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Categories: Bakeries, Coffee & Tea, Bookstores [Edit]
1082 Chapel StMon-Sat. 7:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sun. 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
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I have really mixed feelings about Atticus. I've coming here since I was little so it has a special place in my heart. That being said, I'll start off with the good. I love their black bean soup! They have it every day so there is no excuse not to get it. If you don't want to commit to an entire bowl, just get the cup of soup and 1/2 sandwich combo. Also good is their new Tacchino Panino. It's smoked turkey, cranberry sauce, vermont cheddar on cranberry bread. It tastes like thanksgiving! For breakfast, their striatta is pretty tasty if a little soggy.
That leads me to my biggest issue with Atticus: service. I can't remember when was the last time my panini or soup actually arrived hot. Moreover, the waiters are not particularly friendly and tend to abandon you when you want to get your check. This really shouldn't be considering that the cheapest sandwich is $8 and the tables are tiny.
Great cookies, soups, and sandwiches. I enjoyed going here to chat over coffee, to have casual lunches with friends, and to continue playing up the grad student stereotypes that everyone has.
As a warning, it gets crowded especially during weekends. If you're looking for a quieter place, this is not the place you should be going.
The only reason this place doesn't get 5 stars is that the service is very slow. Otherwise, they make a great sandwich with, of course, their delicious bread. I'm also a big fan of the black bean soup. I also like the chill atmosphere.
The real reason I'm adding to these reviews is that they are offering a prix fixe menu now (not sure how long it's been going on, just saw it for the first time tonight). It's a great deal! 1/2 sandwich, salad, soup, small dessert, and simple beverage for only $13. To get just the panini and soup is already $10 and I wanted tea, so I decided to upgrade. Well worth it.
I've been in this place a zillion times, probably for the same reason a lot of people go there; it's location. Being right smack in the middle of Chapel and all it's restaurants and activity is bound to bring some serious business.
The food is all right for a snack but since this is Chapel Street much better can be found only a short walk away. Of course it does have books but the selection is actually pretty thin since the store is rather small. It gets a plus for having a bathroom but since the store is frequently quite crowded the bathroom is often in use.
It's not a bad place by any means but the main attraction really is it's location.
The atmosphere inside of a bookstore is quite excellent. The food didn't take too long to prepare, and everything was delicious.
Unfortunately it was very crowded when I went for lunch on a Saturday, and we chose to sit at the bar instead of waiting for a table.
I gobbled up every dessert here. The bread pudding with raisins and rum is especially good. The breads are great, too.
I did browse/read on occasion, too. However, I never bought anything because everything is on the pricey side, and my textbooks cost enough.
Although it was pretty much about convenience, since my residence, Jonathan Edwards, was a short jaunt away, I always liked Atticus. Although the cafe stands in the middle of the place, and one is completely encircled by books, it never felt cluttered, just always comfortable.
My favorite will always be the black bean soup, which comes with sour cream and onions in it. They also give you a generous portion of bread and butter with it. The salads are fresh....they keep plenty of deserts on stock..makes it a cool spot for coffee and desert.
This place is "a-okay."
They have free wireless and parking right outside their front door. To be honest, I didn't try the food and I'm judging this place as a coffee shop. However, at $7-$9 a sandwich it seemed a bit overpriced.
While I wouldn't be opposed to doing some work here, I'd rather go to Woodland around the corner. It's more quaint and the service is not waitered, which I prefer. I just find it to be a little awkward to place an order for a coffee and a water. Uhh, what to tip a waiter on $3.65?
But maybe it's just me.
The book selection is minimal, but it's a good local option to pick something up. If they have it...
Public restrooms that are fairly decent (unisex), they accept credit cards, have free wireless after 3pm (weird time thing) and decent service.
Still, Woodland won me over..
Don't eat breakfast here unless you might like their striata: delicious layers of herbed bread, eggs, sausage, and cheese.
Otherwise, go elsewhere. You can do better than microwaved eggs, tropicana, and bad service, I promise. Definitely DO not get the frittata. I know, it sounds just like striata! Trust me. NOT the same. Hard, dry, weirdness.
