Bean Around the World? Yea, been there.

Bean Around the World seems like a bit of an institution on the Main Street scene. It is located on one of the seemingly unlikely popular locales. But its huge windows, its simple decor and the corner space with a long South facing sidewalk patio, makes for an ideal place to meet friends for a cup of brew and some baked goods or a panini. It seems that to work there you need to be early twenties and have that cool "Main Street" hipster attitude. The crowd there is as varied as it gets.

Perhaps because there are several BATW locales around the city people feel like they are going to a place where they know what they are going get every time - almost verging on being the dreaded "chain". The actual coffee there is actually mediocre. I find the coffee at times almost too hot - if that's possible - and when they make their Americanos, I find that they water it down too much even when you request the smaller size cup filled three quarters full. The Banana bread (I prefer the B-bread with chocolate chips in it)is great. All of the baking is quite tasty - they have some creative and scrumptious muffin creations you need to try. The cookies are good, the danish kind of rounds are sweet and tart, and if they have the pie available, you might want to treat yourself.

On a rating out of 5 banana bread slices

Scene: 3 - It is sometimes too busy to find a seat so you have to wait around and shark or be sharked for a seat. The line up can run the length of the counter which means that if you are sitting by the line, your conversation is open to all those standing beside you or vice versa. The main bonus is that south facing window and patio on a sunny day. The mix of the people who go there kind of makes it a little unclear about the target market demographic. Of course one could argue that based on how busy it can be, the target market is coffee drinkers. While you are there, enjoy the fact that there seems to be countless plain clothed and uniformed police officers.
Grub: 4 Baked goods are good.
Coffee: 3 Better than utilitarian but still not good enough to say that I drink it to enjoy it.