|
|
|
Node Café, Milwaukee |
|
|
|
Written by and photos by SEAN SCHUETZ
|
|
Tuesday, 03 May 2005 |
Next to the North Avenue bridge on the East side, across the street from Judges Pub, is the best way to end an evening on the North Avenue bar scene. The Node Café does not serve alcohol, but instead, good coffee - which is a really handy thing at two thirty in the morning when you have just been kicked out of the bar and need to sober up before going home.
Node is also handy if you just want to hang out for a while and chat with friends somewhere other than home. Fortunately Node is open twenty four hours a day; in fact, it is the only twenty four hour coffeehouse in Milwaukee.
|
|
| Node Café |
1504. E. North Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
www.nodecoffee.com
(414) 431-9278
Hours:
Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
|
|
|
|
This is the place for Eastsiders and those just very fond of it. The walls are covered in the work of local artists. If you like something, look around a bit, the creator is probably sitting on the couch next to you.
In the morning and the afternoon, the crowd is generally lighter and consists of friends talking over coffee and miscellaneous professionals clicking away at wireless laptops, using the café’s network to transmit their work back to the office, assured of their constant supply of good music, coffee, tea, and bagels. In the evening, the crowd becomes younger and much larger, but Node handles it well with an ample and traditional front room, consisting of uniform tables and chairs, a huge back room with a big screen TV, comfortable couches, and terminals to access the network. In the summer, the café feel becomes more pronounced with tables and outside seating, perfect for a cup of coffee with friends before going out on the town on a warm summer night. During the traditional "bar hours" between nine and two in the morning, the crowd becomes mostly - if not entirely - underage, as all those that can go to the bar already have. However, as the bars empty after two, the crowd becomes chiefly a mid-twenties mix, filled with people who have realized that they are not yet tired.
Entertainment is largely self provided, as is expected from a coffee house, but Node also offers a great deal more than the traditional coffeehouse. Along with the previously mentioned big screen TV, the high capacity network that gives the place its name- as owner Joe Simonds explains. "The way we do computers is completely different; we wanted to do something new; we wanted to use the IBM corporation’s high capacity network format to give the customer the big company network experience. We wanted a social hub, and a powerful network, hence we called it NODE." The café also comes with a progressive mix of music selected by the barista from their collection; this mix always provides a good variety of underground music of all types. On any given night, you might hear an amazing song by an artist you have never heard before, be forced to ask the barista who it is, buy the album the next day, and the day after that, you have a new favorite band, MC, DJ, or whatever.
In addition to serving outstanding coffee, Node has a great variety of mixed drinks, some of which are so sweet that they’re almost liquid candy. One such example is the White Noise, which is a white chocolate mint mocha. My personal favorite is Hard Drive, which I am currently sucking down like it is going out of style. The Hard Drive is four shots of espresso, coffee, steamed milk and chocolate - this thing will keep you pumped for hours. They also offer other drinks such as Gatorade, Sport Tea, a wide variety of hot teas, soft drinks, and Red Bull.
Node also offers food good for anytime, from pizza to scones; if you just want your morning bagel or you have that post-bar craving for a big piece of garlic bread, they have you covered. The food is obviously nothing extravagant, but this is a coffeehouse, not Wolfgang Puck’s. Besides, it is tasty and at three in the morning it is well met. For that matter, the crowd is a lot easier to deal with than George Webbs or Ma Fischers. While those places are packed and take a half hour to be seated, the food at Node comes quickly, mostly because (until people read this) people do not think Node serves anything but coffee, and few expect to be able to get their post-bar pizza at a coffeehouse - but here you can. Node loves the afterbar crowd, and even are thinking of doing promotions to that aim, such as "Have a Hard Drive before you drive." As explained by Joe, this is to encourage people to sober up a bit before getting behind the wheel.
There is obviously no cover, and the food and drinks are cheap, except for the aforementioned four dollar Hard Drive. A pint of coffee is two dollars and seventy five cents for a refill, all the food costs under five dollars. The artwork costs a bit more on a piece by piece basis, and not all of it is for sale, sorry.
Node was built to be one of a kind, and it is. Constantly open with its high capacity network, great coffee, the unique ever changing atmosphere, and the bathrooms- oh yes the bathrooms. I’ve never seen anything like Node’s bathrooms before. The walls are covered in graffiti, but not the normal "Call me!" graffiti that normally fills the walls of bathrooms. It is all philosophical and ideological debate, and poetry. Yes that’s right, intellectual graffiti – if you don’t believe it, we have pictures. This is what happens when you put enough educated youth in one place. Come on, I know some of you want to see a Nietzschen debate inscribed on the top of a toilet tank, just to say you have seen it. This is the only place on Earth it occurs. I have to say, if you have never spent an evening at Node, I advise the experience.|
You need open mic night
Written by Guest on 2006-10-06 21:45:19
You shuld artist come play their music on saturdays !!! Because the food is very expensiv. | One of a kind
Written by Guest on 2007-08-12 18:57:02
This place is unique and the encouraged graffiti bathroom never ceases to entertain me. |
Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
Other Recent Articles by and photos by SEAN SCHUETZ:Through the eyes of a pathological gamblerGary Gygax: Dungeons and Dragons creatorTracks: a hands-on sports bar
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