For lunch or dinner, typical coffee shop fare - decent paninis, salads, soups, and excellent cookies. But breakfast? Meh.
Went there for breakfast on a sunny Sunday morn.
Complete breakfast is clearly the way to go. Scrambled eggs, with croissant = cured hangover. I don't know how they get those eggs to be the consistency they are, but man it's good. Croissant is flaky and buttery as it should be. OJ tastes fresh. Green tea comes with a pot and somehow tastes better than any tea I make at home.
Wait staff is friendly as you are and there are always characters about in Atticus, and this Sunday was no exception. Be on the lookout for the crazy owner (I think he's the owner, anyway). He looks pretty much like Matthew Lesko (the Question Mark jacket guy, albeit without the jacket) and doesn't understand American voting.
There is one bathroom and it is unisex. It's quite clean and pleasant, and while there is no vacant/occupied sign on it, you can visibly see if the door is locked or not from a distance, preventing some, but not all patrons from trying to yank the door open while you get some thinking done.
Why does a meal this good only get four stars? The waitress couldn't give me the check fast enough, keeping with Atticus' general policy of giving customers a huge guilt trip for sitting two seconds longer than their meal lasts. They've also adopted the unfriendly policy of turning off wireless during peak hours. With food and ambiance this great, I'd like to enjoy it a bit longer.
Ambiance: 22/25
Food: 22/25
Service: 15/25
Bathroom: 17/25
Probability of going back: 100%
Sandwiches are okay and the soups are really good! I also like the bread. Oh, and do try their cocoa. It's thick and rich and has a very high natural chocolate content, so it's a little bitter and sweet at the same time. I've never had one like that since then.
All in all a good place for lunch when you are downtown.
The bookstore is okay, but nothing to write home about.
I can't even describe my first Atticus experience, and as a teenager I worked at the Middletown location (which is now a follett bookstore). The artisan breads are fabulous, and they are the originators of the famous Chabaso bakery that now serves a myriad of other stores.
Everything is delivered fresh from the bakery on James Street in the morning. And everything excess is tossed at the end of the day, or given away to anyone on the street who may want it. And all the breads are 1/2 price towards the end of the day.
My favorite Atticus items: the Parisian Baguette (thinner and crustier than the Atticus Baguette, although I'm not sure that this distinction still exists), Ciabatta with Olive Oil (the regular ciabatta also makes a tasty french toast) , the Multi-grain Cranberry bread (now called Cranberry Pecan Multi-Grain), and the country sourdough for breads. The best muffin EVER is the Morning Glory with bits of carrot, zucchini, pineapple and currants. And the black bean soup topped with sour cream and onion is still a staple in my diet, as are the vegetarian wraps and mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich. Paninis are also wonderful. And for dessert: Tirmisu (I know, nobody can screw THAT up), bread puddings, cheesecake, and Chocolate Mousse. (I'm salivating)
I only really miss the guacamole and cheddar wrap so, Atticus, if you ever put that back on the menu you will be my heroes for life!
The books are fabulous too: a large selection of unusual titles. Yay books :-D
~UPDATE~
Atticus has reopened and it looks absolutely fabulous! Gone are the days of buckets with spouts, that big cardboard sign and the white board with specials magnetically posted. Check it out, it's gorgeous. The only thing I'm slightly upset about is that they changed their menu a bit and raised a couple of prices (I know, it's long overdue considering the prices haven't changed in almost 10 years so I can't complain much, and it's not like they've been raised a lot), and now the breakfast menu is completely separate from the regular menu. But it's still one of my favorite places!
The bookshop + coffeshop/cafe idea is really cute, but don't try to get lunch here during the week unless you are prepared for a loooooooong wait.
seriously, sandwiches here are way overpriced, and they are not even that good.
The food has always been consistent - great sandwiches, great soups, nice selection of tea and now awesome truffles - but the BEST thing is the quality of the bookstore. Nice displays to choose from, great selection all around, and the friendly and knowledgeable staff has yet to steer me wrong with their recommendations.
