Candor Coffee

Most coffee on the SW 43rd corridor is a window you drive up to. Candor is the opposite, and the size is the point: the main room seats enough people that they rent it out for gatherings of up to a hundred, which no other coffee shop in Renton is set up to do. It has its own parking lot, live plants throughout, free wifi, step free access and gender neutral restrooms.

The coffee is Olympia Coffee Roasting out of Tumwater. The retail wall carries their lineup by name, San Sebastian Reserva, Sweetheart, Morning Sun, Little Buddy, Big Truck and the Northwesterly Blend, so what you drink here is roasted an hour and a half south rather than on site. Worth knowing, because the shop markets those same bags under its own name.

The kitchen is unusually broad for a coffee shop and it runs all day. Crepes go sweet or savory, from Nutella through salmon, pesto chicken and pumpkin. There is a Belgian waffle, avocado and salmon toast, a salmon bagel, an avocado turkey panini, flatbread, turkey and ham croissants, a breakfast wrap and breakfast sandwiches on ciabatta served well past noon. Food comes to the table on a numbered marker while drinks are called at the bar.

They also run a mobile espresso cart that travels for weddings and markets, as far east as Spokane. The location explains the volume: it sits on the arterial between the two freeways, a third of a mile from Valley Medical Center, with Costco and the dealership row alongside. Sunday closes an hour earlier than the rest of the week.