Espresso Vivace Roasteria Cafe

Caffe Caramel! YUMTASTIC! Hot or cold. And always with the full fat milk. It is a yummy splurge I always indulge when I am on the Hill.
My girlfriend swears that they have the best espresso here. I don’t drink that kind of coffee but she is crazy about it and that woman loves her coffee.
I think they are moving to the other side of Broadway cause of that Sound Transit thing going on over on the hill. Will have to remember that.

Dear Vivace Denny Location:
What turn of events caused you to mysteriously disappear from Denny Way? and my life? It is a sad day/​week/​year.
Was it time to get your wings and fly to the great Café Nirvana in the Sky?
You were the one I took all my visiting friends and relatives for their Julia Child moment. You know the famous moment, she had her first meal in France, and suddenly her life changed. You were their first coffee (on me).
I doubt they will become another Julia Child, but after the «revelation» they can tell good coffee from Starbucks now, all thanks to you. Well… and me, But the credit really goes to you, surely!
In retrospect our times together were always good. Even when I waited for 20 minutes in the wrong line for Coffee Beans. Now that you’re gone I wish we had shared more moments like that. I’m reminded of Kimberly’s Review of her Dad; telling everyone to enjoy him while he’s alive.
How true!!!
I guess it is to late to tell you; but you were my favorite Café. Your «best» moniker was consistently maintained more so than other Cafés where I had amazing coffee one day and not so good coffee the next. Unfaithful… you say? Yes, always unfaithful, but NEVER disloyal!
I know the original Broadway Stand is still open but I really wish you had stayed on for your café furniture and painting in the back wall and comfy couches and free Wifi and porcelain cups and the view of the park.

Espresso Vivace is a great coffee house that sets the tone for all the others. I often wonder if you might find some Starbucks executives from SoDo stopping by in disguise, looking at everything that makes the coffee experience great…
Tasty. Classic. Diverse clientele.
WiFi note: I don’t know when they changed the wireless story, but they don’t turn it on until the late afternoon on weekends now.
Location note: With their move to Brix soon, it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to keep it special and replicate the same large space + warm feeling atmosphere going forward.

I think it’s been established that this is one of the best coffee houses worldwide. I drool thinking about that espresso blend. I read the book that David Schomer wrote about making espresso and I think his method is really superb.
I have this fantasy where I have this really awesome cute studio apartment in Seattle and I have a ceramic studio and a hot boyfriend, and I work part time at Espresso Vivace and I have a really great wardrobe filled with cool vintage dresses and heels. It’s almost as good as my trophy-​wife fantasy but it doesn’t involve as many pills.

CLOSED!!!
Perfection is something very rare.
This place is perfect, almost heavenly. It’s an older, beautiful brick building with retro tile floor, marble and glass on Broadway/​Denny next to Cal Anderson. The music selection is awesome, the baristas are magicians, the coffee is fenomenal and the crowd is made of people who keep coming back (except for the nubs who don’t bus their tables)
We Are Losing This Place, They Are Moving and It SUCKS.
I’m going to miss it.
Didn’t I say it was perfect?

I *heart* foam. And I think they know this. I love this place. It’s ambiance, it’s coffee, that one table held together by duct tape… and yes, the foam, with little leaf or heart designs in it.
Vivace makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or maybe that’s just the caffeine kicking in…

Dear Vivace,
Do you mind if I bring in a little cot and just shack up under the portraits of your lovely espresso drinks? I am sure I am in deep love with your heart-​shaped cappuccinos and ten-​pound cinnamon rolls. I swear it’s not a crush, it’s the real thing… and I promise I won’t cheat on you (unless, of course, I’m traveling).

I committed coffee sin, and I will roast like a green coffee bean for it: I ordered a decaf espresso drink.
My head is hung in shame.
However, in the interest of not being up until 4am because for some fricken reason I’m ultra sensitive to caffeine and am awake for hours on end if I drink coffee/​cokes/​etc after 8pm, I asked for my espresso to be decaf. With much modesty and shame.
Actually, I initially asked for a cup of decaf, but the Barrista let me know that they don’t actually serve drip here. Whoah. What? He also let me know that their decaf is tasty as well, the flavor of the espresso not changed much by the swedish decaf treatment. Hmm.
Because I’m nervous in general about ordering straight espresso anywhere outside of Italy, I got a latte instead. Decaf. My cheeks blush with shame just thinking about it.
And it was fricken tasty. And hot. Or that was the heat of my cheeks burning, not sure.

