noisy so it is best for studying or reading. It is a daytime café, not the place for night time rondevous. But for what it is it great.
3. Caffe Mediterranean: Right on Telegraph Avenue by Cody’s books, this is not the prettiest of café’s but it has a lot of space, good coffee and a great location.
4. Café Milano: Right by Sather gate and across the street from campus, this café gets a lot of business pretty much all day and night long while classes are in session. It has very nice décor with indoor plants and the ceiling high windows that fog up when it rains. It has a second story that gives you a bird’s eye view of the café but isolates you a bit. The main problem with this café is the acoustics—the stone and the cappuccino maker don’t mix well. Great nightspot as well.
5. Au Coquelet: This is not such a great location, but there is more than adequate seating and its proximity to the Berkeley Rep make it a great pre- or post-theater meeting place. Great for Sunday morning breakfast.
6. Brewed Awakenings on Euclid: This is a superb north Campus spot. The street has a great European sort of a feel and there are lot’s of nearby restaurants so it is perfect for daytime studying. This is one of the most beautiful parts of Berkeley as well, with streets named after famous mathematical types like Euclid and Laconte.
7. Cole Coffee: Although technically in Oakland, this is another great café that I’ll let Berkeley claim for the purposes of this list. It has great outdoor seating and lot’s of local flavor. Great for meeting people in the morning.
8. Guerilla Café: An arty west campus café. I’ve never been here but friends who have say it’s a great nightspot for going on dates—the music is great and the walls are filled with original art pieces.
9. Village Grounds: A great local café on Telegraph. It is packed on weekend mornings but is much more reasonable on weekdays. You tend to get an older crowd here like that at Au Coquelet.
10. Edible Complex (now the Crepevine): This café doesn’t actually exist anymore. It too was on College though much further down. I mention it here because of its nostalgic value. It was the first café a boy took me to on something like a date (or as close as you get in middle school). It’s the café that made me fall in love with the whole coffee house scene. Like the boy, it disappeared soon after that. It is now the Crepevine, a great place to have a crepe, but I can’t go there with out get