Caffe Minnie’s

I miss you

My dad used to enjoy Minnie’s. I think I went there once or twice.
I went for breakfast once, and ordered the «Dutch Baby».
Thought it was great.
Doesn’t matter now.
I’m sure Seattle has plenty of good places to eat now.

UPDATE: Caffe Minnie’s closed its doors due to back taxes:

I hate the food here. I’ve tried countles breakfast items and each one was crap. The service in the main dining room is the worst I have ever had and the bathroom is a disgusting biohazard hellhole.
So why 3 stars? Ladies’ night and happy hour. On Thursday nights you get your first drink free. My husband and I would sit in the «bar» and get sloppy drunk on very stiff drinks, get to watch and mock a movie on the plasma, chat with the lovely bartender, leave a great tip and still only spend about $ 20.

I’m giving Minnie’s three stars for yummy tomato basil soup and the only manhattan clam chowder that I’ve ever had ANYWHERE that I’ve ever really enjoyed.
Don’t go in expecting too much and you’ll be fine.

Let’s be fair. Minnie’s is a place you end up after Last Call, when you’re not ready to go home and you’re really craving something heavy and greasy. To give Minnie’s a poor review is like getting mad at the dog for eating your dinner when you put the plate on the floor and left the room. What do you expect?
It’s a dive, it’s greasy, it’s open late, and is conveniently close to the major bar scene. At 3am, you should be happy to have the choice of not risking public exposure fines to pee.

I am basing my one star on the quality of this place in the here and now time.
Back in 1994 – 1995, when I lived in Queen Anne, I used to LOVE to eat here on a Sunday morning! The line was always a tad long to get seated but it was worth the wait! I usually ordered eggs, sausage and home potatoes. This dish came with the most delicious little scones! *sigh* I loved breakfast because of this place. So, since then I’ve moved back to Hawaii and spoke about it to H as if it were a legendary fairytale.
Fast forward to August 2006… H and I are finally here! Walking just ONE block away from Minnie’s!!! We walk in and …***screeeeeeetch!all happiness comes to a complete halt*. WTF?! What IS this dirty nasty s*#* hole? What have you done to my Caffe Minnie’s?! Who the heck are you?! I look at the menu handed to us by some lil’ nasty and yes, it says «Caffe Minnie’s». H-​O-​L-​Y C-​R-​A-​P. Part of me was confused… was I just fooling myself all these years? Of course, H prlly thought I was joking about all this.
Well, looking around, there were only 3 tables filled. Our lil’ nasty waitress took our orders (drinks and meals) and then never came back with it. I was totally confused as to why we weren’t served not even a glass of REQUESTED water yet since there was no one in there. So we sat and waited for half an hour while listening to the table in the middle of the room. Their daughter was visiting her family from Hawaii. So weird. Anyway, our food came and it was nothing great. It at least came with the scones, but it was still missing that most yearned for Sunday Minnie’s breakfast.
I was so sad to see this place looking like a dumpster with lil’ nasties running the show. The place was dirty, the waitress was dirty and OH MY… THE BATHROOM! HOW COULD I FORGET THE BATHROOM… *shudder*shiver*… it could give you nightmares maybe even diseases.
I do not recommend this place now. If you can imagine yourself eating next to a dumpster, then you can imagine yourself eating here.
R.I.P. The OLD Minnie’s.

Forget all of the memories of this place in the early 90’s when grunge was the favorite slut and winter snowstorms got you sledding down first hill with some coffee at Minnie’s at 1am in the morning waiting for you. I remember this place when it wasn’t a health hazard, the customers weren’t Lake City gang bangers, and the wait staff were part time massage therapists and artists. Seriously, back in the day this was a fairly cool hangout for hipsters and suckers. That was15 years ago– ancient history.
Caffe Fecies is simply not the same place. This infected pus hole is possibly the worst establishment I have EVER visited. I don’t even recommend dining and dashing it’s so bad. The bathroom floors and walls are covered in graffitti, fecies, and urine. The owners and wait staff (except for one person) do not speak english. For a late night pre-​puke destination, this place makes 13 Coins and Denny’s look fabulous. I also really didn’t appreciate the stupid trendy asian servers who all look like they are in a Cantonese Weezer Cover Band. It’s all so very annoying. Please, people, stay away from this place.
I’m placing a call to the Health Department tomorrow.
If they keep it open and don’t shut it down I’m going to call this place Caffe Fecies.
You are what you eat.

