Review of Urban Blend Cafe in Oakland, California

Urban Blend Cafe is a great coffee spot located at the intersection of Broadway and 4th Street in Oakland, CA. It has a great selection of coffee beverages and syrups, and also sells fruit salad, pastries and juice. I always try to frequent local coffee shops instead of the usual Starbucks or Pete's, and this place is my favorite in the Bay Area so far.

It has outdoor and indoor seating available, with the cafe opening up completely to the outside. There are a large number of tables inside and outside, and a bar with stools inside. It's not too crowded, and has power outlets available above many of the tables, which makes it an ideal place to work out of. The iced coffee was fantastic - delicious with nothing in it, and without a lot of ice. I ordered a ham and cheese croissant, and the man behind the counter even offered to heat it up for me. It was good warm, although perhaps microwaved five seconds too long. Ah well.

The best thing for me about this cafe is the wireless internet access - you can opt to sign up for the service, or view an advertisement and then use it for free. In my opinion this is a perfect system, because it means that the access will stay free. My only complaint was that it would sometimes reload, and I would have an interruption in my service and have to view another ad. Except for that one negative point, however, it was fine - fast, and good coverage throughout the cafe.

One of the other fantastic features of this cafe is it's parking lot. I didn't count, but I'd say they had roughly twelve spaces available for customers. Of course, the place is surrounded by metered one hour parking spots, and it was obvious that a few non-customers had opted to park in their lot for a bit, but I found a space just fine and saw that there were spaces available throughout the day.

It's a rare spot - free internet, not too crowded, good coffee, clean bathroom, a parking lot and fresh air. Highly recommended!