If the new library has a cafe, wouldn’t it be nice if it could have a bar, too? Wishful thinking, we know, but there are spots in the city where you can buy a coffee for one hand and a beer for the other. We took a sip out of the coffee-holding hand (honest) and looked them up.
Coastal Coffee
This Robie Street coffeehouse with a to-die-for breakfast sandwich serves alcoholic beverages as well—who knew? Bishop’s Cellar picks out a small wine list for Coastal, with a glass averaging at $6 and a bottle at $30. You can also get imported or domestic beers, specialty coffees and fancier items such as a mimosa or kir royale.
2713 Robie Street, 405-4022
FRED. beauty food art. and Whet Cafe
FRED (pictured above) also serves mimosas (orange juice is so much better with champagne), or you can grab a beer from the choices of Propeller, Stella and Corona. The wines change up frequently, but are normally organic, with a house white and house red for the taking. 2606 Agricola Street, 455-9438
Alteregos Coffee House
The coffee house fronting Halifax Backpackers keeps it short and sweet. Its beer menu includes Propeller, Keith’s, Keith’s Light and Heineken, with a couple house red and white wines for those not in the beer mood. The patio is also licensed, which is handy during the summer, but it’s a little chilly and barren at the moment. 2193 Gottingen Street, 431-3170
Perks Coffee (waterfront)
The waterfront ocation of Perks is the only one that’s licensed, with an extensive list of alcoholic beverages including the usual wine and beer options while adding whiskey, rum and vodka to the possibilities. The imported beers also include Guinness, with the added option of Strongbow Dry Cider. Prices range from $4.25 (domestic beer) to $5.75 (imported), keeping it affordable.
1781 Lower Water Street, 429-9386
This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2010.
If Judith Hare is going to get her palatial library built, she shouldn’t be thinking small. Have a big after-hours bar there to attract the legions staggering back to campus after a tough night striking out downtown. It could all be one space — coffee, muffins and sandwiches during the day for the bookish set, morphing into a nice dining-out place early evening for the theater-goers, a pick-up bar later in the night when the librarians get off shift and lose their glasses and ponytails, and then the after-hours debauchery. It might be the only way to get new blood into the library.
You can’t be serious. A bar in a library?? Perhaps lap dancing and some VLTs as well.
Dar, the cafes listed are all respectable spots, and handle serving liquor on a daily basis without your mentioned lap dances and VLTs. While it was a joke, it’s really not that outrageous.
Forgot to mention Coburg coffee, I believe they serve beer….