What would life be without coffee? It frightens me to entertain a life without the stuff as it is one my most favorite things in the world. Some nights I am excited to go to bed just so I can wake up and have my cup of joe (I am not one of the Fortunate Ones who can drink coffee at night).
A few mornings a week I decide I would rather sit at a coffee shop to sip on my morning joe and I am quite lucky in this regard because I live down the street from what I think is the best local coffee shop in the metropolitan area: Hacienda San Pedro, which is also a local plantation, one of the many you can visit for the day.
They roast their coffee on premises (which they are doing right now) in a very cool old fashioned looking roaster, also pictured above, which they seem to do between 7 AM and -8AM when I tend to be here. When you step outside after the roasting you walk through a billowing and light poof of coffee smoke, which is like being blessed by the gods of coffee before starting your day.
The great thing about the coffee aside from its taste is the price. The cup featured below is around $ 1.60 which beats the 3 dollars you would pay at a Starbucks, which have, in the last 3 years, infested and infected the island. Given that so much coffee is grown here, it is great to see these sorts of places sprout and serve the local stuff.
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They have a good selection of baked goods for b-fest, free wireless (yay!), and great music playing, usually something like Silivio Rodirguez or some reggae. After you are done, you can head to the museum right down the street, which not only has a great collection of local and international art, but a great peaceful garden, and one of my favorite murals.
The coffee shop is located at Avenida De Diego #318 (though there is no number out front, but there is a banner). Basically it is between the highway overpass in Condado, which is right next to the art museum and a large avenue called Ponce de Leon, which resides in the heart of Santurce.
Currently, they are open Mon-Friday from 6:30 to 6, on Sat open from 9 to 3:30 and closed on Sunday.
Biella! I had a nightmare last night that I was plugging in my PR address into Google Maps and it turned out to be, not like three blocks from the beach in OSJ, but in the middle of Hato Rey with a bunch of ugly banks and stuff! I was so sad.
Thank you for the info on coffeeshops and how hard it is to find free wifi – this is the stuff I don’t know much about. What are gas prices right now? $0.60/liter? Higher?
Comment by Riana — July 1, 2009 @ 10:02 am
Hey R,
not sure if you will check yr email here…
The gas is around that price… Will you have a car here? You can easily get to Hato Rey via the 1 bus to work.
The sucky thing about the gas price is the a/c… It is pretty hard NOT to use it (believe me, I spent so many years without it until this summer as I am trying to write). Electricity is tied to oil here so you can imagine.
Comment by Biella — July 2, 2009 @ 7:29 am