Around Princeton -- Nassau Coffee Review: Café 44

I’m stepping up my game and really leaving campus. Many of you have probably gone to Nassau Street and explored Palmer Square, but I’m recommending you try out a café that is the very epitome of locally-owned deliciousness, even if it’s a bit of a walk. Just head straight down Witherspoon Street, past the Public Library and past the graveyard. Turn left onto Leigh Street, walk a block, and you’re at Café 44, in the real Princeton (and it was only an extra 10 minutes away). In that sense, maybe “Nassau Coffee Review” is an inappropriate title for this series of reviews, but I don’t just literally mean the street itself. I’m also referring to the slightly more nebulous area that is walking distance from Princeton’s campus. It’s about when, on a Saturday morning instead of heading straight to Wu/Wilcox, you pause and decide to do something special and head somewhere on Nassau. Maybe in this case you’ll head a bit beyond.

Coffee

One of my favorite things in the world is drinking a great cup of coffee with breakfast, and my least favorite thing is drinking a shitty one. It feels as though that first morning cup sets the precedent for the day and if the beans are burnt, it’s lukewarm, or too weak I’m predisposed to have a “meh” day. I went to Café 44 for this first cup of coffee, which is kind of a risk. Usually I leave that duty to a trusted coffee shop or my French press, but I decided to go out on a limb this one time (possibly because I was running late and ran out of coffee grounds in my room). Fortunately, I was not disappointed. The coffee at Café 44 is good – it’s not the artisan coffee you find at Rojo’s Roastery but the baristas pull their own shots and foam their milk well. It’s the kind of unpretentiously good cup of coffee you sip from a mug the size of a bowl while sitting on a couch.

Ambience

The ambience matches the coffee. Café 44 is the brainchild of the classic comfy coffee shop and your favorite brunch/dinner café from back home. People are scattered about the two rooms typing on laptops and having coffee meetings while others are eating brunch. There are couches and there are tables; you order at the counter but the staff brings you your food. It’s an interesting mix and it works. The best part of the shop is how homey it is. The shop itself is in a neighborhood and tucked into a house. The staff is incredibly friendly – I chatted with the head dinner chef, who happened to also make my cappuccino. Part of the fun of an off-the-beaten-track café is that the clientele seems to be local; they’ve been here before and know the menu and the people. Loud and crowded dining halls get to you at a certain point, but you can always escape to Café 44 as a way to go home.

Food

If anything is truly worth the walk, it’s the food. Even though you can consider the store to be a coffee shop of sorts it is very much a café specializing in brunch and dinner. This is the perfect location to linger over weekend brunch and the food is great for it as well. Here you’ll find all of your breakfast classics: omelets of all varieties, French toast, pancakes, bacon along with an entire menu of light lunch options, all for very reasonable prices. The food is not fancy or pretentious so don’t come with an expectation for anything artisan; just like the coffee the brunch is simply and unobtrusively good. I personally recommend the eggs benedict. (Side note: the café is also open for dinner, which doesn’t exactly fit into the premise of this review, but if you do decide to try it out the menu is fantastic and has great prices compared to Nassau Street restaurants. There’s even a delicious dessert consisting of rich chocolate mousse with a pomegranate base!)

Amenities

Café 44 also has all the necessary amenities. There’s free wifi, plenty of seating, and a variety of newspapers set out for customers to browse. The only flaws in my mind are the hours of operation – even though the spot is open for dinner between 5 and 10 pm, for brunch the café opens at 7:30 am (but let’s be honest, which college student wakes up before 8 to go to brunch) and then closes at 2 pm (that sounds like when my day gets started). Usually this means that I head to Café 44 for brunch with friends or when I wake up a bit earlier in the morning and have a few hours of work that I want to make a bit more special; it unfortunately can’t be the place to stay in for an entire afternoon. Overall, Café 44 is a great local café, even with its awkward hours. It’s worth the walk away from campus for the homey atmosphere, the comfort food, and for the very experience of really entering our surrounding area.

Rating: 8.5/10