I’m pretty sure after 148 reviews (mine is 149) there isn’t a «reviewing» reason for me to write this down. But for the love of God, I can’t belong to Unilocal,and talk endlessly about Seattle without mentioning four or five things about magic Espresso Vivace Roasteria Café:
1. Do you dream about coffee? Do you, really? Because I do. I dream about the White Velvet. In my dreams there is a combination of lyrics, velvety foam and delicious aftertaste while angels sing «White Velvet, White Velvet, White Velvet…»
2. Baci di Dame. Just a bite… from heaven. Maybe delivered by the same angels that sing in my dreams.
3. The view of the park from the windows. If I ever see sunlight on a Seattle afternoon, I will run to Denny, just to pair up a small White Velvet, a Baci di Dame and that crisp, green view of the park through their window panels. Oh, more beautiful dreams.
4. The kids corner. Just a sweet touch.
5. The roasted coffee to go. When in Atlanta, I can still wake up and have a taste of this marvelous, artisan coffee… maybe the best I’ve had in the U.S.
But the best thing is to walk there with Ryan to sit at a tiny table, linger on the cup that contains my lush, ambrosial White Velvet, and hold hands with him… my dream come true!

Sometimes when I go to a place that I feel like I had better to get to if I’m going to write one more Unilocal review I struggle terribly to find something that hasn’t been said. I’ll leave you with this idea:
Go there, buy an espresso and a mocha, take a pic of it, follow the espresso drinking instructions at the coffee bar (sip once, sip the rest), enjoy the mocha, and finish with a shot of wi-​fi. Know that you’re where Seattle Coffee Culture is defined.
No Sumatra roast to take home, no 5-​star, judge me if you like, but conviction is conviction, I did buy some vita though.

Favourite coffee shop in Seattle. Period.
Vivace is the sort of place you take a long detour for. It’s the sort of place where, if I didn’t already live in Capitol Hill, I would still routinely drive here just to get a cup of coffee. It’s that’s good! The beans are perfectly roasted. The espresso amazingly rich and creamy. You’ll stay up at night craving this stuff! You’ll tell all your friends about it. You’ll buy bags of Vivace Dolce beans as Christmas gifts!
Aside from the amazing coffee, I find the atmosphere and décor quite charming. The old building, large windows, nearby Cal Anderson Park, dappled sunlight, checkered floors, old diner furniture, large mural, wall of alternative publications, the barista/​staff, great music, FREE wi-​fi, pastries, etc. I can’t imagine the Vivace on Denny any other way.
Between Vivace, Victrola, Ladro and Solstice, there’s absolutely no excuse to drink at Starbucks if you live in Seattle! Life’s too short to drink burnt mass-​produced super-​saccharine coffee-​flavoured milk.
My weekend isn’t complete until I’m sitting by the window staring out at the fountain in Cal Anderson Park slowly enjoying another amazing cup from Vivace. My iPod keeps me company. For that 30 minutes or so, I am in heaven.

Let me preface this review by saying that I am not a coffee drinker. I don’t yearn for it, I don’t crave it and honestly I rarely feel as though I need it and would be more than happy to order a hot tea or an iced tea than have a cup of Joe. However, I am always up for a new tasty adventure and since my die-​hard coffee loving hostess absolutely insisted and bragged about how phenomenal the coffee is here, I figured, oh alright, I will try it.
Well, all I can say is Holy Shit. Yes, I realize that is profanity, but you don’t even understand how amazing this soy vanilla latte was. I mean, it’s as if the Coffee Gods came down and blessed my cup with liquid love in the form of a marshmellowy vanilly dream and wow, just wow.
Simply put, if coffee tasted like this everywhere, I would have stained teeth and a major coffee addiction, because it is THAT good!!!

As the heroin dealer in Pulp Fiction says:
«…people who know the difference between good shit and bad shit, this is the house they come to.»
There is plenty of coffee in Seattle. Some is bad, some is fine, a lesser amount is legitimately GOOD.
When I’m desperate for a hot caffeine kick in the morning, I’ll drink practically anything, including the bitter black sludge that is Starbucks drip.
But in my heart I know the difference between good shit and bad shit, and when I demand quality in taste, texture, location, atmosphere… Vivace is the house I come to. And as far as exhilarating mind-​body experiences are concerned, it’s a lot less expensive or life-​threatening than heroin.

I have to add another drip into the giant, caffeinated bucket of fresh roasted Vivace reviews.
Let me just start by declaring how much I lurv lurv lurv the coffee.
Seattle has better tasting coffee than anywhere I have been, a certain European cappuccino stand would be the only possible exception. maybe.
Vivace has better tasting coffee than any place in Seattle I have been. It’s that good. Somehow these folks have figured out how to fuse crack into the caffeine, that’s the only way I can explain how the Vita and the Dolce can taste so much better than everything else out there.
I’ve gone astray looking for better options, but I always come crawling back like some cheating husband who ran out of money after a huge bender in Vegas.
If I don’t bring 4 – 5 lbs of this stuff back home for friends and family when I take my annual holiday pilgrimage, I’m guaranteed to receive scorn and guilt trips the entire time. See what I mean? Crack.

