Cafes in Fremont With Water Views
Milstead & Co. on N 34th St is the Fremont coffee bar with the water view: floor-to-ceiling windows and a roll-up garage door look south to Lake Union under the Aurora Bridge, and it opens at 7am every day. It is also the only true cafe on this short list, because most of Fremont's canal frontage belongs to office buildings, the Burke-Gilman Trail and parks rather than coffee shops.
The other two water-view seats come with a different drink. The Fremont Social, a distillery on the Ship Canal, runs a cafe counter from 8am, and its open courtyard puts you at the water's edge. Mansion Creek Cellars, a winery tasting room, has the widest view of the three from its patio, but pours no coffee and opens at 2pm at the earliest. The choice mostly comes down to the hour: morning coffee at Milstead or the Social, an afternoon glass at Mansion Creek.
Our picks
- Morning coffee with a view: Milstead & Co.. Open from 7am daily, with a high front counter looking across Troll Ave to Lake Union and the Aurora Bridge.
- Widest view of the water: Mansion Creek Cellars. A patio above the Burke-Gilman Trail that takes in the Aurora Bridge, the ship canal, the downtown skyline and Mt. Rainier.
At a glance
| Option | Address | Water View | Type | Best Seat | Opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 754 N 34th St, Seattle, WA 98103source | Lake Unionsource | Specialty coffee barsource | Window seatssource | 7amsource | |
| 132 N Canal Street, Seattle, WA 98103source | Ship Canalsource | Distillerysource | Courtyardsource | 8amsource | |
| 900 N 34th St Suite A, Seattle, WA 98103source | Ship Canalsource | Winery tasting roomsource | Patiosource | 2pmsource |
A coffee bar, a distillery and a winery
Only Milstead is built around coffee, and it keeps coffee-shop hours, 7am to 4pm, and gets busy on weekend mornings.
The Fremont Social is a distillery first. Its cafe counter has its own door at 129 N 35th Street and runs 8am to 5pm daily, while the bar and kitchen open only in the afternoon; the map pin marks the canal-side venue at 132 N Canal Street. With an open courtyard and a covered rooftop, it suits lingering more than a laptop session. Mansion Creek Cellars is a Walla Walla winery's tasting room, leaning toward Iberian grapes like Albarino and Tempranillo, and it stays shut until 4pm on weekdays.
Window seat or open-air courtyard
On a wet Seattle morning, Milstead is the one to pick, since its view comes through the glass from the window seats. The Fremont Social's best spot is its courtyard at the canal, and Mansion Creek's is the patio, though its light-filled room shares the outlook. Milstead also puts out a patio on Troll Ave when the weather allows.
The options in detail
Milstead & Co.
The Fremont coffee bar people usually mean when they ask this question. Floor-to-ceiling windows and a roll-up garage door look south across Troll Ave to Lake Union under the Aurora Bridge, and the high counter at the front is the seat to get; one Seattle coffee blog calls it the best cafe view in the city. It is a multiroaster, pouring rotating beans from guest roasters rather than its own, in a big industrial room of concrete floors, exposed venting and communal tables. Open 7am to 4pm every day, with a patio on Troll Ave when the weather cooperates. It is busy on weekend mornings.
The Fremont Social
Fremont Mischief's distillery, kitchen and event space sits right on the ship canal, which makes it one of the very few places in the neighbourhood where you can sit at the water's edge with a coffee. The cafe counter has its own door at 129 N 35th Street and runs 8am to 5pm daily; the bar and kitchen only open in the afternoon. Seating is a big open courtyard strung with lights plus a covered rooftop upstairs, so it is more of a hang than a laptop stop. Worth knowing before you go: it is a distillery first, and the cocktail-and-dinner side is the main event.
Mansion Creek Cellars
A small family-owned Walla Walla winery whose Seattle tasting room sits just above the Burke-Gilman Trail on N 34th, with a light-filled room and a patio that take in the Aurora Bridge, the ship canal, the downtown skyline and Mt. Rainier. The pours lean Iberian: Albarino, Tempranillo, Touriga Nacional, alongside more familiar Washington reds. It is a tasting room rather than a cafe, so there is no coffee and it stays shut until 4pm on weekdays and 2pm at weekends, but of the three places here it has the widest view of the water.
How we researched this
Being close to the water was not enough for a row here; a published page had to describe the water as seen from a seat. That rules out more than you would think. We checked 95 food-and-drink places in Fremont's waterfront blocks and looked closely at 14. The south side of N 34th St, the side that would face the canal, is held by office buildings, so the cafes along the 700 block look at offices. Cafe Turko, next door to Milstead, makes no claim to a view, and neither do Fremont Brewing's beer garden or The Fremont Dock. Canal Street Coffee, which had a deck over the Ship Canal, has closed.
A few near misses sit just outside the neighborhood: Westward on Lake Union is east of Stone Way in Wallingford, and Old Stove Brewing looks at Fremont from the Queen Anne side of the canal. Mini Bar Seattle is on Lake Union but has no working website to confirm its address, hours or view. Fremont, California was checked as well, and none of its cafes has a view of its lakes. Milstead's own site still reads like a pre-opening page, though its address and hours match other listings; hours anywhere here can change, so check before a special trip.