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Best Café For Ambiance
Café Magritte
READERS' PICK: Whether you plan your visit or just pop in while you're downtown, something about Café Magritte entices you to stay longer than you planned or have time for. The two-story restaurant with its bare brick walls and gallery-style decor always seems too cool for common time-keeping. Enter when the place is packed and you'd be hard-pressed to say exactly which city you're in--New York? London? San Francisco? Austin? Paris? People seated at café tables with only inches between seem so intimately grouped. Jazz blares from the speakers. The works of local artists grace the walls and hang from the ceilings of both the restaurant and the Bowler Room bar. Intimate and enchanting, Magritte's is cool downtown Tucson ambiance defined. READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: Cuppuccinos Coffee House, 3400 E. Speedway A REAL SCREAM: A brand new cafe, Safehouse, 4024 E. Speedway, has the unmistakable ambiance of a big-city E bar. That's one reason for the big red neon sign that reads "E bar," hanging high in the peak of the newly renovated A-frame building. The name of the establishment was inspired by an episode of School House Rocks, which explained to children that stay-at-home mothers would display a red E in their windows so that kids would know these houses were a safe place to go in case of emergency. A few things that make this the place for Gen-X urban refugees: music shuffling between the Beastie Boys, Charlie Parker and Portishead; 25-cent tabletop Pac-Man and Centipede video games; and pool. Note the sign declaring, "The table is for coffee drinkers only, if you don't like coffee then don't play pool." There's a loft painted with graffiti art by Raya (who works as a tattoo artist at Back Street Tattoo). Outdoor seating has a scenic view of the Lucky Strike bowling alley on the other side of Speedway. Owners Aaron and J, a husband-and-wife team from Orange County, Calif., are both in their early 20s. Both are covered in tattoos, both are artists, and both currently sport blue dye in their hair; Aaron wearing his long and pulled back, and J wearing hers shaved short. (Just so you'll recognize them.)
Safehouse has the requisite assortment of coffee and espresso
drinks, Italian sodas, baked goods and the like. But unexpected
standouts are the Thai iced coffee and a selective stock of foreign
tobacco, Big Red chewing gum and Ring Pops. Best of all, Safehouse
stays open late, if you're looking for a place to go until 2 a.m.
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