Monday, January 05, 2009

Cafe de Leche: Highland Park's caffeine oasis

Some longtime NELA folks probably see the opening of Cafe de Leche as the beginning of the end: a sleek modern coffee spot with Intelligentsia Coffee, full of fashionably tousled young folks with deer on their t-shirts. But Cafe de Leche keeps it real with a play area for tots in back and pastries and muffins from Porto's. Owned by Matt Schodorf and his wife Anya, there's a subtle Latin vibe to the cafe, especially when Anya is there making the Nicaraguan pinolio corn drink, which I didn't get to taste. My espresso con panna was just the little jolt of caffeine I needed to finish out the morning, and I ran into Josh from FoodGPS, who had his laptop plugged in to a convenient outlet behind the table, plus there's free WIFI.
And the coolest part? I got the bicycle discount for arriving on a bike!
Cafe de Leche
5000 York Blvd.
Highland Park
323-551-6828

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

they are a little slow, and i thought that they were going to be a Fair Trade coffee shop, but when i asked the girl behind the counter, she didn't even know what that meant...

Kolchak said...

The place is cool, the coffee is great and it's not a chain from Seattle. You get a little more love tender care. Slow or not, Cafe De Leche is the spot.

Anonymous said...

any visits to Felipe's Fine Cuisine which replaced Villa Sombrero? just curious as to what makes it so fine...

kolchak don't get me wrong.. i will totally support them.. i was just sayin'

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's a bit of punch in the gut for "some of those long time NELA folks." Maybe the reluctance for some of those long time residents is that they want to embrace change and improvements of the community without losing what makes the community so great to begin with. Something that many east side communities have seen white washed with hipsterism while pushing out local flavor.

Pat Saperstein said...

Yeah, it was a little slow, but they were very nice about it, and I was busy talking, so I didn't really mind.
"A punch in the gut," huh? That's kind of strong. It's very easy to rile up folks in this neighborhood, I've found.

Anonymous said...

Wow that Pigeon looks cool. They give coffee discounts for bike riders? I am so there!