I drink a lot of coffee. When I lived in Ann Arbor, I would routinely go to 3 or more cafes a day. It was always one early in the day for breakfast, one around lunchtime and then maybe one later in the day. When I was working in Livonia, Michigan, I used to always hit up the great Biggby coffeehouse down the street.

So, when I moved to Evanston, I had to find some good coffee!  It took about 3 or 4 months to figure out the local “coffee scene”. I think I’ve finally figured out a way to stay caffeinated from 6am to 2am. Here is my recommended coffee plan for fellow Evanston dwellers.

6am-noon: Peet’s Coffee (on Chicago by the Whole Foods). Peets definitely has the best coffee in Evanston. It’s usually not burnt and they really brew some good stuff. The downside is that it’s always really busy and sometimes the lines are long. There is rarely a place to sit, so usually I get a coffee and run.

noon-10pm: Unicorn Cafe (on Sherman, closer to campus). The Unicorn is probably the coolest cafe in Evanston. Their coffee isn’t as good as Peets but it is miles better than any chain coffee. There are a million places to plug in your laptop and the music there is really great (lots of good indie stuff)

10pm-2am: Kafeine. It’s a coffeehouse with a waitstaff. I don’t really like this place very much, it’s busy, the service is HORRIBLE, you can’t go on Monday (open-mic), the music is so-so, and it is full of high-schoolers. However, it is open until 1am on weeknights and 2am on weekends. They warm up your chocolate chip cookies too – that is awesome. Fortunately, I can get an insane amount of work done here because I am not interested/distracted by crappy music, high schoolers, or so-so coffee.