Burton Coffee Stand

There is no indoor seating and no drive through. Burton Coffee Stand is a walk up window under a canvas awning next to the Burton Inn, a few steps from Quartermaster Harbor, and that is exactly why it works. Rob Milligan started it in the early 1990s and Kathy Kush has owned and run it since the first day of 2000.

The Vashon Beachcomber has written about it more than once, and not for the coffee. Its 2012 piece on the stand's bulletin board treated the board as a running humor column in its own right, and a later story on Burton's sense of place described the regulars arriving in waves the locals have names for, a mommy hour and, from 8 to 9, an insult hour. The four painted Adirondack chairs out front are the seating.

The menu is short and stated plainly on the stand's own site: espresso, lattes, mochas, drip, hot chocolate and Italian sodas, with treats. The stand does not say whose beans it pours. Dogs are welcome.

Hours are roughly 7 to 3 on weekdays and 8 to 3 on weekends by the stand's own listing, though other directories show a later close, and the street address appears as both 23919 and 23925 Vashon Highway SW. It is the same awning either way.