Description: The Seattle University area (the "U. District") is a unique village within Seattle. It has always obeyed different laws, heeded different drummers, and protected different fauna. Quite aside from the University of Washington itself (and in its own right, a huge, powerful, fascinating, and slightly scary ecosystem) and the usual "gown industries," like bookstores and coffee dungeons, the Diz has a habit of being a little quirky and off-center. It's not just "Berkely North", it's a place where a regionally unique psilocybin mushroom is named after a professor, where people kayak to work, where chess champs develop, where future pro athletes rub shoulders with musicians weeks away from recording contracts, where the Wobblies started up, and where classrooms float and bridges sink. It's a good place to discover Seattle from, if not vice versa. (As I started to say in my intro, they don't give you any SPACE - meanwhile, back at the Continental . . .)
The Continental has long been one of my favorite haunts/caffeine scores/declamation areas. It's almost totally atmosphere-free, but that's where a lot of cool people have hung out for years, if only drinking coffee and eating the meringues, baklavas, and luscious Honey Bars.
But you eat there, too - and very well for decent prices. They have gyros and spanikopticka and Nagasaki and fetid cheese and all that Greek stuff. It's really good, seriously. Just hard to spell.
I'm a habitué, and it just seems like authors and relics from the ‘60s and artists and such are always coming in. It's a place that can give that "second living room" feeling without trying to. Or there's Starbucks next door if you're a total write-off.
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