I’ve lived in Queen Anne for years and finally made it to Minnie’s and well I can honestly say I don’t think I missed much all those years. As the food is totally passable for 2 am and being hungry, but man this place is a bit of a sty. And don’t even think about going to the bathroom after 1am as it’ll be a dicey experience partly due to all the drunks who — shall we say don’t get it all in the bowl.
That said, if you’re hungry and unwilling or unable to drive to denny’s or to the ID I guess this is the place for you.

Stupid 2am curfew. When I am partying with hot British men with hot British accent from England for one night only I really don’t want to end the party.
So we took them to Caffe Minnie’s because it the most horrible place we could show foreigners. Well I didn’t know that at the time. Thankfully, they enjoyed the antics of three drunk girls into the wee hours of the morning because basically the food was greasy soup gross, overpriced, slow and our server was a gay snob with a stick up his ass. Sorry to be so tactless but seriously he dished out mean better than he served food.

Update 1/​16/​08-​I went home for the holidays and noticed that there were no lights on at Café Minnies. Upon furthur investigation, I noticed there was an eviction notice and a letter stating that the restaurant owed over $ 15,000.00 in back taxes. Did Minnie’s get bought out by some cheesy owners who then ran it into the ground? Lame! I miss the old Minnies and I miss my Tomato Basil soup!
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Café Minnie’s was my old high school hangout. Back in the day before I was 21 or 18 for that matter, there weren’t many places for us to go late night. I knew that Minnie’s would always be open. My friends and I would spend a lot of time here eating, debating various topics and playing cards while we listened to the wide musical selection hand-​picked and played by the staff. This place was such a cool hangout.
Every time I come home to visit, Café Minnie’s is always one of my first stops. Nothing says «welcome home» like a big bowl of steamy tomato basil soup.
The later in the night, the better this place will be. During the day, it’s kind of weird.

I died a little inside when the Minnie’s on Capital Hill closed down. And that’s the only reason that the Lower Queen Anne Minnie’s gets 4-​stars. The service is terrible, and the atmosphere isn’t welcoming. The food is barely above average and prices are about a dollar more than I’m comfortable with — all of this is exactly why I love it. If you have 2-​hours to kill, and a good friend that you need to share some secrets with over a bottom-​less cup of coffee, Minnie’s is the place to be.
Minnie’s Tomato Basil Soup 4-​Ever.
UPDATE!
A Eulogy:
Minnie’s. I miss you. I miss your bad service. I miss your unkept floors. I miss your sketchy atmosphere. I miss your TomBas soup and your delightful homefries. I miss having dinner last two hours (cuz the service was so awful and spotty) and my girlfriends and I knowing full-​well that we’d have plenty of time to catch up and gossip about other people’s boyfriends. I hope that someday I will be able to find another crappy place that will be able to, at the very least, fill some sort of the hole you have left in my well being.

Girl you’ve changed.
You used to be ruckus joint with rough wait staff that would take care of you alright if you weren’t an asshole. There were some great items on the menu. The music was widely varied. There was a culture of people who hung out there and ate, read books and generally filled the gap before the drunks.
At this point I have to say that a place I hung out at for years is in need of bleach, lots of it. Some removal of drywall around the restrooms, etc. or maybe lookup the term Jewish Lightning (no slur — I’m jewish).
The owner of the Minnies on Broadway blew his head off, which resulted in the quick closure of it. As Neil Young said, «Better to burn out, than to fade away». So Minnie, remember the veins run up and down — not across — your arm.

