Review - Capriccio Cafe and Espresso Bar

110 N. 16th Street (between Arch and Cherry Streets)
215.735.9797
Website, Yelp, Google Maps
M - F: 6:30 am - 6:30 pm, S - S: 8 am - 8 pm
Wi-Fi, tons of tables, tons of outlets

Capriccio Cafe

To my loyal readers and follower, I must sincerely apologize for the obvious dearth of posts for the last few months.  I've been caught up with finals and graduation, which put my cafe blogging on a temporary hiatus.  Plus, not having a functional laptop makes it a bit more difficult to review coffeshops on the spot.  But fear not, because I HAVE been visiting a number of cafes in the past 2 months and I promise that I will be gradually rolling out the reviews as I write them.  Be on the lookout for reviews of OCF (18th and South), the new La Colombe (near City Hall), the new Saxby's near Rittenhouse (yes, I'll give Saxby's one more chance), Chapterhouse, Good Karma, Bodhi, Spruce Street Espresso, Lovers and Madmen, etc, etc, etc).

But without further ado, let's get on to talking about Capriccio.  So Capriccio is not within my typical radius of walking.  If you click the link to the Google Maps, you'll see that it's located about a block and half northwest of City Hall.  Not to say this is a bad location, but it's a not somewhere I go walking around on a regular basis. However, a friend recommended the place to me so I decided to give it a try.  As you might guess from the location, the cafe is full of businessmen and women stopping by to grab coffee on the way to the office.  That said, Capriccio does a great job of still maintaining the ambiance and environment to make it a desirable place to chat or read.  It's probably not that apparent from the rather poor picture taken by my iPhone, but the entire cafe is its own little building, sitting like an island in the middle of a block.  Moreover, instead of having traditional walls, the cafe is covered by huge glass windows!  It might seem like you're entering a fishbowl, but the ambiance inside is quite pleasant.  The huge glass windows lets in a lot of natural light (but not direct sunlight), which makes studying very enjoyable.

Any kind of extravagant decor is missing, but the cafe is clean, simple, and sleek inside  There are about 12 smaller tables spread out throughout the cafe.  While the tables aren't the biggest tables, they are sufficiently spaced apart from each other so even the most claustrophobic customers probably won't feel cramped.  They have plenty of outlets for all your electric needs.  They're supposed to have internet, but I had some trouble connecting.  As a bonus, there must be a Starbucks nearby however, because I was able to pick up their Wi-Fi signal with good speed.   One unique thing I noticed - they didn't have any background music playing for the first few hours I was there.  They eventually turned some music on after a few hours, but even then it was rather quiet, which provided a nice break from a number of cafes these days that blast background music.  But the huge windows, plus the nice white noise of nearby conversation, and soft humming of the ceiling fans made it the perfect environment to get some quality studying done.

As for the food, when I went up to the counter, I was very impressed by the variety of choices.   They had all the usual cafe items, but this particular one also offered ice cream, milkshakes, and most impressively, Hope's Cookies, which in my humble opinion produces the best cookies in the Philadelphia area.  I ordered a small coffee and one chocolate chip cookie with the friendly barrista.  When asking what type of coffee they use, the barrista stumbled and couldn't answer.  She said they're supposed to use La Colombe coffee, but at the time were using some other coffee that they didn't know....  Anytime a barrista doesn't know his or her coffee, I do get a bit suspicious.  Thankfully, the coffee wasn't that bad.  Or maybe the excellent taste of the cookie masked it.  But the coffee wasn't that great.  It tasted slightly watered-down and lacked any kind of dynamic flavor, which would be evident from any properly brewed La Colombe coffee.  But the coffee sufficed and was certainly better than the burnt coffee you might get at Starbucks.

All in all, this cafe is very unique and might offer you a nice respite or a change of scenery for those of you who like to study with lots of natural light (as I do).  The coffee is so-so, but it passes..this place is definitely worth checking out.

3.5/5 beans.  As always, please comment below and be on the lookout for consistent reviews of more cafes!