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Traditional and crafty coffee concoctions await at Raleigh’s new Fiction Coffee shop.
This isn’t a piece of fiction… Raleigh’s newest coffee shop, Fiction Kitchen, has landed in Northwest Raleigh (!) at Crabtree Terrace. (Pause for OTB-ers to applause.) And if you haven’t bean yet, you’re gonna wanna put down that Starbucks and head over for a hot cuppa joe stat.
Bathed in natural light and adorned with soft green and blue accents, Fiction’s atmosphere is attractive for everyone from the java junkie seekin’ their next fix to the WFH-er looking for a place to land to the corporate clientele seeking a space to energize and chat business.
“We aren’t just shooting for one general dynamic group of people,” says Fiction Coffee Director of Food & Beverage Spencer Fox. “We want to be a coffee shop that’s welcoming to anyone and everyone and all types, and with that, stripping pretentiousness away from coffee.”
To avoid this sort of haughty, exclusive vibe, Fiction prides itself in hiring people who care about others while maintaining a welcoming, friendly atmosphere—and making each customer’s experience a conversation, rather than a transaction (or as Fox describes it, “kind of like that cocktail experience,” where the bartender helps you choose a drink after you’ve had time to chat). “That is, at our heart, what we always try to capture, which is genuine conversation and experience when you walk into Fiction,” adds Fox.
And furthering its mission to “develop a Southern charm for the coffee palette,” Fiction Coffee offers a selection of traditional espresso drinks (made with Counter Culture Coffee beans), fan favorites (see: the vanilla latte), and must-try bevs off the “fictional” (aka seasonal) section of the menu. Using syrups made in-house, baristas serve up brew-tiful concoctions like the Szechuan honey mocha and the Junie B (cold brew, oat milk and juniper syrup chilled into a slush, which will appear on the menu when the weather warms up)—and we cannot espresso our excitement enough.
And since you’re bound to become a regular, we’ll let you in on a little secret. If you frequent the place, you’ll get a nickname. “We like to call some of our regulars ‘escape artists,’” says Fox. “That’s kind of the fun internal word we use, and basically, an escape artist is anyone who comes more than five times a week.” Challenge accepted. fictioncoffee.com
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