I was visiting Seattle over the holidays and came to Espresso Vivace based on the Unilocal reviews. I can honestly say that this was the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had. I also got an almond bear claw-​type pastry that was out of this world. The location was fantastic; I love the old formica tables and windows. If I lived in Seattle, I would be here almost every day.
GO.

I grew up poor, and recall going to friends’ houses where I’d play with their awesome toys — Voltron lions that form the big robot, or Mazinga Z robots with flying fists, or Big Wheels — knowing that my parents couldn’t afford them for my brother and me. Here I am in my mid-​thirties, earning my own coin, and dreams of these toys and the fun I had with them still arise from time to time.
Why start a review of a café like this? Because my experience with Vivace’s espresso drinks was just as fleeting.
My wife and I drove out there from the East side, and we waited patiently as the two artsy/​grungy baristas expertly pulled espresso after espresso for the customers in the long, slow-​moving line. My wife ordered a hot chocolate and I a cappuccino. And though I try not to let factors beyond the flavor take me in too much, the heart shape on the top of her hot chocolate and the rosetta pattern on my cappuccino’s foam were a really nice touch!
We found two stools at the barista stand. As I got up to add some fixin’s, I took a brief sip of the unadulterated cappuccino. It was really good. I mean REALLY GOOD. The espresso underneath was not shy in asserting its coffee-​bean flavor without having that burnt taste that Starbucks has or that sourness that Tully’s sometimes has. And the milk foam on top had a tight, glossy finish to it. This leap-​frogged over what I had previously thought was the best cappuccino I ever had — a hearty brew that a bald Italian-​American sprinkled generously with cocoa at a café in Boston’s North End.
(A small side note. Vivace’s serves its drinks in real cups and saucers. Waiting for a good pull of espresso to drink it from real china is the real deal, to which sipping lesser espresso drinks through a plastic cap on a paper cup is but a pale imitation.)
I added a touch of sugar and sprinkled cocoa generously on top. I took another sip, and winced. What I thought was cocoa turned out to be nutmeg, and too much of it. My beautiful cappuccino now had a nutmeggy, slightly minty, weird flavor, and I just gulped the whole vile mixture down. Vile … by my own hands! I suppose I could have gotten back in line and waited some more, but that was too high of a price to pay for a cappuccino, even one as good as Vivace’s.
So here I sit, with only that first sip to remind me of what could have been. I will definitely go back there again, perhaps at some ungodly hour in the morning (they open at 6 AM) to avoid the line. And this time, I will add NOTHING to their drinks.
A final note: That hot chocolate that my wife ordered? Don’t bother. You can get just as good at Starbuck’s without the long wait.

Quintessential Seattle coffehouse as I imagined it plus it doesnt hurt that the New York Times named it in the top 5 coffee places in Seattle.
A local Seattle acquaintance brought me and my bf here on a late night out. The coffee was smooth and decent. I like the chess games available for people to leisurely play while getting caffeinated.

I loved this place so much that I will only make a quick jab at the ACDC that was blasting, because even amidst the truly unnecessary cacophony, I found immense joy in my smooth Americano, and all the world was right. (They WERE playing ‘Back in Black’. Coincidence… or FATE?)
I would be strung from my ankles by my PDX-​peers if I dared compare this coffee to the obvious Portland rival — but let’s just say I know who I would put my money on. Vivace blows ANY other coffee out of the water — and is easily the best coffee I have had in this country.
And it should be! I mean… from a company that revolutionized latte art, has published research, and uses phrases like «precise scientific methodology,» you’d sure hope that their bite was as strong as their bark.
It is. Plus some. I have scars to prove it: I was mildly disappointed by my normally euphoric local brew. Damn you Vivace!

«Is that home-​made whipped cream!?!»
Yes, my friends, it is. The mocha is heavenly. If you get one, please get it with whipped cream.
I love/​hate that they always have yummy looking treats when you first walk in. Not sure if I can drink coffee WITHOUT eating a cupcake now.
If you’ve been here then you know that the coffee looks almost too appealing to drink…
ALMOST.

What a great coffee shop, I wish we had something like this down in San Francisco. Aside from the absolutely stellar coffee, the atmosphere is a vibrant one. We were there on a bustling Friday afternoon, and just watching the comings and goings of the other tables was entertaining for me.
Free wireless is another plus, but again, the coffee is the real star. I brought some beans back to the office and the staff here has been spent more quality time at the coffee machine than normal. Get back to work, fools!