North Slope Coffee

North Slope has run in the Stadium District for over twenty years, which in a coffee market is most of the story by itself. It has outlasted a Starbucks, a Tully's and an Anthem on the same turf. It sits at the entrance to Stadium Thriftway and has been described as a walk up stand rather than a sit down room, though that description dates from 2019 and the format may have changed since.

The coffee is Equal Exchange, fair trade and organic, from the cooperative that started the American fair trade coffee movement in 1986. Sound Transit's guide to coffee along the T Line reports that the baristas here were trained by Equal Exchange itself, which is a more specific supplier relationship than most shops can point to.

Hours are the practical draw: 6am to 7pm on weekdays and 6:30am to 7pm at weekends, a thirteen hour day and among the longest in this directory. A 6am open at a grocery entrance is a commuter proposition, and a 7pm close puts it in the small group of Tacoma rooms still serving in the evening. Delivery runs within two miles.

Two things this entry does not state. No source names a house drink, so none is named here. And the ownership is genuinely unclear: a neighborhood association profile names one person, a 2024 article refers to the owner with different pronouns, and nothing published records a handover, so no owner is named. The business trades as North Slope Coffee and North Slope Coffee House interchangeably, and despite the name it sits in the Stadium District.