This is a great independently-owned bookstore with a large cafe. It's a great place to browse, hang out and study, meet up & chat, or grab a quick bite while supporting a local business. Oh, and people-watch the Yale crowd- lots of students/profs here since it's close to campus/art museums.
I've never found as good a selection of bargain books (cookbooks, anyway) as I'd like here, but it's fun to browse the regular selection, complete with recommendation cards from staff members filed among the books.
The cafe is more like a mini-restaurant than the coffee joints I'm used to from Seattle. The downside: no big mis-matched chairs where you can curl up and disappear for hours. Even though they don't rush you, I feel a little bad sitting there studying with a check on my table, which arrives as soon as you're done eating/sipping. Laptop outlets are also a little hard to come by, also. You will leave smelling a little more like food than coffee, but that's being picky. It gets crowded during lunch, but that's a good sign, because the upside is delcious food! The cafe offers an array of sandwiches, soups, and I've especially enjoyed the salads.
What I dream about from afar, however, is the warmed bread pudding with golden raisins & rum sauce. The picture posted here doesn't do it justice- it's dyn-o-mite!!
A disturbingly awesome lil' Cafe. the menu is a respectable size and well varried for the standard coffee shop/cafe set. Which sets it well above a lot of the downtown competition. the portions are way larger than i would have expected, and additively tasty.
The bookstore portion was of course a bit small, but given the square footage allocated to it, they manage to pack in a decent amount of worthwhile material without making it look like a packrat's fire sale. so massive bonus points to that.
Oh and The Black Bean MoFo'ing soup is easily worth taking a human life for.
Atticus is solid. Good sandwiches, good soup, good atmosphere. I'm not much of a bookworm, so I haven't really paid any attention to the books, other than just thinking it was a nice environment in which to eat a quick, simple, tasty lunch. They also have very good breads & pastries. It's not cheap, for bread, but "expensive" means, what, you pay $2 or $3 instead of $1 or $2? At least it's not like Gourmet Heaven, which wants your first born male child in exchange for a pint of ice cream.
If you're like me, and were afraid that Atticus was full of Yalies and hippies, well, yeah, it is, but if you don't bother them, they won't bother you. I promise. Get your arse down there.
Terrible service. Was seated by waitstaff at a table, and 20 minutes later, still hadn't had my order taken, despite politely signalling the staff after about 10 minutes. Walked out.
Been one other time and got a sandwich to go, which was pretty bland.
I love the black bean soup here. it's delicious! So are the sandwhiches and I don't know if they still do this, but at midnight they put the old bread into big garbage bags and leave them outside. Grab one or two, put them into your freezer and then later, thaw and toast. They are awesome!! I asked my dad if he wanted anything from New Haven once, and he said, that bread you had would be great... I don't remember if I told him I got it off the street... hmm..
Freshman year we used to play football with them... we didn't have toasters or ovens then.
Oh, and there are books there too. :o)
The bookstore is great - I love the atmosphere and their free wireless. Their sweets and desserts are great, but their sandwiches are sub-par. I definitely expected a better lunch, and might give it another try to be sure I'm not missing something-- hey, even I can order the wrong thing. ;)
I love bookstores of all sorts. I even like Barnes and Noble, although it lacks personality. But Atticus, I love. It has the charm, the ambiance, and a great selection of books, which is quite surprising since this place is quite small. I feel as if someone actually did his (or her) homework in search for appropriate and cool books to stock on the shelves.
As a mom, I look for a certain quality in children's books, which can often be missing in many bookstores. But here, I found exactly what I was looking for.
I sat on a kiddy chair, enjoying myself reading picture books for a very long time ... until I realized that I was the only mommy here, at a college hangout. Next time, I'll come to hang with the cool crowd, but this time, I was content being the "odd" one.
When I'm in no rush, I like to order books on line (getting some nice discounts). When I need to buy books in bulks, I like to buy at Barnes and Noble (to receive teacher discounts), but at Atticus.... I'm willing to pay full price. And that means quite a lot.
*** I also enjoyed their caffe latte and brownies. Not the best coffe in town, but thorougly enjoyable.
**** Sara T is right! They give out free artisan bread or give you a discount when purchasing them in the evening hours. I LOVE their bread!!!
