Jazzman’s Café and Bakery is an attractive little joint, on the west side of Dominguez Hall’s first floor. It has a Starbucks-worthy selection of coffees, along with baked goods.
Jazzman’s latte very closely resembles the Starbucks cafe latte. In fact, it was probably the exact same thing — exact same ingredients, proportions and everything else.
The menu listing for the tall latte is $3.29. The following comparison is easy because Jazzman’s Café and Bakery, in addition to ripping off the drink itself, also copied Starbucks’ cup sizes. It was easy to compare the Starbucks $2.99 tall café latte to Jazzman’s 30 cents pricier duplicate.
Maybe Jazzman’s has higher cup quality, but probably not. Either way, considering the drink is mostly milk and inexpensive sweetener, the price is marked up a bit, but that’s just the nature of coffee shops.
Now, the Jazzman’s Café espresso is something worth trying. It’s unique to Jazzman’s and it’s quite customizable. Order an espresso and they’ll give you a paper cup with a very small amount of sweetener in the bottom.
From there, you have to make your way to the table with the line of six drip coffee dispensers. Take what you desire from there and move on to the left for extra cream, sugar and other add-ins to suit your cravings.
It’s kind of an if you want it done right, do it yourself mentality. Mix it, stir it, pop on a lid and bam! Go forth and be caffeinated!
Seriously though, you’ll be caffeinated, especially if you choose the dark roast. They’re not kidding when they call it an espresso. Some places will call their average breakfast blends “espressos” to sound fancy, but Jazzman’s is not one of those places.
It’s one of those places where if you don’t finish the coffee quite fast enough, it’ll start to give off a subtle, bitter taste at the back of your throat. It’s nothing unpleasant, but a sign of a high coffee-to-water ratio.
In general, Jazzman’s is capable of suiting any coffee-related desire. The espresso is legitimate coffee, while the latte is just sweet, yummy whatever-ness, but some people like those concoctions. Also, if you’ve got breakfast in mind on top of your emergency wake-up solution, they have a few bases covered. Just pick up a muffin, croissant, or breakfast sandwich.
I had a croissant from Jazzman’s Café and Bakery and I had mixed feelings. It wasn’t as good as it could have been, but I take part of the blame. They offered to warm it up. I said no because I was in a hurry.
When they offer to warm it up, take them up on their offer! Otherwise, you may as well just hit the vending machine. I could taste the potential, but the temperature of the croissant really messed it up. Also, watch them when they’re picking it out. I asked for strawberry cream cheese and got chocolate. Thankfully, the chocolate was actually quite nice and not overwhelming, like chocolate can sometimes be.
For the most part, Jazzman’s Café and Bakery was a pleasant experience and deserves to be as high profile as Starbucks.
