Brenen's Coffee Café

The best sandwich in Athens, great coffee, kinds people.

We (Airclaws Heating and Cooling) have starting using Brenen's recently to send out treat boxes to our customer's for recent equipment purchases. We get back a lot of feed back about how delicious the pastries in the boxes taste. We are grateful to work with a wonderful business in our community. They always provide efficient and friendly service!

Here at lunchtime so we weren't in the mood for coffee but the café food, drinks, and service were quite good. Turkey BLT was tasty although they forgot to add bacon. The "MEGa" grilled cheese went down really well and the Turkey Cranberry panini was very good.

It's not the best coffee shop in Athens by any means, but it's not bad. I go for two reasons: their Two for Tuesday deal (buy a medium or large specialty drink on Tuesday, get a coupon for a free one sometime in that week), and their chocolate cherry cordial (a mocha with cherry syrup, and it's delicious). Their food is decent, but a bit pricey. Their wifi has issues some days as well, making it hard to work there. Outlets are at a premium, which makes it hard for those who need outlets (my laptop battery sucks) to find seating unless they're pretty dead. I love the store front, which has huge windows and tables right next to it. It is a perfect place to sit and people watch while you work and sip on coffee. One last thought, the manager seems super nice and is essentially always there. I like how he is so active with his business.

Great coffee. The sandwiches are wonderful also.

This is the only coffee shop I have ever been to that does not have Wi-Fi / refuses to give their Wi-Fi password. Athens is in a college town, it literally blows my mind that they don’t have Wi-Fi. Last week I bought a coffee there to do homework, only to find out that I couldn’t do any homework because they have no Wi-Fi so I had to leave and couldn’t go to a new coffee shop because I didn’t have enough money to buy more coffee. it’s basically a scam, this coffee shop does not care about the students of Athens and only cares about making money. not all of us are privileged enough to be able to afford a hotspot.

Brenen's has been around for awhile, so that speaks of its appeal and quality. Good sandwiches, salads, and good coffee (brewed, lattes, etc). It gets a bit crowded because it is popular. I had the honey lavender latte last week and the corned beef Reuben on pumpernickel--both excellent.

We stop here for lunch when we visit Ohio University which is my wife"s alma mater. You order food at the counter in the back. If you just want coffee or a pastry you order in the front. There are a lot of sandwiches to choose. I had the Turkey Reuben which was excellent. The salted caramel cookie was amazing.

I got the meal plan and it was totally worth it! I go and get sandwiches weekly and they are always great. My only suggestion is to fix your WiFi! It is frustrating because sometimes I would want to eat and work on homework but the WiFi would never work even though it is advertised.

Brenen's is a lively cafe right in the thick of it on Court Street in Athens. They have some interesting and tasty sandwich and soup offerings, and employ a lot of local college students. The owner seems to always be on site and manages it very well--clean tables, quick service, clean restrooms, etc. I've had lunch there numerous times over the years, which is my basis for my comments. I knocked it down 1 star for because, if you're not careful, you can leave there having spent close to $10 for just a half sandwich, soup, and drink, so you're hungry again a few hours later. Also, they sell coffee but this is not a great place to go for that. More than once they've pumped me a cuf out of one of those tall plastic/aluminum carafes, and it was far from hot. Add in some cream or milk and your drink is tepid at best (i.e., not great). But if you like being where there are a lot of people to watch, both in the place as well as out on the street, Brenen's is worth a look.