Coffee Conscious

I highly recommend this place for coffee and donuts! Excellent soy cap and Mexican mocha that was pleasantly not so sweet. The peeples vegan donuts are amazing flavors and excellent quality, even a candycap mushroom flavor! Maybe my fav coffee shop now.

Funky little neighborhood place halfway between the beer garden and the natural food store, so as you might expect a bit pricey. Decor not much better than a laundromat's, but good coffee and lots of other chic beverages, plus pastries, including vegan doughnuts and yam muffins--yes, that kind of place. Friendly counterpeople, a little free library; nice place to hang out.

Easily the worst espresso in Berkeley. Burned to ashes in the roaster then overheated in the filter, with some scalded milk if you ordered it that way.

Great place to go, good coffee, great vegan pastries. The only problem is their opening times. The are supposed to be open from 7am -7pm. I have been their several times at 7:15 am and this evening at 6:00 pm., and the place is closed. Very frustrating. Also, sometimes they are out of pastries. Great place to go, however, not very dependable. Needs some fine tuning.

Excellent coffee, inventive menu, relaxed atmosphere and great stuff. I come here at least 4 times a week

five stars for taking me back to my days in Berlin

Small, friendly, interesting decor, great cappuccino ( and I suspect the other coffee variants are also good). A little out of the way, but well worth the walk when I'm having my car serviced

The coffee is strong and delicious and the pastries (all vegan) are just incredible. Cannot recommend more!

Sadly one of the few places where the baristas actually know something about their coffee. Delightful discussions and open to some custom drinks. Coffee roast dates are written on the bag! Yay. In addition to selling whole beans they sell a variety of coffee making products (filters, pourovers, etc). Only 4 tables though, and one of them is outside.

TL;DR: good coffee, nice pastries, but there's that one rude barista who doesn't understand how to be a good neighbor to the other businesses on the street or how to be considerate of the customer's needs. A real shame.

PROS: very nice coffee, knowledgeable baristas. I'm not much of a pastry eater, but the couple of times I've tried one, it was quite good- especially the Yam Rolls. Most of the baristas are very cool people.

CONS: just the one, really, but it's kinda pissing me off. So, I've been a semi-regular at this cafe for a few months, went there maybe twice a week. I work online in cafes, and I make a point of buying a couple drinks each time and tip to contribute. I never had anyone at this shop give me a sense that I'd overstayed my welcome. They claimed to not have a bathroom, and told me I should walk down the street to the market. Since I don't feel right using a business's bathroom without buying something, and since Coffee Conscious only has pastries to eat anyways, I'd generally pick up lunch. Suddenly today, I was told not to eat outside food in the shop.

I was a barista for years, and I get that this is generally a no-no. But being that they were sending people to another business to use the bathroom, I figured it was reasonable to grab something. In the course of the conversation about this, the barista said something about the shop being small, basically implying that they're not cool with "campers." Fine, I get that too. But here's the thing- there was NOBODY else sitting when I arrived, and the cafe wasn't full in the whole time I was there. Also, there are some regulars who come in every day and take up basically half of the place. I like regulars, and I like supporting local businesses. But when they're all but throwing folks out on the one hand, and shmoozing others who are going to stay just as long on the other hand, it seems a little hypocritical.

Also hypocritical- they DO have a bathroom, and I've seen friends of the baristas using it. They've got to set the rules, I understand that, but when they make people needing a bathroom another business's problem (and BTW, it's a medical issue for some), it's not right for them to also complain about you supporting that business. And if you want to keep people moving through, don't selectively enforce that. Support local businesses- all of them. I'll be at Royal Ground on Solano.