Café SoL - Niantic, CT

 A Coffee Maven Review

As we prepared for a getaway of a few days in Niantic, Connecticut, my thoughts turned -- as they always do -- to whether I should bring my own coffee. We were traveling by car, after all, so it would not be unreasonable -- by Coffee Maven standards -- to bring some coffee, a grinder, a brewer, and so on. After all, we NEVER find decent coffee in hotels (unless the hotel is part of a coffee farm, which is rare in Connecticut).

But cooler heads prevailed. That is to say, my spouse and fellow coffee fan decided that we should take an opportunity to explore local cafés. We were very pleased to find Cafe SoL directly across the street from our wonderful lodgings  -- all very close to the ocean!

Credit: Shamelessly lifted from
www.cafesolniantic.com

The café opens late by our standards (by 8:00 I am usually making a second pot of coffee), but local fans appear not to mind. Where we found a lone man and his dog at 7:59, we found a small throng by 8:02. 

The coffee and food were both delicious, and the service quite chipper. The café walls are full of local art and positive aphorisms, and even the "order number" system is whimsically artful.

Our breakfast the first morning was filed under "Bunny." 

One down side of not bringing my own coffee was that I had no iced coffee to share with our friends at their house, even though I had brought my iced-coffee brewer.

I noticed that Café SoL does have coffee by the (approximate) pound. When I asked the manager to grind a package of Sumatran dark roast, I mentioned that it was for iced coffee, and I was pleased to hear that she understood that this is ideal for iced coffee. 

About the timing: this café was so good that we returned on our second morning and this time we figured out what to do about the late opening. We did the 2.2-mile boardwalk roundtrip before our coffee and breakfast, rather than after. On a gradually warming morning, this was a particularly good idea.

Access to the local boardwalk (and beach, if one has a permit) is through a railroad underpass known formally as the Hole in the Wall. Note that just north of the café is a great spot for later in the day: La Llorona Progressive Mexican Cuisine. Look for a separate blog post about that incredible restaurant soon!