Coffee & Treats in Seattle

Recently named "best cupcake" on The Splendid Table, broadcast on NPR, Cupcake Royale bakes each flavor from natural and local ingredients, including hormone-free dairy products and locally raised fruit. Finish off a long lunch break with a Royale with Cheese, a pillow of dark-chocolate cake topped with cream-cheese buttercream and chocolate shavings, or nibble a salted caramel cupcake with house-made caramel buttercream. Bundle a dozen diminutive frostlings or chomp down two dozen cupcakes from your own compostable pedestal ornamented with ribbon and 24 toppers.

While inanimate objects with the power of flight often terrify the muffin-eating masses, aerodynamic aprons are known for their compassionate cuddling and fantastical ribbon dancing. Flying Apron Bakery freshly prepares delicious edibles for the consumption and digestion of all. High-quality organic products, from whole-grain, wheatless flours to non-hydrogenated oils, are creatively employed to compose an overflowing menu of thoroughly vegan, gluten-free, and wheat-free goods. Sweetened fare includes carrot muffins sweetened with agave syrup ($3.25) and sticky pecan cinnamon rolls inspired by brown-rice flour and garbanzo-bean flour ($4.25), while cookie jars swell with Macaroons ($2.45) and chocolate chip cookies full of organic molasses, vanilla, and evaporated cane juice ($2.25).

Blue Saucer is loyally committed to serving only the finest Stumptown coffee, brewed to order in small French-pressed batches (starting at $1.60). Every week a different bean from the boutique coffee maker is featured for your sipping satisfaction, along with specialty drinks such as a house-mixed hot chocolate (starting at $2) and organic teas (starting at $1.60) for your steeping enjoyment.

Long waits and harsh lighting are just two inconveniences that can plague a standard trip to the post office. The process leaves little room for relaxation, let alone time to kick back and enjoy a freshly made latte. That's what Sip and Ship hopes to remedy. The family-owned business combines two different worlds—the post office and a coffee shop—into an operation that runs as smoothly as its coffee goes down.

The process is both friendly and simple: customers bring in items they need to send far away, such a piece of art, an old-fashioned letter, or a cursed monkey's paw. The Sip and Ship team wraps, packs, and ships it—all while customers wind down with organic, locally roasted drinks and homemade cookies and scones. In between all the sipping and shipping, customers can squeeze in some shopping, too; the store stocks its shelves with bottled wine, bath products, and even children's toys.

In the kitchen of Fainting Goat Gelato, batches of dense, velvety goodness are churning slowly. Organic milk from Fresh Breeze Farms absorbs organic sugar, thickening as it gets colder, before Yalcin folds in the flavor. He infuses one vat of his low-fat treat with local berries and another vat with Turkish hazelnuts. Maybe later he'll make use of some pistachios from Sicily. He uses local ingredients whenever he can but recognizes that sometimes nuts grow better across the Atlantic, and more than anything he wants to make his gelato sing with rich, full, true flavors.

By using such prime ingredients, the gelato that Yalcin and his wife make in Fainting Goat Gelato takes guests on a journey as expansive as their own. The husband and wife moved to Seattle from Turkey in 1997 and subsequently focused on raising their daughters, but after their youngest started applying to college, they wanted to begin a new adventure. Today they keep their shop stocked with 18 flavors at all times, creating an ever-rotating menu that at any time might include fig-vanilla, honey-lavender, or Nutella gelato. Cups of Turkish coffee, espresso, and tea help round out the experience and thaw tongues chilled from licking a scoop of strawberry or lips frozen from kissing a snowman.

From the vantage point of Sugar Rush Baking Company's lengthy dessert and coffee bar, visitors can catch a glimpse of the busy kitchen staff as they craft cakes, cookies, scones, and brownies throughout the day. This bakery team works with a dedication to homestyle techniques, decorating custom-layered cakes by hand and accentuating them with frosting flowers plucked fresh from the candy garden. The shop specializes in miniature cupcakes, and with more than two dozen signature flavors including chocolate cake with mint-buttercream frosting, the team has been forced to create an entire separate menu for the tiny candle cushions.