The Sun Café Closes This Week, Slate Coffee Steps In

To its fans, it was the perfect neighborhood coffee shop. A little indy house just off the main drag, at the bottom of Market Street in Ballard, with friendly baristas, yellow walls, Mighty O donuts and Stumptown coffee. Purists loved the perfect shots pulled directly into preheated cups, too, not decanted. Trouble was, there weren't quite enough of those fans. Not even with crowd-pleasing amenities like free wifi, deep discounts on day-old pastries, or cushy new furniture could sustain the business. So Sun Café will close this week.

But (in typical American small-biz fashion), when one owner throws in the towel, another picks it up, wrings it out, and starts all over again. The new owner is Slate Coffee Roasters, an indy outfit staffed by local baristas and coffee connoisseurs, including ex-Zoka barista Brandon Paul Weaver. There's a Facebook page, a Twitter account, but, so far, they don't seem to have a store, a roaster or a coffee truck.

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[Photo: The Sun Café / Yelp]

—Ronald Holden