Excellent pastries and drinks. Embedded with a charming (if pricey bookstore). The weird thing about this place is it has table service. If you are waiting for a friend who is ordering a pastry and you sit down and eat yours, they will shoo you away.
Yeah, you can't sit down unless you are doing the table service thing. It's nice...I suppose, but I'd rather have a more low-key atmosphere. It's a good thing the treats make up for it.
I love Atticus. I really do. It's right near two museums and is the perfect place to go for a delicious sandwich or to search for a new read. In Atticus you can always find something unique to make you think. So why, you might ask, has such a frequent customer given it a lackluster 3 star rating?
-The bookstore might be good to browse, but finding anything specific requires a degree in something that I just have not studied. If you know what you want walk a few blocks down to the Yale bookstore.
-The service isn't very good. The waiters/waitresses tend to talk to a spot right over your left ear rather than talking to you, and the food is pretty pricey considering they make all their own breads and desserts.
this is a simple, functional place, at least with regards to eating. i've never paid attention to the books, however, so i have nothing to say about that. although if half stars were allowed, i would probably give 3.5 stars, instead of 4.
they have great, delightful scones. a few flavours a day. as well as the other usual cafe baked goods. they have a few salads, sandwiches, and soups. size of selection is not a strong point, but what they do have is good. i love their soups, and they have new flavours all the time. and they have soup/salad/sandwich combos, which are great for those trying to maximize their options. my favourites? the hummous plate (that comes with salad, etc) and the melty sandwich with mozz/pesto/tomato (forgot the name!).
ok. and the best thing everrrrrr? half off their amazing breads after 6pm, and free in a giant black garbage bag after closing. so if you're brave and wanting to live it up, student-style, hover near the door around closing, and get ready to dive in.
Wow, this brings back memories!! So many cool, autumn evenings spent savoring an individual pot of fresh-brewed tea and my favorite chocolate chip scones in New Haven~~ ^___^ Their olive oil ciabatta is to die for as well... Located on that beautiful stretch of Chapel Street that filled with cozy, little shops, nice restaurants and the Yale Center for British Art-- man, this place is all about good feelings! Even when I'm only there browsing for a book, the warm smells of coffee brewing and bread baking make it one of the nicest, coziest places in New Haven~ Every Yalie needing a change of scenery from the old dorm room desk should pack up their books and head to Atticus. ^^
What a unique idea! Combining a bookstore and a dinerish restaurant is the best idea ever! Somehow it all makes sense. The breads are amazing!!!!!! So many different kinds of fresh baked goods. Different breads and pastries are available. They also have pretty much everything else that is available in a diner. The atmosphere is really great as well. I am kind of dissappointed though that they didn't have magazines. I was trying to kill some time with a Bitch mag and a good breakfast but found out that the nearest magazine store was around the corner.
Over rated. It's a nice place if you don't have a car and live downtown. But there are better places around New Haven (for both books and food) if you are willing to venture a bit on four wheels.
All sweet baked goods I've tried here have been excellent -- especially their tea breads (like banana-nut and apple) and their wonderful almond bar.
Panini are good. Especially when served on focaccia. And so is their famous black bean soup.
Other than the focaccia, though, their bread is not nearly as good as you'd expect from a bakery. I've come in the mornings and ordered rolls, or the breadbasket, and it didn't taste fresh at all. Weird.
Let's see. Great location. The food is overall quite good but inconsistent - the sandwiches can be excellent but I have also been disappointed on occasion. They are also so expensive that it is out of the price range of an average daily lunch. And their staff is generally rather snobby and disinterested. It's also a little weird to have waiter service at a coffee cafe. But overall I like them.
Cute bookstore, but as far as their coffee and pastries/desserts ... its mediocre. Many times, they ran out of items on their menu. I still love the the charming and quaint ambiance though.
New Haven, CT
Category: Coffee & Tea
New Haven, CT
Category: Coffee & Tea
New Haven, CT
Category: Restaurants
New Haven, CT
Category: Coffee & Tea
New Haven, CT
Category: Coffee & Tea
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