Freshmen Fridays: Creative Cafe

“Hey! Hey! Wait!” yelled Karen, the general manager of Creative Cafe (3711 Market St), to a group of bewildered pedestrians on Market street. Her head poked out of the clean glass doors of the newly opened shop. “I saw you guys staring in, I couldn’t help myself. Come try it if you like!” she called, unabashedly.

I received the same overwhelming enthusiasm when I entered Creative Cafe fifteen minutes earlier. On a Wednesday afternoon, two days after its opening, the place was nearly empty, but two inordinately friendly workers were waiting to offer me any of your typical preparations of Counter Culture brand coffee. The shop is a side project of Replica Creative, a Philadelphia-based design and printing firm. Customers are encouraged to use their design and printing services after picking up a cup of joe, though there are also plenty of tables ideal for a morning of studying.

I tried a regular small coffee and added a glug of homemade vanilla syrup upon insistence from Karen. The coffee, priced at $2, was smooth and sweet, not as good as Hubbub’s more expensive blends, but much more enjoyable than the bitter, flat brews at Einstein Bros.

In addition to coffee, Creative Cafe offers a modest selection of refreshments catered by Philly-area eateries–wraps and salads from DiBruno Bros, cupcakes and cake parfaits from Whipped in Fishtown, fresh croissants and pastries from the small kitchen of a nearby Frenchman. The offerings are slim and simple, a sleek, straightforward experience to match the glass walls and modern green and turquoise accents. If you’re looking for fantastic noshing to accompany your morning joe, Creative Cafe’s outsourced snacks aren’t your best bet. But for a reasonably priced, reasonably good, reasonably convenient cup of coffee, Creative Cafe is not a bad new choice.

Conveniently located at 37th and Market, I’ll be around again, if not for the coffee, then for the pure enthusiasm of the baristas.

–Byrne Fahey