(DECOMMISSIONED)

A very cold winter dusk in Athens. Downtown, resisting the easy answer of just ducking into Blue Sky, we walk up Lumpkin, past the ‘new’ University buildings with uniform brick stretches and bulbous, orderless stucco columns. The wind whips up Lumpkin all the way from Five Points. Tucked in behind some churchy University outposts a warm light floats out onto the dormitory parking lot. Set amidst a sea of Georgia facilities, Favorite stands alone looking like an ice fishing shack; the wind blows the warm light away from its walls in sinuous trails that dissipate when they blend into the fluorescent gas falling out of the dormitory windows.

We duck across the patio and into the warmth. Two espresso beverages please. Much like Stumptown in Portland, Favorite is filled with all the latest slick magazines telling you more than you ever wanted to know about martinis, turtlenecks, and Lenny Kravitz’s house. But the rags are not prominent, they are nestled into a space that is confidently detailed, seductively lit, and rich with colour. Although slightly austere, and lacking the patina of dust and worn fabric I might generally nestle into, the space welcomes my scrutiny and allows a more external experience rather than beckoning me to retreat into book or mind. The windows in the front space where we sit are completely black (the wind having blown the light back out to Cedar Street), freezing, punctuating the panoramic wallpaper of some tropical setting, a third trope we float amidst. Reconciling the inside out jungle with the ice fishing shack with the University campus is a delight for the mind as it races with brown liquid replacing blood. How many cups? If we assume this mug holds 1.5 cups of coffee, we would need to drink just over 14 to replace our blood with the beverage, provided there was some way that transferal was made anatomically possible through small slits in the vessels latticed about the stomach or some sort of coffee embalming process. Then! we could understand the magic of this little floating mystery, and perhaps be warmed from within on our trudge back up Prince Avenue.

coffee, cafe, coffeeshop, review, café

Favorite

135 University Court
Athens, Georgia 30605