The food is almost comically bad. Like something the mom from Better Off Dead would make in an attempt to try something new. Honestly, I don’t remember it being so bad when I was a teenager, but maybe I just had coffee.
We ordered the Clara Bow omelet and a frittata. The omelet was disgusting. It has chicken in it, and that bird died of emphysema or something. I’ve had more succulent chicken bits at Taco Bell. The omelet itself was horribly misshapen, like it had exploded in a microwave perhaps, and basically flavorless. The «Italian potatoes» were too crisp to stick a fork in and the «Italian» seasoning used was apparently Johnny’s. The frittata was a little better, but only because of the incredible amount of garlic it contained. The «pancetta» promised by the menu looked and tasted like straight-​up bacon. Even the tomato juice was nasty.
Nice service, though, and the scones have mysteriously gotten edible while the rest of the menu has gone to pot.

I remember when Minnie’s was half-​way decent about 10 years ago. Last time I ate there 3/​06, the men’s toilets had overflowed with feces spread into the kitchen, feces was smeared on the walls, cooks had toilet paper and feces stuck to their shoes (which there was no attempt to do anything about). The smell-​fumes coming out of the back was hideous, I could barely eat my food, in fact we didn’t and ended up leaving. That experience alone has made me swear an oath of non-​patronage. Yuck. I will never go back again. It deserves to be shut down. God, I think I’m going to be sick.

Before I came to Seattle everybody warned me of Minnie’s.
— Bad service.
— Bad food.
— Bad set-​up.
HOWEVER, I found my visit to be quite the opposite. The omelette was tasty, it came out relatively fast, the server was a little snappy… but that’s what happens at 2 AM.
All in all I’d go again. If I had never heard anything bad about Minnie’s before, I wouldn’t think anything bad about Minnie’s now.

The waitresses here are all psychotic and bitchy. I thought it was a one time thing, but 6 months later, same shitty attitude. Is it really that much of a chore to ask once if I need more Dr. Pepper in the 45 minutes I’m sitting there?
There is a step to the right that some old lady fell on the first time we were there. The second time we were there, the waitresses were talking about people always falling on the poorly marked steps. Someone needs to take a «sue you» fall and bust out their front teeth.
The Monte Christo sandwich and being open all night give them one star. I liked the sandwich, and I can’t give zero stars.

We sit down at our table at the surprisingly uncrowded Caffe Minnie’s. I expect an Italian touch due to the extra f in the name, but no, that extra f is just pretense. Not that the place itself has much pretense.
We’re greeted by our host and sent to our table. Our tattooed waitress (a signature of seattle breakfast joints) is especially friendly and cute. We talk about Bumbershoot and she takes our order. She comes by periodically as we wait 45 MINUTES to get our food.
The food itself delivered. My friend’s omelette was large, tasty and full of the goods. The scone that came with it was kind of dry, but the accompanying potatoes were crisp and well accented by rosemary. We also ordered a peanut butter chip waffle (with chocolate syrup) that delivered on its promises of Peanut Butter Cup-​like sweetness.
The waffle tasted somewhat stiff, but that may have been due to the wait for the omelette.
However, the

Dear Minnie,
Don’t take it the wrong way Minnie, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I mean, I heard how great you were from so many others who had enjoyed you before. And I was really looking forward to a relationship with you. You know, coming home at any hour of the night to your warm comfy arms and having you cook my favorites even at 3am when I’m smashed. I mean, that kind of devotion is hard to find. And I should add, looking good doing it!
But despite the cute exterior and willingness to please me at any hour of the night, it’s just not gonna happen. I mean, to be honest, I’ve had better, faster and cheaper. And that’s the kind of relationship I was looking for at 3am.
Sorry Minnie. But thanks for being there that night.

the place may get crowded, the service may be a little irritating, parking is a pain, etc… during early evening/​after the club 12midnight on weekends. i like going there very late. so late that it’s early. i like it when it’s unpopulated, blaring some punk/​alternative/​rock music, lots of space, and w/​a few of my favorite night owl friends along w/​me.
the food is never disappointing to me. the homefries, scones w/​raspberry preserves, tomato basil soup (sooooo delicious), and the omelettes are the best. there’s this one w/​chicken, artichoke hearts, and cream cheese inside… it’s my favorite dish. there’s a wide variety of different things to eat. it’s well worth the trip from your desk/​room at 4am after cramming or sitting around w/​friends. the bathroom is covered w/​grafitti and writing. i love looking at it every time i’m there.