Hark! Good Coffee in the Financial District/Tribeca Area

Living in New York City has many advantages.  One is that people always want to visit.  I'm lucky enough to live in an apartment that is conducive to hosting people (we have an extra bedroom), so during long weekends and holidays I typically have a steady stream of visitors.  

This year's holiday season was no exception: My brother Tristan was home from Los Angeles, my cousin Becky and Katie were in town, and Erik's friends Drew, Amy, and Vaughn were around as well.  When this many people are in town, exploring the city and patronizing its fine establishments is a main form of entertainment.  Apartments are too small to sit around in for too long or host too many people, and there is ALWAYS something new to discover.

Over the next few days I'll write about a few places I visited over the last week or so.  If you're an out of towner visiting soon (or a New Yorker looking for something new to visit) these places might be worth checking out.

Kaffe 1668: (on Greenwich at Warren). After a late Saturday night of jigsaw-puzzling and New Year's Eve recuperation, Drew, Becky, Erik and I woke up on Sunday morning with coffee on our brains.  We attempted to go to the Blue Spoon Coffee shop on Chambers Street only to discover that, like many things in the Financial District, it is closed on weekends.  We Smartphoned and Yelped our way to Kaffe 1668 after this (a few blocks West and South), and I was pleasantly surprised with the result. 

The facade of Kaffe 1668 is deceiving. From the outside, it looks like a store front of a suburban strip mall. It doesn't scream for attention in the way many coffee shops do--you don't get that "oh this place looks so cute and cozy, I really want to go inside" feeling when you walk past it.  In fact, the outside is so unimpressive that even though I had walked by it at least one-hundred times on the way to and from the grocery store over the past few years, it had never once beckoned me inside.

The inside is warm and inviting with long tables, art on the walls, lots of sheep decor and hipster-ish baristas. This scene is a bit an unusual for somewhere so close to the business-oriented Financial District, but in a good way.  Its ambiance makes it feel like it belongs in the West Village or Lower East Side.

There was not enough room for us to sit inside, and my Cappuccino took a long time to make, but the quality of the drink made up for it.   This is definitely a place I'll be frequenting now that I've discovered it.  If you find yourself in the Financial District or Tribeca, enjoy coffee, and are sick of seeing the umpteenth Starbucks in a two-block radius, this place might be for you.  

(http://www.kaffe1668.com/)