Café Allegro opened in 1975 in an alley off University Way, making it the oldest espresso bar in Seattle — which means it predates Starbucks' espresso program and much of the city's current coffee culture. It remains in business in the same location, a narrow room with mismatched furniture, Italian roasts, and a clientele of University of Washington students and faculty who have been coming here for decades.
The espresso is excellent. The atmosphere is that of a university coffee bar that never updated: slightly cramped, always full, and indifferent to the design trends that have swept through the industry since 2000. This is a feature rather than a flaw.