- Address: 726 20th St. NW, Washington, DC
- Website: http://www.filtercoffeehouse.com
- Bike friendliness: They have a coffee pot- and coffee cup-shaped bike racks! In orange!!
- Other notable information: Filter is about a block away from Looped Yarn Works; always excited to have a coffee shop and a yarn shop in such close vicinity
Date: Saturday, November 15, 2014
Drink: Cappuccino
Total Mileage: ~4.5 miles total (2.1 miles Home to Filter)
Photo Verification:
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| I normally wouldn't drink a cappuccino so late in the day, but it was just too hard to resist |
Ride Notes
I had a couple of goals in mind for today's coffeeneuring ride. I wanted to find a coffee shop to sit in and read some papers, since I'm currently swamped at work and the various holidays (past and upcoming) and travel haven't helped. I also wanted to check out a yarn shop I'd never been to, and stock up on materials for holiday gift projects. I had wanted to check out Filter anyway, and by chance the store closest to me carrying the yarn I was looking for was only a block away. This ride was short because I got a late start, and also I was feeling very tired. But I wanted to get out of the house, so a compromise was to do a multi-modal ride.
I made it to the yarn store and the coffee shop, but unfortunately I only got halfway through my goals. Looped Yarn Works had a nice selection, but I didn't find the yarn in the weight and the colors that I wanted. Also, I had to leave my bike out on the landing outside the shop, which was in tight quarters. Normally that makes me uncomfortable, but the shopkeepers assured me that there was only one person working on the floor above, and they'd be able to see anybody coming by the door. Still, I'm glad that I went, since I'm always happy to find a good yarn shop. Similarly, Filter's coffee was delicious, and I used my spoon to get every last bit of milk foam in my cappuccino, but unfortunately I had no place I could do my reading. There wasn't much seating inside (a couple of people were even on the window sills), and I'm sure it doesn't help that they've had to put away the outdoor seating for the season. It does make me wish that I worked in the area; I bet it would be a great stop on a morning bike commute.
Anyway, at the very least this coffeeneuring trip was good for scouting out new places for both coffee and yarn, so by that measure I would count it as a success. Plus as a consolation prize (and because I needed dinner anyway), I rode back up to Adams Morgan on the way home and stopped by Donburi for delicious rice bowl.
Route Notes
For my multi-modal route, I rode over to the Metro, then take the Metro down to Woodley Park, and ride to Filter and Looped Yarn Works. The route once again reminded me that I'm still getting a sense of the geography of DC neighborhoods and how dense central DC is--it's that same disorientation around distance that I got when I first moved to the East Coast/Mid-Atlantic. I got off the Metro and hopped on my bike, and all of a sudden I had passed one major neighborhood and was in another. I think I get thrown off by Kalorama, which always seemed much longer when I took the bus through it, but I pretty much miss when I ride my bike. Kalorama is a mystery to me, and apparently extends further south and west than I expected.
| Wherefore are thou Kalorama? |
Observation: I don't have a skin in the Uber vs. Taxi fight, but during this ride I experienced an unanticipated consequence of having "normal" cars acting as ride sharing services. I would be riding my bike down the street along with traffic, when either a car in front of me would stop to let someone out, or would start idling in street (rather than park), waiting for someone to get in. The one nice thing about taxis (along with delivery vans, etc.) is that they are clearly marked so I can anticipate they make frequent stops, and avoid them accordingly.
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