So I'd only been to Port Townsend a couple times before, and as it turned out always in bad weather, so I had a pretty dim view of the place. Then a friend suggested we should go over and experience the Rhody Festival, as it was supposed to be sunny thru the weekend. On the ferry ride over from Seattle, a nice older fellow said we should definitely try out the great coffee at Better Living while we were there. According to him it was the best on the peninsula.
Well, my friend and I decided to stop in the minute we got to town as it was still early and we figured we could use the extra boost for walking. What we were not prepared for though was the weird scene that was to follow. Firstly, their coffee is WAY overpriced, nearly $5 a cup (incl. tip) for just simple drip coffee, and while their homemade pastries looked scrumptious, both my friend and I are trying to go gluten-free these days, so we were out of luck. Just as we were sitting down with our coffee tho, we heard an old guy (this turned out to be the owner, as we discovered from a local acquaintance later) complaining about people who came in to use the internet and that only buy a couple cups of coffee! Since my friend had just pulled out her iPad, and the only person that had a laptop in use was just then departing, we assumed the old man was referring to us. He continued to go on about how he likes it when the customers just collect their drinks and leave. A little shocked, my friend slowly put her iPad away and we turned our gaze away from the scene and concentrated on the view out the window for a few minutes before just getting up and departing early. What was really weird tho is that there was virtually no one else at all in the entire place! I think maybe another couple was there, on the big (dilapidated) couch in the corner, but that was it. By comparison, at 9 am on a saturday morning, nearly every coffee shop in Seattle is absolutely packed! And from what we could see of the other cafes that we passed by later in this town, they certainly weren't experiencing the same dearth of business. I wanted to just explain to the guy (especially after I found out he was the proprietor and not just a worker) that maybe it's your overpriced coffee & lousy attitude that is keeping people away, and NOT the fact that a couple of people might be enjoying the use of your wifi for a bit!
I should say tho that this was just the start of another largely miserable weekend experience in Port Townsend. The local people (the ones behind the counters in the places of business), are noticeably unfriendly (except for a couple exceptions), and by and large confer a rather sustained unpleasantness, such that if one happens to be there for more than a few hours, one can't help but become monumentally depressed at the repeated incursions of hostility. The folks in the hotel, the natural food market, even the couple of drinking establishments that the town offers, all seem to get their kicks by intentionally making others feel bad. Why they are (most all) twisted in that way is beyond me, but from now on, I shall definitely just leave those people to their little world of misery.
Why I'm posting this commentary on the town itself under a review for this particular establishment is simply because Better Living Coffee (actually it's owner) set the tone in this way. [To set the record straight tho, the woman behind the counter that first helped us was just fine and even pleasant.] read more